Untitled - International Commission of Jurists
Untitled - International Commission of Jurists
Untitled - International Commission of Jurists
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The violence reached a crescendo in the early 1980s when President Jayawardene<br />
won a further term at the presidential elections, and postponed general elections for<br />
six years through the holding <strong>of</strong> a referendum. The July riots in 1983 marked a<br />
watershed in the country’s political history; widespread international outrage was<br />
evoked when thousands <strong>of</strong> ordinary Tamils were killed in riots in which frontline<br />
ministers <strong>of</strong> the Jayawardene government were involved. Thirty-five Tamil prisoners<br />
and later, a further eighteen prisoners were butchered inside the Welikada prisons.<br />
President Jayawardene refrained from condemning this violence and later pushed<br />
through the 6 th Amendment, which outlawed separatism and resulted in the TULF<br />
members forfeiting their seats. The crackdown on legitimate political dissent<br />
increased; leftist parties and opposition papers were banned and presses sealed under<br />
the emergency regulations. The JVP, Nava Sam Samaja Party (NSSP) and the Ceylon<br />
Communist party were proscribed.<br />
Initiatives for ending the conflict, including the Thimpu peace talks, were doomed to<br />
failure. This period witnessed the LTTE’s massacre <strong>of</strong> one-hundred and fifty pilgrims<br />
and bystanders at Sri Lanka’s holiest Buddhist pilgrimage site in Anuradhapura;<br />
civilian massacres were to become a trademark <strong>of</strong> the LTTE thereafter.<br />
The advance <strong>of</strong> the Sri Lankan armed forces towards the North was halted at the<br />
intervention <strong>of</strong> the Indian Government, which engaged in its infamous ‘parippu’<br />
(dhal) airdrop wherein essential supplies were parachuted by Indian planes to the<br />
Jaffna people. The Indo-Lanka Accord, bringing the Indian Peace Keeping Force<br />
(IPKF) to the North, was signed on July 29,1987, leading to the 13 th Amendment<br />
being passed to Sri Lanka’s Constitution setting up Provincial Councils. Not long<br />
thereafter, the leader <strong>of</strong> the LTTE, Velupillai Prabhakaran, who signed the accord<br />
under protest, reneged on the agreement and launched a military <strong>of</strong>fensive against the<br />
Indian troops.<br />
The JVP commenced its second insurrection in the South, purportedly in protest<br />
against the Indo-Lanka Accord. Government politicians, public servants and media<br />
persons working in the state sector were killed, intimidated or abducted by the JVP.<br />
Key UNP leaders were among those assassinated. With the PSO and the PTA in force<br />
during this period, government and paramilitary forces responded by engaging in a<br />
systematic practice <strong>of</strong> extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and torture.<br />
Thousands <strong>of</strong> ordinary Sinhalese civilians were killed. Regulations were promulgated<br />
under the PSO permitting arbitrary arrest and detention either for preventive or<br />
investigative purposes, as well as to give authorized <strong>of</strong>ficers the authority to bury or<br />
cremate dead bodies.<br />
Lawyers such as Wijedasa Liyanaaratchi, Kanchana Abeypala and Charitha<br />
Lankapura were killed because <strong>of</strong> their direct involvement with the command<br />
structures <strong>of</strong> the JVP. Other lawyers were killed because they had engaged in the task<br />
<strong>of</strong> filing writs <strong>of</strong> habeas corpus in respect <strong>of</strong> disappeared persons. The extent to<br />
which the police service became militarized was unprecedented. Presidential elections<br />
in late 1988 resulted in a new leader <strong>of</strong> the UNP, Ranasinghe Premadasa, taking over<br />
from President Jayawardene. The presidency was to be held by the UNP from 1978 to<br />
1994. The subsequent general elections <strong>of</strong> February 1989 ensured the continuing<br />
parliamentary authority <strong>of</strong> the UNP, which held the Prime Minister’s position from<br />
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