It was just ten years ago, in March 1988, that some of us completed the first draft of the Broken Palmyrah, that was begun during the Indian Army’s offensive in October 1987. The origins of the University Teachers of Human Rights as a national organisation, mooted at a meeting of the Federation of University Teachers’ Associations during the middle of 1988 are explained in the first report of the UTHR (Jaffna) issued about the end of that year. The need for the UTHR (J) was exemplified by the fact that at least half the academic staff in the University of Jaffna had filled in membership forms. A key document of the context is the statement ‘Laying Aside Illusions’ signed by fifty members of the university’s academic staff and issued in October 1988. It dwells on the rising tide of internal and external terror, the hundreds of lives which included the best among us, that were continuing to fall prey to a home grown totalitarian ethos, and our complicity, complacency and cowardice that brought about this state of affairs. We wish the surviving signatories will read again that document which through a charmed history found its way into the appendix of the Broken Palmyrah, by way of reflection, and examine the roles they had each played during the vicissitudes of the intervening decade.

Here we are then after more than ten years in our work, but with little to rejoice or to celebrate. These have been ten violent years that have further scarred the community to breaking point. Of our immediate circle we lost Rajani Thiranagama in September 1989 and two students Manoharan and Chelvi Thiagarajah, who were presumably executed after a year or two of imprisonment. Of those who broadly shared our vision and were part of an extended circle on the fringes of the university and beyond, we lost several more. All of them were victims of internal terror. Although we were never lax in holding state powers accountable for their cynical calculations, and state forces for their brutality and callousness, we had to walk a tight rope. We believed that the phenomenon of internal terror had to be faced squarely because we perceived that what debilitated our society were chiefly developments within, and that a healthy society in the modern era has so many less painful options in dealing with external oppression. This rendered us prone to being caricatured as simply and blindly anti-LTTE by extreme Tamil nationalists and by peace activists who found us awkward, but hard to ignore.[Top]

What has changed ?

When the UTHR was first mooted by academics in the South in 1988, the country had already seen five very violent years. The first four had to do with the indiscriminate deployment of the state apparatus against the Tamils in general, with several attacks by Tamil militants against Sinhalese civilians and bombings in public places in Colombo. The last of the five had seen the rising tide of violence and counter-violence precipitated by the second JVP insurgency. It was the logical culmination of state violence directed against a minority. With the destruction of civil society which it entailed, its natural second direction was within - inside the Sinhalese society itself. The UTHR in the South barely survived a year. Perhaps it was five years too late — too late to establish a degree of discipline, credibility and acceptance.

The experience left a mark on Sinhalese society that prepared it for a rational reappraisal of the Tamil question. From 1993 this changed mood was seen in responses to the electoral campaigns that brought the People’s Alliance led by Chandrika Kumaratunge to power in August 1994. Yet, what has changed one may ask? It is after all within the space of the last two months that two devastating LTTE bombings have been experienced in the South — Kandy and Maradana, and there is a bitter confrontation in the Vanni in the midst of which the civilians have been far from immune.

The answer to what has changed may be seen briefly in the following excerpt from a recent article by Dayan Jayatilleke on the Premadasa - LTTE talks (The Island,4^th March 1988): “The Habarana massacre [by the LTTE of Buddhist pilgrims] of 1987 and the Pettah bomb blast took place in early April of that year just at the time Lalith Athulathmudali, at the insistence of J.N. Dixit, had been constrained to announce a one-week unilateral cessation of hostilities.... The LTTE and its ally EROS, reacted with the Habarana and Pettah attacks.... This in turn caused such a groundswell of anti - Government opinion among the Sinhalese that the Government felt it had to do something drastic. That was the aerial bombing of Jaffna...” [More details in the Broken Palmyra.]

In recent times too there have been several tragic uninvestigated instances of aerial bombing by the SLAF in the North which the government needs to account for. But these aerial bombings did not stem from any political need or demand to appease Sinhalese sentiment. This is the difference, and a crucial one. The Jayewardene government had cultivated Sinhalese chauvinist sentiment as the bread and circus for its survival. In 1983 it let loose against Tamil civilians everywhere. In 1987 in felt constrained to spare at least the Tamils in the South while letting loose in Jaffna.

Also, thanks to constant pressure by international and local human rights agencies, recent political changes in the South, and to reappraisals within the armed forces themselves, massacres and reprisals have become the exception rather than the norm. Both these tendencies still have a long way to go to achieve stability.

A word of caution is in order here. While the LTTE bomb attacks in the South deserve to be condemned in the strongest terms, in particular by the Tamils, and the government and the Sinhalese be given due credit for the handling of the aftermath, another aspect reveals something deeply disturbing. To take one example among several, Air Force bombing of the precincts of the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Navaly on 10^th July 1995 claimed the lives of about 120 refugees. To the pilot the church and the huge stream of refugees would have been prominently visible. The President promised an inquiry. The Defence Ministry then issued a highly imaginative briefing to the press about stored explosives near the church and sympathetic explosions. That was the end of the matter. No inquiry despite the area now being under Army control. The NGO and human rights communities in the South too failed to keep the matter alive. A later official inquiry about the Air Force on other matters found it guilty of gross negligence and incompetence. That too was suppressed ostensibly to protect persons in the political establishment. Strongly expressed outrage over bombings in the South taken against the silence over similar events in the Tamil areas, shows ultimately how divided this country continues to be.

In exposing violations by state forces, restraint and observance of human rights are measures we had been urging from the beginning. We argued that the stabilisation of such attitudes is a necessary pre-condition for the revival of healthy political activity within the Tamil community. On the many occasions we in the University of Jaffna confronted Indian army officers with our demands, some listened patiently and took note. But many of them maintained that as long as there had to be military operations, reprisals could not be controlled. We could also see that for several of them, the use of terror in warfare of this kind was normal. For several months Vadamaratchy had remained quiet under Indian Army control. One day in June 1988 they systematically beat up a large number of civilians in response to the LTTE gunning down two Indian Army Hindu worship leaders. The situation steadily deteriorated culminating in the Valvettithurai massacre of 2^nd August 1989.

For the Sri Lankan Army it has been a long time. If they had learned from the 80s the importance of sparing civilians, the war would not have gone so disastrously for them from June 1990. That story is told in our reports and in the book “Someone Else’s War” of February 1994 based on them. We hope, judging from what is going on in Jaffna, that something benign and substantive is at least emerging today. If that is true, we may cautiously hope that inspite of the violence the coming months and years may bear witness to, the foundations are being put into place for its cessation and replacement by a rational political process. This also shows the importance of the close monitoring and international interest that is focused on Jaffna today. By comparison, in rural areas and other parts of the North-East, abuses continue to be widespread. [Top]

An old story

Few knew the Tigers so closely from within as Rajani Thiranagama did, and was at the same time possessed of such acute discernment to see clearly where they were going. Her verdict was thus expressed in the Broken Palmyra with terse clarity:

“The Tigers’ history, their theoretical vacuum, lack of political creativity, intolerance and fanatical dedication will be the ultimate cause of their own break up. The legendary Tigers will go to their demise with their legends smeared with the blood and tears of victims of their own misdoings. A new Tiger will not emerge from their ashes. Only by breaking with this whole history and its dominant ideology, can a new liberating outlook be born”.

By 1984 at the latest, the moral and the political choices of the LTTE had been made, the die was cast and the engine of destruction had been launched. Its essential lines of progress had been laid down. Only the time frame was open. It could have easily come a cropper in 1987 or 1990. It was not engaged in a contest of strengths, but rather in a counter contest between its destructive ingenuity on the one hand and the callous and stupid arrogance of state powers on the other.

