University
Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna)
Sri
Lanka
UTHR(J)*
Information
Bulletin No. 37
Date
of Release:
10th
January
2005
Contents:
4. Nature Strikes: The LTTE’s
response
5. Delivery is subject
to weather conditions and availability of transport.
8. LTTE abroad: The
TRO-Pottu Amman Nexus
9. Behind the Apparent
Somersault: Burning of the Refugee Camp
10. TRO -Cats Paw of
LTTE Terror on the Ground
11. Wrecking of
Trincomalee: Incompatibility of Sole Representation with
Peace
12. Strengthening
the Humanitarian Space and Ending Conflict
In the aftermath of the Tsunami aid has poured into Sri Lanka from people and governments around the world. Sri Lanka’s North and East witnessed a spontaneous outpouring of generosity that defied communal boundaries. A schoolmistress in Batticaloa-Amparai described the impact it created, “At the bottom of their heart all Sri Lankans want to live in peace with one another. This is what the Tidal Wave taught us. What we saw is the people eager to help each other, forgetting all differences. Whatever community we belong to, there is something called Sri Lankan hospitality. The politicians should remember that when they get back to negotiations.” It was a natural human response to a massive disaster that had no political context. This help is desperately needed and gratefully welcomed. With relief and reconstruction efforts underway it is essential the process be open, transparent and accountable. We must not squander the good will of those who have so generously come to our assistance.
Both the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE have an unquestionable moral responsibility to ensure that disaster victims receive prompt and appropriate assistance and should dedicate resources and infrastructure to help them. This requires setting aside political differences, overcoming decades of neglect and bureaucratic dysfunction and allowing every available and potential source of support and assistance to contribute to the effort of rebuilding our communities. As important as anything else is the need to give hope to the people, rather than contribute to their trauma and despair.
Giving hope means a readiness to work with each other and being generous in acknowledging the good done by others. Testimonies given to us by witnesses in Batticaloa-Amparai, Trincomalee and Vadamaratchy tell the same story: personnel from the country’s armed forces – the STF, Army and Navy – in the wake of the Tsunami, left their weapons and threw themselves into the dangerous waters to rescue civilians, in some instances losing their lives. In the aftermath, neighbouring Sinhalese and Muslim communities and the armed forces stretched themselves in caring for those affected, and are still doing so.
Much of these highly remarkable developments have gone unreported or pushed to the sidelines of the news concerning the North-East. A part of the answer is the incompetence of the state media, indifference of the Colombo media and LTTE propaganda networks having established a firm foothold, at least to confuse the international media. The LTTE, and the Tamil media controlled by it, largely ignored this non-partisan outpouring of humanity and from day-one started attacking the armed forces and, contrary to authentic reports from the ground, accused them of harassment, blocking rations, stopping a Russian medical team and burning a refugee camp among other violations. It accused the Government of discrimination in the distribution of relief and waxed loud that no one was helping the Tamils. By the time the foreign media came in large numbers, they lost sight of the one-sidedness of these claims and provocations, and started talking about deep hatreds and the ethnic conflict.
This in short was how the LTTE positioned itself to make political capital of a humanitarian crisis lacking political content and to position its agency, the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation, to act as the sole body dispensing relief in areas it controls and throughout the North-East. The troubling political implications need not be spelt out. We are concerned that the international community may forfeit this opportunity for permanent peace, a political settlement and reconciliation, by allowing their misjudgments (which have amply been in evidence these last three years), the LTTE’s ploys, and the Southern polity’s incompetence and opportunism, dictate the agenda.
The LTTE established the TRO, which became increasingly
visible in the early 1990s, as a mechanism to raise money for refugee relief and
has long solicited donations from Sri Lanka’s large expatriate Tamil community
and is institutionally bound to the leadership of the LTTE. It has a history of
discouraging independent initiatives both in Sri Lanka and abroad, and there
have long been informed allegations that money the TRO collects for
reconstruction has been diverted to other purposes, principally military. These
allegations have been supported by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service
(‘CSIS warned Ottawa of terror fronts…’, National Post, 9th
December 2000), and by the LTTE’s former Eastern strongman and leading insider,
Karuna.
International donors and all concerned individuals seeking effective ways to assist survivors of this disaster should demand accountability and transparency from the TRO and all other partner agencies as a condition of cooperation. This should only be for purposes of urgent relief, avoiding measures that confer legitimacy on the LTTE’s terror machine by the back door. They should at the same time encourage and support the development of social coping mechanisms that do not rely on the LTTE, including especially independent civil society organisations and initiatives, and should continue to press the LTTE to stop threatening others who are trying to do humanitarian work. The TRO’s present demand that all major relief and reconstruction work should be entrusted to it and it alone is totally unacceptable, and has upset many donors who came to help and to work, leaving them with little alternative but to go back. We shall expand on these concerns in the sequel.
The tidal
wave, which devastated the southern and eastern coasts of Sri Lanka and other
Asian nations killing more than a hundred thousand people, will occupy the
world’s attention and the headlines for some weeks to come. Although it took
some time to realise the scale of the tragedy, the world has awakened to the
disaster and responded generously to the relief and reconstruction effort. The
scope of the disaster is still difficult to digest: the loss of lives; the
horrific stories of families torn apart and carried away by the Tsunami; the
thousands of children orphaned by the wrath of the sea. The trauma of those
directly affected is almost incomprehensible.
For Sri
Lanka this unprecedented natural disaster comes in the train of decades of
man-made disasters – communal strife and war. Among most Sri Lankans, this
natural disaster has thrown up a spontaneous urge to reach out across man-made
differences and help the needy and stricken. Even as the Government’s response
and capability was felt to be grossly inadequate, whether in the North-East or
the South, the spontaneous help from men, women and children from all walks of
life made all the difference.
These are
the bright spots. War is at least temporarily in abeyance. But the fault lines
that were prominent before the disaster still persist. Unless we come to terms
with them, the present potential for peace and unity will be lost. The
alternative Tamil web site Thenee.com
reflected editorially:
“Tsunami (the tidal wave) is an angel that
came to teach lessons to all communities…It reduced us to a level where even the
dead are indistinguishable as Tamil, Muslim, or Sinhalese. Nature taught us that
in death we are all one. Even as international agencies are struggling to
protect the victims [gunmen] shot dead a youth [from a rival faction] who went
to Porativu [in Batticaloa] to look for his disaster-stricken family. Those
trained in murder as their profession are incapable of any goodness or
humanity…It takes no genius to breed hatred against our brothers. No ability or
talent is required to exalt one’s pride and ego, humiliate others and earn thir
hatred. Tsunami has taught us that learning to earn the love of others is the
most precious lesson.”
For the
LTTE the natural disaster, which crippled its war machine, has been a bitter
lesson that terror is a fickle asset. Before the disaster it manipulated the
international community into a programme of appeasement by threatening the
discontinuation of the ceasefire. In the days following the disaster, the LTTE
proclaimed a ‘national emergency’, implicitly thrusting itself as a state, and
demanding international aid on its own terms.
The Tigers
have done the Tamil cause the worst possible service in destroying its moral and
democratic content and identifying it with terror. Today the victims under LTTE
control along much of the seaboard from Vaharai to Pachchilapalai in the north
need all the aid they can get to rebuild their lives.
Many Tamils
all over the world and in the North-East wanted to share the agony of the
tragedy not only with their own community but also with the larger community in
Sri Lanka and others in the region. Those who are socially and politically
conscious would like to be part of the humanitarian effort. But they feel
powerless not only due to the scale of tragedy, but also because of the
manipulation and control the LTTE continues to exert over any independent
initiative. It is an extraordinary imposition on people in dire need. The LTTE
at various levels attempts to shield survivors from human contact with outsiders
for fear that it might pose a challenge to their narrow ideology. An example totally out of character with
the victims’ need, and the solemnity of the tragedy that bypasses human
boundaries, is the LTTE warning by loudspeaker the people of Valvettithurai to
disengage from the warm discussion they were having with Prime Minister
Rajapakse on relief.
