Post July 1983 & JOSSOP: A New Kind Of War
By Rajan Hoole -October 4, 2014
Dr. Rajan Hoole
We saw in earlier chapters that Gandhiyam and other social service NGOs helping Tamils in these border areas were being targetted from late 1982. Gandhiyam was sealed in April 1983 and its leaders detained. On the eve of the July ’83 violence Gamini Dissanayake made veiled threats of strong-arm tactics against Tamils settled in areas earmarked for Sinhalese colonisation (Chapter 5). In the prison massacre, Dr. Rajasundaram, perhaps the single most active worker among these refugees in the field, was murdered by the State in a most contemptible manner.
In the weeks following the July violence there was an air of impunity and anarchy and also, as we shall see, grand plans to drive away the Tamil settlers and even destroy old Tamil villages along border areas and put in militarised Sinhalese settlements. And whom did these strategists choose as their model? Why, Israel of course! Gamini Dissanayake was at the forefront and for him it was a continuation of what was begun before the July 1983 violence. He was soon joined by Ravi Jayewardene who, as the President’s security advisor, was a key figure at operational level.
On the one hand Jayewardene was talking to the Indian Government’s envoy G. Parthasarathy who was trying to push through a political settlement to the ethnic problem, but on the other he was making overtures to the US in a bid to achieve a military solution. The num- ber of Tamil militants however was then small and the escalation sought by Jayewardene was to prove very costly.Read More