What is intriguing is the surfeit of nonsense said and written about this phenomenon over the years. Academics have seen in it a pioneer in caste and women’s liberation. An undaunted stream of peace makers have made contact with it fired by wilful ignorance and fuelled by egotism. The result was always the same — an acute hang over! Often the LTTE spokesman who kept them in hope would suddenly develop feet of clay and be withdrawn from grace, leaving them confronting a vacuum. Newspapers and journalists, with a few exceptions, get it all wrong. They deal only with fragments of reality - such as the bomb blast of the day. Frequently, the exasperating question posed by them is ‘What is the latest?’ The latest is, alas, more than 15 years old! [Top]

A confusion of values and the absence of quality

What is particularly disturbing today is that many who advise and make decisions that will affect the Tamil community and the future of this country do so on a fragmentary understanding based on ad hoc/occasional discussions and correspondents’ dispatches. Even worse is the confusion among Colombo Tamils, journalists and research workers, who are not necessarily pushing a line or harbouring an agenda, but are called upon to act as spokesmen. To get some clarity in the matter, every oppressive tendency in the State is bound to meet with a reaction, that could often take the form also of institutionalised violence by rebel groups or a group. In time the nature, character and intensity of violence too would undergo change. Parallely there would be tendencies among all the parties towards reappraisal and peace making, and also the formation of vested interests wanting escalation and permanent war. There are chains of possibilities. Which one is dominant now or how one could make a particular desired group of possibilities dominant is a subject of serious analysis of the underlying tendencies.

It is true that the LTTE has placed itself in the position of being the sole agent of anti-state violence and also that there have been, and always are peace efforts. But to conclude from this that the LTTE’s actions would lead to peace and the liberation of Tamils is patently fallacious. In the volatile climate created by these actions, almost every sentiment is transient.

The vacillation and fragmentariness, so evident in the media and in decision making, is the result of confusion of values and the absence of quality that is part of the social disease. A liberation struggle must be judged by its key facets: Whether it values life or destroys it; Whether it brings people inner strength and dignity, both as individuals and community, or devastates everything necessary to build these; Whether it affords protection to the weak, the exploited and the children, or uses their vulnerability to fuel a cynical and suicidal warfare; And by whether it has the basic human qualities that win it friends, or needs permanent enemies to sustain those it brings into power. Without the positive attributes mentioned, devolution or a separate state would be an empty parody of liberation.

Thus one cannot resolve the confusion surrounding the LTTE without taking into account the crucial aspect of its relationship with people. This has been the thread running through our work. In documenting the Indian Army’s entry into Jaffna during October-December 1987 and the Sri Lankan Army’s entrance to towns and villages in the Eastern Province during June-December 1990, what had struck us was the total cringing powerlessness of the people in the face of armies acting with utmost arrogance and contempt for their life. It was a powerlessness that was moral rather than physical. Even as a supposedly liberating force the LTTE deliberately wanted them in that position of insecurity.

The insecurity aided its recruitment and enhanced its status as avenger or liberator. It thus became much easier to brand all dissent as treachery. Through enhancing mutual suspicions and enmities by acts of terror against other communities, the LTTE’s cause developed a common vested interest with Southern chauvinism and with permanent conflict. Both within the LTTE itself and also in the community at large came to dwell a pervasive insanity that was characterised by schizophrenia and a breakdown of humanity. A retrospective look would strongly suggest that the foundations were already laid in the formative years of the struggle. [Top]

A retrospective look at some developments

Having quoted Rajani Thiranagama, it is appropriate to sketch here some salient features of developments from the early 80s in view of the prevailing confusion. This is based mostly on material already covered in our publications.

The Tamil struggle has an antiquity predating independence by several decades. Perhaps the more important part of it was work at grassroots level. The co-operative movement was launched from the 1920s. The Jaffna Youth Congress from about that time took up the caste issue and worked towards the removal of caste barriers in school admissions. In the 1960s Marxist grassroots groups were involved in securing temple entry and local economic independence for oppressed groups. At a different level, state oppression resulted in Tamil politics being dominated by the nationalist Tamil United Liberation Front, the mainstay of whose politics was the ‘external enemy’ and the victimhood of the Tamil people. Also developed for public consumption in order to disguise its own failures was the imputation that its democratic opponents were ‘traitors’.

All the emerging militant movements represented shades of these two traditions. The first had strong democratic leanings while the latter became increasingly authoritarian and intolerant of dissent. Both the leaders of the PLOTE and the LTTE emerged from the second, having been proteges of figures in the TULF hierarchy. Of the cadre, some came with political motivation, and many from the outstations came in as the direct result of state oppression, to be moulded by their groups.

Pulendran, for example, from Palayootru near Trincomalee, was affected when his village was attacked by Sinhalese colonists, who were the proteges of the state, at the time in 1977 when the ashes of the TULF leader S.J.V. Chelvanayakam were brought to Trincomalee. Pulendran described as a good friend and hard worker, but with a violent temper, joined the LTTE and rose to become a local leader credited with the Habarana massacre of 1987 referred to earlier.

Many who did political work for the LTTE in the early 80s, campaigned for it as a democratic group where decisions were taken by the central committee that was chaired by their leader Prabakaran. They were taken aback when the oath of personal loyalty to the leader was introduced in 1984 and the leader did a personalised photographic media blitz in the Indian journal ‘the Sunday’. In the meantime, a strong conformist culture with internal spy networks was being built up, but the material needs of the cadre - all this was in India at that time - were well looked after. The leader was regarded as a good host. Some elements of this culture were, anyone trying to spend time with books was subject to collective ridicule, while another displaying artful and sadistic cruelty in slaughtering a goat became the hero of the day.

Recruits with good educational backgrounds were looked upon with intense suspicion. An anecdotal incident is related about a recruiter who crossed the sea from Jaffna and proudly went to show the Leader three university students he had brought. The Leader whispered to him in disapproval, “Why did you bring them?” Those who retained a capacity to think independently saw within an organisation where each person was being false to himself and a disgusting sycophancy where each sucked up to those above him. No one had a friend who could be trusted with his innermost thoughts. It was not an atmosphere in which one could fight a liberation struggle. Also well known in India was the Green Boat. Those to be culled as being too independent of mind were sent in it as though being sent for deployment back home. They were never seen again on either shore.

The foundations had thus been clearly laid for an organisation whose ideal recruits were children rather than mature youth. This it started doing on a big scale when it was imposing a parallel repressive structure on Jaffna after decimating other groups in 1986.

The support base of the LTTE that was more prominently found in safety far away from the conflict and for whom its cause was self serving, even found in this something to boast about. With the approach of National Heroes Week, Ulakatthamilar, the Canada based journal of the World Tamil Movement, carried in its issue of 15.11.93 a feature ‘Tamil Children (Pillaykal) March towards Tamil Eelam’. After citing some heroic deeds and chronicling martyrdoms it concludes, “Today Tamil children who should carry books are seen with AK47 rifles hanging on their shoulders. These fighters stand guard surrounding Sinhalese army camps and borders of Tamil Eelam...”

Thus, cut off from any accountability to its people, and its relations within and without the movement governed by falsehood, fear and sycophancy, Rajani saw within the LTTE its own seeds of destruction. These cancerous seeds also found in the very society from which their genetic elements had been drawn, fertile soil in which to wreak their havoc.

From June 1990 several LTTE leaders whose profile had been high around Jaffna fell from grace to obscurity or worse. In 1993 deputy leader Mahattaya was detained in a swoop along with those believed to have had links with him, and all were tortured by their erstwhile comrades in arms. News came out the following year that several divisional commanders were implicated in an embezzlement racket. In an organisation without trust, there are few binding ties once the all-pervasive ethos of fear is absent. Everyone who was once associated with the movement is seen as a source of danger. Today its violence has sharply turned within. This theme is taken up elsewhere in this report.

