SHARING HER EXPERIENCES DURING 1983 RIOTS
Deshamanya Radhika Coomaraswamy (born 17 September 1953) is a Sri Lankan lawyer, diplomat and human rights advocate who served as the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict until 13 July 2012. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed her to the position in April 2006.She was nominated to the Constitutional Council (Sri Lanka) as a civil representative on 10 September 2015. In 2017, after atrocities against the Rohingya people, she was appointed a Member of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar.
The legacy of Black July, often undiscussed and left out of Sri Lankan history, remains a defining moment that led to decades of inter-ethnic violence and bloodshed. Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy, civil society activist and former Under Secretary General of the United Nations, speaks about her experiences in July 1983 and its impact on her career. She highlights the need for better memorialization to take place in order for the youth to know what truly happened all those years ago.
How has the memory of Black July impacted your life and advocacy?
“We were one of the strongest Tamil Hindu families. For my brother’s wedding in the 70s, out of 1,000 guests, 700 were family members. When the riots began, everyone left the country. Now we don’t have enough family members to carry the coffin at a funeral. My family is all over the world now.”
“In a way, 1983 chose the kinds of issues that I would focus on for the rest of my career. After 1983, I got involved with activists who worked for non-recurrence.”
Are there any memories that you can share?
“We lived in Cambridge Place, so we were lucky and safe because it was where some parliamentarians lived. Most of my family from all parts of Colombo, nearly 40 to 50 people, stayed with us because in our apartment because it was the only safe place.”
“One of my cousins was travelling on a bus. We got a phone call saying that he had been killed after being set on fire. All of my relatives’ houses in Wellawatte and other areas were burnt and destroyed.”
“It was a defining moment for many Tamils in Sri Lanka.”
How has Black July shaped your perception of communal harmony and inter-ethnic relations?
“This is a very deep fault line in our society. We have to deal with it. We have to converse about it and find common solutions. It is a very important fault line to which we have to pay attention otherwise it will happen again and again. And that is the point. Unless you deal with it and keep the memories alive, there will be recurrence. That is what you want to stop.”
What steps can be taken to prevent this from happening again?
“We have to have positive programs. We have to realize that people are equal. At the moment the ideologies from both sides are ethno-centric. Work needs to be done to show that all people are equal.”
“Sinhalese society has gone through a major hardening. From 2005 to 2015, minorities were treated as if they were not relevant and were second class citizens. The need to create an ideology that goes above ethnicity is necessary.”
“Unless you have some reconciliation process, this will happen again. Many of us have been pushing for truth and some reconciliation mechanism so that it will not happen again. We need to confront our past.”
What is the path towards lasting peace and unity considering the scars left from Black July?
“We have to take all the suffering together and have some kind of process to help the victims; a process that brings all these people together, to come and tell their stories and deal with the past. That is what we need.”
How can we bring this message to the youth?
“I think it needs to be in the textbooks.”
“Recently I was in a room with many young people and none of them had any idea what had happened in 1983. If you don’t understand what happened in 1983, you won’t understand what happened after that. The memory cannot fade away.”
Do you feel that the legacy of Black July has influenced Sri Lankan society and its approach to inter-ethnic violence now?
“First, the creation of the Tamil diaspora and its influence has a lot to do with the events of 1983. The Tamil Tiger movement grew tenfold after 1983. Many young men from Colombo joined the Tamil Tigers. It was a big mistake.”