The Island Editorial

Compensating victims of racial hatred

19th October 2015

 

About 130 families affected by the 1983 anti-Tamil violence had been given freehold land, Cabinet Spokesman Dr. Rajitha Senaratne informed the media on Thursday. This is a baby step in the right direction belated as it may be.

Thousands of Tamil civilians perished or lost their property at the hands of organised goons with links to the then JRJ regime in 1983. No government has cared to probe that systematically carried out pogrom, and only a handful of victims have been compensated. Savage mobs led by politically connected thugs looted the houses and shops of their victims and made off with money, gold and goods worth billions of rupees with impunity.

Now that the incumbent administration has undertaken to investigate alleged accountability issues during the final phases of the Vanni war, let it be urged to probe the 1983 ethnic violence against Tamils and take steps to compensate the surviving victims or their families.

Similarly, the instances of communal violence against the Sinhalese and Muslims must also be investigated and the victims compensated. In 1990 more than 100,000 Muslims were driven out of the Northern Province. The LTTE looted their properties. Those victims are still languishing in other parts of the country, especially Mannar. A countless number of Sinhala villages bordering the conflict zone were attacked and thousands of civilians massacred. Scores of bomb attacks on trains, buses and civilian centres left thousands of others dead or maimed. The families of all these victims need compensation.

Patrick Burgess, President Asia Justice and Rights (AJAR), who is a legal expert on Transitional Justice in an article, What’s all this talk about transitional justice?, in this newspaper today, argues that ‘our past is who we are and a big part of who we will be: "If somebody killed your son, raped or tortured your daughter last month or last year, might you be expected to say that this is just something in the past that is not relevant any more, that you will be happy if the perpetrator just lives his life freely without repercussion?"

The government and the TNA sprang into action when a group of LTTE suspects in remand launched a fast the other day and resolved the issue. This kind of high octane performance was also seen on the part of the new government as regards the Welikada prison riot (2012), where inmates seized weapons and opened fire on the police and the army, seriously injuring the STF Commandant; 27 rioters were killed. A probe was conducted and a report submitted.

Similar action is called for as regards the 1983 prison riots where 53 Tamil inmates were killed. There is no dearth of information about those incidents. The University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) has extensively written about them.

This is what a well researched UTHR report, Scripting the Welikade massacre inquest and the fate of two dissidents, released on May 31, 2007, says of the 1983 prison killings: "On the afternoon of 25th July 1983, 35 Tamil prisoners held under the PTA or Emergency Regulations were massacred in a prison riot. What was more remarkable was the second attack on the surviving prisoners two days later, killing another 18 prisoners after strong protests from abroad and measures had apparently been taken to protect the survivors."

These two massacres haven’t been probed fully in a credible manner. Curiously, those who have taken up the cudgels for the detainees who staged a fast the other day, demanding their release, have chosen to ignore the 1983 prison massacres. Will they call for a probe?