Further,
the social havoc the LTTE wreaked by imposing itself as the ‘sole
representative’ in every sphere of life extends to relief and rehabilitation
work. The LTTE has insisted that
its agency, the TRO, is the only force on the ground fit to receive aid and
rehabilitate the victims. It may be
true that the TRO has substantially more resources at its disposal than most
local initiatives, but the TRO has a very poor record of accountability. The
large sums of money it collected for ‘refugees and relief’ prior to 2002 were
almost certainly laundered for military purposes as indicated by the
deprivations it imposed on people on the ground, even short-changing them on
government relief (see our reports for that period). We give below indications
of its strong links to LTTE intelligence.
Still, the
reality is that owing to the authoritarian control the LTTE exerts on the Tamil
community, and its overt (very obvious to locals) control of even the government
machinery in the North-East to service its ends, any humanitarian work
inevitably must deal with the LTTE. Those who want to support their community
independently of the TRO face various forms of pressure from slander campaigns
to direct threats unleashed by the LTTE propaganda machinery, locally and
internationally.
Many who
have watched the long drawn-out conflict in Sri Lanka have expressed hope that
the present tragedy will force an end to the political stalemate and bring
peace. Indeed there is real potential for all three communities and the leaders
to learn lessons from the disaster that could improve the prospects for a
peaceful settlement.
Unfortunately, despite the confusion arising
from the blame game, it is not clear to us that the tragedy has had any impact
on the workings of the LTTE. Its
dual efforts to inhibit all independent thought and action and maintain control
of all material resources continue.
The
clearest evidence of this is the line the LTTE is promoting in the vernacular
press. Before the disaster
the LTTE’s propaganda machine was hard at work building up war hysteria. In its wake LTTE’s statements have
played on the desperation of survivors to encourage communal hatred and ensure
the LTTE’s control over relief. Unless the LTTE changes its attitude, the
victims of the recent tragedy who are among those in greatest need would suffer
undue neglect.
In the
current context, where effective relief and rehabilitation is so urgently
necessary, the LTTE’s attitudes present a substantial challenge to the
international community and to local actors intent on reconstruction and peace.
Though hidden by the regime of terror, the Tamil public, both locally and
abroad, was groping for an alternative, even as the ordinary Sinhalese were far
in advance of peacemakers, who largely were stuck in the mud of an outmoded
ethnic conflict. The tidal wave precipitated changes in attitude that were
already at work deep within people.
To those
whose memories of the armed forces are associated with the massacres and
disappearances of 1990 and before, the tidal wave brought new revelations. The
story was the same everywhere along the government-controlled seaboard along the
East. It was spontaneous, un-coordinated and not part of conventional military
training.
When
disaster struck on 26th December, the Army had its camps along the
Vadamaratchy coast, and itself suffered much loss. Yet many people testified to
the courage and unselfishness shown by the Army in helping and rescuing people.
A fisherman from Katkovalam east of Pt. Pedro who was himself rescued by the
Army, testified that the Army helped all those it could and was uniformly kind
to everyone. As with many soldiers, this man had been hurt when thrown against
barbed wire fencing along the coast by the force of the
wave.
Along the
seaboard of Trincomalee town and north of it, the Navy was the only body at hand
to help the civilians (mainly Tamil and Muslim). Around 8th Mile Post
(Kuchchaveli Road), in the wake of the turbulence the Navy asked the civilians
to run inland to Agampodai Hill, and later in the afternoon brought food and
water for them.
Kamaraj, a
toddy tapper who shinnied up a coconut tree in Gopalapuram had a clear view of
the mischief wrought by the tidal wave. He saw a navy man braving the flood and
going in to clutch at two children. Then he saw another wave, which swept all
three away. In Veloor, the corpse of a naval man clutching that of a child whom
he tried to save was recovered, with his shoelace caught in a fence. These are
actions, which, surely, cast a new ray of hope after decades of communal strife
and should be the cornerstone of a new beginning.
Similar
reports came from coastal areas close to Batticaloa Town, Kallady, Amirthakali
and Navalady. Testimonies were of the Army going into the water, pulling out
people and getting them to safety. Strangely, what the media largely ignored was
not lost on Batticaloa people abroad. A Batticaloa man said that he received
telephone calls from several of his friends in Australia and New Zealand, asking
him to convey their gratitude to the Army Brigadier in Batticaloa for the good
work done by his men.
In the Kalmunai and Thirukkovil areas of the Amparai District, people experienced 3 waves, and when the sea was seen to be wild, warnings were shouted and people ran. A number of old people succumbed. The STF in these areas has been commended for leaving their arms behind, going out into the water, pulling people out and getting them to safety. They worked hard also at providing transport and basic relief, and the people are very grateful for it. Food came from neighbouring Muslims and Sinhalese.
Even more remarkable was the LTTE’s behaviour. In all these areas where the LTTE had been unremarkable in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, started asserting itself subsequently, trying to take over the refugee camps and demanding that all relief material and work should be controlled by them. It launched a virulent campaign against the armed forces attacking them with blatant falsehoods.
The LTTE accused the Army through its media monopoly of burning a refugee camp in Kudathanai, Vadamaratchy, supplying bad rice to refugees and of obstructing relief. The Army cleared the road from Valvettithurai to Pt Pedro and made it usable to traffic. The LTTE claimed through its media that the Sea Tigers and the people had cleared the road.
Where the needs of the people who had suffered a grave tragedy were concerned, the LTTE’s compulsions worked to the detriment of the people. At the refugee camp in Varani in the North, the LTTE turned down clean drinking water supplied by the Army. Everywhere people, especially foreigners, bringing relief were turned away, unless they were prepared to give everything to the LTTE.
Among the organisations that did relief work in Batticaloa in the immediate aftermath were EHED, World Vision, Oxfam, ZOA and UNICEF. On 7th January 2005, a rehabilitation meeting was held in Batticaloa, with the GA as chairman and various NGOs, foreign relief representatives anxious to help, religious leaders and the university vice chancellor in attendance. The meeting started with a discussion of division of labour – one organisation to supply tents, one in charge of sanitation and so on. The TRO suddenly ruled that in Manmunai Division (Batticaloa Town and environs), it alone would be in charge of relief work and the others should keep out. Similarly for Kiran and Vaharai. Though deeply upset no one dared to protest. One organisation, which brought relief for refugees in Batticaloa Central College, had to take it back when the LTTE-TRO demanded that everything be handed over to them. The donors instead distributed the materials to the needy in villages in the area. The victims were being victimised again.
Why was the LTTE behaving so? Again roughly the same answer came from residents all the way from Vadamaratchy to Komary and Pottuvil: The LTTE is afraid that the people had rejected the LTTE and turned to the Army (Navy, STF). It wanted to assert its power through taking over the refugee camps and establishing lines of patronage. The LTTE had been thrown off balance. It all started with the LTTE’s visions of grandeur in creating intense war hysteria, until the very last day when the tidal wave struck.
3. 26th November – 25th
December: War Fever
The LTTE
was actively fomenting war fever from about the time of the Leader’s
50th birthday through a series of provocations apparently calculated
to drive the Army over the edge. The fever reached its highest pitch on
25th December, the eve of the tidal wave. It was the kind of
brinkmanship – all or nothing – that has repeatedly triggered war in the
past.
