My experiences of rebellions
How waves of violence in Sri Lanka broke a young man’s heart
In this Medium article, Denzil recounts the harrowing violence and social unrest he witnessed during three periods of insurrection in Sri Lanka. He describes the impact of the 1971 socialist uprising, the 1983 anti-Tamil riots (“Black July”), and the 1987–1990 Sinhalese youth insurrection, detailing the brutality and loss of life that scarred the nation. His personal experiences, including witnessing murders and the abduction of a schoolboy, left him deeply traumatised and disillusioned with his homeland, ultimately leading him to emigrate. Through his powerful narrative, he highlights the devastating consequences of ethnic conflict and political instability while lamenting Sri Lanka’s failure to achieve unity and justice.
Warning — Distressing scenes described in this story.
A YOUTH INSURRECTION DURING MY BOYHOOD
1971 — There was a strong student and youth socialist movement styled on the “Che Guevara” clique. Many poor, unemployed and underprivileged young people joined this movement. My two elder cousins, my father’s brother’s children, Sisira and Marie, were also in this rebel group. In their home. They replaced Jesus’s picture with that of Mao Zedong and Che Guevara. Both of them, teenagers, boldly spoke about a future socialist society. A society in which everyone was equal in Sri Lanka. Young as I was, it was a bit gibberish to me.
In April 1971, the movement turned violent. The insurrection began when the rebels started attacking police stations. The Sri Lankan government responded by deploying armed forces with brutal force. Rebels cut power lines and blocked roads with trees in the countryside. Schools were indefinitely closed. It was a period of terror in the country. The conflict lasted about three months until the government took total control of the island.
My cousins were arrested in the early days of the conflict. They were fortunate not to have died in battle or been murdered by government forces. They were held in a rehabilitation camp and released later.
The security situation in Sri Lanka slightly improved, and violence gradually subsided. Police checkpoints and summary inspections of vehicles and individuals had become the norm.
While the country was reeling, I was keen to visit my classmate and best friend, Ajit Martin and spend the holidays with him. Ajit and I planned this meticulously before the insurrection. Finally, after much persuasion and pleadings, my parents permitted my trip.
Before I left home, my mother inspected my travel bag. She removed my daily journal from the bag and insisted I leave it behind. I was surprised by her request. She warned me that if my journal was to be found at a checkpoint, I could be arrested on suspicion of being a rebel. Reluctantly, I removed the journal from my bag and headed to Ajit’s home by train.
All I wanted was to have fun with my best friend. The gravity of my country’s situation and the risk to young men were lost on me until my mother pulled my journal away. I was shocked to grasp that I was not safe in my own country. I was a schoolboy who did not overthink the violence gripping the country.
When the train to Ajit’s home crossed the bridge on top of the Kelani river that connects my hometown to the central city of Colombo, it was a horrible and distressing sight. Decomposed and bloated bodies of young men were floating on the water. Passengers in my train compartment murmured about what had happened to the young men. They had been executed in central parts of the country; their bodies were thrown into the water. It was as if the floating bodies belonged to dead cattle. Watching this horrible sight from the open train window, I wondered what type of country I lived in, where human lives did not matter.
I later learnt from my father that many young men and women were tortured and murdered by government forces. An estimated twenty thousand to twenty-five thousand young men and women perished in the rebellion. This was a turbulent period in Sri Lanka twenty-three years after independence. It was the first of many insurrections; Sri Lanka was to experience in my lifetime. My first cousins were the lucky ones; they did not perish.
Six years later, I left Sri Lanka for good, initially to Dubai.
BLACK JULY DURING MY TWENTIES
1983 — From Dubai, I returned to Sri Lanka to get married in July 1983. Wedding preparations were underway. Invitation cards printed for the wedding to be held on 29th July. On Monday, the 25th, I headed to Colombo to pay for the floral arrangements. I paid the florist near the city’s Town Hall and headed to the bus stand to return home, unaware that a major riot was enveloping Colombo.
Buses and vehicles were speeding away without stopping. Everyone was panicking. People were running. There was chaos everywhere I looked. I felt frightened. I wanted to get home immediately, but there were no buses or taxis. Finally, a school bus with school children stopped near me. I persuaded the bus driver to allow me to go home on the bus. He conceded and asked not to occupy a seat but stand next to him, near the driver’s seat. The school bus headed towards my hometown, a distance of about 12 kilometres.
The bus ride was slow, with many stoppages from road disruptions. But I was safe on the bus packed with school children behind me. What I witnessed on my way home is unspeakable. But truth be told. People were rioting, destroying property. Some stopped buses and vehicles plying on the road and pulled Tamils out. Some were torching cars. Tamil-owned homes were on fire. Humans were torching humans, throwing petrol at them. They were animals hunting strangers with clubs and weapons. A group got onto my bus, looking for Tamils. They could not find any. One rioter asked for petrol from the bus driver. He replied there was no spare fuel. The rioters were animals. I did not see any policemen who were supposed to protect people. There was no law and order.
Now, those outside Sri Lanka may be wondering who the Tamils were. Tamils were a minority in Sri Lanka. But I did not know any better; I grew up studying and holidaying with them, unaware of these silly differences.
Back to the bus ride, I could see everything from the front glass window of the school bus. It was horrendous and distressing. I felt lost and helpless. The rioters were well organised. I would call them mass murderers. See more about Black July.