A particular episode concerning children touches us closely. In July 1991 the LTTE tried to overrun the strategic Elephant Pass army camp. The attack failed with the LTTE suffering heavy casualties. In a desperate bid to overwhelm the camp before General Kobbekaduwa’s relief column reached it, a large number of children were thrown into futile charges. The total dead numbered about 750. In Jaffna Hospital there were a large number of children with limbs blown, too young to comprehend what happened to them. Chelvi Thiagarajah and Manoharan who were university students, compiled a report on their experiences. They were detained by the LTTE which was evidently watching them, and the report fell into its hands. The LTTE later told the Vice Chancellor of the University of Jaffna that the two were being held because of a document they had compiled for human rights organisations. But to the general public the LTTE charged them effectively as agents of the PLOTE which was assisting the government forces. Chelvi was a dissident from the PLOTE long before it was driven into that position by the LTTE. We will refer to this episode in the sequel.

In the forgoing two sections we have brought into focus two elements that are key to the viability of the LTTE’s political culture. One is to spread confusion about its true character. The other is to maintain conformity among the populace through appropriate repressive measures. The people are only allowed to play the role of passive victims, blaming everything on the external aggressor. We will touch on the first later. Our reports have pointed to the deadening nature of this conformity that was so poignantly evident when it came to the recruitment of children. It was as though the guardians of this society, its intellectuals, church and religious leaders were acting in complicity as predators. This is why even today there is such resistance to reappraisal. The obverse of this is that dissent which is so necessary for the very survival of this society also demanded such heavy sacrifice.

We have dealt with these questions in our reports. The LTTE’s draconian network of prisons, particularly from 1990 to 1992, have also been dealt with and we hope in due course to come out with a final publication on this aspect of our history. The tolerance, acceptance and even justification of this is so remarkable in a society that boasts a high level of education with a far-flung diaspora of articulate professionals, whose support for the LTTE rather than having a restraining influence, has rather been mobilised to cover up its crimes and in effect to lend complicity.

For now we will merely provide a sketch of dissent in Jaffna society, the historical continuity of our place in it and its cost by citing a few instances from our extended circle of associations. All of them were young. [Top]

Dissent in Jaffna & its Cost:

A Selective Sketch

When one speaks of dissent in Jaffna there were two main elements in its vanguard. The first consisted of unorganised hard-working individuals who valued decency and hated murder. They could be found everywhere, among clergy, teachers, artisans, farmers, TULF supporters and so on. The other too was individualised, but with a tradition of organisation and activism behind it. A good section of them could be traced back to the grassroots Left movement of the 60s which was joined by persons who left school and went into political work. What distinguished them from the mainstream Left who were aspirants for political power through the parliament and sometimes (eg 1970-77) enjoyed it, was that they saw their immediate tasks as being among the peasantry, organising against local abuses.

Three things about the grassroots Left are important here: Their relative intellectual independence of nationalism, their ability to function without institutional power and their capacity to organise. From about 1977 when there was again communal violence, leading to a heightening of the nationalist and militant mood among Tamils, the Left came under heavy pressure. The older activists in the grass roots Left generally settled down as farmers or in other trades. Those younger led or influenced smaller militant groups whose emphasis remained political work and organising the people. They were fiercely critical of the main militant groups which accepted Indian aid and direction for the purpose of rapid expansion, and in consequence became militarised and lacked any accountability to the people. Of the LTTE in particular their criticism was stinging. At an early stage they had warned the LTTE that their growing alienation from the people, in spite of their illusion of power, would in time spell their doom.

Such a prospect first came when the Indian Army took Jaffna in October 1987. By then the smaller Left groups had become almost defunct and kept aloof. The LTTE had always watched them warily though unable to pin any charges of ‘treachery’ on them. It was only after the LTTE controlled Jaffna in 1990, under the cover of confusion following the outbreak of hostilities in June, that it found the courage to crack down on them, and crack down it did unsparingly.

The older grassroots activists in private life hardly opposed the LTTE publicly, but from time to time, from 1986, with help from other dissidents, including individual priests and nuns, they provided humanitarian assistance to fugitives fleeing the LTTE’s bloody hands.

In our own case, as part of the wider movement in the university, our statements and actions were aimed at upholding basic human values, preserving democratic space for the larger community and holding all armed groups accountable. We were also clear that we would stand up for the human rights of all - including detained LTTE cadre. Rajani Thiranagama, along with students like Chelvi, Sivaramani and Manoharan, who were involved in women’s and community issues, were very much activists in the grassroots mould. Thus indirectly at least our place was identifiable as part of an activist or dissident tradition already established in Jaffna for many years.

The LTTE which knew Rajani Thiranagama understood this well. Its paranoid definition of traitor, it knew, could not be fitted on us. This is why when it killed Rajani in September 1989 it calculated on putting the blame on the Indian Army, and never admitted or tried to explain it even after its culpability became widely accepted.

Another important dissident segment were the Theepori or Sparks group who left the PLOTE in early 1985, exposing its internal violations, torture and murder in the book ‘A New Kind of World’. The book was then widely distributed by the LTTE to discredit the PLOTE. Apart from maintaining links with other members, the group became defunct by 1987. Yet the LTTE intent on eliminating all prospective sources of dissent cracked down on them in mid-1991. The Sparks leader Norbert and several others were taken in. The detainees met with varying fates, where to discern a pattern would be a matter of contention. But caprice, ritual and false hopes there were, so characteristic of a terror that is effective. It is also interesting that young LTTE cadre in the prison camps understood the charges against many of the captives below as doing propoganda work against the LTTE and in some cases also of having contact with the foreign human rights groups.

Ramani was a former medical student and a member of a small Left group. He was picked up in Nallur shortly after the outbreak of war in June 1990 and never seen or heard of again. Ramani was a native of Valvettithurai and a very close kinsman of the LTTE’s then deputy leader Mahattaya. He was strong willed and uncompromisingly critical of the LTTE. Manohoran seems to have met a similar fate, but was alive about a year after being detained when he was sent to Tango 2 in Varani, that was notorious for the cruellest forms of torture.

Chelvi smuggled a letter out during mid-1992 where she sounded in good spirits and did not seem anxious about her life. Reports from other detainees released said that she never ceased to argue with her captors about the consequences of the LTTE’s direction. There was also international pressure on her behalf. The LTTE appears to have decided that she was too dangerous to be allowed out alive. In the sequel, a Western activist in a well known human rights organisation asked Lawrence Thilagar, then the Lord of the LTTE’s overseas domains, about the fate of the poet Chelvi. Thilagar looked at her directly, and told her, “Chelvi was no more a poet!” Thilagar too went out of circulation, ostensibly in another drama of crime and punishment within the bowels of the LTTE.

Norbert was eventually taken to Tango 5 in Koilakandy to which prisoners are sent prior to release. But about mid - 1992 he was taken in a vehicle and never seen since. Thillainathan, a teacher and dramatist, who was a graduate of the University of Jaffna detained about the same time as Norbert during mid-1991, was last sighted in Tango 1 (Anaikkottai) around New Year 1992, having become half his original size and totally bald.

It was thus that things stood in Jaffna about 1993 as the LTTE’s rule assumed an air of permanence. Its favoured elite acted as spokesmen for the people, telling influential bodies everywhere that the LTTE alone represented the Tamils. How weak and ill-founded this claim was , only the bold and well-informed dared to question. The break, as often the case in such situations, came unexpectedly, and was precipitated by the LTTE’s loss of nerve at the thought of losing Jaffna - again a symptom of its fatal weakness. [Top]

April 1996 - The Break

The question naturally arises, did those thousands scattered through numerous villages and whose names have not even been recorded, who died in the cause of dissent, whether spontaneously on the spur of the moment or through deliberate resolution standing up for basic human values, die in vain? The answer, we are sure is No. The sacrifice of some helps both dissent and the values it represents to live on in society as a diffuse quality, waiting for opportunities to assert itself.

