Colombo Changes 25 – Lakshman’s death

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1983, Black Friday, Lakmahal, Lakshman Wickremesinghe

Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe

It was on that trip to England in 1983 that I first began to speak publicly on the problems in Sri Lanka. The talks, at Oxford and at the LSE, had been arranged by friends, but I also felt a certain responsibility regarding the country itself, so sadly traduced now. I was particularly upset that there seemed only two opposing views of what had happened. One was what I saw as the standard UNP view, namely that we were a country developing rapidly after years of socialist stultification, and had to face problems from spoilers. The recent events were simply a reaction to the excesses of Tamil terrorists, though they had been exploited by Marxists, whereas the government itself was not racist at all.

The contrary view was that Sri Lanka was irredeemably riven by tensions between the Sinhalese and the Tamils. The former had consistently treated the latter badly, and the recent brutalities were of a piece with the discrimination and violence that not just governments but Sinhalese generally had exhibited towards Tamils ever since independence.

I tried to indicate that the truth was somewhat different, that there had been discrimination but it had sprung from egalitarian ideals that were callous rather than wicked, and all this was very different from the recent instances of state sponsored violence that were of a piece, if more brutal, with what the government had done to other opponents over the last couple of years. However the bitterness of those who had suffered, or had felt the suffering of their kinsfolk, could not be reasoned with. It was clear that this was a watershed in the country’s history, and so it has proved, the emotions roused by what happened in July 1983 continuing to haunt us still.

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Colombo Changes 24 – Black Friday and its aftermath

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Black Friday, Communist Party, Dayan Jayatilleke, ICES, J R Jayewardene, JVP, Lakmahal, Lakshman Wickremesinghe, NLSSP, Radhika Coomaraswamy, Tamil

I was out of Colombo when the storm broke, in Bentota with Nick for the last few days of his holiday. We were cushioned therefore from the worst of it, and only knew what was happening when we heard people talking at the table next to us during dinner on the Sunday.

Those were days in which getting telephone calls was not easy, but I managed to call home and found that the house was full of Tamil friends who had sought refuge there. I was told I might as well stay away, for convenience, and I did, for three days more, in increasing alarm.

There was no curfew in Bentota, and we were able to walk around, which allowed me to see truckloads of thugs moving to the Western Province in the next day or two. They seemed to have no difficulty in crossing the bridge into an area supposedly under curfew.

Nick was worried too, and anxious to see whether he should go back to England immediately, so we finally caught a bus on the Thursday morning. There was chaos at home, with people sleeping everywhere, but my parents as usual remained calm, and managed to feed everyone.

Colombo seemed to have settled by then, and that evening JR finally appeared on television to address the nation. The Tamil friends who were staying at home gathered round the television anxiously, but they were rudely disappointed. JR in essence blamed the Tamils for what had occurred, claimed he had been weak in not dealing more firmly with terrorism, and announced the introduction of yet another constitutional amendment, one which seemed designed principally to drive democratic Tamil politicians out of Parliament.