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1984 Mannar massacre | |
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Location | Mannar, Sri Lanka |
Coordinates | 8°57′58″N79°52′59″E / 8.96611°N 79.88306°E |
Date | December 4, 1984 (+6 GMT) |
Target | Sri Lankan Tamils |
Attack type | Shooting |
Weapons | Guns |
Deaths | 200+ |
Injured | Unknown |
Perpetrators | Sri Lankan Army |
The 1984 Mannar massacre was the killing of 200+ minority Sri Lankan Tamils civilians by Sri Lankan Army soldiers in the town of Mannar, north-western Sri Lanka, on December 4, 1984. [1] [2] The attack was triggered when three Army jeeps hit a land mine, killing one soldier. In retaliation, landmarks such as the Central hospital, the post office, a Roman Catholic convent as well as villagers working in rice paddy fields and bus passengers were attacked. Villages around Mannar town such as Murunkan and Parappankadal were also attacked. Immediately after the incident, the then Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayawardene appointed a Presidential commission of inquiry. A local Roman Catholic priest, Mary Bastian who was a member Presidential commission was later killed in January 1985. A Methodist minister George Jeyarajasingham, who was a witness to the incident, was also killed in December 1984. [3] [4]
During the British colonial period, when Sri Lanka was known as Ceylon, most (roughly 60%) civil service jobs were held by the minority Sri Lankan Tamils who constituted approximately 15% of the population. This was a result of the Western education provided by American missionaries and others in the Tamil dominated Jaffna peninsula. In order to win support amongst the majority Sinhalese people populist politicians initiated measures aimed at correcting the over representation of Tamils in the civil service. These measures, as well as riots and pogroms that targeted the Sri Lankan Tamils, led to the formation of a number of rebel groups advocating independence for Sri Lankan Tamils. Following the 1983 Black July pogrom full scale civil war erupted between the government and the rebel groups. [5]
On December 4, 1984, three Sri Lankan Army jeeps hit a land mine, killing one soldier and wounding eleven others. In retaliation, about thirty (30) soldiers went on a rampage, attacking public buildings and civilians in and around Mannar.[ citation needed ]
The soldiers attacked the central hospital; stopped vehicles and shot and killed the occupants; shot 15 employees of the post office by lining them up and shooting them, killing eight; opened fire on peasants in fields; and attacked a convent, stripping the nuns of watches, gold crucifixes and chains. Another group of soldiers stopped a bus and shot all the male passengers. A bus travelling in the opposite direction was also stopped and twenty of its passengers were shot dead. Off the main road, an army jeep drove into the village of Parappankadal. The soldiers fired indiscriminately, killing 12 of people including a mother nursing her infant child. The child survived but three of its toes were blown away by the bullet that killed its mother. Murunkan was another village affected the incident.[ citation needed ]
By the end, more than 200 people were killed; another 20 were missing, mostly young male Tamils taken to army camps. It took three days to transport all the bodies. [6] [7] [2]
The then Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayawardene instituted a Presidential Commission of Inquiry to investigate the incident. Although many locals were reluctant to participate in the investigation, Mary Bastian, a Roman Catholic priest, participated in the investigation.[ citation needed ]
Rev Jeyarajasingham, a Methodist priest, was another the focal point of Human Rights activism on behalf of the local people [8] [9] He was also the local contact for the Sri Lankan government appointed presidential committee to investigate Human Rights violations in the Mannar district. [8] [9] Rev. Jeyarajasingham was shot dead on December 13, 1984, when he was travelling in his vehicle. Later his body was burnt along with his vehicle. Rev Fr Mary Bastian collected the remains of victims including Rev Jeyarajasingham and handed them to the Jeevothayam Methodist Centre. [3] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] Rev Fr Mary Bastian was himself killed on January 6, 1985, allegedly by the military. [10] [16] [17] [18] [8]
The 1987–1989 JVP insurrection, also known as the 1988–1989 revolt or the JVP troubles, was an armed revolt in Sri Lanka, led by the Marxist–Leninist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, against the Government of Sri Lanka. The insurrection, like the previous one in 1971, was unsuccessful. The main phase of the insurrection was a low-intensity conflict that lasted from April 1987 to December 1989. The insurgents led by the JVP resorted to subversion, assassinations, raids, and attacks on military and civilian targets while the Sri Lankan government reacted through counter-insurgency operations to suppress the revolt.
Black July was an anti-Tamil pogrom that occurred in Sri Lanka during July 1983. The pogrom was premeditated, and was finally triggered by a deadly ambush on 23 July 1983, which caused the death of 13 Sri Lanka Army soldiers, by the Tamil militant group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Although initially orchestrated by members of the ruling UNP, the pogrom soon escalated into mass violence with significant public participation.
The 1977 anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka followed the 1977 general elections in Sri Lanka where the Sri Lankan Tamil nationalistic Tamil United Liberation Front won a plurality of minority Sri Lankan Tamil votes in which it stood for secession. An official government estimate put the death toll at 125, whereas other sources estimate that around 300 Tamils were killed by Sinhalese mobs. Human rights groups, such as the UTHR-J, accused the newly elected UNP-led government of orchestrating the violence. While the large majority of victims were Tamils, Sinhalese civilians in the Northern Province and Eastern Province were also attacked by Tamil mobs following the initial violence against Tamil civilians.
The Vankalai massacre was a massacre of a family of four minority Sri Lankan Tamils at the hands of the Sri Lankan military personnel from the village of Vankalai in Mannar District, Sri Lanka on June 8, 2006. The victims were tortured and the mother was gang raped before her murder.
Mary Bastian was a Sri Lankan Tamil human rights activist and Catholic priest. He was shot and killed along with 10 other civilians on January 6, 1985, during the Sri Lankan Civil War, allegedly by the Sri Lankan Army.
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George Jeyarajasingham was a minority Sri Lankan Tamil Human Rights activist and a Methodist missionary from the Mannar district of Sri Lanka. He and three others were shot dead on 13 December 1984 when they were traveling in his vehicle. Later their bodies were burnt along with his vehicle.
On June 12, 1991, 152 minority Sri Lankan Tamil civilians were massacred by members of the Sri Lankan military in the village Kokkadichcholai near the eastern province town of Batticaloa. The Sri Lankan government instituted a presidential commission to investigate the massacre. The commission found the commanding officer negligent in controlling his troops and recommended that he be removed from office, and identified nineteen other members of the Sri Lankan military to be responsible for mass murder. In a military tribunal that followed in the presidential commission in the capital city of Colombo, all nineteen soldiers were acquitted.
Eelam War I is the name given to the initial phase of the armed conflict between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE.
Eelam War II is the name given to the second phase of armed conflict between Sri Lankan military and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The war started after the failure of peace talks between the Premadasa government and the LTTE. This phase of the war was initiated by the LTTE who massacred almost 600 Sinhalese and Muslim police personnel after they were ordered by the Premadasa government to surrender to the LTTE. The truce was broken on June 10, 1990 when the LTTE in October expelled all the 28,000 Muslims residing in Jaffna.
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Nicholas Pillai Pakiaranjith was a minority Sri Lankan Tamil, Roman Catholic parish priest and aid worker. He was killed on 26 September 2008 by a Deep Penetration Unit of the Sri Lankan Army.
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The following lists events that happened during 1984 in Sri Lanka.
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The Murunkan massacre of Inspector Bastianpillai and his team of police officers was the mass murder of a team of CID officers of the Sri Lanka Police on 7 April 1978 in the jungles of Murunkan in the Vavuniya District. Four police officers including Inspector Bastianpillai were killed by LTTE members led by Uma Maheswaran.
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