Prabhakaran

 
The Story of His Struggle for Eelam
 
 
By Chellamuthu Kuppusamy
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Prabhakaran: The Story of His Struggle for Eelam ©

Chellamuthu Kuppusamy Author’s email:
kuppusamy18@gmail.com
Table of Contents
1. A history of discrimination
2. Seeds of militancy
3. Taking to arms
4. Ceylon becomes Sri Lanka
5. Formation of militant organisations
6. Avenging Angels
7. Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
8. LTTE goes public
9. First internal crisis
10. Taking on the army
11. Black July
12. Prabhakaran’s marriage
13. The First Eelam War
14. We Love India
15. An appeal for peace
16. The second Eelam war
17. A colossal tragedy
18. SLFP comes back to power
19. Unceasing War
20. Ceasefire at last
21. The end game
22. Silencing the guns
Chronology
End Notes
Bibliography
 
1. A history of discrimination
‘Why didn’t he hit back?’ asked Prabhakaran. It was indeed
a simple question. ‘He should have at least hit them back
and shown some resistance. Is it not a natural surviving
instinct?’ he thought.
Prabhakaran’s father, Thiruvenkadam Velupillai, was taken
by surprise when his four-year-old son raised that question.
Prabhakaran’s father had been an ardent follower of
Thanthai Chelva. The title Thanthai (meaning ‘father’ in
Tamil) fitted S.J.V. Chelvanayagam very well, who had
founded the Federal Party and was looked upon as a fatherly
figure by the Tamils of Ceylon. He was also known as the
Gandhi of Eelam, as he resembled Mahatma Gandhi and
also preached the same non-violent methods which led to
India’s freedom. Like Prabhakaran’s father Velupillai, the
Tamils of Ceylon believed in Thanthai Chelva, and that
nothing other than non-violence could give them equal
rights in the island nation.
Chelvanayagam had advised his followers not to retort back
even if death confronted them. The Hindu priest from
Panadura did exactly that. He just followed the words of
Chelva. Moreover, he neither had the courage nor the
strength to strike back. It was an easy task for the mob as
they poured kerosene over his body and burnt him alive.
The priest was just one among the countless innocent Tamils
who were killed mercilessly during the 1958 ethnic violence
that spread across Ceylon. The Tamils of Ceylon were
destined, rather cursed, to face the inevitable.
Velupillai was beginning to get little worried about his little
boy.
*
Prabhakaran was born to Thiruvengadam Veluppillai and
Parvathi of Valvettithurai on 26th November, 1954, as the
last of their four children. His siblings were Manoharan,
Jegatheeswari and Vinothini. Prabhakaran, the youngest,
was the family’s favourite and everyone adoringly called
him ‘Durai’ (meaning ‘lord’ or ‘master’). As a child, Durai
invariably had a place on his father’s lap and also in his
heart. Veluppillai and his fellow supporters of the Federal
Party would usually meet at his home in the evenings and
discuss about the racism and linguistic chauvinism exhibited
by the Sinhalese politicians and the various attacks
unleashed on Tamils. Little Prabhakaran would keenly listen
to those conversations, but rarely reacted to them.
Veluppillai’s ancestors had constructed Hindu temples
where they lived. Veluppillai himself was the treasurer of
Vaitheeswaran Temple – also known as Valavai Sivan Kovil -
which was the largest in the coastal town of Valvettithurai.
This temple was constructed by Prabhakaran’s ancestor
called Thirumeniyar Venkatachalam. Prabhakaran’s
ancestors had also assisted in the construction of two other
temples - Nediyakadu Pillayar Kovil and Vallai Muthumari
Amman Kovil. Prabhakaran’s mother Parvathi hailed from a
family in Point Pedro, a town not far from Valvettithurai.
Called Meththai Veedu Nagalingam family (Terraced house
of Nagalingam), they were also known for bilding temples.
Annual festivals in Valavai Sivan Kovil were celebrated with
grandeur, during which famous nagaswaram and
bharathanatyam artistes from the southern Indian state
Tamil Nadu performed. Prabhakaran would run around and
do errands on such events. Swami Krupananda Variyar, a
renowned Harikata exponent from India, gave musical
discourses in 1950s and 1960s.
Prabhakaran’s father Velupillai was an ardent fan of Variyar
and took Prabhakaran with him to listen to the discourses,
not only in Valvettithurai but throughout the Jaffna
peninsula. Prabhakaran respected the sagacious holy man
as did his pious mother and sought his blessing during every
visit. Variyar took pleasure in answering soul-searching
questions from the excited youngster. Variyar had once
reportedly told Prabhakaran’s mother that her son would
one day emerge a Hindu revolutionary. Almost half a
century later, Prabhakaran instead turned out to be an
armed revolutionary.
*
Prabhakaran was naturally upset when he learnt about the
priest’s burning. He had revealed this in his interview to N.
Ram that appeared in The Hindu, in 1986: ‘Ours is a god-
fearing society and people are religious-minded. The
widespread feeling was, when a priest like him was burnt
alive, why did we not have the capability to hit back. That
was one atrocity that made people think deeply.’1
Another incident agitated him further.In an interview to the
Indian magazine Sunday, in 1984, he said: “The shocking
events of the 1958 racial riots had a profound impact on me
when I was a schoolboy. I heard of horrifying incidents of
how our people had been mercilessly and brutally put to
death by Sinhala racists. Once I met a widowed mother, a
friend of my family, who related to me her agonizing
personal experience of this racial holocaust. During the
riots, a Sinhala mob attacked her house in Colombo. The
rioters set fire to the house and murdered her husband. She
and her children escaped with severe burn injuries. I was
deeply shocked when I saw the scars on her body. I also
heard such stories of cruelty. I felt a deep sense of
sympathy and love for my people. A great passion
overwhelmed me to redeem my people from this racist
system.”2
As Velupillai’s family listened to this shocking incident
directly from the lady nearly a year later, they were
horrified. Prabhakaran quivered in rage. But he was also
clear on one thing. They should hit back. ‘They won’t do
these things if they knew we could hit back’, said
Prabhakaran.
For the first time in the history of the island, the Tamils who
were displaced were called ‘refugees’.
Prabhakaran was critical of the Sinhala leadership that
added fuel to the fire instead of curbing the well-directed
violence on Tamils. He was even more critical of the Tamil
political leadership that was still preaching non-violence.
*
On the morning of 25th September, 1959, Talduwe
Somarama Thero had fixed up an appointment with the then
Prime Minister Solomon Bandaranaike at his residence in
Rosemead Place, Colombo. Solomon Bandaranaike was the
instigator behind the 1958 ethnic violence. As Bandaranaike
bent forward to pay obeisance to the Buddhist monk,
Somarama Thero whipped out a revolver from the folds of
his robe and shot the Prime Minister point blank in the
stomach.
Solomon Bandaranaike had become the Prime Minister with
the full support and blessings of the Buddhist monks. In
return, the Buddhist clergy had asked him to declare Ceylon
as a Buddhist Sinhala nation. It was an order, not a request.
