Thursday, July 5, 2012

Handling disasters: The man-made disaster of July 1983 (Part 1)

Groundviews

Looking back at the July 1983 disaster, almost 30 years later, it would be natural to query how key policy issues now critical in the discourse on disaster management, like good governance and Human Rights, affected the decisions made by policy makers and implementers as they handled the evolving situation.

A Presidential Commission some years ago, a late response to persistent public demands for ‘truth and reconciliation’ as to what happened, was one not altogether successful, attempt.

The jury on the case is still out, in a manner of speaking.

This present recounting of events and actions of 1983, as far as memory and available documents allow, is that of an actor who was at the centre of the Administration at the time. It attempts to assess the then Government’s ‘management of the situation’ from the point of view of those officially charged with addressing the situation that had arisen in the wake of uncontrolled and widespread rioting in Colombo and elsewhere in the country. Viewing 1983 from this angle may provide a further layer of ‘truth’ in the collective accumulation of knowledge of a national disaster which continues, and will continue, to interest writers, historians, political analysts and the general public alike.