On
19th November 2004, the LTTE killed two youths in Valvettithurai and
engineered disturbances after blaming the killings on the Army. On
26th November, the Leader’s birthday, the LTTE attacked with swords
two soldiers who had gone out of the Nunavil army camp and announced through its
media that they had been attacked by ‘persons who followed them’. Continuing
this vein of provocation, the LTTE’s Tamil language website Nitharsanam, a journal thought to have
been established by the LTTE’s intelligence wing and aimed largely at an
expatriate audience, reported on
19th December that ‘Military Intelligence’ persons were moving in the
nearby Mirusuvil area in the night with swords and knives, scaring the civilians
who were reminded of an army atrocity five years earlier. The LTTE peace
secretariat was quoted saying that people intended to inform the SLMM. The
matter was not heard of again.
The
North-East had faced much flooding since November on account of the north-east
monsoon. Far from providing relief to the people, an LTTE leaflet dated
15th December, issued in the name of ‘Patriots’ Organisation’ instead pledged
military victory: ‘We shall build dams in Jaffna before the
floods come’. Its import was that the Government had speedily rejected the
Leader’s invitation to talks in his Heroes Day address, there is no hope for
peace in the South that is preparing for war and the Army is hunting Tamil youth
from Valvettithurai to Mannar. It declared: “The Tigers too are ready for war. We invite
you to bear arms and rout the Sinhalese forces. The Sinhalese forces are
watching and longing for an opportunity to murder and torture the people living
in invaded Tamil areas. In this situation the only places where young Tamil men
and women can live with dignity are LTTE camps…Therefore take defensive measures
before danger comes. Hear you men and women, swell the ranks of the Tamil army,
join the Tigers and rout the Sinhalese forces”.
There was
also, according to reports from activists, heavy Sea Tiger activity along the
Mullaitivu coast with secret preparations in fenced off zones. It is also notable that for some months
increasing restrictions on fisher folk were being imposed by Sea Tigers. This
was the root cause of the clash between the LTTE and Gurunagar fisher folk in
Jaffna last August. A week before Christmas (18th Dec.) 12 fishermen
were assaulted off Pallai by the Sea Tigers, of whom 3 were hospitalised in
Jaffna (Tamilnewsweb).
The LTTE
also launched an ambitious recruitment drive in several areas. To give this
momentum, the LTTE coerced leading members of civil society to form committees
to organise human chains and protests against the Government’s alleged war
preparations and violations. A committee of five in Thenmaratchy included
Chandrasekaran (retired principal), Arunthavapalan (vice principal of Drieberg
College) and Balachandran (chairman, Chavakacheri, MPCS). A long list of Tiger
killings, including that of prominent civil society activist Maclan Atputharaja
in Chavakacheri, would amply explain why people could not refuse the
LTTE.
Undercover
of ‘legitimate political work’ permitted under the cease-fire, the LTTE had
several times during the last three years forced school children onto the
streets in provocative demonstrations against the Army. This time LTTE
recruiters descended en masse to
accost children in schools and streets. Their message to the children was: “You are marked. When war begins soon, the
Army will kill you. You are safe only in LTTE camps”.
Police
sources in Trincomalee quoted in the press reported that in 3 weeks since Great
Heroes Day, the LTTE had taken away 400 children in the district for training in
Sampur. Reports from other districts also ran into hundreds. People were being
advised to sell all except their most precious items.
What made
the significant difference this time was that the LTTE through force, murder,
Norway’s appeasement diplomacy and the Government’s short-sightedness, had
acquired a complete monopoly of the propaganda space in the North-East. Through
provocations against the Army, leaflets, demonstrations and replaying the
disappearances caused by the Army in 1996, the LTTE frightened people into
believing that war was imminent. There had been a gradual movement of people,
especially relatives and caste sub-groups from which the LTTE had recruited
significantly, into the Vanni.
The LTTE
was also greatly irritated by the joint Indo-Lanka naval exercise and several of
its ‘analysts’ dutifully attacked the exercise as an obstacle to peace. We list
below in chronological order, some of the tokens of war fever featured in the
Tamil media in late December.
24th December: Latest leaflet from
the ‘Patriot’s Organisation’ (Tamilnewsweb): “Come to harvest the land. The enemy has
given us the opportunity. We can again capture the land. We also need a second
force to protect the lands captured. Young men and maidens, come. Join us.”
An Uthayan editorial called the Government
of Sri Lanka’s agenda for talks with the LTTE a smokescreen: “The Tigers who have obtained a mandate as
sole representatives of the Tamil people, will not agree to any agenda for peace
talks contrary to that mandate.”
(Though Uthayan is
supposedly an independent daily from Jaffna, note the similarity in tone and
content to contemporary items from the LTTE media cited below.)
By this
time the Cease-Fire Agreement under Norway’s supervision was looking extremely
bizarre. While the LTTE’s actions, provocations, so-called political activity
and intimidation were in blatant disregard of the CFA; it kept reiterating to
the international community its commitment to a negotiated settlement. Norway
and the SLMM had clearly marginalised themselves. As though leading to a climax,
the following two ominous items appeared in succession in the LTTE’s web site Nitharsanam on 25th December,
both suggesting that a major event was pending:
“The November (Karthikai) blossom is a
month old. Chandrika must take appropriate steps within one year. The National
Leader’s words (his Great Heroes Day Speech annually after nightfall on his
birthday, 26th November) are as rare as the November blossom. They
are not words wandering away in the air or dissolving in the sea, but are seeds
planted firmly on a hill. The Great Heroes Day speech is a unique experience in
the region. It is awaited and listened to eagerly by devotees and enemies
alike…It is the starting point of a gigantic deed”. [Quoted from Eelanantham daily of 24th
Dec.]
25th December (Nitharsanam): “There has been no
response to the National Leader’s message delivered a month ago, based on the
people’s desires. The Southern political leadership has not responded to the
National leader’s words “We cannot be
imprisoned in a political vacuum any more”. We may thus conclude that
there looms the prospect of a massive change in the political
sphere.”
The same
day TamilNet quoted from the speech
of Mr. Subesh, Vavuniya District president of the Consortium of Tamil Eelam
students at a literary function: “If war
is thrust upon us, we have a duty to defend our people
[!]”.
If the
Tamil press was any indication, a resumption of war appeared almost certain. But
what happened next was totally unforeseen. When the Tsunami struck, the number
of lives lost in such a short space of time was of the order of those killed in
two and a half decades of ethnic conflict. The LTTE media men who poetically
compared the Leader’s words of exactly a month earlier with the November Blossom
overlooked a simple fact of nature known to those close to the land. The
November (Karthikai) Blossom though red and pretty has a poisonous
root.
While the
response to the disaster by the people, agencies and world leaders was
spontaneous, the LTTE leadership failed to recognise the calamity as a shared
human tragedy. On the day of the disaster (26th December) LTTE
political leader Tamilchelvan appealed for international assistance and TamilNet quoted a source close to the
LTTE as floating the idea of declaring a ‘national emergency’. TamilNet itself was more sanguine in its
expectations. In reporting the same day the TRO’s call for help from expatriate
Tamils, it took pains to describe the TRO as an independent rehabilitation
organisation registered with the ‘Government of Sri
Lanka’.
Aid goes hand in hand with journalistic
coverage. Anyone who has been to the Vanni knows that to leave the Kandy (A9)
trunk road and visit an interior village involves annoying checks and
bureaucratic procedures. Despite the CFA, the Vanni remained a closed
militarised region.
Instead of
flexibility in the interest of the victims the LTTE and its media published
story after inflammatory story aimed at stirring up Tamil resentment against
other communities and the Government.
They claimed initially that the Tamils and in particular the Vanni
victims were being ignored by the Government, the international community and
the media, while only the TRO and the LTTE were helping the victims. The English
language TamilNet, which is read by
many non-Sri Lankans interested in events in the North and East was a bit
subtler, while Nitharsanam, catering
to a Tamil-reading audience of ideologically pure expatriates drifted further
into fantasy.
