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SRI LANKA:THE ARROGANCE OF POWER
Myths, Decadence & Murder

by Rajan Hoole

 

Forward

1   Authoritarianism and the Crisis of Identity

1.1Patriotism and Skewed Histories

1.2 Roots and Implications of Sinhalese-Buddhist Ideology

1.3 The Citizenship Acts and the Birth of the Federal party

1.4 Tamils: A Self-imposed Isolation?

1.5 The Left Alternative in Sri Lanka

2 Antecedents of July 1983 and the Foundations of Impunity

2.1 Humiliation and Rebellion

2.2 The PSO

2.3 The Murder of Alfred Duraiappah

2.4 The Tamils and Official History

2.5 de Kretzer and Sansoni on the IATR Conference Incident

2.6 Events in Jaffna and the Violence of 1977

2.7 Behind the 1977 Violence

2.8 The Reality beneath the Sansoni Report

2.8.1 The UNP’s New Culture of State Violence

2.8.2 The Heroes of Anuradhapura

2.8.3 The Radio Message that Ignited the Island

2.9 The Strains on Judicial Integrity

2.10   ‘Sinhala Only’ and its Effects on Ceylon’s Legal Tradition

2.11 The Culture of Impunity

3 1979 - 83: The Mounting Repression

3.1 The Tamil Polity: From Ambivalence to Violence

3.2 The Left in the Tamil Struggle

3.3 The Tamil Leadership after the 1977 Elections

3.4 The PTA and its Effects

3.5 Turmoil and the Art of Governance

3.6 The Gandhiyam

4 Count Down to July 1983

4.1 Stirrings in the Press

4.2 PSO in Force

4.3 Human Rights and Paranoia

4.4 Indian Concern

4.5 The Daily Telegraph Interview

4.6 Madness in the Air

4.7 Violence against Tamils at Peradeniya University: A Portent?

4.7.1 The incidents

4.7. 2 Salient Features

4.7 3 Background to the attack

4.7. 4 Tell-tale signs of UNP involvement

4.8 Portents for Black July and After

5 The Dress Rehearsal in Trincomalee

5.1 The New Frontiersmen

5.2 The Politics and Economics of Frontier land

5.3 The New Bosses

5.4 Research, Ideology and State Policy in Relation to Trincomalee

5.5 Living at the End of One’s Nerves

5.6 June 1983: Anarchy Loosed

6 Sinhalese and Tamils: The Widening Gulf

6.1 Southern Perceptions Mid - 1983

6.2 Among Christians

7 Taming the Judiciary and the Legacy of the 1982 Referendum

7.1 The UNP and the Judiciary

7.2 The UNP Mob vs The Judiciary (11 June ’83)

7.3 The 3rd and 4th Amendments to the Constitution

7.4 The 1982 Referendum and July 1983

7.5 The Referendum and its Implications for Parliament

8 State and Media Repression against Tamil Political Activists

8.1 The Marx Centenary Detainees

8.2 Government Blitz against Gandhiyam in the ‘Independent’ Media

8.3 Rajasundaram: Legitimate Detention or Prelude to Murder, Even Judicial Murder?

8.4 The Priests, Dons and Doctor Case

8.5 Dr. Tharmalingam and Kovai Mahesan

8.6 A Proposed Amendment to the PTA

8.7 The Killing of Escaping Detainees!

9 Sri Lanka’s Black July

9.1 Preliminaries

9.2 The Government and the Violence of July 1983

9.3 Borella, 24th Evening

9.4 What really happened at Kanatte?

9.5 Jayewardene’s Failure to Declare Curfew

9.6 Other testimony regarding the violence

9.7 The Cover Up

9.8 30th July 1983: The Second Naxalite Plot

9.9 The Testimony of Lionel Bopage, then General Secretary of the JVP

9.10 Thondaman & Muttetuwegama

9.11 What was behind Tiger Friday - 29th July? -The Significance of the Pettah

9.12 Tamil Merchants in the Pettah - Post July 1983

9.13 A family’s Tragedy in Colombo

