The Line: The 1983 Riots #heallanka
This is a video and transcript of Brigadier (Retd) L.C. Perera speaking on his experience of the 1983 riots. This was recorded at a Heal Lanka forum, and you can see other recordings by clicking that link. Brigadier was there for everything and he has a gift for story-telling. It is important to hear these stories in such a human way, devoid of politics. This is the story of a soldier maturing, and seeing the scale of the tragedy to come.
Attached is a rough transcript below. It includes an intro not shown in the video:
TRANSCRIPT
“I will be basically talking to you about some human events, human stories, and not of concepts and roadmaps. My mind goes back to 1983, when I was in charge of an IDP center during the height of the riots, in July 1983. When I took over there were 3,500 inmates. When I handed over 24 hours later, there were 6,000. Now, when I looked in, we were providing the security, I looked in, I saw a lot of known children from my old school.
So when I saw these children in that center, I felt very uncomfortable, I went in, and I started talking. There was a table, I sat on it. They were all in a state of shock. Colombo was burning, and the sky was black with smoke; lives, hopes, sense of belonging, all were going up in flames. And the inmates, they were in absolute shock.
So I just started talking to them and they said this was the first time they’re speaking to an Army office, I was trying to carry on with some conversation. When one young man asked me, “How, excuse me sir, how do I get to the British High Commission. So I asked him, why do you want to go to the British High Commission? He said, “I’m a British citizen, I was born there.” Now I was so happy that I was having a conversation so I asked what are you doing there. He said, “I am studying for my Geography degree.”
Just to carry on a light conversation, I thought, I asked him, “Why Geography, are you planning to draw the line?” I didn’t realize what a foolish question that was. I realized I had put my boot in my mouth. He just looked up over the roof and this whole sky was black with smoke. And he said, “Sir, is there anything else left for me to do?”
That day I matured. Up to that point, all these operations were happy go jolly, cops and robbers sort of thing. But that day, I realized, this is serious. Lives are being lost, hopes are being lost, identities are being lost, and now this boy is getting into trouble by my asking a foolish question. So I said, “Son don’t talk like that, you’ll get shot.
When I said that, his eyes were still there. He looked at me and said, “Sir, for you to take me out and shoot me in this situation is nothing. I mean, it’s so easy.” He was very polite. He said, “Sir, but will that change the line?”
When he said that, that’s the time I really matured in this operation. I realized that the fire that we are seeing will not be doused easily unless we as a nation have a hard inward look.”
To see another story by Brigadier, check out the tag heallanka or watch watch this video of how he lost his own troops and how the wounds of war affect him still.
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These are awesome. Please keep posting these videos. Looking forward to the next.
The Brigadier does have a knack for telling stories and hitting the point home.
I have to ask — for how long is 1983 going to be used as a millstone hung around Sri Lanka’s neck? There was massive Hindu on Muslim violence in Gujarat, India in 2002 on par with what happened in 1983, and then massive Hindu on Christian violence in Orissa, India in 2008, but I don’t see any Muslims or Christians going crazy, playing victim to the hilt and sending suicide bombers to blow up all and sundry. Why is that? It’s time to move on from 1983, really, it is.
“I have to ask — for how long is 1983 going to be used as a millstone hung around Sri Lanka’s neck?”
Until comments like yours stop.
Rubbish. I don’t doubt that more and more Sri Lankans are getting sick and tired of 1983 being used as an eternal sob story by interested parties to justify everything from rampant racism to suicide bombings to ethnic cleansing. It’s like a bad smell that just won’t go away, even though more than 80 000 people have died since then in conflict. But who cares about them, right? Yes 1983 was terrible, but’s been close to 30 years now. Time to move on, because the world certainly has.
There are lots of Germans who want to forget the holocaust too, but you don’t get to do that so easily. Yes, it will be used as a justification (and that’s wrong too) but you can’t crap in public and then expect everyone to forget what you did just because you want them to. No one’s forgetting any of the thousands dead since then. In fact that’s a bigger problem than your problem about Black July. Bad smell? Yup, but better go wash your arse then ‘cos it’s your own crap that stinks.
Please don’t even bother comparing July 1983 to the Holocaust. To do so is an insult to the Jewish people. Now THEY were a people who actually experienced genocide and were singled out for extermination by the Nazis. I would say the thousands dead since 1983 have been forgotten, no one remembers them every year or writes articles about them going on and on about how terrible the loss of life was, do they? No one goes on and on about the 60 000 dead southern youth from the insurgencies, or writes eulogies and wailings about that murderous spree, do they? The truth is – and I’m sure many agree – 1983 has just been made into a gigantic sob story that has already been milked for what it’s worth. It happened 29 years ago. The cow’s udders are dry, the milk has been drunk and it is time to move on. Sri Lanka should not be held hostage to its past.
I haven’t compared Black July to the Holocaust (before you get your panties in a bunch again). I compared the dismissive mindset of the descendants of the perpetrators. I don’t know which planet you live on, but down here on Earth, and specifically in Sri Lanka, we are bombarded by Arantalawa, The Bo Tree massacre, the Temple of the Tooth bombing, etc, whenever atrocities are discussed. If you read Sinhalese you see regular discussions about the JVP era.
But thanks for this comment. Whenever there’s a chance of Black July fading away, a moronic comment like yours is guaranteed to bring it back on topic. Keep at it. :D
Please David, as if any of those incidents you mentioned are given the same space that 1983 is. All other atrocities and killings are just washed away and 1983 is made out to be the biggest – and only – incident to have happened in Sri Lanka. It’s as if 80 000 people haven’t died since then in a civil war (if you want to call it that), or than another 60 000 were slaughtered in an anti-insurgency campaign. No one, even the NGOs who like to cry at the drop of hat, gives a toss about – no, instead it is 1983 that is frozen in time. Interested parties are trying to apply the same process to May 2009. So for the next fucking god knows how long May 2009 is going to be milked for what it’s worth – just like July 1983. Who knows, maybe May 2009 might even become a bigger sob story than July 1983. Won’t that be fun.
Well, each to his own planet. Perhaps it’s collective guilt that makes you notice the Black July stuff more ;)
Another reason that 83 isn’t forgotten easily is because no one was prosecuted and convicted of the crimes. In fact Elle Gunawanse Thero who was involved in some incidents during the 1983 riots has been appointed to the Police Service Commission. How can we forget when things like that happen?
Who has been prosecuted and convicted of all the crimes committed by Tamil militants?
[...] on Heal Lanka, this is Brigadier (Retd) L.C. Perera talking about how he came full circle from the 1983 riots in 1986, when he opened an IDP center for Sinhalese massacred by the [...]
Friends, this posting on the 1983 July incidents is one story of many in my lecture on ‘Healing a Wounded Generation’. I spoke of many incidents that wounded all communities during the internal conflicts that spanned throughout since ’48 to date, contributing to the ‘Collective Pain’ of this Sri Lankan generation, irrespective of the language, ideological and ethnic divide. Even though posted for convenience, taking any one story in isolation might give a wrong impression of intent. Suggest readers the whole event into consideration. Any one who wishes to, could contact me on
heallanka@gmail.com
[...] please see the Brigadier’s previous videos on losing his own troops in an LTTE ambush, setting up an IDP camp during the 1983 riots, and setting up an IDP camp for Sinhalese after an LTTE massacre. More will be uploaded under the [...]