Remembering Black July, 36 Years On

Ahead of Black July commemorations, we launched a thread deconstructing the events that “sparked” the anti-Tamil pogroms. The often-repeated myth around the pogroms conveniently reduces the violence to a reaction by Sinhala mobs to the LTTE’s attack on 13 Sri Lankan soldiers. Through analyzing newspaper reports months leading up to Black July, our thread exposes the degree of state-inflicted violence against Tamils at the time. It becomes wildly apparent that Black July was a well-planned, coordinated genocide against Tamils.

You can read the thread in full here on Twitter.

It is commonly believed that the horrific violence of Black July was confined to Colombo alone. This is not true. On July 26, we released a map detailing all the other towns and villages that suffered anti-Tamil violence during Black July. While our infographic is not exhaustive of all of the affected areas, it served to expand knowledge of the pogroms and honour the victims everywhere.

Understanding Black July As A Genocide

On July 23, we published an infographic that showed the Black July pogroms to possess all the characteristics of genocide according to the legal definition provided by the UN. This compliments the infographic we created for the 2009 genocide of Tamils and was similarly used to encourage people to sign our petition demanding formal Tamil genocide recognition and criminal justice from the UN.

Remembering The Welikada Prison Massacre

On July 25, we focused our attention on the Welikada Prison Massacre. During Black July, 53 Tamil political prisoners were violently murdered by Sinhala prisoners under the supervision of Sinhala prison guards. Amongst the dead, was TELO militants, Sellarasa “Kuttimani” Yogachandiran, Ganeshanathan Jeganathan, and N. Thangathurai. Kuttimani and Jeganthan are famously remembered for asking for their eyes to be grafted onto the Tamils who would see the birth of Tamil Eelam. In their torture, they were forced to kneel and their eyes gouged out with iron bars before they were killed.

On the anniversary of the final day of the Black July pogroms, we highlighted quotes from political leaders, journalists, and witnesses in the aftermath of the brutal violence. Most notably, President J.R. Jayewardene’s first address to the public following the riots, expressed no accountability or sympathy for the Tamil population that had been massacred. Instead, he condemned the Tamil liberation struggle and outlawed Tamil demands for self-rule. This emboldened Sinhala mobs and reignited further violence.⁣ Following a report conducted by the International Commission of Jurists in December of 1983, they concluded, “the violence of the Sinhala rioters on the Tamils amounted to acts of genocide.”⁣ ⁣

Beneath the Ashes: Remembering Black July and the Violence Before

We published an op-ed on Tamil Guardian detailing the atrocities of Black July and the anti-Tamil violence that gave rise to the pogroms. You can read it here.

“The Black July pogrom carried all the hallmarks of genocide: most notably, mobs were armed with voter registration lists distinguishing Tamils as targets of violence. In this nightmarish rampage against the Tamil people, it is unsurprising that the motivations behind such horror have been reduced into a cause-and-effect narrative. Many of us are familiar with this version: the LTTE killed 13 Sri Lankan soldiers, the next day Sinhala mobs ran amok, supposedly in an outburst of rage in response to the Sinhala deaths. The underserved truth, however, is that the pogrom began before the Tigers’ attack reached public consciousness.”