9.14 A note on Buddhism, Caste &the New Sinhalese Nationalism

9.15 The Question of Numbers

10 The Welikade Prison Massacres

10.1 An Acknowledgement

10.2 The First Massacre: 25th July 1983

10.3 Circumstances leading to the Magistrate’s Inquest

10.4 The Second Massacre: 27th July 1983

10.5 Postscript

11 July 1983: Planned by the State or Spontaneous Mob Action?

11.1 Official Claims

11.2 Other Cabinet Ministers

11.3 Not a Sudden Outburst

11.4 Events of 24th July – the Eve of the Holocaust

11.4.1 Who wanted a military funeral?

11.4.2 Failure to declare curfew

11.5 What were the Army’s orders?

11.6 Further Evidence of Advance

Planning

11.7 The JSS Goon Squad Regime

11.8 Institutional Implications of the JSS and Black July

11.9 Kelaniya University: March 1978

11.10 The Welikade Prison Massacres

11.10.1 Some Circumstances Concerning the Prison Massacres

11.10.2 The Security Council & Army

11.10.3 Mr. Rogers Jayasekere (RJ)

11.10.4Gonawela Sunil

11.10.5 Sepala Ekanayake

11.10.6 The Massacre of 27th July

11.10.7 Further Indirect Evidence of State Involvement

11.11 Remarks & Testimonies in Retrospect:

12 Some Missing Threads

12.1 Jayewardene and Mathew

12.2 Cabinet Ministers and the Welikade Prison Massacres

12.3 Alle Gunawanse – A Missing Link?

12.4 The Events at Kanatte on the Evening of 24th July

12.5 Relation of Events at Kanatte to the Outbreak of Violence

12.6 Tiger Friday – 29 July

12.7 Jayewardene Confers with Gunawanse and the Search for a Scapegoat

12.8 Indira Gandhi, Gunawanse and the Left

12.9 Planned Violence and Its Significance

13 Sri Lanka: A Haunted Nation – The Social Underpinnings of Communal Violence

13.1 Adrift

13.2 The SLFP

13.3 Exorcising Reds and Eelamists

13.4 Other Minority Groups and the July Violence

13.5 The CCNH Document

13.6 Obfuscation of Tamil Grievances

13.7 India and Plantation Labour

13.8 The Legacy of the Citizenship Act

13.9 The Tamil Homeland Question

13.10Smashing the Tamil Homeland

13.11 Scholars and the Tamil Homeland

13.12 The Red Herring of Ancient Possession

13.13Ethnicity: The Futility of Backward Projection

13.14 The Separation of Tamils

A Refugee’s Farewell

14 The Rise and Fall of the Tamil Militancy and the International

Legal Implications of the Government’s Counter-Insurgency

14.1 The Road to Brutalisation

14.2 The Madura Oya Fiasco

14.3 On to Weli Oya

14.4 Sinhalese Settlers: Heroes or Victims?

14.5 International and Legal Implications of Weli Oya and its Aftermath

14.6 Land – A Raw Nerve

14.7 Jockeying for Succession

14.8 The Degradation of the Tamil Cause and the Indo-Lanka Accord

15 The Indo-Lanka Accord and

Sri Lanka’s Fault Lines: July 1987

15.1 Disregard for Humanitarian Norms and a Flawed Liberation Struggle

15.2 Massacres of Sinhalese Civilians

15.3 The Indo-Lanka Accord and the

Crisis for the LTTE - The High Cost

of Politics through Rhetoric

15.4 The Southern Polity

15.4.1 The JVP: Towards a second comeback

15.4.2 The JVP and the SLFP

15.4.3 The UNP

15.4.4 The Coming of the Indian Army

15.4.5 The Left and Other Pro-Accord Sections

15.5 The Brutalisation of the Tamil Polity

15.6 The Role of the IPKF and a Sequel

15.7 Weli Oya and the Political

Necessity for Permanent Refugees

16 The Year 1988: The Red Moon Over

Sri Lanka and the Dawn of New Wisdom

16.1 Early 1988: Conspiracies Galore

16.2 Jayewardene Quits