Bandaranaike was not quick enough to react, and the delay
upset the Buddhist clergy. Bandaranaike had to be disposed
off.
Wijeyananda Dahanayake succeeded Solomon
Bandaranaike as the Prime Minister of Ceylon. His rule could
not last long as he faced a no-confidence motion in the
Parliament on the controversy surrounding Bandaranaike’s
assassination. The Parliament was dissolved on 5 December
1959. In the ensuing elections, Sri Lanka Freedom Party
swept the polls, thanks to the sympathy wave created by
Solomon’s demise.
Solomon’s widow Srimavo Bandaranaike became the Prime
Minister in June 1960, creating history as the first ever
woman head of state in the world. During her husband’s
tenure, an act called ‘Sinhala Only Act’ had been passed in
1956. This law mandaded that Sinhalese would be the only
official language for the government and judiciary. Though
the law was enacted, it was not enforced. Srimavo’s first
task, however, was to enforce the law strictly. She declared
that from 1st January 1961, the Government and courts will
start functioning only in Sinhalese.
Federal Party and Chelvanayagam pleaded with the Prime
Minister to permit at least the courts in the North and the
East of the country, the traditional homeland of the Tamils,
to function in Tamil. Sinhala political parties came together
and convincingly defeated this motion in the Parliament.
The year 1961 turned out to be an eventful year in the self
determination struggle of Tamil people in Ceylon - it saw the
violence of the oppressor silencing the non-violence of the
oppressed. The armed might of the Sinhala chauvinism
crushed the ahimsa of the aggrieved Tamils.
The Government was making every arrangement to enforce
the ‘Sinhala only act’ from 1st January 1961. The Federal
Party called for a march on 2nd January and it went off
peacefully without any untoward incident. The Government
did not relent and hence Chelvanayagam went ahead and
organised a satyagraha protest in front of the Jaffna
Secretariat. People wholeheartedly supported the
satyagraha. From Jaffna peninsula in the north, it was
extended to Batticaloa on 27th February and to Trincomalee
on 4th March, and other areas such as Mannar and Vavuniya
subsequently.
Chelvanayagam’s peaceful protest was violently put down
by the Sinhala Government. Federal Party leader
Ekambaram was killed by the police in an attack in
Trincomalee. Chelvanayagam felt humiliated and he decided
to move to the next stage of the ahimsa struggle, civil
disobedience, following the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi.
On 14th April 1961, the Tamil New Year day, Chelvanayagam
launched the Tamil Postal Service signalling that the Tamils
will henceforth not recognize the Sinhala Government’s
postal system and will run their own. To promote this,
Chelvanayagam himself sat in the Postmaster’s chair at the
Jaffna Post Office and sold Tamil Postal Service stamps.
Srimavo Bandaranaike declared emergency on 17th April and
arrested all the Federal Party leaders. Nine leaders including
Chelvanayagam were detained till October, and several
others were not released for three years.
As the 1961 satyagraha was being crushed, a small group of
20 members from the Federal Party formed a secret
organisation called Puli Padai (The Army of Tigers) with the
blessing of V Navaratnam, a veteral leader of the Federal
Party and a Member of Parliament from Kayts constituency.
At this point in time, Prabhakaran was only six years old.
In the meantime, Srimavo Bandaranaike stepped up her
activities. The Government issued a circular in December
1961, which stated that Government servants should obtain
minimum proficiency in the official language Sinhala to
retain their posts, as well as to earn their annual salary
increments and promotions. This forced several Tamil-
speaking civil servants to quit their jobs and emigrate to
countries like Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, Malaysia, Britain,
Canada and the United States. Several joined the United
Nations. Life was even more difficult for other Tamils who
sought Government jobs.
In 1962, Srimavo Bandaranaike nationalised all the schools
in the country, leaving no room for private schools. Tamil
medium schools in the Sinhala areas were gradually
superseded by Sinhala medium schools, leaving Tamil
students there no other options but to study in Sinhala.
Schools in the North and East were allocated lesser funds.
The syllabus promoted Sinhala language and supremancy of
Sinhalese race over that of Tamils, and it was imposed on
the Tamils against their wish. In short, nationalisation
translated into Sinhalisation.
Tamil political leadership spearheaded by Chelvanayagam’s
Federal Party could only oppose this move, but couldn’t stop
it.
*
Earlier in 1944, Ceylon, like the neighbouring India, was on
the threshold of gaining independence from the British Rule.
A commission, headed by Lord Soulbury, recommended a
new constitution for independent Ceylon. Members of the
Soulbury Commissioners met representatives of all the
communities in Ceylon.
The Sinhalese made sure that the new constitution did not
concede anything to the Tamils. The leader of All Ceylon
Tamil Congress, G.G. Ponnampalam (known as GG)
represented the Tamils. GG was a lawyer by profession and
practiced criminal law. (Much later, in the 1970s, GG would
head a team of lawyers to defend the deposed Tamil Nadu
Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi in the Sarkaria Commission
trial, set up by Indira Gandhi to investigate corruption
charges against him.) GG served as a district councillor in
Ceylon prior to its independence and Chelvanayagam was
part of the Tamil Congress under GG’s leadership.
When GG addressed the Soulbury Commission, he
advocated equal representation in the number of seats for
Eelam Tamils who are traditionally from the North and the
East, hill country Tamils of Indian origin who were brought
by the British from India to work in the tea plantations more
than 200 years ago, and the Tamil-speaking Muslims in the
East. The Sinhalese vehemently opposed this and Lord
Soulbury dropped the idea of equal representation. In the
meantime, people like Sir Ponnampalam Arunachalam
demanded a separate state for the Tamils within a federal
Ceylon, but their voice was not loud enough. Lord Soulbury
recommended a unitary system instead of a federal system,
a decision he later regretted in his letter dated 30th April
1964 to C Suntheralingam, a Tamil political leader.
When the Soulbury Constitution came into effect, Don
Stephen Senanayake became the first Prime Minister of
Ceylon in 1947, and the country was yet to become
independent. Senanayake introduced some rapid changes
that immediately affected the hill country Tamils working in
the tea plantations.
The hill country Tamils were brought from India during the
early years of colonial rule. British plantation owners found
the Sinhalese lazy and unwilling to put in laborious work,
the kind of hard work the plantations demanded. Hence,
Indians from Tamil Nadu state were brought in as indentured
labourers to deforest and establish plantations. These Tamils
made themselves part of Ceylon and became its permanent
residents. It was due to the sheer hard work of the Indian
Tamils that tea plantations could be established in the
Kandy hill region. In fact, they could justifiably feel that they
were integral part of the country because tea remains the
single largest export item for that country even today.
The Sinhala political leadership wanted to get rid of the hill
country Tamils and the 1948 Citizenship Act did exactly.