On the day
of the disaster itself Nitharsanam
had already attacked UNICEF and UNHCR for not coming to the aid of victims
in the North-East, and accused the Government of understating losses in this
region. Later articles alleged that
the southern media was being pressured not to report the extent of damage in the
North-East; charged that an excess of aid was going to Galle and Matara, and
claimed that Sinhalese gangs with the connivance of the police were forcibly
redirecting vehicles carrying supplies to the North-East to the South. Playing to communal sympathies the
website also stated that many Tamil corpses could not be recovered, while
thousands of Sinhalese and Muslim corpses were being transported and buried in
the jungle.
On
28th December, Nitharsanam
went on the offensive against efforts by dissenting Tamils in the diaspora to
identify alternatives to the TRO, publishing a letter purportedly from a Denmark
resident Tamil accusing some local fat
cat Tamils of blocking Danish government aid to the TRO. Pointing to the Sri
Lankan Army supposedly blocking relief supplies to Tamils in the East, added,
“Even if the world is destroyed Sinhalese
racism will never be destroyed.”
It should
be noted that Nitharsanam’s principal
use to the LTTE is in setting the party line for other Tamil media. Its stories, often light on facts and
heavy on rhetoric, come out quickly, and signal the editorial line to be
followed by other media who share its brand of nationalism or simply wish to
stay in the LTTE’s good graces. Its
stories employ a heavy chauvinist rhetoric that is common to many Diaspora Tamil
journals and frequently twist the truth in reports of important incidents,
attempting to sow doubt and division among critics. Unlike Tamilnet, Nitharsanam regularly targets
dissenters, particularly in the expatriate community.
Tamilnet’s line, though similar is delivered in English
and generally steers clear of heavy-handed chauvinism and personal attacks. It dutifully reported the LTTE’s
messages as they were delivered through its spokesmen and surrogates. On
27th December TNA (LTTE) MP Joseph Pararajasingham said that
at a 2 hour long meeting called by Prime Minister Rajapakse to discuss disaster
relief, the North-East was discussed for only 5 minutes, and that too after he
raised the matter. Therefore he said that they (TNA) have decided to ask the
international community to send all aid directly to the North-East (i.e. TRO).
By
30th December Nitharsanam
was implying that it was the Sri Lankan security forces and not the LTTE that
had prevented foreign journalists from going to the Vanni and had redirected a
16-member team of Russian medical experts who tried to enter the Vanni to
Trincomalee, citing security reasons. Were there any truth in these allegations,
they would have become a major issue and the Government would have been taken to
task. TamilNet generally kept away
from these. Other sources and the Army said that it was the LTTE that turned
back the Russian team.
We have
observed for some time that the BBC (Tamil Service) has, while parading its
objectivity (a reputation it has justly held for most of its 60years in
existence) sometimes contributed to the LTTE’s propaganda efforts. S. Nagarajah
writing in Asian Tribune reviewed the
coverage of Vaharai on 29th December by two Batticaloa-based
correspondents Shanthi Selvadurai for the BBC Sinhalese Service and Uthayakumar
for the Tamil Service.
Selvadurai
reported the LTTE Vaharai leader Arivu’s allegation that the Government was not
providing immediate relief to the area and also the Government Agent’s reply
that he had been unable to send relief because of disrupted communications and
transport. Uthayakumar reported only Arivu’s allegations.
Selvadurai
also highlighted Sinhalese residents and Buddhist monks from the neighbouring
Polonnaruwa District going to the LTTE-controlled Vaharai area with lorry loads
of food and urgent relief. (These Sinhalese had periodically been victims of
LTTE attacks.) Uthayakumar only reported seeing some private citizens taking
relief supplies. On the same day Weerasinghe reported for the Sinhalese Service
that the monks and Sinhalese villagers were received warmly by the LTTE
commander and cadres. Weerasinge quoted the local LTTE political chief Jaya
describing the action of the Buddhist monks and Sinhalese villagers as the
triumph of humanity over pretty religious and racial squabbles. The Tamil
Service blacked out this most newsworthy aspect of the
proceedings.
The
Government machinery is very bureaucratic, and is often slow to respond to major
disasters. Further it is an undeniable fact that long years of Sinhalese
chauvinist politics crippled the ability of minorities to advocate assistance on
their own behalf. Still, in this
case the Government insisted that it had routinely, as always, released money to
the local Government Agents to purchase and transport the assessed needs from
the nearest depots.
The Army in
a statement of 30th December contradicted the LTTE’s claims of no
help from the Government, saying that during the last two days a total of 370
lorries laden with relief entered the LTTE-controlled Vanni from the North and
South in accordance with requests made. The Army also confirmed that contrary to
LTTE claims, the Russian medical specialists had been refused entry by the LTTE,
and gave instances in Vavuniya and Trincomalee where it had to intervene when
the LTTE tried to remove relief from private donors.
5.
Delivery is subject to weather conditions and availability of
transport.
By
30th December, teams comprising the President or Prime Minister with
other leading members of Government visited all affected areas in the
North-East. The people, despite attempts by LTTE agitators to discredit the
visit, undoubtedly welcomed the Prime Minister’s team visiting Jaffna. At
several places LTTE organised picketers sometimes posing as university students,
ostensibly to protest the presence of the JVP’s Wimal Weerawansa in the
delegation. In Jaffna and much of
the North-East the people were desperate and appreciative of the Army’s, STF’s
and Navy’s work in bringing relief to the victims, and there were even initial
reports of LTTE cadres working alongside the Army in
Jaffna.
Here we see
that as in the past, the LTTE has permitted co-operation with state forces when
it was necessary to secure assistance, just as it accepted government rations
for its IDPs throughout the conflict, and help in facilitating travel and other
logistical needs during the ceasefire. At the same time, the LTTE continues to
very minutely monitor the people, ensuring that they do not look for alternative
representation or engineers so-called “peoples protests.” Its organised
hooligans kill opponents they label “traitors,” and feed the Tamil press with
the relentless theme of untrustworthiness of the Sinhalese governments and its
politicians.
But the
reality of the situation is such that even the TNA MPs and mainstream Tamil
press now and then need to come out with the truth. The Asian Tribune reported
Trincomalee’s TNA MP, Mr. Sampanthan being asked about the paucity of government
help. Sampanthan was quoted responding spontaneously, “Not only the Government, but even the
Sinhalese people are rushing to help us”.
The
Colombo-based Thinakkural (30. Dec)
another Tamil paper that generally promotes the LTTE agenda reported a moving
example of Sinhalese good neighbourliness. 50 lorries loaded with rice, sugar
and cooked food arrived from Uhana, Amparai, Kandy, Mahiyangana and Polannaruwa
with relief for the Tamil coastal villages north of Kalmunai. Owing to bridges
and roads being damaged between Periyanilawanai and Onthachimadam, Periya kallar
and Kottai Kallar among other areas were isolated. These Sinhalese carried
relief on their heads and shoulders and walked distances such as 5 miles to
succour victims not reached so far.
The Daily News featured a photograph of two
women cadres in the East shaking
hands with the President.But
Nitharsanam, continued to play its game in a disgusting manner. An entry
dated 30th December described the party of ‘the Sinhalese people’s political
leader’ Mahinda Rajapakse as having come to reap political capital in the Tamil
people’s sorrow. It claimed that the delegation including JVP’s Weerawamsa and
EPDP members were chased and beaten by Tamil women bearing ekel brooms, who also threw human waste
and rotten rice at them. Nitharshanam
also helpfully provided some pictures that showed some male ruffians holding ekel brooms.
