June 1983: Anarchy Loosed
Dr. Rajan Hoole
The Dress Rehearsal In Trincomalee – Part VI
The killing of two Air Force men in Vavuniya by PLOTE militants, was followed by the security forces going on the rampage and widespread arson. Many felt that these reprisals would be continued in Trincomalee where elements already charged with patriotic fervor were waiting to let go. The PSO was promulgated and the security forces were given the ‘freedom of the battlefield’ to combat terrorism even in places where there was little evidence of it. What then happened in Trincomalee during June, was either not reported in the media or reported in a distorted manner despite the fact that the Tamils were living through hell.
There were a few stray items in the press suggesting that something disturbingly unusual was going on: Tamil youth killed in Mullipuram, Kantalai… Two huts burnt in Andankulam… A man shot in the leg in Kanniya… Bus proceeding to Jaffna shot at and set on fire, driver killed, several passengers hospitalised, and some ran into the jungle and are missing… Small child hacked to death…. In Moraweva (where the Sinhalese population was boosted by recent colonisation) four were shot and cut to death, of whom two were children 1 year and 4 years….
Most of these items were reports of what TULF MPs had said in Parliament and were frequently late, as getting information was difficult. The Press reported that there was a curfew in Trincomalee and that several persons were detained over the violence, but was extremely vague about what was really going on.
The first indication that what was going on in Trincomalee was planned and had official backing, strangely enough, came not from the media, but from a speech made in Parliament by Gamini Lokuge, UNP MP for Kesbewa, who had in May won a violent bye-election. He is one of those close to Mathew & Co. who had made Trincomalee their hobby-horse. He had recently taken over from a foreigner, Welcombe Hotel in Trincomalee. Renamed Seven Islands Hotel, it acquired a reputation as a meeting place of conspirators. 
Lokuge said in Parliament on 27th June: “The Sinhalese people had banded themselves together in Trincomalee because they have been harassed by the Tamils there in the past. Are you [Tamils] trying to chase the Sinhalese people away as you did in 1956?”
Even at this late stage, the Press continued to mislead. The Island of 29th June carried an item : “Army, Police open fire to stop mini-war in the Trinco bazaar area between Tamil and Sinhalese traders…. Two Hindu temples set on fire.” The Sun editorial of 2nd July asked whether it was the Armed Forces and Police being at loggerheads or commercial rivalry, that was responsible for the violence in Trincomalee?