Suddenly close to a million hill country Tamils were stripped
of their citizenship overnight and made stateless. India
objected to this move, as did the Eelam Tamils in Ceylon.
The subsequent Ceylon Prime Ministers tried to send the
plantation workers back to India by pressurising the Indian
administration.
The then Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, was
against taking the plantation workers back. From 1939 to
1964, he insisted on an honourable solution to the plight of
the Tamils of the Indian origin in Ceylon. He was against any
form of repatriation. Once he assured a leader of the Ceylon
Worker Congress that he will never accept repatriation of
the Tamils to India. But that promise died along with Nehru
in 1964.
Lal Bahadur Shastri, the next Indian Prime Minister, deviated
from Nehru’s stance. Despite powerful Tamil Nadu based
ministers such as T.T. Krishnamachari and C Subramanian
holding important portfolios in his cabinet, Shastri agreed to
take back 5,25,000 Tamils from Ceylon, while Ceylon
reluctantly agreed to grant citizenship to 3,00,000 Tamils
over the next 15 years, in phases. The fate of a further
1,50,000 still stateless Tamils was kept in abeyance, to be
decided at a later date. By October 1979, when the pact
was due to end, Sri Lanka had granted citizenship to only
1,60,000 and by 1982, up to 4,00,000 people still remained
stateless in Sri Lanka.
When Don Senanayake deprived hundreds of thousands of
Tamils of Indian origin of their citizenship, G.G.
Ponnampalam, the representative of Tamils from the North
and East, did not oppose it. But Chelvanayagam was upset
and agitated.
Chelvanayagam spoke movingly in the Parliament: ‘You are
now hitting at the weakest section of the Tamils, you are
hitting at the innocent and the meek that are labouring in
the chill and the cold of the hill-country plantation regions
producing your wealth. We will know where we stand when
our turn comes next, we will know when the next piece of
legislation in this series comes, the one dealing with our
language.’3
Chelvanayagam immediately parted ways from the Tamil
Congress and declared: ‘We were first denied our share in
the Government. Next, our electoral strength was
reduced by the denial of citizenship to our Indian Tamil
brethren. They have started reducing territory by state
aided colonization. [Only] the federal structure will get
the Tamils their legitimate share in the Government and
put an end to the Sinhala attempt to grab our territory.’
Chelvanayagam inaugurated Federal Party in 1949 with a
declaration of ‘the establishment of an Autonomous State
for the Tamil-speaking People of Ceylon within the structure
of the Federal Union of Ceylon.’
As time passed by, an up and coming Sinhala politician in
Senanayake cabinet, Solomon Bandaranaike, aspired to
become the Prime Minister. He quit the ruling party, the
United National Party (UNP), and established the Sri Lanka
Freedom Party (SLFP). With ‘Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism’ as
his weapon and shortcut to power, he promised to declare
Sinhala as the only official language within 24 hours, if
elected to power. As expected, he came to power in 1956
with the full support of Buddhist monks.
Tamils were greatly shocked. Chelvanayagam registered his
protest in a peaceful Gandhian manner by performing
satyagraha at the Galle Face Green opposite the Parliament
building on 5th June 1956, when the “Sinhala Only Act” was
to be passed in the Parliament. There were 250 satyagrahis
who sat cross-legged at the Galle Face Green, when an
organised band of Sinhala hooligans brutally attacked them.
Police stood mute witnesses, and did nothing to prevent the
attack on the elected representatives, right in front of the
Parliament.
At around the same time, Bandaranaike drove in his car to
the Parliament to introduce the Sinhala Only Act. A senior
police officer went up to the Prime Minister and asked his
permission to chase away the thugs. Bandaranaike
disagreed and replied, ‘Let them have a taste of it.’4
A violent mob of more than ten thousand gathered at the
Galle Face Road, and threw some of the satyagrahis into the
Beira Lake near the Parliament House. Chelvanayagam, a
frail old man suffering from Parkinson’s disease and using
hearing-aids, was dumped into the dirty waters of the lake.
Just before that, he witnessed the beating up of both his
sons.
V N Navaratnam, a Member of Parliament, received severe
injuries in both his legs and was hospitalized for several
days. Other members of the Parliament from the Federal
Party such as Vanniyasingham and Naganathan were
thrashed badly, and their clothes were torn apart.
Amirthalingam, who was to play a decisive role in the
coming years, was also a notable victim. Despite blood
oozing from his wounded head, Amirthalingam entered the
Parliament with the help his colleague Suntheralingam, to
whom Lord Soulbury would confess in a few years that he
perhaps committed a mistake by recommending unitary
constitution for Ceylone.
As they entered the Parliament, Prime Minister Solomon
Bandaranaike welcomed them as ‘Honourable wounds of
war’, amid jeers and hooting by the Sinhalese members of
the Parliament.5
Suntheralingam retorted, ‘Yes, the war began on 5th June
1956.’
What is remembered as ‘Trincomalee convention’ that took
place in Trincomalee on 19th August 1956 was an important
event in the self determination struggle of the Tamils.
Scarred deeply from the riots that took place two months
ago, a large number of Tamils had gathered in the eastern
port city, Trincomalee. The convention, in its resolution
declared three demands. They are: equal status for Tamil
language, citizenship for Tamils of Indian origin and federal
system in the constitution. The Trincomalee convention
presented an ultimatum to Bandaranaike. If the Federal
Party’s demands were not met, the Tamil people would
launch a direct action campaign of non-violent civil
disobedience. The ultimatum expected the Government to
respond within one year, that is, by 20th August, 1957.
Federal Party observed 4th February 1957, Ceylon’s
Independence Day, as a day of mourning. The ultimatum
was fast approaching and Bandaranaike did not dare to face
a civil disobedience. He met Chelvanayagam on 26th July,
1957 and an agreement was signed.
The pact contained three important arrangements that
provided safeguards for the Tamil-speaking people. They
were:
 o Recognizing Tamil as a National Language without
disturbing the position enjoyed by Sinhala as the
Official Language and using Tamil as the language
of administration in the Northern and the Eastern
provinces.
o Setting up autonomous regional councils for the
North and the East.
o Bringing colonization schemes under the subjects
reserved for the regional councils and giving the
councils the power to select the allottees and the
personnel employed to work in those schemes.
This was the kind of opportunity the opposition UNP was
looking for, especially after being voted out of power. UNP
leader J.R. Jayewardene went on a march to Kandy. There
was a contest between rival Sinhala parties for capturing
power by showing who protected the Sinhalese people
better. Jayewardene claimed that Lord Buddha with his
almighty powers would not let the Bandaranaike-
Chelvanayagam agreement go through.
Sinhala protesters gathered in front of Bandaranaike’s
home. Most of them were Buddhist monks. They were
expecting, as part of the secret understanding they had
entered with Bandaranaike during the election campaign,
that Ceylon would become a Sinhala-Buddhist nation under
his regime. The Sinhala Only Act, according to them, was
the first step towards that. But, now, things were taking an
unexpected and ugly turn.
