Author: Lanka newsLanka news Date: Jul 26, 2007 12:23
Emblematic Act
Jul 26, 2007, 17:47
Twenty four years ago this month the Tamils of Sri Lanka suffered the
worst racist rioting in the island's post colonial history. The
massacre, which has infamously been referred to since as 'Black
July' (and occasionally as the Tamils' Holocaust), was not merely an
eruption of mob violence, but a systematic and violent cleansing of
Tamils from Colombo and much of the south by the Sinhala-dominated
state. Over three thousand Tamils perished as our people were driven
first into refugee camps and then dispatched by ship to the north. In
one week almost all Tamil homes and businesses in the south had been
looted and burnt. The armed struggle that escalated amid the resultant
Tamil grief and anger has since evolved into what is today a
substantive state-building project.
| 