When we chronicled the forced Exodus from Jaffna in October 1995, it was not immediately clear how far-reaching its consequences were. The attempts to cover up the truth were tremendous. Everything the people saw from the LTTE’s total unconcern for them, to its blatant extortion in their helplessness infuriated them. Even more so did the attempts to misrepresent their state of mind. The BBC Tamil Service reported a meeting in Pt Pedro with 10 000 students participating, where their teachers urged them to join the LTTE. Displaced listeners in Pt Pedro recalled that something had gone on where curious passers by stopped and listened for awhile, but that the crowd had hardly exceeded 100 at any time!

The LTTE’s attempt to shift the mass of the people to the Vanni met with increasing resistance. We have also recorded the spontaneous return of nearly 300 000 people to Valikamam in April 1996 when the Army commenced its move into Thenmaratchy. As to the extent of the break from the LTTE, we too had erred on the side of caution. After their bad experience with the LTTE, the people saw in at least a section of the Sri Lankan Army, a humanity they never before dreamt was there. We place on record two instances so characteristic of the mood then.

A gentleman was passing an army check-point where an officer was distributing food parcels on a Poya day. The gentleman asked if he could have another parcel for his wife. While giving the second parcel the officer said, “I am Ananda Hamangoda”, inquired after the gentleman’s name and said that he would like to talk to him when convenient. Before leaving , the gentleman asked the officer what his rank was. “I am the Town Commandment”, came the reply. Brigadier Hamangoda was killed by a suicide bomber on 4^th July 1996. The gentleman remains very moved by the simplicity and unassuming nature of the conversation.

Lieutenant Samarakoon was a junior officer posted in Chavakacheri, who was known to be very helpful. At a time when medical services were disorganised, he arranged for an ambulance to come from KKS and transport a young girl who was seriously ill to Palay military hospital. Samarakoon was later transferred to Thanankilappu, reportedly for exceeding his authority in trying to have a detainee released. Samarakoon died in action at his new posting. The sadness of the old gentleman who recounted this last year, was compounded by the role of the Army in the disappearances which followed and the relative inaccessibility of the officers thereafter.

For a time at least, developments in the rest of the country and in the saga of the Tamils had placed the people of Jaffna and the Sri Lankan Army on such mutually responsive terms as were even remotely without precedent. The disappearances that followed 4^th July 1996 marked a setback, but not a reversal.

Leading sections of society who had acted as spokesmen had been readily mobilised by the LTTE in its attempt to move the people to the Vanni. For a time the University of Jaffna and two Christian Theological seminaries were shifted there. Events amply revealed the deep gulf that had come to separate these leaders from the people. Some of them mellowed. In some others the revelation imbued them with a maniacal quality.

For the people themselves there was operating in the break a kind of herd instinct. It was not organised. One could explain it as a simple wish to preserve life , to recover such property as was left, or to return home. Could it have happened without the spirit of dissent having life within the social fabric? Is not dissent after all in a sense preservation of life expressed at a more altruistic level? [Top]

Political Defeat of the LTTE -

The Primary Task of Tamils Themselves

Both in October 1987 and June 1990, war was thrust upon the people by the LTTE when what they wanted most was peace. In March 1995 it was clear to the people of Jaffna that the LTTE was definitely going to resume the war. But among those in the South who maintained their own channels through NGOs and churches these signals went largely unheeded. Even after the recommencement of war in April 1995, there were a number of apologists for the LTTE’s action among influential Southerners and NGOs - as reflected in, say, the statements of the National Peace Council. But very remarkably, in a series of interviews recorded in Jaffna by the BBC Tamil Service then, a number of persons living under LTTE control refused to be drawn into blaming the Government for the war.

Then came the exodus of October 1995, the truth about which was hard to suppress. Angry letters and articles by Jaffna folk appeared in the press exposing the LTTE. Very clearly, all these developments showed that something was radically wrong with the proposition that the LTTE represented the Tamils in any meaningful sense.

Two things are clear. The LTTE must be politically defeated for the Tamils to find space to reassert their will for life with dignity. Moreover, the very institutions that should normally have aided them seem to have developed an inertia over the years where they are more bound to do the opposite.

It has been said that the local conflict has notched about 40 000 publications. This means that it should have been among the few best understood in the world. But is it? Has the outlay of money and effort over the years by NGOs, scholars, churches and peace groups resulting in positions taken and inertia formed, become part of the problem rather than its solution? Yet one sees very little reassessment. It is instead the same faces at conferences, global and local, and almost the same positions with perhaps minor refinements on accommodating the LTTE as the sole representatives of the Tamil people. But to pose the radical question whether it can work would of course involve too heavy a cost in accountability. A much greater sense of responsibility should have been exercised in trying to represent a people under fascist control. This we have dealt with in earlier reports many years ago to the chagrin of many.

The unenviable task of liberating the Tamils falls thus, to the Tamils themselves. They have accomplished two things that are a pointer to much more that could be done. One is the mass return to Valikamam and the other is voting at the recent local elections. Both these were departures from the role marked out for them by the LTTE and the spokesmen foisted on them. The next step would be to open up discussion of crucial issues, and build up institutions from grassroots level to aid collective action and to uphold basic human values.

This has become especially urgent because the internal terror, ideologically supported by narrow nationalism, had over the years destroyed all grassroots activity, open discussion and soul searching. This made the people powerless. As we mentioned earlier it is time for new initiatives to take root in re-evaluating the past and recreating democratic space to fight for their dignity. There are many obstacles to this. Our own initiatives up to now may in a small way contribute this process. But, it is up to those who share and feel for the need of this kind of initiative to start thinking and organising along these lines. There are many at all levels in our community longing for such a break-through. After 10 years of our functioning, we feel that we need to look for and to encourage new initiatives involving broader participation. [Top]

A time for change

When we came into this work ten years ago it was undertaken voluntarily as an integral part of our academic commitment at the university. Using facilities at the university ten copies of the first report were circulated in photocopied form, made from the original typescript. 60 copies of the second were produced in April 1989 on the cyclostyling machine. There were bouquets from around the world and brick bats too. A copy was returned through the Vice Chancellor by the Chairman of the Valvettithurai Citizens’ Committee containing strong adverse remarks. The Major commanding the Thinnevely Indian Army camp requested a copy which we ignored. He may have got one by other means. It contained a report of the incident where two students were killed in firing by men under his command. The Vice Chancellor, Prof. Thurairajah was then closely associated with us as Co-Chairman of the National UTHR. There was a spirit of adventure as well as times of anxiety. Little did we know where it would carry us. The murder of Rajani Thiranagama, our consequent displacement to the South and the vacation of post given to the two of us openly associated with the group by the University of Jaffna in May 1991, have been written about elsewhere. We only mention here that the vacation of post had nothing do with prompting by the LTTE. The Vice Chancellor then had repeated a number of times in Colombo that the dismissals were wrong and that we could not function in Jaffna. No one from the university would defend the action when questioned individually. Yet the inertia governing academic life and academic institutions in this country is such that the matter is still being resolved after nearly 7 years. This is a small inconvenience in a country where far worse things could still be inflicted on an ordinary citizen with impunity.

In a way our displacement to the South was providential. We were able to cover the violations in the Eastern Province, particularly during the worst years of 1990 & 1991. In an experience that was new to us, we made a number of friends, including among the Muslim community and received a valuable education on the intricacies of the conflict there. There were, of course, many brave individuals who constantly took risks and also helped us in our work. But except for a few in the Batticaloa Peace Committee around Fr. Harry Miller, we do not know of anyone else who publicly documented violations at that time. ‘Someone Else’s War’ gives some idea of our work in the East. The situation there has now drastically changed with new NGOs moving in. But there is a paucity of reporting on the LTTE’s activities.

