The Disturbing Echoes of July 1983
July 1983 was one of the grimmest months in Sri Lankan history as state-organised anti-minority “riots” paved the way for decades of violence and human rights abuses across the country. The effect…
July 1983 was one of the grimmest months in Sri Lankan history as state-organised anti-minority “riots” paved the way for decades of violence and human rights abuses across the country. The effect…
The Scene The morning of July the 25th 1983 is etched in my brain. I saw a group of people running or walking very fast away from the environs of Colombo. On…
It is easy to feel disconnected from incidents of police brutality in the USA, and ongoing race-wars across the world that continue to marginalize and disenfranchise Black communities, when we fail to…
Two Survivors Not all Tamils in Sri Lanka are Tamils. A few who have been born and bred in the South-Western parts of the island have been de-Tamilicised. They know very little…
The flat, cardboard boxes are stacked almost to the ceiling. The neatly glued label of one of them is clearly visible when a door opens – briefly releasing a puff of air-conditioned…
July 23 marked the 35th anniversary of one of post independent Sri Lanka’s darkest chapters, the July 1983 pogrom against Tamil civilians throughout the country. An ambush of an Army patrol in Jaffna,…
Image courtesy Sangam To everyone who has not read them I recommend reading Izeth Hussain’s, articles of 31 August and 7 September in The Island, and my article in groundviews and in…
Photo courtesy Who deployed troops, clad in flak jackets (body armour) and armed with T-56 assault rifles to confront and disperse a crowd of protestors blocking a highway? Who was the ultimate…
Photo courtesy Ilankai Tamil Sangam I was GA and District Secretary Jaffna at that time, and was not directly a victim of the pogrom, but was very much involved with the care…
The most vivid memory of violent conflict for me has been from July 23, 1983. I was 7 years old then, the same age as my twins today. Each time a word,…
[Editors note: Continued from Part 1, which you can read here. The author was at the time of the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom Secretary to the Prime Minister and Commissioner-General of Essential Services from July 1983…
Chandraguptha Thenuwara’s “Black Paintings & Other Works-an exhibition of paintings and installation” was inaugurated today (3 April 2010) at the Lionel Wendt Gallery, Colombo. The exhibition will continue till 5 April 2010.…
More than two and a half decades later, one of my friends has asked to interview me about the ’83 riots. I was ten years old. My family was from the Sinhala…
 I had my own gruesome experience of the Black July. It was 29th July at midnight that I received a telephone call from my friend and party comrade AJMO Dr. Indra…
Photo by Chandragupta Amarasinghe ONE What happened in mid-1983 and in the last week of July 1983 was obscene, a monumental atrocity, a disaster for Sri Lanka. In a context marked by…