The protests from Buddhist clergy frightened Bandaranaike.
The priests demanded that the document he signed with
Chelvanayagam be torn to pieces in their presence. The
Prime Minister obeyed and brought out the original
document he and Chelvanayagam had signed and tore it to
pieces right in front of the monks. But that was not enough.
Eventually, a Buddhist monk later shot and killed Solomon
Bandaranaike.
Dudley Senanayake, son of first Prime Minister D.S.
Senanayake, came to power for the third time in 1965. He
too had entered into an agreement with Chelvanayagsam. If
Chelvanayagam’s party helped Senanayake come to power,
the Tamils will be given some basic rights. The pact
essentially agreed on the following:
1. Tamil will be the language of administration and
record in the Northern and the Eastern provinces.
Legal proceedings will be conducted and recorded
in Tamil in these provinces.
2. Priorities that should be observed in allocating
land under colonization schemes in the Northern
and the Eastern provinces were laid down as
follows: (a) In the first instance, land should be
granted to the landless persons in each district; (b)
Secondly, to the Tamil-speaking persons residing in
that district; (c) Thirdly, to other citizens in Ceylon,
preference being given to Tamil citizens from rest
of the island.
Now it was slain Solomon Bandaranaike’s widow Srimavo
Bandaranaike’s turn to protest. Srimavo took to the streets
along with Buddhist clergy. When the protesters resorted to
violence, the police opened fire, which ended in the death of
a Buddhist monk, Dambarawe Ratnasara. The opposition
leaders vowed to avenge the killing of the monk.
Dudley Senanayake immediately declared emergency and
enforced a dusk-to-dawn curfew. The emergency was in
force until the end of the tenure as the Prime Minister.
During this period, some army personnel joined hands with
some extremist elements to overthrow Dudley
Senanayake’s Government through a military coup. Army
Commander Major General Richard Udugama was arrested
in the failed coup attempt. Amongst the 31 suspects
arrested were a General, a retired civil servant, a captain,
20-odd privates, corporals and sergeants, a Buddhist monk
and a few civilians.
In the meantime, a five-member committee comprising
Chelvanayagam, Tiruchelvam and Amirthalingam insisted
that the Government implement Dudley-Chelva pact.
Dudley Senanayake coolly told them, “I thought that after
some months you will not insist on your demands.” 6
At the same time, he could not afford to lose the support
provided by the Federal Party in the Parliament. So,
Senanayake suggested that the Federal Party prepare the
draft of the District Council Bill for the consideration by the
cabinet, which could be the first step towards
decentralization of power.
Tiruchelvam, a legal expert, prepared a draft District Council
Bill on behalf of Federal Party and handed it over that to the
Prime Minister. The opposition vehemently protested against
the move to consider the draft bill. Senanayake acquiesced,
and issued a statement on 17th October 1966: ‘My
opponents in recent times have been conducting a
propaganda campaign that I have entered into an
agreement with the Federalists. All I have done is that I have
formed a Government with the help of the Federalists.’7
Chelvanayagam was disappointed and shocked. He met
journalists as a dejected man on 30th June 1968 and told
them of his meetings with Senanayake. He said: ‘I told him
that Mr. Bandaranaike cheated us first. Then Mrs.
Bandaranaike cheated us. Now you have also cheated us.’
The betrayal by Senanayake severely annoyed V
Navaratnam. He warned that Sinhala leadership could not
be trusted and suggested that separation, not federalism,
should be the only solution. He condemned his own Federal
Party for extending support to the Government despite
having their demands rejected. The Tamil people also
criticized Tiruchelvam for continuing in Dudley
Senanayake’s cabinet. But Navaratnam’s voice was not
heard in the Federal Party, as the charismatic
Chelvanayagam still believed in Federalism.
In 1969, V Navaratnam left the Federal Party and voiced a
demand for independence of Tamils from the Sinhala
domination. In the meantime, C Suntheralingam printed
booklets on ‘Eelam Tamils’ Freedom Struggle’ and started
distributing them amongst the Tamils in Ceylon. Thus, the
first strong protests against a federal solution and a solution
that called for a separate Tamil Eelam came from these two
- Navaratnam and Suntheralingam.
Despite the powerful and moderating voice of
Chelvanayagam, these two leaders were successful in
sowing the seeds of freedom struggle in a few young minds.
2. Seeds of militancy
Prabhakaran’s father, Thiruvenkadam Velupillai, was a
Government servant. He served as a district land officer for
many years. Theirs was an average middle class family with
middle class values and aspirations. Velupillai was content
with a safe job and a peaceful life. He believed that good
education alone could make his children achieve this.
Prabhakaran’s elder brother Manoharan took up a
Government job after completing his studies. His sisters
were also married to Government servants. Velupillai
wanted Prabhakaran to pursue a career in the reputed civil
services, but Prabhakaran could not fulfil his father’s
ambition. His ambition was not to serve the Government,
but to fight against the racist Sinhala administration and
form a Government for the Tamils.
Prabhakaran’s parents were devout and god-fearing. His
mother Parvathi observed fast on auspicious days. The
family frequently visited the temples. They also had a pooja
room at home with a big statue of Lord Siva and smaller
idols of Lord Ganesha and Muruga. The children including
Prabhakaran offered early morning prayers every day and
chanted the Thevaram. Among the photos of gods and
goddesses were pictures of Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru. Velupillai was an ardent supporter
Chelvanayagam, a hard-core Gandhian.
As the district land officer, Veluppillai noticed that the
Government aided and abetted gradual colonisation in the
Tamil traditional homeland, especially in the eastern region,
by bringing in larger number of Sinhalese there. This
resulted in a change in the ethnic landscape and the dilution
of Tamil identity.
Chelvanayagam had often warned: ‘It won’t be feasible to
paint a picture without a wall’. He meant that protecting the
traditional homeland and preventing it from being
consumed by Sinhalese should be taken up much ahead of
demanding other rights for the Tamils. As Velupillai
discussed this with his friends Prabhakaran would interntly
listen to such conversations. The little boy widened his
socio-political views by being a keen observer and listener.
Prabhakaran was of the opinion that the Tamils loved to talk
big, but rarely acted upon it. He concluded that Tamils were
submissive by nature and they had failed in choosing an
appropriate method of struggle. Prabhakaran aiso felt that
the Tamils needed to follow the methods of Subash Chandra
Bose and Bhagath Singh - revolutionaries of the Indian
National Movement - rather than those of Mahatma Gandhi
and Jawaharlal Nehru.
While his father adored Gandhi and Nehru, Prabhakaran
hung the portraits of Subash Chandra Bose and Bhagath
Singh on the walls. He was impressed by Bose and reflected
that in an interview later on, “Subash attracted me
particularly, since even as a boy he went in search of
spiritualism, and finding the life of a recluse dissatisfying,
returned [to normal life]. Yet, repeatedly he retreated to
spiritualism… During moments of great difficulty and crisis, I
followed his ideals and learnt lessons from his life with
fascination. He became my special hero, and some of his
inspiring speeches gripped me.”
