The day all hell broke loose in July ’83 and coping with situation

(Excerpted from In Pursuit of Governance, autobiography of MDD Pieris)

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The time was now around 3 p.m. I asked the driver to drop my accountant home at Dehiwela and come back to my residence with the car.

I also told him that if the conditions were bad, to stay with the accountant in Dehiwela for the moment. He was nervous about driving further, but he left. My few Sinhalese neighbours and I were now faced with a difficult situation. Most of our Tamil neighbours were in a state of panic. Smoke from fires burning on some roads was clearly visible. There was still no curfew declared.

Our neighbours wanted to know what to do. They needed advice and guidance. The difficulty was that we ourselves did not know what really was happening and how the situation would develop. So far the attacks were on property, not on persons. We had to take into reckoning that this could change. In the night anything could happen. We decided that the paramount thing was to safeguard life. Property was secondary. We therefore advised our Tamil neighbours to walk to the Wellawatte Hindu Temple and congregate there.

The authorities were bound to guard these places accommodating considerable numbers. We also told them that we would do what we possibly could to protect their houses. This advice was followed. But before many of them left, they handed over to us many of their valuable jewellery and other valuable items. It was a serious risk we were taking. If the situation turned really ugly and mobs came into our houses, they could have killed us for trying to safeguard this property. But come what may, we could not refuse. We hid these things in our houses as best as we could. But it was not easy to hide bags and even small suitcases. Curfew was at last declared. We all wondered why it took so long.

Problems