In recent times we have again concentrated on Jaffna because the situation there has now changed significantly, once more giving us ready access. It fell to us to chronicle the exodus of October 1995 which turned out to be highly controversial, and to sound the alert on disappearances caused by a sudden change of military policy in July 1996. Our interest has, moreover, always been that of laying bare the deeper social undercurrents leading to violations, apart from chronicling individual violations themselves. It appears that in Jaffna now the end game of the tragedy is being played out. This is the subject of the current report.

Looking back today, we regard the Broken Palmyra which culminated with the developments in the 80s as our core work, in which we had said most of what we had to say. Our subsequent reports as we explained earlier, deal with the unravelling of a drama for which the choices had already been irrevocably made.

For us it is now time for a drastic slowdown, a time to begin fading away. The river of life must fret along other neglected channels too. There are a number of reasons for this. Civil society in Jaffna is, we hope making a slow recovery. Both in the North as well as the East the time has come for the professionals to take over. There is no need for us to come in except where we have a distinct contribution to make. Several attempts have been made to destroy our credibility by or through the Council and staff bodies in the University of Jaffna, using the mere parody of our vacation of post which no one was prepared to defend. This we have survived. Our loss of income too had been made up by friends. To keep up the spirit of voluntarism, we never asked or accepted anything beyond what was required for bare subsistence in moderate circumstances. For this we are grateful to many friends both here and abroad, who were more than willing to help us whether as individuals or as institutions.

The time is also fast approaching where, if we are staying on, we will have to stay on as professionals. One does have serious reservations about building a career on a cause that has cost others their lives. In the face of so much speculation and misrepresentation about who and what we are, it is proper that we leave little room for confusion. It seems only fitting as well as true to our initial commitment, that we move back to something closer to the temper of our original vocation after attending to some residual matters, away from transitoriness, away from the ‘latest’ accounts, beyond fragmentation and recover some of the ‘quality’ we are in danger of losing.

It is appropriate to quote here the German dissident and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from his essay ‘After Ten Years’, written at the turn of 1942-43, just before his imprisonment:

“Quality is the bitterest enemy of conceit in all its forms. Socially it implies the cessation of all place hunting, of the cult of the ‘star’; an open eye both upwards and downwards, especially in the choice of one’s more intimate friends, and pleasure in private life as well as the courage to enter public life. Culturally it means a return from the radio and the newspaper to the book, from feverish activity to unhurried leisure, from dissipation to recollection, from sensationalism to reflection, from virtuosity to art, from snobbery to modesty, from extravagance to moderation. Quantities are competitive, qualities are complementary.”

It is going to be a sultry sunset, lasting a short time or many years depending on the wisdom and commitment of the other actors. Let us hope for a brighter dawn. [Top]

LIVING THROUGH JAFFNA’S

SULTRY SUNSET

1. Trends and Overview

The eight months since our last report on Jaffna was issued in August 1997 has been a testing time in Jaffna, for the civilian population, the armed forces, the militant groups in transition, and the LTTE. Some of the tendencies we had alluded to in earlier reports have taken a clearer shape. As referred to in our last report on Jaffna, these must be qualified by the course of other developments - particularly whether the momentum towards an equitable political solution can be sustained in the South. If these tendencies continue and are improved upon, one has good reason to be optimistic.

To begin with, in retrospect at least a number of people in Jaffna seeking an alternative to the present baneful outlook feel that the holding of elections for local authorities on 29^th January was a good thing. Prior to the elections there was a steady barrage, especially by Tamil media men, trying to discredit the exercise as irrelevant and against material priorities. The LTTE too issued dire warnings to all who attempt to exercise their vote. In the event, an estimated 40% of the residents who were registered voters did cast their ballot. Most significantly the people demonstrated that given certain basic conditions, they could defy the elements and accomplish something collectively.

There are other reasons apart from the elections why we called the past seven months a testing time. From September last year tension was building up as the Thileepan death anniversary (26^th September) and National Heroes Week observed around the LTTE leader’s birthday (on 26^th November) approached. Posters came up announcing a return of the LTTE. Stories circulated announcing December as the month of disruption. People watching for nuances in the behaviour of known LTTE spies who are generally comfortably placed in society, also read the signs and formed their conclusions. Their friends not in the good books of the LTTE were advised to lie low. An act of particular intimidatory significance was the murder on 2^nd October in a Jaffna suburb of T. Tharmalingam, JP and news agent, who was also the SLFP president for Jaffna. The murder revealed a good deal about the LTTE’s modus operandi and also its limitations. Other developments also showed that the LTTE was taking its “operation disruption” very seriously. A new unit was said to be under training in infiltration. On the part of the LTTE it was a damning admission that they were in Jaffna operating in a hostile rather than in a friendly environment.

Needless to say fear took hold of civilians. Yet by the end of December the fear had eased and things had returned to what they were before. The worst the civilians had feared was a return to what happened after the 4^thof July 1996 when a suicide bomber killed the popular town commandant Brigadier Ananda Hamangoda. This coupled with the anger arising from the demolition of the Mullaitivu army camp by the LTTE including the capture of its heavy cannon, led to an operation in Jaffna leading to more than 300 disappearances.

There were many instances during the last few months when things could have gone badly. There were a number of grenade and claymore mine attacks on troops, showing a particular escalation during November, claiming the lives of officers and men. On 6^th December a commando battalion ran into a trap in the Vanni in which more than 150 elite commandos were killed. During these months a high state of nervousness among troops was evident on several occasions and control was barely re-established [see Ch.4].

Much greater attention needs to be paid to the conduct of the Navy that seems to be largely unaccountable. At least three incidents of violence against fisherfolk have been reported in the three weeks following the sinking of two naval craft by suicide Sea Tigers on 27.2.98. In one of them near Pt Pedro, fisherfolk were shelled. The arrangements in the islands too are far from satisfactory, where responsibility is shared between the EPDP and the security forces. In all such cases, including Mannar and Vavuniya, there are tell-tale signs of corruption, indisipline and extortion, with a greater propensity for human rights violations. [See 6.5.]

Following the two cases of rape and murder centred around Krishanthy Kumarasamy and Rajani Velayuthapillai in September 1996, both the Government and the Army showed a new will to come down hard on abuses of this particular nature. The incidents of rape reported during 1997 did not exceed four. The Army too in general showed a prompt readiness to assist the judicial authorities. There was however a recent case of violence involving a dumb spinster where the Army’s position is very much open to question. This would be a test case for the credibility of other mechanisms, such as NGOs and the Human Rights Commission, whose function is to check such abuses and deliver justice [see 4.1].

Most would however readily agree with our civilian observer’s comment in mid-January this year: “Things are very quiet now in the run up to the local elections. Apart from the Tamil groups plastering the walls with posters, there is very little activity noticeable. Security has been tightened somewhat but not excessively.... The military seem confident that they can manage these elections. The military here are doing well with commanders like General Balagalle & Brigadiers Mendis, Rockwood,... the behaviour of the troops is generally such that one hears very little criticism.” [Top]

1.1 Torture

There however continues to be a darker side to the military presence. In some of the more isolated areas where marginalised communities live, civilians have been forced to perform unpaid manual labour, sometimes of a dangerous kind such as clearing shrubs along the edges of roads that may be mined. Of greater concern are continuing reports of torture [see Ch.2]. Testimony received suggests that danger to life is very real. It is moreover far from clear if the army got anything useful from torture that it could not have got by some other intelligent means.