The TULF
leader Mr. Ananthasangari, in a statement, reviewed reports of the ministerial
team that had visited Jaffna and testimonies of help the victims had received
from the Army and appealed to the LTTE: “This is not the time to revive
enmities!” However much the LTTE tried to discredit the Sinhalese people and
their leaders (often attempting to forcibly take over relief brought by
volunteers from the South), the ordinary people in the North-East were
responding warmly to humanitarian initiatives from the South, and temporarily at
least barriers were being broken. In areas relatively isolated from centres of
ideological control, such as Vaharai, LTTE cadres were also responding. TNA MP
Sampanthan in Trincomalee was moved, momentarily at least, to be his former self
and cast away the disguise tailored in Killinochchi.
In the
final reckoning, after being hysterically accused of neglecting the North-East,
the Sinhalese leaders had, for a start, disregarded security risks and visited
victims everywhere in the North-East they could reasonably be expected to go.
The Tamils’ sole representatives, except for Tamilchelvan issuing statements
from Killinochchi, were so scarce as not even to have broadcast a message.
Perhaps the sharp change in their fortunes in a few hours from 25th
to 26th December was too much to digest.
6. Hints of the Mullaitivu Scene
Mullaitivu
is on the eastern seaboard of the LTTE-controlled Vanni, which suffered heavy
loss of life from the tidal wave in addition to heavy physical damage. Before
the foreign press was allowed in following or just before Tamilchelvan’s meeting
with donors and the media on 30th December, reports in the LTTE media
spoke almost exclusively of civilian losses such as 2000 in Mullaitivu town,
1500 bodies in Puthukkudiyiruppu and 150 in an LTTE-run children’s home. The
same media spoke of huge losses to the Sri Lankan armed
forces.
After the
foreign media and Southern civilians were allowed in, initial reports were
highly complimentary of the LTTE’s efficiency in cleaning up operations. What
was missing from these reports was even more significant – organised civil
society participation in these operations. The people as it were must look to
the LTTE to do everything for them. That was the image the LTTE was trying to
promote and sell, but what was the social cost of this regime?
On
28th December, Nitharsanam
announced the first move attributed to the reclusive LTTE leader. In a manner
suggestive of hurt and neglect, the announcement said that in the absence of
relief from other nations, the National Leader ordered Rs. 300 million (USD 3
million) from the Tamil Eelam Treasury for Tamil ‘uravukal’ (relationships) to be provided
with food, clothing and medicines. Perhaps someone there thought this rather
peevish and un-statesmanlike for someone with evidently more than a modest
treasury. The next day
(29th) a facsimile of a letter purportedly signed by the Leader
offered his condolences to victims from all communities, while inviting
international relief.
A statement
on a more contrite note went out (29th Dec.) from Fr. Karunaratnam,
chairman of the LTTE’s human rights organisation. He said: “The Tamil
motherland has suffered an unprecedented disaster. Coastal villages have been
levelled. People who bore the burden of war have been further devastated by
turbulence of the sea.” The
statement while praising the generosity of Tamils living overseas, pointed out
that only international agencies have the capacity for reconstruction. It
appealed to the Government and international media to publicise the extent of
damage.
The latter
was a fair suggestion, again hinting at greater access to journalists and
outsiders. The Government media has lacked the capacity to win over and give
confidence to Tamil listeners. This is the legacy of years of abuse and neglect
by government forces combined in recent years with LTTE terror that has
inhibited quality Tamil reporting in the state media. For example, Tamil
broadcasters in the state media rather than insist on their freedom to write
their own bulletins so that they would be relevant to listeners in the
North-East, play safe with everyone by reading out bland translations of
Sinhalese or English bulletins. Creative people find it difficult to work with
the government media, but alternative voices have little space in other Tamil
media. As everyone is now aware, LTTE terror reaches the South, no less than the
North and East.
The
following day (30th) LTTE political leader Tamilchelvan had
discussions with representatives of donors in Killinochi followed by a press
conference on a more conciliatory note. He denied that the LTTE had earlier
turned back vehicles bringing aid. While attempting to sound open as regards
working with the Government and the International community, the undertone was
that the Government and the international community are to work under the
Liberation Tigers.
Asked, “You said the Government and the
international community were not helping you, how is the situation now?,
Tamilchelvan replied: “The TRO and other
internal organisations were facing the problem. It was only after we publicised
the problem through the media [as requested by Karunaratnam?] that the
Government and the international organisations came rushing to commit
themselves”. Thamilchelvan added that some international organisations had
started work the previous say. [Nitharshanam].
The Karuna
split broke the LTTE’s totalitarian spell over Tamils abroad and more questions
were being raised about its money collections and especially its relief and
rehabilitation arm the TRO. Prior to 2002 at least, it is hard to find evidence
that the millions collected for Tamil refugees and war victims at home reached
those in need. And the experience of people on the ground was extortion, dire
poverty, large-scale theft of government rations and funds directed to them, and
compulsory unpaid labour and military service, with the threat of losing all
government benefits due to them if they refused. These are conditions UTHR(J) documented
in successive reports, most notably in Bulletins 19 – 23.
Many who
rejected LTTE politics, but wanted to help, were left without any choice and
were pressured to associate with the TRO. We can find many well-meaning
individuals working with the TRO, but the fact remains that its primary function
has been as a front organisation, first to raise money and later to liaise with
international NGOs. For years the
TRO was tasked with monitoring, coordinating and controlling NGO programmes at
the behest of the LTTE. This
included blocking specific initiatives, prohibiting access to areas or villages
deemed off limits by the LTTE (for whatever reason), and limiting co-ordinated
efforts between different NGOs.
Many overseas volunteers came back disillusioned.
Its lack of
transparency and history of strong-arm tactics abroad was also catching up with
it. More and more Canadian Tamils
were asking questions about where the money raised by the TRO was going. In the
months leading up to 25th December, the TRO was facing a worrying
decline of contributions. An important event was the Human Rights Watch report
on the LTTE’s use of child soldiers and the meetings by the HRW in London and
Toronto where the issue was placed before Tamil expatriate audiences. Among other things an HRW representative
raised questions about expatriate donations to LTTE front organisations, and
warned of their potential misuse to support the LTTE’s recruitment of child
soldiers. This reference received prominent attention in the Canadian
press. LTTE supporters in Canada
reacted with anger and HRW received veiled threats against Tamils who associated
with the organisation.
On
21st December, in an item titled ‘Misfortune in moves to help Tamils amid
misfortune’, Nitharsanam charged
that some media stations in Canada were obstructing the TRO’s appeal to Tamils
overseas to contribute towards flood relief back home. It accused the other
stations of placing barren policies before the people to divide (kooru poda as in cutting a fish) [and
sell] them. The next day under the
feature section Vayatkarai Erambu, Nitharsanam attacked personally one
Sittha (unidentified), evidently targeting one or more Canadian Tamil
broadcasters having different names asking, “Will the Leader ever forgive those who seek
to destroy the World Tamil Movement, which Tamils in Canada have chosen as their
Representatives, its subsidiaries and the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation? How
ridiculous for them to imagine that the National Leader does not know the games
they play to safeguard their livelihood?”
The
following day (23rd), the menace in the warning was stepped up in a
piece attributed to the News Division of Nitharsanam titled ‘Warning to those collecting money for
corrupt purposes’, It said: “Funds
are being collected by individuals and groups, media organisations and Tamil
traitors among them, using the people’s sorrow as their pretext. They are being
watched closely. All that you collect by the way of funds or gifts should be
handed over to the needy through the TRO alone…[which must approve such
initiatives]. Only the IBC (International Broadcasting Corporation) from London
has approval to collect funds…” This item appears to have been removed about
31st December.
