Talk:1958 anti-Tamil pogrom

message: List the reason(S), just dont put tags as you feel like it. Also read  this before editing this article. RaveenS 16:13, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: SentinalG346 (talk) 23:23, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  1958 Riots in Sri Lanka  

message: I assume the events are all during 1958 but I wasn't positive. I would suggest adding the year after perhaps May 22 and May 25. I know it's in the title, but it's a bit confusing and might read a little easier to have it listed in the article. Tygartl1 15:42, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggestion

message: I noticed this article was mainly sourced on www.tamilnation.org, which is a Tamil site. That suggests the article is not NPOV, as it's only based on one side's part of the story. There presumably are Sinhalese accounts and/or neutral/observer accounts out there as well. 204.52.215.14 (talk) 04:45, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The definitive Book on 58 riots was written by a Sinhalese. There cannot be a Sinhalese and Tamil version to these issues. Just the facts from an RS source. Tamil Nation is not the source, simply a redistributer or information.Taprobanus (talk) 06:21, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Don't the Sinhalese have a side to this story?

message: It is clear by this definition that mass murder incluses rioting or ethnic pograms . Hence I will restore the cat back. Taprobanus (talk) 05:36, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Why was my edit regading the category mass murder reverted, please cite your reason ? Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 20:17, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

text: Also per above definition a pogrom is a mass murder, and the 1958 riots is considred a pogrom see here.Taprobanus (talk) 21:47, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Firstly that reference does not say mass murder at all. You can't glue two things together and make your own conclusion. That's synthesis. Not all pogroms are mass murder because some of them don't involve killing. Murder also requires intent. YellowMonkey  (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 03:54, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The reference says that it was a Pogrom then in the definition of mass murder from the above cited book, it reads Pogroms are committed a group of incited thugs against vulnerable groups excluded from mainstream society which is also a type of mass murder. So very clearly this is a mass murder is'nt it ? Another definition of mass murder is the death of number of people at the same time. We have citation that says over 300 people died over 3 days. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 17:11, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: your reasoning is not valid at all. Multiple deaths doesn't automatically imply murder, eg accidents. Other is still synthesis, because there are many definitions and using one guy's observation stuck together with another person's definition doesn't work if the observer is using a different definition. Eg, not all people define pogrom tp be killing. A BBC journalist yesterday was talking about some riots that he called a "pogrom", although nobody was killed. So obviously he is using a different definition, because by your book's definition, pogroms are mass murders. So if you put one categorisation by one person with a reasoning by another person, the logic doesn't work if they are using conflicting defintions. YellowMonkey  (click here to choose Australia's next top model!) 02:03, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry to keep this conversation going, on page 54, Chattopadhyaya in Ethnic Unrest in Modern Sri Lanka: An Account of Tamil-Sinhalese Race Relations published by South Asia Books in 1994 (isbn:8-1858-8052-2) call the deaths mass murder. I will be citing it accordingly. Thanks Taprobanus (talk) 00:43, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on this direct cite, we can add the category back cant we ? Taprobanus (talk) 13:37, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Stil waiting 24 days gone Taprobanus (talk) 22:37, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal of a neutral category mass murder

