Monday 12th October, 2026

Fifty-one government MPs have proposed a parliamentary select committee (PSC) probe into the 1983 anti-Tamil violence, known as Black July, and make recommendations to Parliament. Their call has come close on the heels of a private member’s motion presented by Democratic Tamil National Alliance MP Selvam Adaikalanathan, demanding that a Presidential Commission of Inquiry be appointed to establish the truth about the 1983 ethnic violence, assess the damage and recommend measures to prevent its recurrence. The government has argued that a parliamentary select committee will be a far more effective mechanism than a presidential commission to examine the tragic events, enforce accountability and promote reconciliation.

There is no reason why the government cannot appoint a Presidential Commission to probe Black July. The calls for fresh probes into the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom indicate that questions about the adequacy of previous investigations have remained unresolved for more than four decades. Those efforts did not result in a comprehensive, independent and effective process for holding the organisers and perpetrators of the violence criminally accountable.

The problem with parliamentary probe committees is that the ruling party can manipulate them by appointing a majority of their members. How the UPFA government used a PSC in 2012 to harass the then Chief Justice Dr. Shirani Bandaranayake before clearing the way for her ‘impeachment’ is a case in point.

The current government led by the JVP should have launched an investigation into the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom much earlier. A thorough probe may shed light on hitherto undisclosed aspects of organised anti-Tamil violence, and the survivors of the pogrom and the families of the victims deserve justice. The Jayewardene government falsely blamed the JVP, the Communist Party and the Nava Sama Samaja Party for the pogrom and proscribed them. The JVP could not have its proscription removed and remained underground. The Jayewardene regime created conditions for the second JVP uprising, which plunged the country into a bloodbath.

Several other campaigns of violence, including mass killings, have not been properly investigated. The JVP’s terror campaign in the late 1980s and the equally brutal counter terror operations conducted by two UNP governments, under Presidents Jayewardene and President Ranasinghe Premadasa, claimed tens of thousands of lives. Those crimes must also be investigated. The incumbent government promised to launch a probe into the Batalanda torture chamber, but baulked at doing so. Maybe it did not want to open a can of worms. The JVP-led government has taken steps to reopen or expedite investigations into high-profile assassinations and other crimes under previous governments. But it has not ordered a probe into the extrajudicial execution of its own founding leader, Rohana Wijeweera, while in state custody, in 1989.

In June 2014, the Retired Senior Police Officers’ Association requested the Presidential Commission to Investigate Complaints Regarding Missing Persons to investigate the massacre of approximately 600 policemen by the LTTE in the Eastern Province in 1990. The commission identified the massacre as one of several grave incidents requiring further investigation by a special probe team with a view to gathering evidence for criminal proceedings. The police personnel surrendered to the LTTE on the orders of the Premadasa government. It is believed that many of them may have survived if they had been allowed to fight. SJB MP Chaminda Wijesiri has been sentenced to an 18-month jail term for obstructing, threatening and assaulting a group of police officers, but the massacre of 600 policemen has not been probed. This contrast raises an uncomfortable question: why do the police act decisively in individual cases while the 1990 massacre of their own personnel remains uninvestigated.

Any future PSC probe into the 1983 ethnic violence should focus on the findings of previous investigations, their inadequacies, why their recommendations were not fully implemented, whether fresh evidence could be ascertained, and, most all, what practical steps could be taken to address the continuing demand for truth and accountability.

One can only hope that the proposed PSC probe is not intended to distract public attention from the government’s failure to fulfil its election pledge to hold the Provincial Council elections within one year of assuming office.