On-the-spot report Crackdown follows Sri Lanka pogrom

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is a separate Tamil state. InIs hoodlums took place in the terrorist' have for a con- presence of the police and siderable time now been de- armed forces, whose personnel the North against the system- tions to the hoodlums. atic terrorism of the govern- the same time as the pogrom But what was not expected forces hundreds was that President Jayawardena of Tamils in the Tamil areas would use this pogrom, un- of the North. organisation, to declare a war ment's own of annihilation against the lett, ported that in the city of Trinand to consolidate his in- comalee (East Srilanka) about creasingly oppressive dictator- 130 men of the Srilanka navy ship. This is precisely what walked into a Navy armoury On the 6th day of the pogrom, and went on for shooting pracMinister of State, De Alwis, They returned after killing said 'this is not a mere Singhala- as many Tamils as they could. a very deep plot to overthrow had been raging for well over He then proscribed 3 left convicted or awaiting trial parties: the Communist Party, for offences under the antithe Nava Sama-Samaja Party Terrorist Act, were slaughtered and the Janatha Vimukthi allegedly by Singhala prisoners Tamil people using violence The truth is that this slaughter against each other, as govern- was done by soldiers who had ment media sought to make been stationed near the prison out. It was unprecedented gates. If more proof is needed violence against the Tamils that the government directed and their property by Singhal- the murders, the killing of 17 ese goondas in the suburban Tamil prisoners the next day country, including the plan- was soldiers who did the killViolence against Tamils in- were killed during this pogrom cluded unspeakable atrocities and 85,000 persons displaced. - rape, torture and the burning But the truth appears to be alive of Tamils. The property that several thousand Tamils of the Tamils destroyed in- died at the hands of the Singhaia cluded their business offices, goondas and of the armed whole factories where it was forces and that over 100.000 known that Tamils had a major Tamils were rendered homeKerosene oil, petrol and Jayawardena allowed the petrol bombs were used to set pogrom to go on for five days fire to Tamil property. In- before he decided to speak to All this violence by Singhalese news. of the pogrom the PresiTHE worst pogrom against the Tamils in Srilanka's recent history was unleashed on the night of July 24 by Singhalese hoodlums, behind whom stood, unmistakeably, the leaders of the ruling party, the UNP.

It was obvious that the government would then throw the blame for this holocaust on the Tamil politicians (Tamil United Liberation Front: TULF and Tamil Eelam Liberation Front: TELF) and on Tamil "terrorists' Their stated political goal ador Mamail adada is their democratic right. The fending the Tamil people of ment's armed forces.

leashed by his own goonda Jayawardena has done.

Jayawardena through his Tamil riot ... This is part of the government'!

Peramuna. Detention orders were issued for 31 persons guards. belonging to these parties.

The pogrom was not at all a case of the Singhalese and areas and throughout where Tamils of com- ings. paratively recent Indian origin worked and lived. share, and their residences. less.

variably property was looted.

El Salvador EI Salvador Bloody slaughter against the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka in late July was followed by a mass flight of Tamils to the northeast and a ban on three left parties.

Trotskyists in Sri Lanka have sent u: ; this on-the-spot report.

italy places gave direcbegan in Colombo the armed fact, even the governpicked up weapons they wanted into the bazaar On July 25 when the pogrom 14 hours, 35 Tamil prisoners, Slaughter provides it. Once again it The official government figures say that 279 people the nation. At the very first The armed forces have massacred hun‹ dent should have spoken to the Singhalese people and appealed to them to stop the violence against the Tamils. Jayawardena did not do that. What is the reason?

The answer is that he gave the Singhala goondas time enough to do their work. Only when he was satisfied that these Singhala goondas had done their work did Jayawardena speak to the nation. word of sorrow for what had happened to the Tamil people and their property. Instead Jayawardena blamed . the Tamils and their movement for separation. He announced stringent laws to ban the advocacy of separatism.

Its supporters were to be deprived of civil rights, including the right to sit in Parliament. This meant driving main opposition party out of Parliament.

Jayawardena said that the pogrom against the Tamils 'has been caused by ill-feeling and the suspicion that has grown between the Singhalese and Tamil people for several years' There is no general lamil animosity towards the Singhalese.

The truth is 3 decades of anti-Tamil policies by successive capitalist governments SLFP-LSSP-CP) have built up anti-Tamil sentiment dreds of Tamils land Endon don chenes land in in admission to higher educational institutions.