16.3 The Human Rights Question in the South

16.4 The Presidential Election Campaign

16.5 JVP Demands and the Coalition Government Interlude

16.6 Some Remarkable Events and Premadasa’s Victory

16.7 New Wisdom: But Alas, Too Brief and Fleeting

17 1989: The Eclipse of the JVP and the Perplexity of the Left

17.1 Premadasa’s Appeal to the JVP and the LTTE

17.2 The JVP’s Bid for Power & the Government Response

17.3 The PRRA (Peoples Revolutionary Red Army)

17.4 Disillusioned Revolutionaries

17.5 Post JVP Dilemmas

17.6 Findings of the Disappearance Commissions

17.7 The JVP’s Malignant Legacy

18 The 1990s: The Culture of Untruth and a Perilous Vacuum

18.1 A Flawed Triumph and Dilemmas of the Elite

18.2 The Assassination of Ranjan Wijeratne

18.3 The Rise and Fall of the BSO: Crisis Management UNP Style

18.4 The Impeachment Crisis

18.5 Wijetunge: President of the Transition

18.6 1995 - The PA Government and the Continuing Vacuum

18.7 Embilipitiya Schoolboys’ Affair - The Thin End of the Wedge

18.8 The Culture of Untruth

18.9 A Wider Responsibility

18.10 Overcoming the Logic of Terror

19 Political Murders, the Commissions and the Unfinished Task

19.1 Impressions and Flawed Evidence

19.2 A Note on the Kobbekaduwe Commission Report

19.3 The Premadasa Assassination

19.4 Other Testimony on the Premadasa Murder

19.5 The Disappearance of Ananda Sunil - 27th July 1983

19.6 The Athulathmudali Assassination

19.7 Ragunathan’s Disappearance

19.8 The Vijaya Kumaratunge Assassination

19.8.1 Criticism of Commission Findings

19.8.2 The Underworld in Piliyandala

19.8.3 Links to the Daya Pathirana Murder

19.8.4 Piliyandala: The Political World and Underworld

19.8.5 The Police Investigation into the VK Murder

19.8.6 Discrepancies in Proceedings: The Harsha Abhayawardena Case

19.8.7 What Was Behind the Kumaratunge Murder?

19.9 JVP - UNP Links?

19.10 Distorting History

20 Border Aggression and Civilian Massacres

20.1 Massacres & Institutional Blindness

20.2 Opting out of Sri Lanka and the Tamil Homeland

20.3 Post July 1983 & JOSSOP: A New Kind of War

20.4 Orchestrating Tamil Hordes

20.5 Enter Mossad and Ravi Jayewardene

20.6 Mahaveli System L: The Weli Oya Project and the Declaration of

War against Tamil Civilians

20.7 Arming Sinhalese Civilians in Border Areas

20.8 The East Erupts: Mossad Again?

20.9 The Paul Nallanayagam Case

20.10 The Anuradhapura Massacre: 14th May 1985

20.11 The Continuing Massacres in the East

20.12 June 1985 - May 1986: The Final Assault on Trincomalee

and the Trappings of a Colonial War

20.13 May 1986 - The Death of the Tamil Struggle and a

New Rationale for Massacres

20.14 July 1986 - The Present

20.15 The Role of the Mossad

20.16 The Toll: 1983 - July 1987

20.17 Mervyn de Silva on Israeli Involvement

21 Law Enforcement and the Security Services: Politicisation

and Demoralisation

21.1 The Police

21.1.1 The early 1990s

21.1.2 The PA and the Administration of the Police

21.1.3 The CID

21.1.4 The PSD (Presidential Security Division)

21.1.5 The Fate of an Honest Officer and the Road to Anarchy

21.1.6 The Ponnambalam Affair

21.1.7 Political Patronage of Criminals and Police Dilemmas

21.1.8 Magistrates - The Weak Link in Policing

21.2 The Army

21.2.1 The Operation in Jaffna: July 1979

21.2.2. What was Wrong?

21.2.3 A New Culture

21.2.4 The Years 1984 - July 1987

