Remembering the infamous 1983 Black July Massacres of Tamils in Sri Lanka

Black July 1983, the infamous massacre of well over 3,000 Tamils and destruction of their properties in Sri Lanka prompted the 30-year civil war.

WASHINGTON DC, DC, UNITED STATES, July 24, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Black July 1983, the infamous massacre of well over 3,000 Tamils and destruction of their properties in Sri Lanka, which prompted the 30-year war of liberation culminating in the Genocide of Tamils in May 2009, was in fact the notorious watershed of the string of riots and pogroms purportedly initiated and/or supported by successive Sri Lankan governments against the Tamils since independence in 1948. The month of July (1995) also brings painful memories of the killing at least 140 refugees who were inside St.Peters Church in Navaly, Jaffna Peninsula by aerial bombing by Sri Lankan Air Force.

Nearly 16 years, since the genocide in 2009, has not seen any semblance of abatement in the onslaught and subjugation of the remaining Tamil people in Sri Lanka. While we in the Tamil Homeland and in the Tamil Diaspora commemorate the 42nd year of "Black July 1983", we do so with the recognition of the existentialist threat faced by the Tamil Nation in the island of Sri Lanka even as the international community is bent on bailing out the country from its current economic turmoil without undertaking the "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) the Tamil People. In effect, 77 years of the Tamil struggle for emancipation continues to this day from Sinhala-Buddhist majoritarian domination and subjugation since independence from the British in 1948 even after the recent change in the government.

Recently, in Chemmani in the northern province mass graves have been discovered. This is the same place identified as a place of massgraves by a Sri Lankan soldier who was convicted of the rape and murder of a teen-age school girl and the killing of her family. The mass graves uncovered in Chemmani are clear evidence of those disappearances and killings of civilians from mid to late nineties. So far, they have unearthed 65 skeletal remains including infants and children. This area was previously associated with the excavation of another 15 skeletal remains.

Tamils have exhausted all means during the past 77 years, both internally and with the aid of international fora, for the failed state of Sri Lanka to shed its fascistic stranglehold on the Tamil people. All to no avail. Pushparany Williams, President of USTAG said, "Now it is incumbent on the international community to hold Sri Lanka to unconditionally release all Tamil political prisoners and disclose to the Tamil families the whereabouts of the thousands of forcibly disappeared loved ones by the Sri Lankan security forces, Ensure the removal and or reduction of the military occupation of the North-East Homeland of the Tamils to prior "Black July 1983" levels, and, ensure the immediate cessation of all land expropriations, destruction of Hindu temples, and the Tamil Heritage of their North-East Homeland". Pushparany Williams further added, "United Nations' OISL Report has concluded that the Sri Lankan forces committed War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity during the civil war. It is 16 years since the end of the civil war and nobody has been held accountable yet. It is high time that the international community should refer Sri Lanka to International Criminal Court and/or International Court of Justice for the War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity, and possibly Genocide, committed against the Tamil people."

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