"Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advance and its benefits. " Article 27.1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
"...a large group of police (estimated variously from 100200) went on rampage on the nights of May 31 June 1 (1981 ) and June 1 2 burning the market area of Jaffna, the office of the Tamil Newspaper, the home of the member of Parliament for Jaffna and the Jaffna Public Library... the destruction of the Jaffna Public Library was the incident which appeared to cause the most distress to the people of Jaffna. .. the 95,000 volumes of the Public Library destroyed by the fire included numerous culturally important and irreplaceable manuscripts...
The government should lead a major national and international effort to rebuild and develop the Jaffna Public Library destroyed by arson by police in June 1981. Such an effort would evidence the respect the government for the cultural rights of the Tamils, help to remedy a serious injustice done to the Tamil community and contribute to restoring Tamil confidence in the government."
Virginia Leary: Ethnic Conflict and Violence in Sri Lanka Report of a Mission to Sri Lanka on behalf of the International Commission of jurists, July/August 1981
"With several high ranking Sinhalese security officers and two cabinet ministers, Cyril Mathew and Gamini Dissanayake (both self confessed Sinhala supremacists), present in the town (Jaffna), uniformed security men and plainclothes thugs carried out some well organized acts of destruction. They burned to the ground certain chosen targets including the Jaffna Public Library, with its 95,000 volumes and priceless manuscripts, a Hindu temple, the office and machinery of the independent Tamil daily newspaper Eelanadu.. Four people were killed outright. No mention of this appeared in the national newspapers, not even the burning of the Library, the symbol of the Tamils' cultural identity..."
Nancy Murray, the State against the Tamils in Sri Lanka Racism and the Authoritarian State Race S. Class, Summer 1984 Sinhala violence
"More than 100 shops have been broken, burnt, looted; market squares in Jaffna and Chunnakam look as if they have been bombed in wartime; several houses have been looted and badly damaged; the house of the MP for Jaffna has been reduced to ruins; several deaths have occurred at the hands of the state armed personnel; the headquarters of the Tamil United Liberation Front in the heart of Jaffna has been destroyed; the public library in Jaffna the second largest library in the island with over 90,000 volumes has been reduced to ashes.
Even more reprehensible are the facts that these outrages should have taken place when cabinet ministers and several leaders of the security services were personally present in Jaffna directing affairs, and that a section of the security services, which had been sent there to maintain law and order, had been directly involved."
Statement of Sri Lanka Opposition Parties, in June 1981 quoted in Satchi Ponnambalam, Sri Lanka, the National Question and the Tamil Liberation Struggle, p207.
Today its rooms are thickly carpeted with half burnt pages, fluttering in the breeze which comes through broken Windows Inspecting the charred remains, I met a heart broken lecturer from the local teacher training college. 'The Sinhalese were jealous of the library,' he said. 'I used to come here every day to prepare lectures and tutorials. Now I shall have to go to Colombo and some owe books aren't available even there.'
Francis Whelen, New Statesman and Nation, 17 July 1981, visiting Jaffna soon after the destruction of the Library
"The TULF MPs took their battle into parliament. They moved a vote of no confidence in the government, on the grounds that the May June 1981 violence in Jaffna had been state sponsored and carried out by Sinhalese Ministers and high ranking government officials present on the spot. The government responded by going on the offensive. What followed was the most racially poisonous verbal vendetta in Sri Lanka's parliamentary history. In the debate that followed one Sinhalese MP called for the return of the traditional death penalty which 'tears the offender's body limb by limb'. They sought to remove the (Tamil) Leader of the Opposition. To general amazement they brought in a motion of no confidence in him on the grounds that he did not 'enjoy the confidence of the Government'!. . The Speaker overruled a point of order that the motion was not within the powers of the House."
Satchi Ponnamblam, Sri Lanka: The national question and the Tamil Liberation Struggle Zed 1983
"If there is discrimination in this land which is not their (Tamil) homeland, then why try to stay here. Why not go back home (India) where there would be no discrimination. There are your kovils and Gods. There you have your culture, education, universities etc. There you are masters of your own fate.... If the sleeping Sinhalese wake up to see the Tamils trying to establish a Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, then things may not be quite calm. It would be advisable for the Tamils not to disturb the sleeping Sinhala brother. Everybody knows that lions when disturbed are not peaceful."
Mr.W.M. Lokubandara, M.P. in Sri Lanka's Parliament, July 1981
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