Examine the
language: “traitors”…“They are being watched….” “The Leader will not forgive….”,
And to an unknown Canadian broadcaster:
“His closest associates who went to the Vanni have told [LTTE
intelligence] all about him.” (Vayatkarai
Erambu, 22 Dec.): What kind of relief charity is this TRO whose patrons use
such intimidatory language, not against people who are stingy or heartless, but
against those who want to help, but through other agencies? Where in the world
does an agent of compassion, which appeals to the heart, threaten extreme
violence to get its funds?
In fact the
LTTE’s move to reverse, if not arrest, the movement of funds away from the TRO
was going on simultaneously in other parts of the world as
well.
On the
24th December, Nitharsanam
attacked those who contribute relief to organisations other than the TRO in a
piece in Vayatkarai Erambu titled ‘The Cuckoo sings sweetly, cannot build a
nest or hatch’. It referred to the TRO’s appeal for urgent flood relief and
compared those who contribute to groups other than the TRO to thieves or
cuckoos, which lay eggs in other birds’ nests. The message in plain terms was
that a person who even once lays a contribution in any ‘nest’ other than the
TRO’s is a traitor, and once a traitor would always be regarded a traitor. The
same piece hinted at the earlier Human Rights Watch meeting in Toronto as having
left ‘bitter feelings’ among people.
Nitharsanam of 23rd December targeted two
individuals Mathy Kumarathurai and Neel in Denmark. The article featured a blown
up picture of Neel and accused the two of being traitors working for the Sri
Lankan and Indian governments and of issuing leaflets in the name of the LTTE
calculated to embarrass them. One wonders why anyone else should do that when Nitharsanam is doing the job so
effectively.
Nitharshanam’s real problem with Mathy
Kumarathurai appeared in another piece on 28th December after the
tidal wave. It accused Kumarathurai of being in the central committee of
Karuna’s ‘anti-national gang’ and of telling Danish agencies to divert funds to
the South claiming that the North-East suffered little damage. This and the next
piece (letter from a Danish Tamil) made it clear that Kumarathurai’s real crime
was that he was against the Danish government aiding the victims through the
TRO.
What
Nitharsanam failed to say was that Kumarathurai, a well-known critic of
the LTTE, is the younger brother of A. Thangathurai, the TULF MP for Trincomalee
who was assassinated by the LTTE on 5th July 1997. Thangathurai had
done more for the war-affected Tamils in Trincomalee District than anyone had in
many years. These are people who owe their continuing misery to the Tigers.
Kumarathurai is from Mutur that was directly affected by the tidal wave and many
would object to aid to the victims being channelled through the TRO.
Once more
Nitharshanam published a picture of
Kumarathurai. It has been the practice of Nithasanam for sometime to publish
pictures of individuals being targeted by the LTTE for harassment or worse. Nitharsanam for example published
photographs of persons who attended the HRW meeting in Toronto around the time
that the organisation received phone calls threatening to expose the
identities of local Tamils who had contacts with Human Rights Watch in a manner
that would place them at risk. LTTE operatives routinely go to meetings
and photograph persons, especially those who dissent and are outspoken,
frequently with cameras attached to cell phones. In publishing the photographs
in Nitharsanam, the message is, “Big
Brother is watching you, Beware.”
Nitharsanam of 3rd January 2005 warned “Traitors in Canada collecting funds”. It
pinpointed the cultural group Thedakam in Toronto, which did not
function for sometime following constant LTTE intimidation and the burning of
its library in the early 1990s. Thedakam’s organisers had begun to discuss
restarting its activities following the revival of Tamil dissent in recent
months. Nitharsanam warned, “In wiping away tears of your people, do not
let your money fall into the hands of traitors. Rather, our plea is that you
expose them. Contact the TRO and make your contribution. We remind you that the
responsibility of protecting the Administrative Structures of the Tamils rests
with everyone of you.”
We thus see
the nexus between LTTE-intelligence, the TRO and Nitharsanam (a media organisation which
informs people that the Vanni bosses have been told all about them). LTTE
intelligence is headed by Pottu-Amman – literarily meaning Spot (Bullet Hole) on
the Forehead Uncle – a job description. The indications are that the Nitharsanam operation is run from a
Western European nation. This is terror in broad daylight. One wonders what kind
of research the World Bank and UNICEF did before they threw in their lot with
the TRO.
On
28th December, two days after the tidal wave, Nithatsanam’s tone changed briefly. It
thanked all Canadian Tamil and other media collecting money to wipe away tears
of relations (uravukal) in the
motherland. It appeared that all fundraisers not supportive of the TRO who had been stridently attacked as traitors
a few days ago, were now being thanked for their good work We may take the
change as the reflection of a hurried reassessment going on throughout the LTTE
machine. Even before the tidal wave the LTTE’s attempts to intimidate and
eliminate alternative fundraisers was only making matters worse. After the tidal
wave its position was even weaker. The alternative station, the Canadian Tamil
Broadcasting Corporation (CTBC) had received a good response to its appeal,
proving that many donors were consciously on the lookout for more credible
alternatives to the TRO.
It was
beginning to sink into the LTTE that the only political capital it relied on up
until then – that of threatening war – had been rendered meaningless by the
immediacy of the tsunami’s destruction. At all levels it began making more
accommodative noises – a common tragedy; no difference between Muslim, Sinhalese
and Tamil victims; all help is welcome, and so on. While thanking fundraisers
like CTBC who were earlier trashed as traitors, the LTTE also began applying
pressure on them to hand over their collections to the TRO. On the ground, after complaining for
days that no one was helping the Tamil victims, the TRO moved into refugee camps
in government-controlled areas, and virtually took over the camps, insisting
that all donations and relief should be through them alone.
The CTBC
director Kandiah Sivasothy, a former SLBC broadcaster, ran a programme on
Canada’s multi-cultural radio, which also admitted criticism of the LTTE. About
1995, some LTTE men from Valvettithurai visited his apartment, threatened him,
and to make their point pulled out a weapon and fired a shot without hurting
Sivasothy. Sivasothy was silent for sometime and about 2000 started the CTBC,
taking a line critical of the LTTE after the Karuna split. CTBC came under
concerted attack after it started collecting money for flood victims at home
even before the tidal wave, and by about 30th December had collected
about CD 280,000. The LTTE reportedly traced the contributors from the names and
addresses read out on CTBC, several of whom received calls from the ‘TRO’ asking
them to telephone the CTBC and tell it to give the money to the TRO. The CTBC
reportedly gave CD100,000 to TRO.
On
31st December 2005, TamilNet gave a good hint of what this
new accommodativeness was all about. It became clear that the old dirty politics
was going strong. With the prospect of foreign aid coming in, Sea Tiger
Commander Mangales was quoted highlighting the need for heavy machinery
including bulldozers to clear the Vadamaratchy East coastal road for vehicular
traffic. This was a strange priority when the BBC reported thousands of
Mullaitivu residents so traumatised by losses of kin to be despairing of ever
returning to their homes. For Vadamaratchy East residents, their economic links
are mainly with the Jaffna peninsula and its markets. The Vadamaratchy East
coastal road also links the Jaffna peninsula to the mainland. It is assessed by persons with local
knowledge of being essentially a military road, suitable for combined land and
sea movements, whose importance lay in the LTTE’s plans to overrun the Jaffna
peninsula in the event of starting a war.
Another
item in TamilNet alleged some
displaced persons in Vadamaratchy, Jaffna, protesting against bad rice given as
relief, which it quoted an official (DS) saying was rice from a relief offering
by the Army. Local sources told us that the incident took place in front of the
DS’s office in Pt. Pedro, where some refugees piled up rice unfit for
consumption. Throughout the entire protest there was no talk that the rice was
given by the Army, until the allegation later appeared in the pro-LTTE media.
