Article 17. (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Click here to watch a video on Article 17, The Right to Own Your Things
In the 1983 riots, many Tamil businesses were looted and destroyed by Sinhalese thugs, whom were backed up by Sri-Lankan Government and Military forces; Tamils also had many of their property and possessions ransacked and burned. They had their property destroyed because of their ethnicity. By burning Tamil people’s possessions and property, the right for Tamils to own things was infringed upon.
Here’s a quote from an article written by Ana Pararajasingam, Black July Revisited, 1996. “In the anti-Tamil pogrom of July 1983 thousands of Tamils were killed by mobs which waylaid them. Vehicles suspected of carrying Tamils were set ablaze with the occupants inside, Tamil pedestrians were killed on sight, and entire Tamil neighborhoods were torched. Within days Colombo came to resemble a war zone, as Tamil-owned factories shops and homes were burnt to the ground, and the skyline marked by pillars of smoke. The violence soon spread to other cities.”
Here are some other quotes from newspapers around the globe on the 1983 riots:
The Observer of 31st July 1983, reported security forces joining the rioters in the looting and burning in Trincomalee and other cities.
The London Times of 5th August reported how “…Army personnel actively encouraged arson and the looting of Tamil business establishments and homes in Colombo” and how “absolutely no action was taken to apprehend or prevent the criminal elements involved in these activities. In many instances army personnel participated in the looting of shops.”
According to John Elliott of the London Financial Times, “Troops and police either joined the rioters or stood idly by.”
India Today reported how a jewelry mart (Fifty yards from the Indian High Commission, right next to a police station’) was ransacked with army assistance. “The shops in this block had heavy grille doors” recalled an eye witness, “so an army truck was used as a battering ram to break through them, then the soldiers sprang in with Sinhala battle cries to claim the lion share of the loot”
During the height of last year massacres, carried out by the Sri-Lankan Government, heavy weapons were used against Tamil civilians in the ‘no-fire-zone, this claimed the lives of many innocent Tamil civilians. Many Tamils were moving from one place to the next, in search of a safe refuge, but with heavy artillery shelling, no place was safe. While running from place to place, in search of safety, the civilians who did escape managed only to save their lives – their possessions, some of which are family heirlooms and may have taken a lifelong to establish, were all lost amongst the running. When the victims were displaced from their homes, homes which were attacked by shelling, so along went all the things that belonged to the civilians.
In the camps that the living Tamil civilians were forcibly held in, there was no way to own anything of value; even access to basic things such as food, water and medicine was limited and restricted to Tamil civilians.
The Right to Own Your Things; A right that has been denied to Tamils by the Sri-Lankan Government.
Credits:
http://www.sangam.org/2009/07/Black_July_Revisited.php?uid=3617
London Daily Express, 29th August 1983.
Tags: Speak Out
