The Sri Lanka Freedom Party’s (SLFP) former General Secretary Rohana Lakshman Piyadasa lashed out at the Tamil diaspora for “undermining Sri Lanka” and criticised the United National Party (UNP) for allowing the 1983 Black July pogrom to take place and giving Sri Lanka “a bad name”.
“It was a pogrom against Tamils by a few Sinhalese aided and abetted by the J.R. Jayawardene regime,” claimed current secretary Dayasiri Jayasekera at a press conference on Wednesday.
Piyadasa went on to add that the pogrom, in which thousands of Tamils were killed by Sinhala mobs across the island “gave a bad name and branded Sri Lanka as a failed state, created the Tamil Diaspora that undermines Sri Lanka even today”.
Jayasekera claimed the killings “would have been prevented if the Jayewardene regime acted discreetly” and claimed that his party “never promoted racism”.
Speaking to The Island he also added that “though the LTTE terrorism was crushed by military means, the possibility of fresh northern threat couldn’t be ruled out”.