Successive capitalist governments responded to these and similar just demands by sending police to break up peaceful demonstrations organised by the Tamils to further their demands. Police violence against the Tamils escalated and the armed forces tortured and killed Tamil youth.

In this context the unification of Tamil parties and groups in the Tamil united Liberation Front (TULF) took place in 1972 and in 1976 the demand for a separate Tamil State was adopted.

But although the Front wielded very wide influence among the Tamils and won 17 seats in the 1977 parliamentary elections, becoming the mass Parliamentary opposition, yet this party did not take a single step to achieve a separate Tamil state. In fact the Front sought to cooperate with the Jayawardena regime, while the government was resorting to military-police suppression of the Tamils in the North.

There was never any reason to expect that this government would consider favourably the demands of the Tamils.

In an interview with the correspondent of the London 'Daily Telegraph last July Jayawardena explicitly stated his intentions towards the Tamils.

'It is no longer possible to argue, debate or talk with them (terrorists, i.e. the TULF). He said he would be soon initiating intensified anti-terrorist efforts and had not ruled out the possibility of imposing martial law throughOU! • the troubled Northern regions... ...The President disclosed that in the next two or three weeks he would be calling a round table conference of party leaders excluding the TULF The primary object of the conference was how to eliminate terrorism. President said: I have tried to be effective for some time but cannot. I am not worried about the opinion of the Jaffna (Tamil capital) people now' Specifically referring to the TULF Jayawardena said: 'They used to speak on behalf of terrorists. But now all that is going to cease.... On the terrorist issues, these we are going to deal with ourselves without any quarter being given' It was not at all a coincidence that Jaywardena started talking about martial law in this way at a time when his government was imposing more and more burdens on the people.

The government has struck savagely at living standards through devaluation and increases in the prices of consumer goods. An anti-Tamil pogrom is an effective diversion of the Sinhala people from the blows struck at their living standards by the government carrying out the instructions of the imperialist IMF.

This anti-Tamil pogrom was precisely what Jayawardena and his like-minded Tamil-baiting Cabinet Ministers needed.

In the eyes of a large section of the Singhala masses the anti-Tamil pogrom was a significant achievement for the Singhalese. It may well be that for these masses they have found in Jayawardena second Dutugemunu, the legendary Singhalese King who defeated and killed Elara the Tamil King and whose victory established the hegemony and sovereignty of the Singhalese people over Srilanka. And though the pogrom damaged the image of Srilanka internationally, for Jayawardena, locally and nationally, it was his finest hour!

Jayawardena is driving the elected representatives of the Tamil people out of parliament. Of this he said in his message to the nation that his 'government cannot see, any other way in which we can appease the natural desire and request of the Singhala people to prevent the contry being divided, and to see Violence against Tamils has included atrocities herence to separatism loses his seat. This means that the TULF will soon be out of parliament.

Just as 35 years ago Jayawardena's party disinfranchised 1 million Tami plantation workers he has now disfranchised the entire Tamil people of Sri Lanka.

This infamous law, depriving the Tamil people of a fundamental democratic right is unprecedented in any country which had or has any semblance of parliamentary democracy.

Jayawardena has taken the opportunity to strike directly at the working, class and the left by accusing - baselessly - three left parties of seeking to overthrow the government, under instructions from the USSR.

Jayawardena has a wider aim here than to destroy the left. He hopes to win for himself and his regime the approval of US imperialism and to qualify for larger and larger doses of imperialist 'aid'.

Jayawardena and his ministers will soon learn that the Tamil problem remains and is more complicated than before. With thousands of Tamil refugees returning to Jaffna and the Tamil area, a de facto Tamil separate state has been created.

Today the struggle against the oppression and subjugation of the Tamils is posed sharply as an urgent issue before the working class and the left parties in Srilanka.

Obviously this is not a struggle separate from the struggle of the workers and toilers of the whole of Srilanka for the ending of the strengthened Jayawardena dictatorship. Thus there is an urgent need of forging a strong link between the oppressed Tamils and oppressed workers and toilers of the whole of Srilanka.

But will the Tamil people and their organisations on he one hana and the oppresser ›nonala masses and the let political parties on the other see the problem as it is posed?

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News Bulletin No 20 May-June 1983