When people
lived under LTTE control rotten rice was not uncommon because the LTTE took the
new stocks and released what was going bad to the public. The LTTE when pulling
out of Jaffna in 1995 set fire to stocks of rice it had stored in Navatkulli and
Kachchai lest they be left for those who failed to follow them into the
Vanni.
Early in
the New Year, less than a week after the disaster, the LTTE showed strong signs
of having decided that it would use force, when necessary, against disaster
victims to ensure that the humanitarian space opened up would not bring the
Tamils closer to the Government and the Sinhalese. The three versions below of
the same incident, the first two respectively Tamil and English LTTE versions,
are instructive:
In Nitharsanam’s version of 2nd January, the Sri
Lankan Army chased away 64 families of refugees from a refugee camp in
Kudathanai, Vadamaratchy, and set fire to the camp. Two children it said were
hospitalised. TamilNet was more
ambivalent behind its sensational headline: ‘Army burns refugee camp’.
It reported that, 15 to 20
soldiers came to the American Mission School refugee camp ‘allegedly to hand
over food’ and left when told that they were being helped by a Tamil
organisation. 15 minutes later 200 ‘attackers’ came to the camp and assaulted
all males…The refugees are now in the Catholic Church, Kudathanai. The next
morning TNA (LTTE) MP Sivajilingam charged the Army with burning the
camp.
The report
that appears (based on our research) to be closest to the truth came from Tamilnewsweb [an alternative web portal
close to the EPRLF(V)], which reported that the Army had helped settle
70 families of 290 persons displaced by the disaster in the Kudathanai American
Mission School and was feeding them. The LTTE repeatedly warned the refugees not
to accept food from the Army, but with little effect. At 7.00 PM on New Year’s
day when the Army arrived with food, some agitators believed to be from the
LTTE’s Venpura (White Dove)
organisation were waiting for them, and rejected the food and created a scene.
After the Army left, agitators under the direction of the LTTE chased the
refugees to the Catholic Church, and burnt the American Mission school about
1.00 AM. Next morning the LTTE brought TNA MPs Sivajilingam, Suresh
Premachandran, and Sivanesan, with ‘press’ photographers, who gave the finishing
touches.
According
to local sources contacted by us, the Army had been feeding the refugees at the
American Mission School in Nadu-Kudathanai, until the LTTE-TRO-Venpura moved in and told the refugees
that they should not accept food from the Army, as it was not hygienically
prepared. But a significant number of the refugees ignored them and kept taking
the Army’s food. The rest of the story is as in the Tamilnewsweb report. The LTTE chased the
people and burnt the camp as a punishment to those who showed hints of wanting
to be outside their control. The LTTE media shouted aloud that the Army burnt
the camp. But their credibility is getting to be so low that even humble
artisans confided in private that the Army in recent times would never do such a
thing. Privately, people admit that the Army never interfered with the movement
of refugees or harassed them.
Among other
incidents in the same vein were reports that the LTTE hijacked three lorries of
relief supplies brought by Sinhalese civilians to Tamils in Batticaloa along the
Badulla-Chenkalady Road. One lorry reportedly escaped.
10 TRO -Cats Paw of LTTE Terror on the
Ground
The
incidents above and concerted attempts to control funds abroad and relief at
home show how the LTTE is attempting to make use of the catastrophe just as it
did the devastation of war. On the ground the formal distinction between the
LTTE and TRO disappears. In Jaffna, refugee camps were quickly set up with funds
and resources released by the Government through its civil administration. The
Army too was active in protecting lives and helping these camps. Then the LTTE
moved in. And the ease with which it did so illustrates how much power it has
consolidated during the ceasefire.
LTTE cadres were placed in charge of the camps and whoever wanted to deal
with the camps was told that the TRO was in charge.
Anyone
wanting to help the refugees was directed to the nearest LTTE political
office. NGOs receiving aid from
foreign contacts and government officials had to go to the political office or
risk being noted by LTTE intelligence for punishment or harassment. They know
enough examples intimately to tell them what it could mean. Anyone making
donations to a camp must give it to the TRO poruppalar (warden). Based on this
degree of control over people who have lost nearly everything, the LTTE is able
to use these wretched folk as mobs of agitators.
It is a
measure of the abysmally low level of politics to which the LTTE has
reduced a once well-educated
community, that while the rest of the world is thinking about the plight of the
victims the LTTE spends energy organising vulgar demonstrations against the JVP
and the Prime Minister. The LTTE’s own media, amidst this enormous tragedy,
boasts of throwing ‘human (lavatory) waste’ at these gentlemen. The objective is
to tighten its totalitarian grip on the victims: no one else must have anything
to do with them except under our supervision.
The only
force the LTTE could not control directly was the Sri Lankan Army. Hence the
scenes like those at Kudathanai American Mission School. Another instance was
the camp in the Varani. The refugees lacked clean drinking water. The Army
brought drinking water in bowsers. The LTTE (TRO) made a scene and turned back
the water. The people who were left without clean drinking water were angry, but
were in no position to resist the tender mercies of the
TRO.
As days go
by dissatisfaction with the TRO in the government-controlled areas is becoming
open at least to locals. Many of the affected see the TRO’s role as dictated by
fear that the people are grateful to the armed forces. The TRO’s definition of
affected persons as those who have lost their house or family member has left
day-labourers now without work complaining of being denied relief. They have
also complained of TRO’s partiality in distributing the best to favourites.
Refugees at Nelliady Central College complained that donations from NGOs,
individuals and the Government are coming in plentifully, but the refugees are
given only basic cereals (rice and dhal) and potatoes. They claim that large
stocks of biscuits and tinned fish are stocked up in a room. Quantities of new
clothes have been given, but the refugees received mostly used clothes while the
new are stocked up. Stories from the LTTE-controlled area would take a long time
to emerge.
Malpractice
is by no means new in Sri Lanka, but it normally involves connivance between
several interests, and seldom are they protected by pervasive terror. In the
case of the LTTE, the practice is so well organised that the pattern will be the
same everywhere. The question without an answer among the refugees is, who will
bell the cat?
Sources in
Batticaloa have sounded the alarm on moves by the LTTE-TRO to set up camps in
the interior under its control, for refugees who are coastal folk. The move
according to these sources is to transfer foreign relief and donations into its
zone where there are absolutely no checks or accountability. The more sinister
aspect would be the fate of refugee children, given continuing reports of child
conscription.
We see
clearly here the absence of any dividing line between the LTTE and TRO, which
operates largely, if not entirely, as a social parasite, taking credit for
resources brought in by others, destroying the initiative and good will of
others, sapping the democratic will of the people, using them in the most
shameful manner, and in the end leaving them worse off. All those who are now
flocking to help the victims will get disgusted and leave, unable to lift the
condition of the victims above mere existence.
11. Wrecking of Trincomalee:
Incompatibility of Sole Representation with
Peace
The course
of the disaster in Trincomalee clearly illustrates how amidst the weakness of
the government administration and media, the Tigers found ample opportunity to
blunt the spontaneous rapprochement between the different communities. In doing
so the Tigers denied the Sri Lankan Navy the credit for humanitarian services
and gallantry that was justly its due. When the journalists started making their
appearance, the LTTE-TRO was able to project itself as the only group working
for the Tamils and in several instances succeeded.
During the
first three days the LTTE made itself scarce and relief efforts went fairly
well. On the 26th it was the Navy that mainly provided food and water
to survivors. Kuchchaveli was isolated because of a broken bridge, and there the
LTTE reportedly provided the naval men with food and water. At this point things
were spontaneous. There was no agenda at work. On the 27th the
surviving youth with help form the Navy searched for bodies. Sinhalese came from
Kantalai bringing food and drink. The survivors in Kuchchaveli who were cut off
were fed and refreshed by Sinhalese from Gomarankadawela, who came by an old
interior route. The government relief machinery – the GA, DSs and local
vidans (head men) – was not functioning at this point. It was help from
Sinhalese neighbours that filled the gap.
