Sri Lankan Government Statements

1#

We also find in the violence that took place, from the 25th of July, there is a certain pattern of leadership, where gangs of youth were going about in vans and bicycles and motor-bicycles and cars, inflaming their supporters in various towns and the city and violence and arson took place after that. We found that in Colombo, we found it along the Colmobo-Kandy-Galle Road, we found it in Kandy, Badulla and Bandarawela. That is not a sudden outburst of mobs, surely? But was planned and carefully nurtured over a period of time. We found also that the murder of thirteen of our soldiers in Jaffna took place on a very significant day, the day being 23rd of July 1983. It was six years before that on the 23rd of July 1977, that I myself and my Government was sworn-in. Exactly on that day, also a Saturday, that we find this outburst, beginning with the death of 13 soldiers in Jaffna. That was the signal for the uprising which took place in certain parts of this country. I would therefore like you to remember that we had the JVP, which initiated the insurrection of 1971, who were released by me, as I thought we would give them a chance, return to the democratic system, contest the elections. But having lost the Presidential election, having lost the referendum, having lost the by-elections, they thought the only way to return to power before the six years were over was by violence.

2#

The Last week of July of 1983 saw the peaceful calm of Sri Lanka shattered by a wave of ethnic rioting. Much has been written of the long history of terrorism by minority groups in the North which precipitated this catastrophic reaction from the majority community in the South; much will probably be said in the future of the national tragedy brought about by the agitation for a separate Sate in Sri Lanka.

When the story comes to be written, people may well ask of those who preached the doctrine of separatism: who wanted a separate State in Sri Lanka?