message: "Soon after the Polonnaruwa incidents of May 23 and 24 the madness spread to Eravur in the Eastern Province. The Tamils in this area retaliated against isolated Sinhalese homes and trades people. Tamil fishermen waged a sea-shore battle against Sinhalese fishermen who were driven out to sea. They dared not return to the east coast and were not seen for days. Police feared serious loss of life at sea but later reports indicated that the fishermen had landed here and there on the south coast. Tamil goondas set up road blocks and interrupted traffic. Like their Sinhalese counterparts they cross-examined pas­sengers who were dragged out, beaten up and deprived of their belongings if they were suspected to be Sinhalese.
One Sinhalese driver whose duties had taken him to Batti­caloa was returning to Colombo on May 26. They caught him near a causeway and interrogated him. His terror was so great that he could not speak. ‘Who are you?’ they asked. ‘Are you Sinhalese or Tamil or Muslim?’ The man was still speechless. They persisted. Eventually he found his tongue. When they asked him for a tenth time to state his race: ‘Lanji,’ he splut­tered, trying to make ‘Lansi’ (Burgher) sound Tamil. Immedi­ately he realized his mistake but the thugs were satisfied. They let him go on his way.From May 23—when the first train derailment took place— up to Tuesday, May 27—the day on which a State of Emer­gency was declared—the highest incidence of violence in the Batticaloa district was in the Eravur area. With the news of the first train derailment, many Sinhalese in the area had already left their homes and begun a hazardous trek to places of safety. Some went into the jungles where many of them gave up their lives to hunger and to the animals. When the number of police in the area were augmented by military personnel, on May 27 and 28, they drove along the edges of jungles announcing through their mobile loudspeakers that people who were within hearing distance should come out to safety. Those who were still alive accepted this offer. The corpses of the others were discovered in various stages of de­composition. In one case, the police found the bodies of a mother and child whom she had been breast-feeding at the time of death. The Sinhalese who had not fled their homes or who were intercepted in flight by berserk Tamil goondas suffered a similar fate. 
In the heart of Eravur a Sinhalese man and his wife were assaulted and set on fire. Their belongings were then looted and their dwelling place burnt down. Homes which had been evacuated were given the chulu light treatment. First: goods which could be of any use were looted. Then, a liberal dose of kerosene was splashed on the walls of the house, and a chulu light was flung at it. The police were helpless. Their numbers were too small—they did not even have sufficient men to release one or two of them to guard the Public Works Department powder magazine at Batticaloa— and, besides, they had received no orders to shoot and fight back with methods which would give them some hope of getting the Tamil hoodlums under control. In a few places hand-bombs were thrown at cars. Mercifully, by this time people had been sufficiently scared for many of them to cancel proposed trips to the area. The damage might otherwise have been much greater.Ironically, in the town of Batticaloa itself—the area chosen as the centre of the Tamil Kingdom of the Eastern Province by Tamil extremists—the damage to Sinhalese life and property was relatively small. In fact, Tamil kiosk keepers closed shop and sought sanctuary in areas where members of their own community were amassed in greater numbers at the very hint of disturbances. ...... Blood was all that the goondas wanted. In the chaos that followed it was almost impos­sible for anybody to keep a count of who had been injured, who had been lynched, and what had been burnt—so swiftly did the goondas move from area to area, and so ruthlessly did they set about their tasks of destruction. 
The official figures are: 56 cases of arson, and ii murders in the Batticaloa Administrative district. But there is reason to believe that more than that number of killings occurred in Karativu alone, where the Sinhalese—many of them migrant fishermen—were massacred. Men, women and children were pulled out of their homes— wailing, and screaming for mercy—and beaten, more often than not, to death. Houses were set ablaze and law officers were powerless. Meanwhile in other parts of the district houses were still blazing, looting was proceeding apace, and the search for victims was still on. Many of the migrant fishermen in the area had left their homes earlier. What they had left behind was quickly grabbed and shared among the goondas.' Some of this was discovered later and a small-time politician who was found to have a sizeable stock of madhal, or home-spun fishing nets, in his house stated that he had taken all this under his roof for protection. In the Eravur area there were other incidents of goonda activity and in many cases both the police and the military were fired at when they attempted to intervene. In one in­stance, police and service personnel had to fire several rounds at a blood-thirsty crowd before they could rescue alive two men who had been set afire."
Nishadhi (talk) 17:33, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  A section from Tarzie Vittachi 

message: There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:1977 anti-Tamil pogrom which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you.  —RMCD bot 10:29, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Move discussion in progress

message: So I was actually the one to add that piece of information years ago, but upon further research, I have found that Kantale was actually peaceful during the 1958 riots. The one who claimed that Sinhalese Catholics were killed in Kantale was not even in Kantale during the riots (I mistakenly referred to him as a witness). The one saying Kantale was peaceful was C. Suntheralingam, who said as much in parliament in 1958. Suntheralingam was certainly not the sort to downplay Sinhalese violence. SinhalaLion (talk) 15:50, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't access Parliamentary Debates, Volume 33, Issues 12-23 but I'll take your word for it.--Obi2canibe (talk) 17:23, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kantale