It was on
the 28th that the LTTE recovered to get together an agenda worldwide.
Locally, the LTTE cadres appeared and things started changing for the worse. TNA
MP Sivajilingam put in an appearance by helicopter on the 28th
morning and Sampanthan in the evening. Government relief started moving, and the
LTTE asserted control. Wherever people were gathered in camps, LTTE-TRO sent two
cadres to each place as poruppalars.
The local youths who were involved in clearing operations largely withdrew once
the LTTE arrived. The LTTE started taking lists.
On the
28th food and relief was brought from Kurunegala by a party headed by
a Buddhist monk, and on the 29th by the Provincial Council of the
North-Central Province. On the 29th those who had their homes intact
started going back. 20 students from Kelaniya University and 20 women (Sinhalese) from a women’s movement
based in Kantalai came to help in clearing up. A medical team lead by a doctor
too came from the South and visited homes individually.
From the
time the LTTE arrived, rumours were spread, and actions instigated, to undermine
the spontaneous rapprochement. When the LTTE tried to take control of relief
distribution for the Muslims at 8th Mile Post, there was friction.
The Muslims refused to give a list of those affected to the LTTE, even though
they had given one to another Tamil party attempting to engage in relief.
On the
28th, a van with relief came from Trincomalee led by two men in white
verti on a motorcycle, who were
evidently Tamil. They stopped at the 8th Mile Post mosque refugee
camp and asked some youths if there were Tamils there. When the youths replied
truthfully in the negative, the motorcyclists and van turned and went back.
Muhunthan, an LTTE cadre, and an ex-LTTE man Ramesh who were there accused the
Muslims of blocking relief for Tamils, and said the ‘soni’ (slang for Muslims) must be
beaten. The Navy came in to separate the two sides from the developing
confrontation.
On the
29th, reportedly at the request of LTTE political leader Elilan, Mr.
Sampanthan called a meeting of the GA
(Government Agent), the government administration and NGOs to discuss
relief measures. The GA did not attend. Shortly afterwards a rumour floated that
the GA did not attend because he had hidden 150 lorry loads of supplies in Fort
Fredrick and also that a shipload of Indian relief had been stashed
away.
On
1st January EPDP men were distributing relief at Gopalapuram when an
LTTE-instigated gang stoned them. The EPDP were forced to seek shelter in the
Navy Camp. The Navy, which had allowed free movement until then, installed
checkpoints. Things were by now becoming unpleasant.
The same
day (1st), the Sinhalese youths from Kelaniya University, with local
Tamils, were cleaning the local Tamil school, when the navy intruded and checked
their identities. The Sinhalese youths became frightened that things were
becoming dangerous and wanted to go back.
(The LTTE started every war by massacring Sinhalese.) The Tamils tried to
reassure them, but to no avail. The students went back. A navy man reportedly
told a Sinhalese student, “There is so
much to do in the South, why are you helping these people?” One observer put
it, that by 1st January, the two vethalams (evil genies) of Sinhalese and
Tamil chauvinism had climbed the murunga tree (got out of the bottle)
once more.
The pattern
of the LTTE-TRO trying to assume sole-control and the deterioration of human
relations is the same in most places (e.g. Jaffna). The moment the LTTE steps
in, local initiative ceases and people who were active move aside into
isolation. The damage the LTTE has done by wanting to be sole representatives,
sole-fighters, sole-administrators and in general, sole heroes and sole doers,
is not readily evident to a casual observer. They see only the LTTE-TRO at work, and
there is truth when they say no one is helping them.
The LTTE
machine will often organise relief efforts to some extent in an efficient and
orderly manner compared to the ponderous government bureaucracy. But behind this
there lies a political ideology and years of experience in manipulation of local
and international actors towards its vested interest, which gives little regard
to the people’s creative potential and their humanity. It can be sustained only
by destroying local civil society almost completely.
The
situation was markedly different in the South, where the Government’s efforts
were as ineffective. In Batapola near Galle for example, the Buddhist monk, Ven.
Nanda, mobilised civil society groups and was able to care for nearly 2000
affected persons.
What
emerges clearly is the enormous gap that exists between the interests of the
LTTE and the interests of the people in the North-East. It is a pattern we have seen before.
When a particular turn of events closes the divisions between the different
communities and creates a spontaneous mood of rapprochement, the Leader and
Pottu Amman keep their heads down and move their pawns until they totally wreck
the benign drift. They would have looked askance particularly at some LTTE
cadres in the East responding spontaneously to Sinhalese initiatives. We now see
what they are doing, going to any vulgar level to harass, irritate and humiliate
Sinhalese people, their leaders and the armed forces, hoping that they would all
regret ever having wanted to help Tamils.
Many
observers, who lived through the community’s trauma for the last two decades,
see a similarity with events that were set in motion when President Kumaratunge
became Prime Minister in 1994. LTTE insiders quite casually spoke about why they
wrecked the peace process and started war. They saw red when government
negotiators touched down in Jaffna University and crowds broke the LTTE cordon
to kiss the helicopter that brought them. Peace professionals wrote reams on why
the process foundered. An LTTE insider and editor of one of its media
publications simply told a friend: “The people are being dazzled by the web
of Chandrika’s peace, and the direction of our struggle is being subverted’.
He referred in particular to the ‘helicopter incident’. That explains what the
LTTE is doing after the tidal wave and why.
We have
argued that there is no change in the LTTE’s agenda. Even amidst this chaos and
tragedy, there are reports of killing and child conscription by the LTTE, one
relating to three girls rescued by the police while being taken to the
LTTE-controlled area at Omanthai. There is no doubt what will happen to many
children in refugee camps where the LTTE has established control. While reports
of a general nature on child conscription are in circulation, the following are
specific instances that appeared on web sites:
Thanabalasingaqm (aged 13) and Gunabalasingam Velkumar (aged
13),
respectively 7th standard at Kondavil Ramakrishna High School and
6th standard at Urumpirai Saiva Tamil School, both from Urumpirai South,
Jaffna: abducted by the LTTE on 3rd January 2005. SLMM informed (EPDP News).
Kumarasamy Gokulan
(aged 19) and Packiyarasa Dinesh
(aged 18) abducted from Mayilambaveli, Batticaloa, 3 Jan.05 (EPDP
News).
LTTE cadres abducted four youths and a family man on 3 Jan.2005 from among the sea disaster victims sheltered at Uvarmalai Vivekananda College, Trincomalee (EPDP News).
Our sources gave the following report, which also touches
on the TRO. Ramasamy Yogachandramohan
(16) of Ward 5, Navatcholai, Kumburupiddy, was taken by the LTTE on
8th December 2004. Three weeks later, in the wake of the disaster, he
returned to the same area north of Trincomalee as a worker for the TRO.
The
LTTE’s principal intention with foreign aid is not the welfare of the people,
but to rebuild its military machine and restore the status quo ante of
25th December 2004.
For now the
Leader would encourage Sea Tiger Leader Soosai to go public with expressions of
warm gratitude to the Sri Lankan government and donor nations with requests for
dual-purpose equipment. Soosai too may see the best prospect for himself in
rebuilding the Sea Tigers quickly. One is reminded of a similar role played by
the ill-fated former Deputy Leader Mahathaya during the Premadasa honeymoon in
1990.
The last three years of appeasement have been a travesty of what peace means. The main task now is to be alert against going down that same road again. The humanitarian space that was opened up for interaction an