21.2.5 The Indo-Lanka Accord

21.2.6 Handing Over Arms to the LTTE

21.2.7 The Withdrawal of the IPKF

21.2.8 1990 - August 1994 : The Chickens Come Home

21.2.9 Under the PA Government: 1994 -

21.3 Looking Back: The Role of Civil Society

21.3.1 1994 to 1995

21.3.2 Fall-out from the Navaly Bombing : The Mulder Affair

21.3.3 Conspiracies Galore: NGOs, Tamils, Priests and Xenophobia

21.3.4 On the Road to Retrogression

21.4 Governing Under Siege

21.3.1 Rules and Minorities

21.3.2 Dangers of Perpetuating Partisanship

21.5 The Fall of Elephant Pass: The System Cannot Hold

21.6 Military Ethics and Human Rights

21                 THE PARCHED TREE: Tamils and the Political Culture of Auto-Genocide

A Night in War-time -Sivaramani Sivanandan

22.1 The Surrender of the Intellectuals and the Cancer of Fascism

22.2 The Murder of Neelan Tiruchelvam

22.3 Kumar Ponnambalam: the Murky Politics of Heroes and Traitors

22.4 Fascism: The Heart’s Cry of the Mediocrity

22.5 The Global Caste System

22.6 Salient Features of the New Under Caste

22.7 The Contrasting Worlds of the Tamil People

22.8 The Role of the State

22.9 The Assault on Freedom, Debasement of the Soul and the Cult of Suicide

22.10 Democracy: Does it have any meaning for the Tamils?

22.11 The Death of a Struggle

22.12 A Monstrosity

22.13 Purity and Tamil Fascism

22.14 The Weight of Past ChoicesCrushed Humanity- Chelvi Thiagarajah

23 Present Realities and Precarious Options

23.1 The Avenger

23.2 The Erosion of a Tradition of Law:

What Went Wrong?

23.3 The State and the People

23.3 1. Human Rights in the North-East

23.3 2 The State’s Complicity in Murder

and the Two-Track Approach

23.3.3 The Failure of Law Enforcement

23.3.4 The Judiciary: Gains and Concerns

23.3.5 Activism, Reform and Civil Society

23.3.6 Merit, Governance and the Vacant Economy

23.3.7 The Rehabilitation of Jaffna

23.4 Reviving Democratic Institutions

23.5 ‘Twined with the dead boughs that winter still must bind’: Can Sri Lanka Be Helped?

23.6 Peace: Missing out on Justice?

23.7 The Tortuous Road to a Political Settlement and

the Federal Imperative

23.7.1 The Fate of President Kumaratunge’s Political Package

23.7.2 Decades of Procrastination and Tamil Dilemmas

23.7.3 The Implications of Protracted State Repression and Denial of Rights

23.7.4The Bindunuwewa Massacre and the Challenge of Sinhalese Extremism

23.7.5 Political Irresolution, Children and War Realities

23.7.6 Federalism vs. Division and Fascism

23.7.7 Boundary of a Federal Unit vs. the Boundary of a Separate State

23.7.8 Federalism: Objections & Dilemmas

23.7.9 Half Truths and the Battle of Sinhalese Racism vs. Tamil Fascism

Concluding Thoughts

Appendix I

A Cry From the Heart…. - From Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe’s

Final Pastoral Letter

Appendix II

(Extracts from Richard Crampton’s review of ‘The Great Balkan Illusions’ by Noel Malcolm, in the Times Literary

Supplement of April 24 1998)

The Great Balkan Illusions: An unblinkered approach to history, myth and identity in Kosovo

Appendix III

Ethnic unity in Trinco- some reminiscences,

by R. M. A. B. Dassanayake

Appendix IV

‘PROSAIC’ NORTH AND EAST,

by Mallika Rasaratnam

Appendix V

A Note on the Legal Saga of Hill-Country Tamils

Abbreviations

Bibliography

Index


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