I endured the painful ride for nearly one hour, witnessing mass murder and mayhem. Finally, I got off the bus near my home. An army truck passed the main road, passing the rioters attacking a vehicle with Tamils. The soldiers did not care to stop the violence and rescue the innocent. Instead, the soldiers raised V signs with their hands as they passed, sitting joyfully on the bonnet of the army vehicle. What were they thinking? A victory parade? The Sri Lankan army did not think it was its duty to protect its citizens. What did they swear to when they took oaths to protect the country when they enrolled in the military?
As I walked home, a crowd of about one hundred rioters had gathered in an open space near the local church. The rioters were from my home village. They were in a circle surrounding a helpless young man. The man was naked. Everyone was beating him with sticks and fists. His body was red from the beatings by the crazy mob. Fear was all over his face. He looked no longer looked like a human. It was so brutal that I groped for breath. I choked. Words would not come out of my mouth. If I had spoken, the crowd would end up ganging on me. I had not felt so timid in my whole life. It was that bad. It was a lecherous mob. Vultures were baying for an innocent’s blood. I did not think the poor soul lasted long in the hand of those primal mobsters.
Distressed and anguished, I left the scene and came home. My mother was glad I had found my way home and hugged me. I was full of tears, thinking of the man I saw near the church. I hardly slept that night. I was emotionally scrambled to compute what I had witnessed.
That was the day I lost all hope for my country. I was heartbroken and helpless to prevent a cold-blooded murder. I was yet to get married and had not thought of children. I vowed to myself that I would never allow any of my children to come should see what I had just seen. I kept that promise for sure.
I could not get married on the 29th of July. A few weeks later, I got married in a simple, quiet ceremony and left Sri Lanka, knowing that my country was doomed during my lifetime.
Ethnic violence and war continued for the next 26 years. The total loss to Sri Lanka was over 150,000 deaths on both sides. There were no victors. Some think otherwise in my old country.
SINHALA YOUTH INSURRECTION IN MY THIRTIES
1987 — Four years after the Black July, now 1987, Sri Lanka erupted in violence again. This time, the Sinhalese youth responded to the aftereffects of structural adjustments to the country’s constitution that were pushed through without consultation.
The Sri Lankan forces arrested anyone at will without any warrants. Many young people disappeared. Bodies were found headless or burnt. The government juntas and the rebels were both extremely violent. The media underplayed the violence by government juntas affiliated with the armed forces and the police. Youths were abducted and killed by them. University students were also vulnerable to extreme violence, especially by the juntas. It was a lawless society. Nobody was safe, and I worried about my brother, a university student in Sri Lanka at the time.
In 1988, I visited Sri Lanka and saw bodies of young men floating again in the same river. It was a repeat of my experience as a teenager.
My acquaintance’s teenage son, a school student, was abducted by the government juntas. The boy’s burnt-out body was found with signs of torture the next day. I still shirk recalling the pain and expressions on the boy’s father’s face. It was an agony nobody could bear. Unfortunately, that was the only justice the Sri Lankan state meted out to its people in the dreadful eighties.
My country had not learnt its lessons. Violence continued from 1987 until 1990. Two civil wars, insurrections by Marxists in the south and Tamils in the north, an Indian army in the north and state counter-terror squads in the south of Sri Lanka. It was a time of disappearances and unidentified corpses.
Fortunately, within a short time during this turmoil, my brother left for Canada on a scholarship to do his PhD. He never returned to Sri Lanka to live. His children, too, will never know violence as I have seen.
This third insurrection lasted four years, costing about 100,000 lives, mostly youth and a small segment of schoolboys from rural Sri Lanka. Yes, even schoolboys were massacred by the government juntas and state-affiliated hooligan groups.
MY TAKE ON THESE THREE EVENTS
I have had limited but diverse experiences with three insurrections in Sri Lanka. The human cost to the country was huge, with approximately 400,000 lives. A million political refugees fled the country. Many have left in rickety boats risking their lives. The country is still reeling from these violent and social interjections. Today in 2021, 73 years after its independence, Sri Lanka has not managed to unify its people. It remains a tribal society mired in bigotry, afraid of its races, religions, diversity and regions. It has an identity conflict. It has entrenched impunity for atrocious crimes. It is a failed state devoid of fairness and justice. Sri Lanka remains a deeply traumatised country.
That episode when I was a teenager of bodies in the river was a small fracas compared to the flow of corpses that have flooded Lanka’s rivers since. Many victims have been burnt to death.
Even today, nearly forty years later, when I think of that innocent young lad who was mob-beaten to a slow death, tears swell in my eyes. I could not help him. I will never forget him. It is my agony to bear. I still rage when I think of that lad. It sealed my future in Sri Lanka forever. The mobs can have an ethnostate. I don’t want any part of it.
Despite migrating to Australia professionally, I consider myself a refugee. This is because I, too, have fled indirect violence and social injustice.
My parents paid a hefty price due to the instability in Sri Lanka. They raised two outstanding sons in us, my brother and me, and missed out on being part of our adult lives. My parents lived in Sri Lanka while we raised our families in Australia and Canada, far away from them. My parents never complained and wanted us to live our lives free. It was a massive sacrifice to liberate their descendants.
I wonder why my beloved country is hemorrhaging its children.
Originally published in April 2021, 50 years after the first insurrection of 1971.
A related story when the author revisited Jaffna: Jaffna again
Author’s experiences of Sri Lankan political culture: Politics in my blood
A trip to Madhu church in the northern heartland in the seventies.
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