An apology to the Tamil people

There can be no peace, and certainly no peace with coexistence, in Sri Lanka — divided or undivided — until there is an apology from the Sinhalese to the Tamils for all the atrocities unleashed on them, not just in 1983, but all the way back to 1956, and increasingly so today.

As a Sinhalese, I tender an unqualified apology for the outrageous abuse of human rights heaped on the Tamils.

Twenty-five years ago, another Sinhalese, Bishop Lakshman Wickremasinghe, did the same. He said: "We must be ashamed as Sinhalese because what took place was a moral crime. We are ashamed as Sinhalese for the moral crime other Sinhalese committed. We must not only acknowledge the shame. We must also make our apology to those Tamils."

One of the first acts of the new Australian prime minister was to apologise to the Aborigines for all that was done to them. That was overdue, but what was done to the Aborigines was far less than what has been done, and is still being done with increasing virulence, by the Sinhala government to the Tamils.

Nazi war criminals have been hunted down and punished (irrespective of their age) 50 years after their crimes. There is no reason that those responsible for the Sri Lankan crime in July 1983, should not be hunted down and brought to justice. Many of those who were responsible, such as former president J.R. Jayawardene and his hoodlum minister Cyril Matthew, and his colleagues, and their thugs, are either dead or not traceable. Others with blood-drenched hands and yellow robes are very much alive and readily accessible, and even aspiring to high office. They must be brought to justice.

Having exhausted all human resources, many are turning to prayer to bring sense to a senseless situation, for justice and peace where neither exists. But prayer without action is dead. So is an apology. An apology without action is dead. It is this "action" that I have been trying to deliver in the past two and a half decades.

The same holds for protests. To protest, to hold a vigil, to remember the July 1983 massacre is fine. But protests without action is dead.

I urge you to act. Act to free the Tamil people to live with dignity and safety in their area of historical habitation — the North and East. I urge you to act, to act, to save the Tamil people from the genocide started in July 1983 and now progressing at an alarming rate. Act now. Tomorrow may be too late for the Tamils in the North and East in the "Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka", as it likes to call itself.

[This apology was read out a Black July commemorative events in Australia, South Africa, Canada, Britain and several European countries.]

From GLW issue 762