Prabhakaran, during a 1994 interview to the Tamil
magazine, Velicham, recalled: ‘As a child, I was the pet and
the darling of the family. Therefore, I was hedged in by a lot
of restriction at home. My playmates were children from the
neighbouring homes. My childhood was spent in a small
circle of a lonely, quiet house.’8
Prabhakaran’s mother Parvathi was an expert cook.
Prabhakaran developed a healthy interest in cooking at a
young age and fiercely competed with his sister Vinothini in
this department.
Prabhakaran was only six years old, when Srimavo
Bandaranaike enforced ‘The Sinhala Only Act’in the Tamil
regions in 1961. Chelvanayagam protested by peaceful
Satyagraha means, which was brutally crushed by the
Sinhalese army. On 16th April 1961, the army resorted to
firing on protestors in Valvettithurai, wounding three
youngsters and killing one. Prabhakaran visited those
wounded in the Valvettithurai firing. He got a first hand
account of the manner in which Sinhala army treated the
Tamils there - torture, rounding up innocent civilians,
arresting people without reason and ill-treating women.
While going out with his father, Prabhakaran saw policemen
and army personnel beating up innocent people, which
created an indelible scar in his mind. He later mentioned in
an interview that he grew up in an environment where the
people hated the army.
Authorities justified their arrests and round-up as an
attempt to curb smuggling. Valvettithurai is referred to as
smugglers’ paradise in Colombo’s intellectual circles,
partially because it happens to be Prabhakaran’s birth
place. Valvettithurai, however, became infamous by this
name only after Ceylon obtained independence, in 1948. A
prosperous trading port and shipyard during the days of the
Jaffna Tamil Kingdom and later during the Dutch and
Portuguese rule, VVT, as Valvettithurai is known, produced
great sailors who built ships that sailed all the way up to the
North America. During the British rule, India and Ceylon
were not considered separate countries as both were British
colonies. Ceylonese frequently crossed the Palk Strait and
traded with people in India.
*
Thiruvengadam Veluppillai was very particular about his
children’s education. Prabhakaran’s first two years of
schooling was in the eastern town of Batticaloa where his
family moved following his father’s transfer. Then Veluppillai
moved back to Valvettithurai with his family. Prabhakaran
enrolled in the Aladi Sivaguru Elementary School.
After primary education, Prabhakaran went to Urikkadu
Chidampara College in Valvettithurai for his high school
education. Prabhakaran studied till Class Ten, but did not
take the public examination. He was an average student in
studies, for he was more interested in politics than
education.
But this upset Veluppillai, who watten his son to get a good
education and a respectable job. Worried about
Prabhakaran’s lack of interest in studies, Veluppillai
arranged for private tuitions in the evenings. This turned out
to be a decisive moment in Prabhakaran’s life. The private
tutor Venugopal Master was instrumental in shaping
Prabhakaran’s ideologies from 1967 to 1972.
Venugopal Master implanted three significant seeds of
thought in Prabhakaran’s young mind. He told Prabhakaran
that the Tamils in the North and the East were a nation of
their own with their own culture and history and had their
own kingdoms in the past. It was the British who brought
Sinhala nation and Tamil nation of the island forcibly
together into a single country. He further told Prabhakaran
that the submissive Tamil political leadership would lead the
Eelam Tamil to slavery and eventually extinction in a short
while.
Venugopal Master also explained to Prabhakaran that
nowhere in the world a parliamentary democratic setup had
resolved ethnic conflicts successfully. The unitary Parliament
system in Ceylon represented only the aspirations of the
Sinhala majority. Armed domination of the Sinhalese
majority could only be confronted with armed might, and
that alone could win back the Tamils their freedom.
Thus, it was Venugopal Master who sowed the seeds of
Tamil nationalism and separatism in Prabhakaran’s mind.
Venugopal Master himself was influenced by
Suntheralingam and Navaratnam, and thus these two had
indirectly influenced Prabhakaran’s thinking.
Venugopal Master had served in the Federal Party youth
wing and had accepted the leaders’ ideologies without
questioning. However, he was eventually disillutioned with
the party’s leadership. He then joined Navaratnam’s
Suyatchi Kazhakam (Self Rule Party) that worked towards
achieving freedom of Eelam from Ceylon.
An avid reader, history books and biographies of
revolutionary leaders and great warriors were young
Prabhakaran’s favourites. He also developed good
understanding about Indian freedom struggle. In particular,
Subash Chandra Bose’s brave words, ‘I shall fight for the
freedom of my land until I shed the last drop of my blood’
inspired Prabhakaran.
He said in an interview, ‘It is through books that I learnt of
the heroic exploits of Alexander and Napoleon. It is through
my habit of reading that I developed a deep attachment to
the Indian Freedom struggle and martyrs like Subhash
Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh and Bal Gangadar Tilak. It was
the reading of such books that laid the foundation for my life
as a revolutionary. The Indian Freedom struggle stirred the
depths of my being and roused in me a feeling of
indignation against foreign oppression and domination.’
Prabhakaran further elaborated on Subash Chandra Bose:
‘His disciplined life and his total commitment and dedication
to the cause of his country’s freedom deeply impressed me
and served as my guiding light.’
Even after becoming a guerrilla fighter, Prabhakaran’s
pursuit of reading did not stop. Sankar Raji, a leader of Tamil
militant organisation EROS (Eelam Revolutionary
Organisation of Students) said that he saw in Prabhakaran’s
room books, on Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh and
Mao Tse-tung, apart from some of the ‘Teach Yourself’ series
of books, one of them being Pistol Shooting.
*
In May 1969, Education Minister I.M.R.A. Irriyagolla ordered
that three Tamil schools started by low caste Hindu
untouchables in Jaffna be taken over by Sinhala Buddhist
schools and announced that he would be present at the
takeover ceremony. This announcement angered the Tamil
youth. They took it up as a challenge and large number of
volunteers gathered to stage a massive satyagraha
campaign on that day.
Federal Party leadership intervened, tried to cool down the
youth and dissuaded them from marching ahead. However,
the youth wing of the party was determined to register its
protest against the Sinhala minister. Police permission was
refused for the march. But the agitated students decided to
defy the ban. The Government deployed navy personnel as
well as police force in order to control the situation and
provide security to the three schools. In the end, Federal
Party leadership persuaded the youth to give up their
agitation.
This move resulted in several youngsters breaking away
from the party to start their own groups. One such group
was formed by Kuttimani and Thangathurai from
Valvettithurai, Prabhakaran’s hometown. Thangathurai’s real
name was Nadarajah Thangavelu. Kuttimani’s real name
was Selvarajah Yogachandran. This little known group
organised a secret meeting in Jaffna and decided to resort to
armed sruggle.
