Sinhalese people
President Jayewardene and his cabinet met in an emergency session on 28 July. Jayewardene then made a primetime televised address in which he appealed for an end to the violence. Jayewardene blamed the violence on "the deep ill feeling and suspicion that has grown between the Sinhalese and the Tamil people" caused by the calls for an independent Tamil state that began in 1976, when the Tamil United Liberation Front, the largest political party representing the Tamils, had passed the Vaddukoddai Resolution. He blamed the violence committed by the Tamil militants for the way "the Sinhalese people themselves have reacted". Jayewardene vowed that the "Sinhalese people will never agree to the division of a country which has been a united nation for 2,500 years [sic]" and announced that the government would "accede to the clamour...of the Sinhalese people" and ban any party which sought to divide the nation.