40 Years Since Black July, No Change, No Justice in Sri Lanka

To date, no government official, politician, or civilian has been held accountable for the violence against Tamils seen during Black July. Speaking to an interviewer with the London Daily Telegraph in the midst of the devastation of Sri Lanka’s Black July, then-Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayawardene stated: “Really, if I starve the Tamil people out, the Sinhala people will be happy.” It is not often that politicians say the quiet part out loud, yet the brazenness of Jayawardene’s speech foreshadowed the trajectory of the bloody history of Sri Lanka over the next 40 years and it set the foundation for the failure of a state that was once known as the Pearl of Asia. Soon after Black July, Sri Lanka descended into a brutal 30-year armed conflict that ended in allegations of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity with the Mullivaikkal massacre of 2009. As long as the root causes of Black July and the subsequent conflict are not fully addressed, Sri Lanka’s development will continue to be impeded by the ghosts of its troubled past. The legacy of Black July continues to reverberate in contemporary Sri Lanka, leaving a profound impact on the nation’s social fabric and political landscape.