Thangathurai was an admirer of Yasser Arafat and his
Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). He therefore wanted
to name his new organisation as Tamil Liberation
Organisation (TLO). The little group created history by
taking the first step in what will be a protracted armed
struggle for self-determination in the history of Sri Lanka.
3. Taking to arms
Members of TLO regularly met at a spacious house in Point
Pedro. Discussions usually centred on revolutions and
revolutionaries. Prabhakaran, at the age of 14, was the
youngest among the group of fifteen. Kuttimani,
Thangathurai, Periya Sothi, Sinna Sothi, Chetti alias
Thanabalasingham, Kannady Pathmanathan, Sri
Sabaratnam and Sivakumaran attended these meetings and
talked about making bombs and collecting arms.
Venugopal Master’s influence and association with the
radical youth of the Thangathurai- Kuttimani groups brought
about a considerable change in Prabhakaran. He and his
friends experimented with bomb making. In the initial
attempts, the chemicals they collected from firecrackers
served as an ingredient. Later on, they tried them with the
chemicals pilfered from the school laboratory. They filled an
empty soda bottle with chemicals and closed it with a cork.
An incense stick was inserted through the cork and it was
named ‘bomb’.
The plan was to explode the ‘bomb’ during lunch break and
the place chosen was the school toilet. The little rebels
waited outside until everyone finished using the toilet.
Finally, Prabhakaran and another boy placed the ‘bomb’
inside the toilet, lighted the incense stick and ran out. They
waited anxiously for the explosion to occur. But nothing
happened. Prabhakaran lost his patience and tried to take a
look, but was prevented by the others.
Then the ‘bomb’ exploded. Delighted, the boys started
laughing. As they were thrilled at their success, one of them
spotted the principal of the school. The principal noticed
them too. They rushed back to the classroom and sat
quietly. The principal walked straight to Prabhakaran’s class
after inspecting the toilet. He knew that the mischief-makers
would have come from that class as the students attended
Venugopal Master’s private tuition and everybody in
Valvettithurai knew that the Master was a proponent of
armed struggle.
When the principal demanded to know who had done the
mischief, no one answered. The principal let them go as he
was aware of the anger prevalent amongst the youth. He
however warned them to keep the mischief outside the
school.
Prabhakaran knew that the real game was to be played
outside. Sheer courage would not serve any purpose; he
needed weapons. He could not fight the Sinhala army with
his bare hands. He was badly in need of a gun, but did not
have any means to acquire it. After lot of contemplation,
Prabhakaran approached Venugopal Master.
‘Master, I need a gun.’
Venugopal Master was surprised. ‘You first learn kambadi,’
suggested Master. Kambadi is also known as silambattam, a
Tamil martial art, in which a two metre long, cured bamboo
stick is wielded as a defensive and offensive weapon.
Prabhakaran was disappointed. He thought the master had
underestimated his passion. ‘How could one confront the
guns of the army and police with sticks?,’ thought the 14-
year-old. The Master, on the other hand, probably did not
want to encourage his student’s fantasies. However, his
dissuasion could not stop Prabhakaran and his zeal for
acquiring a gun.
Prabhakaran was heading a closely-knit group of like-
minded friends determined to fight the Sinhala domination.
This group was different from the Thangathurai- Kuttimani
group, in which Prabhakaran was an insignificant member.
There, he was the youngest and was called thambi (younger
brother), whereas here, he was the leader.
Prabhakaran and his friends came to know that a rowdy
called Sambanthan had a pistol and was willing to sell it for
Rs 150. The moment they decided to buy a weapon, they
had started a fund. Each member contributed 25 cents (a
cent is one hundredth of a Ceylon Rupee) a week from their
pocket money given to them to buy candies. The secret
group accumulated Rs 40 in twenty weeks.
In an interview given to a magazine called Velicham,
Prabhakaran said, ‘Determined to buy this pistol somehow, I
sold a ring which had been presented to me during my
sister's wedding. It fetched Rs 70. Altogether we now had Rs
110.’ He had sold the ring he received as a gift during the
marriage of his elder sister, Jagatheeswari.
Prabhakaran and a friend took a bus to Point Pedro where
Sambanthan lived. Prabhakaran didn’t have enough money,
but thought he could persuade the seller to either reduce
the price or agree to accept the balance money later,
recognizing the patriotic nature of their mission.
Sambanthan could not believe his eyes when he saw two
boys in shorts enquiring about a gun. His first reaction was
to chase them away. However, their eagerness to see the
weapon made him relent. He let them have a look at the
gun and made sure they did not touch it.
‘This is not a play gun. You children should not even touch
it,’ he said.
Prabhakaran was almost in tears. Though he had seen a gun
before, this was the first time he had a chance to view it
from close quarters. He was disappointed that he could not
touch it. He asked Sambanthan to show him how to operate
it. Sambanthan declined saying that it was not a weapon for
boys and asked why they needed the gun.
Prabhakaran said he needed the gun to fight the police and
the army who represented Sinhala domination over the
Tamils. ‘We must drive them away,’ said Prabhakaran firmly.
‘For what?’ questioned Sambanthan.
Prabhakaran replied, ‘In order to free the Tamil nation and
reclaim the lost pride.’
Sambanthan was surprised. ‘We have political leaders to
look after these matters. You had better go and study now.
May be some day, when you grow up, you can think of these
radical things. Now you can go.’
Prabhakaran did not come there to go back empty-handed.
He asked reluctantly, ‘Will you sell the pistol to us if we
bring the balance money?’
Sambanthan declined, and Prabhakaran returned back to
Valvettithurai with a broken heart.
Perhaps some day he will be in possession of a cache of
weapons, he thought. For that, it was imperative for
Prabhakaran to become physically and mentally strong. He
and his friends learnt about the physical exercises taught in
the army. They also obtained details about the torture
techniques used in police investigations. If they ever got
arrested, they wanted to be prepared to withstand such
torture.
Prabhakaran and his friends started learning the basics of
karate and judo. They exercised well to condition their
bodies to endure prolonged suffering. They would prick their
nails with sharp needles, tie themselves up inside gunny
sacks and lie in the hot sun for the whole day or lie on top of
bags containing hot chillies with only underpants on. These
were usually the torture techniques deployed by the police
and the army.
Around 25 youngsters were part of the Kuttimani-
Thangathurai group. The members called Thangathurai as
mama (uncle). Both were born in Valvettithurai and so were
most of the group members.
In the first half of 1970, Thangathurai purchased two
revolvers, .22 calibre and .38 calibre. He had planned to use
them for shooting practice and as a prototype for
manufacturing them locally. The responsibility of copying
and manufacturing similar revolvers fell on the shoulders of
Kannady Pathmanathan and Prabhakaran. Kannady
Pathmanathan was a radio mechanic by profession and was
known for his technical proficiency. Prabhakaran, a keen
observer and improviser, was asked to assist Kannady.
