Peace for the World World ! Your War Our Lives
The Dalai Lama
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
(Full Story)
Back to 500BC.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Sri Lanka’s Black July: The Cover Up
Part 4 -
Rajan Hoole
The first comment on the violence came from cabinet spokesman
Anandatissa de Alwis after the weekly cabinet meeting on Wednesday
(27th) morning. In speaking to the Press, few deaths were admitted but
there was no expression of concern for the victims. Jayewardene’s speech
was broadcast to the nation in the night of 28th July. Jayewardene’s
speech contained signs of his vacillations during the foregoing weeks.
Had Jayewardene been firm and steady, one would have expected him to
have followed de Alwis and blamed the violence on an insidious section
of the opposition. He could, in addition, have said a word of comfort to
the Tamils, claimed that the Government had got the situation under
control, made ritual promises about bringing the offenders to book and
tried to look good. But on the contrary, Jayewardene was feeling very
insecure. The burden of his speech was the appeasement of the Sinhalese:
“Because of this violence by terrorists, the Sinhala people themselves
have reacted … the time has now come to accede to the clamour and
national request of the Sinhalese people… [other than through bringing
legislation to deprive those in positions of influence who campaign for
separation of their civic rights, we cannot see] any other way by which
we can appease the natural desire and request of the Sinhalese people to
prevent the country being divided…” (T.D.S.A. Dissanayaka)
By Rajan Hoole - Jayewardene’s failure to declare curfew thus appears in
an appropriate setting. About 1.30 A.M. this same witness from the Left
party saw the walls of TULF president M. Sivasithamparam’s house, which
was on fire, collapsing to the ground. A little over a week later, this
witness was placed under arrest along with other members [...]
By Rajan Hoole - As indicated above, there are different versions and
impressions about what happened at Kanatte on the 24th evening. We give
below crucial pieces of testimony, which help to fill some glaring gaps.
The first is an eyewitness account by a responsible member of the
Ceylon Mercantile Union and is extracted from a statement [...]
By Rajan Hoole – Most people hate to see themselves as murderers. This
influences the manner in which they perceive public and private
tragedies, and memory often rejects the unpleasant and sanitises the
true nature of the event. So it happened with Tamils in the way they
sanitised and rationalised instances of Tamil violence against Sinhalese
[...]