In one particular testimony received by us recently, the father of an LTTE cadre was taken in and tortured, which included being assaulted on the head, apparently after the army had received intelligence that the son was in the area and had visited his home. The father who began with a denial finally admitted that his son had indeed come home, adding “For goodness sake don’t do anything more to me, I know absolutely nothing else!”. After troubling themselves and the father, the army did not get anything that they did not already know. Those close to the father said that he may not live long after that session. From what is given below torture of this kind is merely routine, and may happen to anyone from the humbler classes picked up on the remotest suspicion. [Top]

1.2 Missing Persons

Organisations in Jaffna have continued to compile lists of missing persons during the year 1997. A total in the region of 40 has been quoted for the year. But this is contested by others in Jaffna who place those actually missing at less than a dozen for the year. This is in part because those who compile the lists are seldom equipped or motivated to follow up in depth. One thus has problems in interpreting the high figures floated for missing persons. Another probable reason for the continuing occurrence of missing persons is torture. The victim may have died, or the detention was prolonged to minimise external signs of torture and the victim suddenly pops up in some detention camp in the South. We have cases where this has happened. The laws too were framed to facilitate such handling.

Recently (19^th January) the army command in Palaly announced that a lieutenant and 9 soldiers had been taken into custody by military police investigators in connection with a man, Selvaratnam Jeyaseelan (24), and a woman Saraswathy Soundararajan (21), both of Suntharapuram, Mattuvil South who had been taken to Vatharawattai camp for questioning on 28th November 1997, and then disappeared. The matter is now before a judicial inquiry. Significantly the army command has observed that the instructions to be followed upon the arrest of suspects have not been adhered to in this case!

After close upon two years of dithering, first by the HRTF, its successor the Human Rights Commission opened its Jaffna office. The army command too issued a rather belated announcement that it should be contacted if a receipt is not issued in the case of a person arrested and not released within 24 hours. How effective these measures are remains to be seen, as in nearly all the cases of the hundreds disappeared, the local army command had been contacted immediately by relatives.

In the meantime the Human Rights Commission would do well to use its powers in surveying the torture centres at all the main army camps where the general features and routines appear to be similar (see ch.2), and find out what the instructions to be followed are. 2.1 below gives a fair idea. [Top]

1.3 Security incidents - a rough overview

As in previous reports, where information is lacking or incomplete, we have made our judgements depending on the context. Press reports too have missed out several incidents. Civilians killed or injured by the army are readily reported as these nearly always happen during crossfire or during curfew hours. There is in most cases no reported attempt to suppress information. Killings by the LTTE, usually coded “by unknown persons”, do not sometimes get reported. There are instances where the army too has suppressed information on LTTE cadre killed, perhaps to conceal other awkward circumstances. Information on army casualties too is generally lacking.

The following information pertains to the period mid-August 1997 to March 1998.

Civilians killed by army action: A total of about 13 of whom 5 were killed this year in the week from 17/1 to 24/1. Of this number 6 were curfew breakers. 2 died when soldiers at Thanankilappu mistakenly fired at a boat of Gurunagar bound refugees from the Vanni, who had strayed eastwards into Thenmaratchy. Returning refugees used to land at Thanankilappu previously. This was stopped by the army as the fears of LTTE infiltration rose with the announcement of local council elections on 29/1. In Vadamarathcy as far as we are aware, curfew breakers have not been shot at.

Civilians killed by the LTTE: A total of about 9, with 2 in September, 3 in October, 2 in November, 1 in December and 1 in February.

LTTE cadre killed by the security forces: A total of about 51 with 4 in September, 1 in October, 2 in November, 12 in December (all in Vadamaratchy from 11^th to 19^th), 18 in January, 4 in February and 10 in March. All casualties this year upto March end in Thenmaratchy & Valikamam.

We may give a tentative reading of the last two trends taken together. There was a notable fall off in the killings of civilians by the LTTE after at least 6 killings in January 1997 alone. By August 1997 things were fairly quiet. This was followed by another LTTE build up apparently by specially trained cadre. There was some change from the established pattern where infiltrators were from the same area. During about October saboteurs getting away after a hit in Vadamaratchy were observed asking for directions. Similar reports came from Valikamam. The army that had become confident was getting somewhat nervous. The break came in Vadamaratchy during mid - December [see 3.2 ] when the army in a series of raids killed several key operatives including Deputy Sea - Tiger leader Lt. Col. Archunar. There was also among the civilians a cracking of the shell built up by instilling fear.

Of the 18 cadre lost to the army in January, 8 were killed in Thenmaratchy and 10 in Valikamam. There are also certain factors impeding the LTTE from taking on civilian targets with the same ease. Earlier there was the fear that once the LTTE marked a man, there was no possibility of escape. It only took two LTTE cadre to go to the intended victim’s house and demand that he follow them for a little chat. It only occurred to the intended victim to do as he was told with the last hope of talking them out of their intention. Having got to a place from which escape was easy, the assassins did the deed and vanished. This has now changed and resistance has become increasingly common. There have been cases of the targeted victim making good his escape with the aid of those around, sometimes to a nearby army camp. To meet such new contingencies the LTTE has from September been known to send 4, 8 or 10 persons in a hit squad. This causes extra problems, considering that in areas like Jaffna town, although plenty of spies abound, it is not easy for armed cadre to move about. [See ch.5, the murder of Tharmalingam.] [Top]

1.4 The land mine menace

This was highlighted by us in our Jaffna Survey of last August [Bulletin No. 14]. Although the German organisation GTZ made an assessment of the problem and appeared to have government clearance to commence operations from the beginning of January, there have been no further developments on the ground at the time of writing. A group of NGOs in Jaffna has sent a memorandum to a UN agency claiming that there are about 10 000 mines buried and that there are on average 10 mine incidents every month affecting civilians. This would suggest that many of the land mine incidents go unreported. It appears on further examination that the incidents reported in the Uthayan correspond closely with the cases brought to Jaffna Hospital. Since nearly all land mine incidents take place in Valikamam within 8 miles of Jaffna Hospital, which alone has surgical facilities in Valikamam, we may conclude that injuries from other explosions are not major. Going by reports in the Uthayan, there were about 10 incidents with 12 victims involving anti-personnel mines from 10^th June to 10^th August, a notable rise on the earlier trend. [See Bulletin No.14 for the discussion.] Things then quietened down until October. The rough pattern after 10^th August is as follows:

Mines probably laid by the LTTE (all anti-personnel mines unless stated):

September: 1 civilian injured.

October: 8 incidents in which 6 civilians were injured (i.e. limbs affected), 1 killed and 3 cows injured.

November: 3 civilians injured. There was also a pressure mine incident on 21/11 where 1 civilian and his cart bull were killed, while 2 others were injured.

December: 1 civilian killed and 3 injured, including one incident in which a labourer was killed and his employer injured. Also on 28^th December a tractor transporting civilians went over a pressure mine in Velanai killing 3.

January - February 1998: No incidents reported.

March: 2. 1 in Kupilan South & 1 in Mayilani

Mines probably, laid by the army

September: 1 woman affected close to Thambuthottam in Thenmaratchi.

October: 2 cows in the same area above, and 1 civilian in Avarankal East (i.e in the area of the army’s abandoned bund). A civilian woman was injured while collecting firewood about the army’s abandoned bund in Kondavil. 1 goat was injured near Hartley College. [Thambuthottam above is a coconut estate belonging to the Hunt family in Allarai which was used as a large camp by the LTTE and is presently used by the army as the 522 brigade head quarters controlling Chavakacheri.]

March 1998: 2. A young man collecting firewood badly injured in the former Army bunker area in Neervely East and also a school boy plucking nelli near the army bund in Urumpirai

This gives us about 23 anti-personnel mine incidents (according to Uthayan), peaking at 12 in October and 4 in March after a gap of nearly 3 months.

Also reported were two claymore mine attacks in Vadamaratchy during November where 3 soldiers were killed. There was another in Valvettithurai during early October where about 5 soldiers bathing at a well were killed. There were no reprisals and in about 2 hours civilians were using the road normally. Army Major Chandrananda Jayatilleke and three other soldiers were killed in an LTTE mine attack in Mirusuvil on 23.12.97. Another in Puttur on 13.3.98 claimed an officer and four men.