Thangathurai recalled this to a journalist T Sabaratnam, ‘We
knew nothing about making revolvers. In fact, most of the
boys saw those weapons for the first time. I asked Kannady
and Prabhakaran to try. They sat on the veranda of the
house we regularly met in, with a few screwdrivers and
hammers. They dismantled the revolvers in no time. They
placed the pieces carefully on a newspaper and then
assembled the revolver. Both possessed remarkable powers
of observation and an excellent memory.’9
Kannady Pathmanathan and Prabhakaran did not stop there.
They soon mastered the art of manufacturing similar
revolvers and even managed to make bullets. Prabhakaran
also learnt shooting perfectly. At first, they used the
chemicals in matchsticks. Then, they used the chemicals in
firecrackers. The guns and bullets used during the early
days of the armed struggle were entirely homemade.
*
The year 1970 saw some dramatic changes in the political
arena too. Dudley Senanayake’s five year regime came to
an end. He ruled the country for 1,825 days, of which the
country was placed under emergency for 1,086 days. The
nation prepared itself for a general election.
Federal Party once again put forward a federal concept. The
party’s election manifesto said: ‘The Tamil-speaking people
of Ceylon believe that a federal type of constitution that
would enable them to look after their own affairs alone
would safeguard them from total extinction. Only under
such a condition could the Tamil-speaking people of this
country live in dignity and with their birthright to
independence as equals with their Sinhalese brethren.’
V Navaratnam, who left the Federal Party in the previous
year and had formed the Thamilar Suyatchi Kazhagam
(Tamils Self-Rule Party) and Suntharalingam campaigned for
the establishment of a separate state for the Tamils and
named it Eelam. They were defeated in the polls as Tamils
voted for Chelvanayagam and the Federal Party. Despite
this, Navaratnam and Suntharalingam were successful
enough in sowing the seeds of separation in the minds of
the youth.
Venugopal Master, in an interview to the writer Sachi Sri
Kantha, said in 2004, ‘Suntheralingam’s brain was on a
different plane from the others. Regrettably, he was an
eccentric individualist – as typical of mathematicians – and
he couldn’t nurture a team of followers. Thus Eelam
nationalism didn’t pick up steam then.’10
Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) came to power with the
support of the communists. Srimavo Bandaranaike was
sworn in as the Prime Minister. Dudley Senanayake handed
over his United National Party to JR Jayewardene and left
active politics after his party’s poor performance in the
polls.
Srimavo appointed Dr Badi-ud-din Mahmud as the Education
Minister. He introduced a bill of historic importance in the
Parliament that created an irreparable damage in Ceylon’s
prolonged ethnic conflict. He introduced an act called ‘The
Standardisation Act’ in the Parliament.
Badi-ud-din told the Parliament that Sinhalese were
discontented with the university admission scheme which
resulted in Tamil domination of the prestigious professional
courses such as medicine and engineering. The minister
said that predominantly Tamil examiners awarded more
marks to the Tamil students and they also helped the Tamil
students during the practical examinations. ‘The cabinet
feels the need to correct these injustices done to the Sinhala
students,’ declared the politically motivated Tamil speaking
Muslim minister who was more Sinhalese than the Sinhalese
themselves.
As a first step towards the ‘corrective’ measures, he said
that the Government was going to abolish practical exams
altogether. The second step was media-wise
standardisation. In short, standardisation meant that the
Tamils needed to score more marks than the Sinhala
students to get admitted to the professional courses.
At first, Tamil representation in the Parliament was reduced
by depriving the voting rights of the hill country Tamils.
Then, the Tamils were not permitted to conduct their own
affairs in their own language. State aided colonisation and
encroachment shrunk the traditional homeland of the
Tamils. Tamil youth, who were already agitated, were further
infuriated by the Standardisation Act.
Tamil students apprehended that the media-wise
standardisation would benefit the Sinhala students at the
cost of the Tamil students. Ponnuthurai Satyaseelan, a
university student, gathered other Tamil students and
organised a massive protest march. At the end of the
march, they approached the Federal Party leaders and
wanted them to protest against the media-wise
standardisation. The leadership did not understand the
seriousness of the student revolt while the students found
the politicians’ answer evasive.
Satyaseelan declared openly, ‘We never had any faith in the
Tamil Congress. It is too conservative and insensitive to new
ideas. The Federal Party too is getting fossilised and is losing
its grip on the problems of the youth, especially the
students. We need a new organisation to voice our
grievances.’
Thus, Tamil Students Union (TSU) was founded in November
1970. Many, including Sivakumaran joined this organisation.
At the beginning, membership was restricted only to GCE
Advanced Level students. Later on, it was extended to
students in the lower classes and school dropouts too. That
was when Prabhakaran joined the organisation at the age of
15.
Amirthalingam, who was out of the Parliament after his loss
in the 1970 general elections, was asked by Chelvanayagam
to organise and manage the youth wing in the Federal Party.
A TSU delegation met Amirthalingam in December 1970 and
urged him to do something about the standardisation issue
on behalf of the Federal Party.
Amirthalingam brought the issue up in the party’s General
Council Meeting that took place within a month, and told the
gathering that standardisation had angered the youth and
explained the ground realities. As a result, the General
Council appointed a 11-member committee headed by
Thanthai Chelva. When the committee tried to meet the
Prime Minister, it was directed to meet Badi-ud-din
Mahmood.
Badi-ud-din told them that he would do anything for them
except changing the Standardisation Act. He further said
that it was a collective Cabinet decision and he was merely
implementing it. He had no authority to alter it.
Earlier on 13th June 1970, Deputy Minister for Cultural
Affairs, Somaweera Chandrasiri, paid a visit to Urumpirai
Hindu College. He was considered to be a Sinhala extremist
and the dissenting Tamil youth despised him. Sivakumaran
placed a bomb underneath his car. This was recorded as the
first act of violence indulged by the Tamil militant youth.
No one was killed in that incident or injured in the incident.
The car, however, was blown to pieces. Sivakumaran was
arrested following this bomb blast, which influenced other
youth to take up the armed revolution.
4. Ceylon becomes Sri Lanka
Like Sivakumaran’s, Prabhakaran’s first act of violence also
took place in 1970. Prabhakaran and three of his comrades
did not target anyone’s life, but decided to set a state run
bus on fire. The decision was based on their belief that
destroying state property was the best way of showing their
protest against the actions of the state.
They finalised a time and place that would allow them to
escape easily after the incident and also made sure that no
innocent public is harmed. A bus running between
Valvettithurai and Point Pedro was chosen as the target,
after it returned to the shed in Point Pedro its last trip in the
night.
Prabhakaran and his comrades waited with a can of petrol
and a match box at a dark corner near the bus shed. As the
bus was approaching them, Prabhakaran’s friends, who
were all in their teens, panicked and ran away. Yet,
Prabhakaran was unfazed. He swiftly rolled a large log of a
coconut tree they had kept with them onto the road. As the
driver and the conductor of the bus got down to remove the
log, they were chased away by Prabhakaran. He splashed
the petrol on the empty bus and set it ablaze.
