Anti-Tamil riots sparked by the killing of two policemen in Jaffna by Tamil militants. The riots lasted a month, and resulted in an official death toll of 100 and displacement of 25,000 people. The Tamil Refugee Rehabilitation Organization (TRRO) estimated the death toll at 300.

A Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the riots of August and September, commonly referred to as the Sansoni Commission, was appointed on 9th November 1977. Its mandate inter alia was “to ascertain the circumstances and the causes that led to, and particulars of, the incidents which took place in the island between the 13th day of August, 1977 and the 15th day of September”. The Sansoni Commission commenced its sittings on 8 February 1978 and concluded on 12 October 1979. The Commission found that 100 people had died in the riots.

Sources
Ethnic Conflict and Violence in Sri Lanka: Report of a Mission to Sri Lanka in July-August 1981, International Commission of Jurists, Virginia Leary, August 1983; Playing the “communal Card”: Communal Violence and Human Rights, Cynthia G. Brown and Farhad Karim, Human Rights Watch, 1995.

Quotations

“Militant Tamil Youth from the North were organizing guerilla groups with support from offices in Tamil Nadu, India. When they killed two [Sinhalese] policemen in Jaffna in mid-August 1977, anti Tamil rioting broke out in many parts of the country. The violence lasted more than a month. Over one hundred people were killed and over 25,000 were displaced. Many Indian Tamils fled to the Eastern Province. … This time the government did not declare a state of emergency to quell the violence. This failure to deploy official forces has been interpreted as an indication that the government could no longer trust the army and police to enforce the law. Criticism was leveled against the government for placing the blame for the riots on the Tamil politicians. Basing its conclusions on the [Sansoni Commission] the government attributed the violence to the killings of the two policemen in Jaffna, to inflammatory statements by Tamil leaders, and to Tamil separatist aspirations.” Playing the “communal Card”: Communal Violence and Human Rights, Cynthia G. Brown and Farhad Khan (1995).

“On August 22, J R met M C Sansoni, a former Chief Justice, a Burgher, and persuaded him to accept the onerous task of inquiring into the causes of the incident in the riots that had broken out in the previous week, and suggesting remedial action. The choice of this highly respected and ‘ethnically neutral’ figure to head an official inquiry was accepted by all sections of opinion in the country as an astute move and as an important step in the process of confidence building after the blood-letting August.” K M deSilva & Howard Wriggins (1989), J R Jayewardene of Sri Lanka: A Political Biography: Volume Two: From 1956 to His Retirement.

“Civil society in the South is to blame for failing to scrutinise the Sansoni Report in spite of its glaring deficiencies, and allowing it to be quoted frequently and selectively as a piece of impartial history. This silence contributed in no small way towards the worsening situation. By contrast no effort has been spared in discrediting reports of commissions appointed by President Kumaratunge which touched on matters which the ruling establishment found inconvenient.” Antecedents of July 1983 and the Foundations of Impunity, University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna).

“As on previous occasions, what took place recently was not Sinhalese – Tamil riots, but an anti-Tamil pogrom. Although Sinhalese were among the casualties, the large majority of those killed, maimed and seriously wounded are Tamils. The victims of the widespread looting are largely Tamils. And among those whose shops and houses were destroyed, the Tamils are the worst sufferers. Of the nearly 75,000 refugees, the very large majority were Tamils, including Indian Tamil plantation workers.” Behind the Anti-Tamil Terror: The National Question in Sri Lanka, Edmund Samarakkody in Workers Vanguard (New York), No. 176, 1977.

“V. Pirabhakaran founded the LTTE on 5th May, 1976. After the founding of the LTTE, on Aug. 16, 1977, the Police and the Tamil Youth, clashed in Jaffna. This triggered off anti-Tamil riots resulting in major loss of life and property of Tamils and the creation of a large number of refugees. Violence became frequent in the Northern Peninsula. At least one incident of violence and confrontation was reported every day.” Jain Commission Report, published in India Today, August 1997.

“During the 1977 elections, many Tamil youths began to engage in extraparliamentary and sometimes violent measures in their bid for a mandate for a separate state. These measures precipitated a Sinhalese backlash. An apparently false rumor that Sinhalese policemen had died at the hands of Tamil terrorists, combined with other rumors of alleged anti-Sinhalese statements made by Tamil politicians, sparked brutal communal rioting that engulfed the island within two weeks of the new government’s inauguration. The rioting marked the first major outbreak of communal violence in the nineteen years since the riots of 1958. Casualties were many, especially among Tamils, both the Sri Lankan Tamils of Jaffna and the Indian Tamil plantation workers.” Sri Lanka Country Study, Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress.

“The vast majority of the people in this country have not got the restraint and the reserve that members of parliament, particularly those in the front ranks, have been used to. They become restive when they hear such remarks as a separate state is to be formed, that Trincomalee is to be the capital of that state, that Napoleon had said that Trincomalee is the key to the Indian Ocean, and therefore Trincomalee is going to be the capital of the state … Whatever it is, when statements of that type are said and the newspapers carry them throughout the island, and when you say you are not violent but that violence may be used in time to come, what do you think the other people in Sri Lanka would do? How will they react? When this happened in Jaffna – I am not saying that you [members of the TULF] caused it. You are completely innocent of it. When Sinhalese boutiques are attacked, when government property is attacked – every railway train bringing people from there to the South spread the stories – all that caused the death of the most innocent Tamil people and Muslim people, which should never happen. I am very sorry that it should have happened. … But I say, be careful of the words you use. … Such words can inflame people. And what has happened can happen in a greater degree if such words are used by responsible leaders.” Excerpts from Prime Minister J.R. Jayewardene’s speech to parliament, 18 August 1977, two days after the first incidents in Jaffna.

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