1977 anti-Tamil pogrom: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

President [[William Gopallawa]] appointed former Chief Justice [[Miliani Sansoni]], who had served as [[Chief Justice of Ceylon]] from 1964 to 1966, as the Commissioner of a [[Presidential Commission of Inquiry]] on 9 November 1977 to inquire and report on the events "to ascertain the circumstances and the causes that led to, and the nature and particulars of, the incidents which took place in the Island between the 13th day of August, 1977 and the 15th day of September, 1977". Following his inquiry, Justice Sansoni submitted his report, which was known as the "Sansoni Report" to President Jayewardene in July 1980.<ref name="presidential commission" /> The riots were explained in the Sansoni Report in terms of "Sinhalese reaction to Tamil separatist demands, terrorist acts committed in the name of separatism, and anti-Sinhalese statements allegedly made by Tamil politicians in the course of the 1977 general election campaign".<ref name="Kearney">{{cite journal |last1=Kearney |first1=Robert N. |date=March 1986 |title=Tension and Conflict in Sri Lanka |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/45315688 |journal=Current History |volume=85 |issue=509 |pages=110}}</ref> The Sansoni Report has been criticized for pro-government bias<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hoole |first=Rajan |url=https://www.uthr.org/Book/CHA02.htm#_Toc527947390 |title=Sri Lanka: The Arrogance of Power : Myths, Decadence & Murder |publisher=University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) |year=2001 |chapter=Chapter 2: Antecedents of July 1983 and the Foundations of Impunity}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Sabaratnam |first=T. |date=23 November 2003 |title=Pirapaharan: Vol.1, Chap. 18 Tamils Lose Faith in Commissions |url=https://sangam.org/pirapaharan-vol-1-chap-18-tamils-lose-faith-in-commissions/ |website=Ilankai Tamil Sangam}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Sivanayagam |first=S. |title=Sri Lanka: Witness to History - A Journalist's Memoirs, 1930-2004 |date=2005 |publisher=Sivayogam |isbn=978-0-9549647-0-2 |location=London |page=283}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Manoharan |first=N. |title=Democratic dilemma : ethnic violence and human rights in Sri Lanka |date=2008 |publisher=Samskriti|isbn=9788187374503|location=New Delhi |page=90}}</ref>, being hampered by political interference<ref>Amnesty International, June 11, 2009 Index Number: ASA 37/005/2009

Sri Lanka: Twenty years of make-believe. Sri Lanka’s Commissions of Inquiry, p.9, https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/asa370052009eng.pdf</ref><ref>Kishali Pinto Jayawardena, Sunday Times, Feb 17th 2008, Focus on Rights, Further reflections on commission inquiries and rights violations - Part Three, https://www.sundaytimes.lk/080217/Columns/focus.html</ref><ref>Kishali Pinto Jayawardena, Sunday Times, Oct 28th 2007, Discussing mock turtles and commissions of inquiry, https://www.sundaytimes.lk/080217/Columns/focus.html</ref> and for "[[victim blaming]]" Tamils.<ref>{{Citation |last=de Silva |first=Premakumara |title=Ethnicity and Violence in Sri Lanka: An Ethnohistorical Narrative |date=2019 |work=The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity |page=16 |editor-last=Ratuva |editor-first=Steven |url=https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-981-13-0242-8_47-1 |access-date=2024-03-12 |place=Singapore |publisher=Springer |language=en |last2=Haniffa |first2=Farzana |last3=Bastin |first3=Rohan}}</ref>

Over the years the Sansoni Report has been recived diffrent reviews. Robert N. Kearney found that the Sansoni Report explained the riots in terms of "Sinhalese reaction to Tamil separatist demands, terrorist acts committed in the name of separatism, and anti-Sinhalese statements allegedly made by Tamil politicians in the course of the 1977 general election campaign".<ref name="Kearney">{{cite journal |last1=Kearney |first1=Robert N. |date=March 1986 |title=Tension and Conflict in Sri Lanka |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/45315688 |journal=Current History |volume=85 |issue=509 |pages=110}}</ref> According to Chelvadurai Manogaran, the Sansoni Report attributed many factors as the cause of the riots, including "TULFs anti-Sinhalese proganda advocating separatism, Sinhalese extremists' statements claiming that Tamils intended to wipe out the Sinhalese and acts of violence committed by the liberation Tigers". The immediate cause of the violence Manogaran finds is rumor of Sinhalese policemen been attacked in Jaffna by Tamil militants. He further states that due to the violance (in Augest 1977) and events that followed many Tamils both extreme and moderate were convinced the need to establish a separate state<ref name="Chelvadurai">{{cite book |last1=Manogaran |first1=Chelvadurai |title=Ethnic Conflict and Reconciliation in Sri Lanka |date=1987 |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |location=Honolulu |pages=63-65 |url=https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/4f3811e7-1962-495d-bad0-12f31e6754d9/content |access-date=12 March 2024}}</ref>

