About

Forty years after July 1983, Black July is often described as “riots” which were a “spontaneous reaction” to the ambush of 13 soldiers. This description is patently false. It does not take long, when going through the original facts, to see that the truth is quite the opposite.

This website collects and organizes those original facts.

The significance of Black July has never been in doubt. These events of July 1983 cleaved the island between Sinhalese people, including the Sri Lankan polity, military, and police that are numerically dominated by them, and the Tamil-speaking peoples that predominate the Northeast since the earliest history.

This website aims to collect all bits of evidence, including quotes from newspaper and magazine articles, testimonials from survivors, reports, books, maps, websites, and more. The collected information stands on its own. Even so, a very small number of annotations have been added to show linkages that might be skipped over by the casual reader. Still, there is a wealth of information that is yet untapped for future research. For example, how many of the Ten Stages of Genocide are present in the evidence of Black July?

Admittedly, the nomenclature of “quotes” (from news/magazines articles, reports) and “testimonials” (first-hand stories from survivors) is somewhat arbitrary. All of it is evidence.

The perspectives from those quotes and testimonials are needed, and they are complementary to each other. Credible foreign news agencies reported the events simultaneously to the world, clear and contextualized, despite the week-long media blackout. The information they reported is just a portion of, and confirmed by, the first-hand evidence from the survivors who were in the middle of those events, running for their lives, from their homes, through towns, across oceans and continents.

Much of the evidence collected by this website has been preserved and gathered by the Tamil Diaspora. All credit belongs to them for the work they continue to take up anew in preserving this important chapter of human history. Black July was the first of multiple crescendos of large scale anti-Tamil violence that resulted in mass refugee exodus away from the island, thereby creating today’s Tamil Diaspora as we know it.

A majority of evidence still remains undiscovered and unrecorded, from President Jeyawardene’s correspondence to the memories of the majority of survivors. We live in a point in time when we can identify the victims, and those among them who survived. Now, those survivors can tell their stories. Many survivor stories are untold and risk being lost to old age as their generation passes, unless more people come forward to record their stories. Despite the persistent risk of retribution to self and family members across the world, through their testimonials that we have collected so far, the memories of survivors and victims continue to see daylight rather than remain buried.

Prior to Black July, there were many events like it on a smaller scale throughout Ceylon (Sri Lanka)’s independent history. However, Black July was on a far bigger scale with a level of premeditation unlike anything before it, akin to Kristallnacht.

The most consequential events of Sri Lanka in the forty years since July 1983 bear unmistakable similarities to the events of Black July. Sri Lanka’s onslaught on Tamils in 2009 included the bombing of Red Cross-identified hospitals, the use of white phosphorus bombs and cluster bombs, and heavy attacks (MBRLs) on self-declared No Fire Zones densely packed with Tamil civilians. The composition of the Sri Lanka military (99% Sinhalese) and police (95% Sinhalese) had not changed since 1983. How many of the Ten Stages of Genocide were present in 2009?

Almost 15 years since the events of 2009, the Sri Lankan military remains fully deployed in the predominantly Tamil-speaking Northeast, and is currently larger than in 2009. The share of Sri Lanka’s budget for the military is currently 15%, which is larger than in 2009. Sri Lanka went bankrupt as a country in 2022, followed by periods of crippling high inflation affecting everyone island-wide. Despite the dire circumstances and the leadership change in 2022, the 2023 budget increased the share for the military from 13% to 15%.

It has been 40 years since July 1983. The legacy of Black July is very much alive in present day Sri Lanka, unresolved and undiminished.

— BlackJuly.com
27.11.2023