If the anti - personnel mine incidents reported in the press are at least treated as a statistical trend, a notable feature is the steep, rise in October, and the sharp fall-off from December until March. Nearly all the incidents during October took place in central Valikamam, and several of these occurred in paths that had been in constant use for 1 1/2 years. One fatal explosion in Kopay - where a man picked up a coconut and a mine beneath it exploded - had the makings of a booby trap. The question has been raised if some of these had been recently planted to induce fear. We may tentatively answer the question in the negative, considering the fact that anti-personnel mines have not been reported as being among the large quantities of equipment recovered from the LTTE by the Army in recent months.[Top]

1.5 The LTTE - A Time of Reckoning

The pattern of recent LTTE infiltration was to seek out the homes of vulnerable folk - often poor and without men - and enjoin themselves as underground guests. In the two cases presented in some detail [3.2 below], the first is one where a mother and daughter, apparently with no previous LTTE ties, lived by themselves. The other is where three sisters lived with some children, the third of whom had earlier received material help from the LTTE. In most such hiding places the LTTE had burrowed concealed underground chambers. It was effective for moving around by night without even the neighbours knowing. Burrowing is known to have been used during the IPKF period (1988-9), but not on the present scale. Yet the style was that of European urban terrorists of the 80s such as the Red Brigades, operating in a hostile environment among an unsympathetic populace. Even among those sheltering them, the action to say the least, lacked anything like the spontaneous support accorded to a liberation movement. The LTTE was fast ceasing to be the ubiquitous internal force it once was - when its terror was in the air everyone breathed.

The LTTE’s forced exodus of civilians from the Valikamam, the losses and humiliation they (the civilians) had suffered exposed the LTTE most eloquently as having no concern for the people. Subsequent events deepened the gap. Having controlled the people for so long, the LTTE could barely help the viewing the people who defied it and remained in Jaffna after April 1996 as traitors. It had of course wanted them to shift en masse to the Vanni. Looking through the security incidents from April 1996, the LTTE’s attacks with mines and grenades in overall effect made little distinction between the civilians and soldiers. The events include grenades thrown into a shopping mall ( Bulletin No. 13), and claymore mine attacks or explosions where the victims were all or nearly all civilians.

What the civilians longed for was a return to sane and ordered normal existence. The improved behaviour of the army convinced them, propaganda notwithstanding, that behind the confusion something new had opened up - an opportunity that could be lost through inaction. The civilians too went through a psychological shift paralleling the suicidal one of the LTTE. They concluded that the LTTE infiltrators were in Jaffna, not for any good, but only to disrupt life for them. This went a long way towards breaking a long established taboo. From the mid 70s the militants were known as “our boys”. As much as one disagreed with their actions, it was considered wrong to inform on them. The right thing it was felt was to take up the matter with them as an internal matter. This attitude was further strengthened after the state’s role in the violence of July 1983. The LTTE in particular however sowed the seeds of its own destruction by using its coercive apparatus to destroy all democratic space for an internal resolution of differences.

Given today’s vastly changed reality, a large number of people lost their inhibition against informing on the LTTE. A greater number perhaps, would though not do it themselves, did not disapprove of others doing it. Also of significance is the class of persons who on a principled approach saw an ethical dilemma that could not be dodged. This was of course a perception peculiar to Jaffna, and did not accord with perceptions of troop behaviour elsewhere in the North - East. Many saw violations by troops in Jaffna as transient or individual rather than endemic. [Why more than 300 disappearances during the latter half of 1996 did not make their due impact on the psyche of Jaffna folk cannot be examined cursorily and will be dealt with in a separate publication.]

Perhaps the key precipitating factor was that the LTTE cadre in general lacked political motivation. They were drilled into a regime of loyalty to the leader. Moreover many cadre who were associated with the deposed deputy leader Mahattaya felt threatened. With appropriate reconditioning a large number of LTTE cadre who deserted, left the LTTE or were captured by the army became the mainstay of military intelligence. According to journalistic sources, more than a hundred of them work for the army in Jaffna, of whom about a third take part in operations. Among them are at least one former leading LTTE intelligence operative, Oppilamani, and a former leading Sea Tiger, Mohan. Also of relevance here is the large number of LTTE killings of civilians and former members of the group over the last two years around Valvettithurai - the home of both Prabakaran and Mahattaya [see Ch.3].

The result was unprecedented for the LTTE. Its infiltrators could hardly pull off anything more than claymore and grenade attacks, and assassination of individuals, from 5^th July 1996 up to now. A large number of LTTE infiltrators were getting ambushed having done hardly anything at all.

The LTTE’s response was to hit out blindly, being unable to identify sources of information. The victims of its assassination squads included all kinds of people based on the most tendentious speculation: Those fluent in Sinhalese having regular dealings with the army, and those earlier suspected of being opposed to the LTTE. A group that came under particular suspicion were those who had once belonged to the LTTE and had left. [See chapters 3 & 5.] As pointed out earlier, the LTTE’s attacks in Jaffna had such a desperate character that in targeting one or two soldiers, the number of civilians killed did not seem to matter. When placing a claymore or pressure mine in the road it did not seem to matter if what was hit was a civilian tractor or bullock cart instead. [See Ch.5, and earlier reports.]

The LTTE’s supporters placed in strategic places never ceased prophesying the LTTE’s cataclysmic return to vindicate their historic role and to wipe off the traitors, and particularly so from September in the run up to the elections. What transpired instead was a major setback for the LTTE. The LTTE calculated on the use of assassinations to intimidate the civilian population and on bringing general destabilisation through attacking the armed forces and provoking reprisals. Its failure in both amounted to defeat, at least for the time being. The creditable voter turn out marked the failure in the first.

The LTTE’s lack of success also no doubt emboldened another significant group - families of persons who had suffered grievously during the long years of LTTE terror. These folk remain unorganised and there are no indications of their providing any significant assistance to the Army. Compared with the 300 to 400 who disappeared after the Army take-over, there were thousands who disappeared under LTTE rule. But there is still no organisation to represent them. The LTTE itself does not at present seem to regard them a threat - as compared with the suspicion directed against its own former supporters.

This seems to be a key calculation in the LTTE not going further than it did in disrupting the local elections. It did not attack candidates of whom there were more than 1000, or cadre from other groups engaged in election work. This would have meant opening up a new front in the face of enormous difficulties faced by its infiltrators - particularly in Valikamam where the wounds from the forced exodus run deep.[Top]

1.6 The LTTE, the Tamil political parties & current realities

A peculiarity of organisations like the LTTE is that its support base is nebulous and hard to define in any meaningful manner. There are of course loose admirers with a different agenda who court them and get caught as it were. Again there the unpoliticised many who are admirers through the regular diet of jingoism dished out by the Tamil media. But when it comes to the nuts and bolts issues of life, an organisation with its politics of death can least count on them. For example on the Army opening the road through Vanni to Colombo, the people are not in two minds. Even among the many full time or part time agents the LTTE uses - such as for example to go to the Jaffna bus terminus and keep watch on daily arrivals from Colombo - the relationship has a strong element of dread, of having been caught. It is a loveless union.

It is therefore hardly surprising that in all negotiations, any concession to democracy has been anathema to the LTTE. Any deviation from total control over the populace was un-negotiable, in whatever form this demand was barely disguised. Thus have two years of government control over Jaffna blown many myths for those willing to see plainly.

The calling of local elections on 29^th January, evidently created another problem. An all out attack on candidates and parties would have forced many to take sides in a manner they have so far avoided. It risked precipitating for the LTTE an unfavourable situation adding to that already resulting from the exodus. Several candidates at the elections, including a few who had received threatening letters, applied to Veeman, the LTTE leader operating from Vadamaratchy East, to find out the state of affairs. His reply was that they had not received orders, but advised those who had received warning letters to stand down. It is the kind of temporary accommodation the LTTE is used to. For example after the LTTE struck at the TELO in May 1986, it did not directly touch the EPRLF for another 7 months. In the meantime it had used its agents to contact individuals within the EPRLF, give them some assurance and stroke existing divisions within the group.