The Sansoni Report has been criticized for pro-government bias by [[Rajan Hoole]] of the [[University Teachers for Human Rights]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hoole |first=Rajan |url=https://www.uthr.org/Book/CHA02.htm#_Toc527947390 |title=Sri Lanka: The Arrogance of Power : Myths, Decadence & Murder |publisher=University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) |year=2001 |chapter=Chapter 2: Antecedents of July 1983 and the Foundations of Impunity}}</ref> and T. Sabaratnam in his biography of [[Velupillai Prabhakaran]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sabaratnam |first=T. |date=23 November 2003 |title=Pirapaharan: Vol.1, Chap. 18 Tamils Lose Faith in Commissions |url=https://sangam.org/pirapaharan-vol-1-chap-18-tamils-lose-faith-in-commissions/ |website=Ilankai Tamil Sangam}}</ref>

== Reaction ==

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More than 75,000 [[Indian Tamils of Sri Lanka|plantation Tamils]] became victims of ethnic violence and were forced to relocate to northern and eastern Sri Lanka. The pogrom radicalized Tamil youths, convincing many that the TULF's strategy of using legal and constitutional means to achieve independence would never work, and armed struggle was the only way forward. The outbreak of the pogrom highlighted the TULF's inability to provide safety for the Tamils. It was only after the pogrom the [[TELO]] and [[LTTE]], the two major Tamil militant groups, began an active campaign for a separate [[Tamil Eelam]]. [[Kittu (Tamil militant)|Sathasivam Krishnakumar]], who would later become a leading member of the LTTE under the ''nom de guerre'' "Kittu", stated that he joined the LTTE after feeling anguish and anger when he volunteered to help Tamil refugees in Jaffna who fled the south after the 1977 riots.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bose |first=Sumantra |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1pncnv2 |title=Contested Lands: Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka |date=2007 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-02447-2 |pages=27 |doi=}}</ref> [[Uma Maheswaran]], a TULF activist, joined the [[LTTE]] in 1977 and was made the organization's chairman by [[Velupillai Prabhakaran]]. Many such Tamil activists began to join various Tamil militant groups to fight for separate statehood.<ref name="vy">{{cite book | title = The Rajiv Gandhi Assassination | publisher = Vijitha Yapa Publications | location = Colombo| year = 2004 | page = 165 | isbn = 978-81-909737-0-0 }}</ref>

According to Manogaran, the LTTE increaed their campaigne of violence against police and army personnel, inturn the armed forces and the police escalated their violence against innocent citizens in order to suppress the youth movement and discourage support for it. Concerned that the 1977 anti-Tamil riots had alienated Tamils community, the government felt the need to appease them. A [[Constitution of Sri Lanka|new constitution]] was enacted in September 1977, which recognized Tamil as a national lanuage and imporved Tamil language provisions for Tamils to have better public sector employment opportunities as a frist step. The violance contuned even though the government proscribed underground movements such as the Liberation Tiger Movement in Order No. 16 of 1978. On 7 September 1978, [[Air Ceylon Avro 748 4R-ACJ bombing|Air Ceylon flight 4R-ACJ was bombed by suspected militants]], which along with attacks on it's security forces and informants compelled the government to pass several harsh legislation, some of which became permanent. The realtionship between Tamils and Sinhalese was severely strained, with the risk of another communal disturbance.<ref name="Chelvadurai">{{cite book |last1=Manogaran |first1=Chelvadurai |url=https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/4f3811e7-1962-495d-bad0-12f31e6754d9/content |title=Ethnic Conflict and Reconciliation in Sri Lanka |date=1987 |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |location=Honolulu |pages=63-65 |access-date=12 March 2024}}</ref>

==See also==