But in Jaffna today this also meant putting up with some unpleasant developments. Some of the other parties have opened up offices in rural areas, where people come for favours. Moreover they have established contacts with remnants of their former supporters. The parties are also replacing a number of elected councillors with others who were preferred, but had been unwilling to contest. Before the elections the Tamil press in Colombo taunted the TULF with its inability to find willing candidates resident in Jaffna. The conventional wisdom now is that when the next elections are called, the TULF will have a flood of candidates wanting nominations.

Yet most importantly, which is really what matters to the LTTE, it faces no serious political challenge. Tamil mediamen whether in Colombo or in Jaffna are unwilling to question the LTTE and are for the most part happy to play to its tune. The parties which contested the elections have either been playing at cronies of the LTTE or are so confused and bankrupt that the LTTE would have little difficulty in using them to its advantage. Moreover the LTTE’s terror is already an integral part of the internal workings of the Tamil community.

To give a brief picture of how things stand, all the parties have suffered a heavy toll on their leadership through murders by the LTTE. Mrs. Sarojini Yogeswaran, the widow of the former MP for Jaffna who was murdered by the LTTE, coming forward as the TULF candidate for the mayoralty of Jaffna was an encouraging development. Here was a victim of the LTTE defying ridicule from the chorus of Tamil mediamen in Colombo, coming to Jaffna a lonely unarmed woman, well known, but with hardly anyone to help her. Instead of praising her courage and condemning this indignity which the Tamil people as a whole have been brought down to, a correspondent observed with much satisfaction no doubt, that she seemed to have few neighbours visiting her - as though she had bought a plague. Against this backdrop, her victory was a remarkable achievement of grit.

Yet Mrs.Yogeswaran felt impelled to suppress her most intimate feelings of endearment and outrage, and issue on behalf of the party an utterly dishonest statement to the press. The statement was to the effect that by voting for her victory the people had called upon the government to lift its recent ban on the LTTE. The ban was reluctantly imposed after the LTTE’s suicide attack on the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy that is sacred to the Buddhists. This also gives us a picture of the extent of the compulsion in Tamil politics to be constantly looking over the shoulder at the LTTE.

Elsewhere in the Island the PLOTE and TELO are with the security forces torturing supposedly LTTE suspects. But in Jaffna their line is Tamil nationalist and accommodative to the LTTE. In Mannar and Vavuniya both these groups have been widely accused of corruption also involving sections of the security forces. These rackets are to do with smuggling of goods to LTTE controlled areas, and the issue of residence permits, that have helped to bring about a state of unprecedented anarchy in Vavuniya, with regular killings. In both these places these groups operate monopolies on certain items, such as with eggs and coconuts in Mannar Island, charging 50% more than the market value.

There is a general stifling dilemma confronting all the Tamil political parties which they have lacked the courage to resolve. All of them carry along in their names, rhetoric and slogans, the political baggage of an essentially discredited Tamil nationalism. In a bid to get support, they dwell extensively on the real insecurity faced by the Tamil people. All this they share in common with the LTTE. But without confronting this narrow nationalist political legacy which the LTTE exploits and vindicates by constantly and deliberately endangering the Tamil population, and offering instead an alternative to its destructiveness, the other Tamil parties find themselves impotent in addressing the security issue. Moreover again, the LTTE scores by its role as avenger, irrespective of the social cost.

The TULF of course gains an edge over its rivals who are quasi militant groups by claiming to be the unarmed party in a society tired of guns. The others who directly or indirectly provide auxiliaries to the government forces and are dependent on the government, find their position more awkward. Their differences with the LTTE on ideology and methodology are generally minor. Only the former has been more successful to the extent that it was single-mindedly totalitarian. To cover their dependence on the government, the others are driven to more strident nationalistic rhetoric and some admiring noises of the LTTE. Among the quasi-militant parties the EPDP has been the most astute at playing this game. The EPRLF which has a section keen on genuine grass-roots political work is locked on the horns of the dilemma.

Given this reality the LTTE would find the ground situation not unfavourable in the long run. It could exploit it by simply watching individuals who may be getting too independent, sending warning letters, summoning them for meetings, and doing a bit of culling here and there through assassinations. On occasions a more forceful warning may be delivered such as by the attack on the EPDP’s Pungudutivu camp a few days before the local elections. All the time it would hope for a massacre by the Sri Lankan forces or another round of disappearances that would turn the tables in its favour.[Top]

1.7 The Challenge

The LTTE’s internal decay is far advanced. Yet it retains a capacity for immense violent destructiveness before the final end comes. If the worst is to be avoided there are too many uncertainties in relying excessively on developments in the South. A huge vacuum exists in the North therefore for a genuinely democratic alternative that would confront the fascist legacy squarely, and render society proof against manipulation by the unscrupulous. In this connection the following paragraph from ‘Laying Aside Illusions’ referred to in the Foreword remains as relevant today as it did then ten years ago:

“How do we assert ourselves as people when no one dare take a stand on the many pressing issues? As individuals or small groups in our neighbourhoods, places of work, unions or associations, we must question our past, understand where we went wrong, and rediscover our principles. We must be conscious of the message of our past experience, that in standing for others we also stand up for ourselves. This course requires courage; and, no other is open to us. We have tried to play it safe in the past. The result was mass murder from several sources. Non combatant civilians too became unarmed front-line troops facing the wrath of advancing armies.” [p450, The Broken Palmyra].

The issues very much in our minds were the dangerous opportunism that comprises ‘playing safe’ and not taking responsibility for our own future. The last ten years are a tragic testimony to the extent to which we have failed.

We knew well that the LTTE’s actions were calculated to make us, the people, powerless. But when the Indian Army reacted harshly against us, we accused them of hammering us for something done by outside elements - knowing well again that they were part of us terrorising us from within. We lacked the courage to tell the LTTE plainly that their ‘freedom struggle’ was only making us objects of contempt and they had lost any right to speak on our behalf, let alone be our leaders. All the time an influential section among us in relative safety, who had the ears of the world, talked and acted as though the LTTE were our sole representatives. The rest of us observed silence. All our excuses showed that we were being too clever by half. In all the decisions made affecting us, the people, over the last ten years, we counted for nothing. How different are things today? Are we going to allow history to repeat itself?

We make this observation here because all that has been seen and recorded of the LTTE’s actions (see3.1,5 and 6.1 for a small sample) make it even more clear that they have no claim to represent us in any way. What is the rationale behind the present grenade and claymore mine attacks which show in effect little distinction between soldiers and civilians? If we lack even the strength to condemn these, all our concern about torture and disappearance would amount to meaningless ritual. Because that is how things would work when we shirk responsibility. The world will wink while paying lip service to human rights.

We have some space today. Disappearance and torture are at a low ebb. The LTTE is relatively weak in Jaffna. Paradoxically, in the process of reviving civil society and trying to assert democratic freedoms, the LTTE would also find more room to infiltrate and to sabotage these very attempts. As we read the LTTE’s future options in Jaffna, the threat is very real [see 6.7]. We have to recognise it for what it is and take responsibility for our future while the opportunity exists. Trying to be too clever with fascist tendencies inherent in narrow nationalism has been the bane of Tamil political life from the early 70s.

The small, but welcome openings we have at present are mainly the result of the government going some way towards finding a political solution and in keeping the armed forces on an even keel, despite serious institutional problems. Has the country the will and the capacity to improve on this?[Top]

2. Torture and Missing Persons

Torture as we had adverted continues to be a routine feature of life in Jaffna. The cases below cover much of the past year and involve all the three divisions of Jaffna. In many of these cases below some details have been suppressed. The first provides a recent in

Special Report No. 10

LIVING THROUGH JAFFNA’S SULTRY SUNSET �