Prabhakaran was never caught for this offense. Despite
these occasional acts of defiance in 1970, Srimavo
administration did not give in and retained the
Standardisation Act. The Government was also getting ready
to draft a new constitution for Ceylon, as the country was
still functioning as per the 1945 Soulbury Constitution.
Srimavo had appointed Dr. Colvin R. de Silva, deputy leader
of LSSP (a Sinhala-dominated communist party) as the
Minister for Constitutional Affairs.
The Federal Party and Chelvanayagam were aware of these
developments. It was customary for the Federal Party to
contest the elections promising a federal set up, but it
always ended up collaborating with the Sinhala politicians
after the elections. This time too, the party decided to
cooperate with the Government in the constitution-making
process, hoping that they could persuade the Sinhala
politicians to move towards a federal setup.
Navaratnam and Suntheralingam feared that the Federal
Party will succumb to the pressures of the Sinhala politicians
and give up in the end without getting a federal
constitution. In the Parliament, Sinhalese were the majority
and they would always get what they wanted.
 

They felt that if the Federal Party cooperated with the

Government and failed in achieving a federal constitution, it
would seriously undermine the morale of the Tamils. But the
Federal Party leaders were in no mood to listen. As a last
try, Navaratnam and Suntheralingam met the Federal Party
leaders at the residence of Jaffna Mayor S. Nagarajah, where
Amirthalingam sharply reacted: ‘Nobody can dictate to the
Federal Party whether to go the Constituent Assembly or
not.’11
Colvin R. de Silva had told Tiruchelvam that the Government
was considering offering few concessions to the Tamil
community through the new constitution. Therefore, the
Federal Party did not want to miss this opportunity. The
party seemed to be quite content with a few ‘concessions’
rather than fighting for the ‘legitimate rights’ of Tamils.
Moreover, the Federal Party leaders had high regard for de
Silva. He was a rare Sinhala politician who had opposed
Solomon Bandaranaike’s Sinhala Only Act in 1956. He had
said in the parliament, ‘Two languages will help build a
single nation and a single language, two nations.’ Tamil
leaders would realise soon that he was not the same de
Silva, only after the damage he was going to cause to them.
The Working Committee of the Federal Party met on 11th July
1970 to discuss the new constitution and the ‘concessions’
indicated by the minister. They decided to prepare a model
federal constitution on behalf of the party. V
Dharmalingham, MP from Uduvil constituency, (who was
later killed by the armed group TELO in 1986) was asked to
draft the model constitution to be presented to the
constituent assembly for consideration.
Dharmalingham’s draft proposed a central Government and
five regional state Governments. The Central Government
will be run by the Parliament and States Governments by
State Assemblies, as in India. The Northern Province and
Trincomalee and Batticoloa districts of the eastern province
were grouped into a North-Eastern state, while the Muslim
majority district of Amparai was to be part of the South-
Eastern state.
The Federal Party’s model constitution proposed that
international relations, defense, law and order, police,
citizenship, immigration and emigration, Central Bank and
monetary policy, customs, postal and telecommunication
services, ports, sea, air and rail transport, electricity,
irrigation, national policy in health and education be
handled by the central Government. Rest of the powers
would lie with the state Governments. It was obvious that
the model drafted by the Federal Party proposed fewer
powers to the state when compared to the states in India
where police and law and order also vested with the states.
On the language policy, it proposed that Sinhala and Tamil
be the national languages, and courts in the North and East
would function in Tamil and those in the rest of the country
work in Sinhala, and every citizen would have the right to
communicate with the Government in his mother tongue.
Dharmalingham and his colleagues in the Federal Party
meticulously prepared this model constitution and took it to
the Steering Committee meeting held on 4th January 1971.
The Sinhala majority rejected this draft. They had worked
out their own version of the constitution. It said, ‘The
Republic of Sri Lanka shall be a unitary state’, a statement
that directly ridiculed the Federal Party and the cooperation
it extended to the Sinhalese in the constitution-making
process.
Dharmalingham told the committee: ‘I wish to make our
position very clear. Tamil people have rejected the unitary
constitution from the first parliamentary election held in
1947. In addition, from 1956, they have voted for a federal
constitution. Our mandate from the Tamil people is for a
federal constitution.’
‘The Republic of Sri Lanka shall be a unitary state’ meant
another thing too. The name of the country was going to be
renamed from ‘Ceylon’ to ‘Sri Lanka’ from them on.
The resolution calling for the establishment of the unitary
state was passed on 27th March 1971.
Dharmalingham pleaded with the committee, ‘If you have
no mandate to establish a federal constitution, please at
least consider the decentralization of the administration’.
This was rejected too.
New constitution further stated: ‘The official language of Sri
Lanka shall be Sinhala as provided by the Official Language
Act No 33 of 1956.’ What had been a law in 1956 got a
stronger legitimacy through inclusion in the constitution.
Sinhala was made the language of the courts across the
country. The Federal Party’s plea that courts in the Northern
and Eastern provinces be allowed to conduct their affairs in
Tamil was turned down.
On top of all these, Buddhism was declared as the only
accepted religion in Sri Lanka. The new constitution
established: ‘The Republic of Sri Lanka shall give to
Buddhism the foremost place and, accordingly, it shall be
the duty of the state to protect and foster Buddhism.’ The
constitution also dropped the safeguards provided to the
minority communities against discrimination by Section 29
of the Soulbury Constitution.
As warned by Suntheralingam, Navaratnam and others,
the Federal Party was made to look like a set of fools.
Suntheralingam was critical and said, ‘As we warned, you
have only weakened the Tamil cause.’ Amirthalingam
agreed: ‘We look like a set of fools in the eyes of the
youth.’12
In this background, 1971 saw some dramatic events taking
place in Sri Lanka. Rohana Wijeweera, after having been
released on amnesty when Srimavo became the Prime
Minister, went on to recruit a large number Sinhala youth in
his armed group called Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP –
People’s liberation front). Wijeweera had been arrested and
jailed for attempting to overthrow Dudley Senanayake’s
Government with the help of army officers.
Rohana Wijeweera instructed his men to speed up fund
raising for JVP, by whatever means. They badly needed
money to procure arms. The members were assured that
they would be rewarded amply, when the group captured
power. JVP went on gathering large cache of arms and
ammunition. JVP sympathisers had hoarded a large number
of detonators in a building inside Peradeniya University.
Because of excessive heat, the detonators exploded and the
explosion continued for five days at a stretch!
The Srimavo Bandaranaike Government announced that a
JVP plot to overthrow the Government had been uncovered,
and declared a state of emergency. On 13th March 1971,
Wijeweera was arrested and moved to Jaffna jail.
In an adventurous attempt to wrench power from the state,
JVP undertook a sudden and massive armed attack on 4th
April 1971. Its cadres in groups of 20-25, assaulted police
stations across the country. Of the 273 police stations in the
country, 93 were captured by JVP armed cadre. Police
personnel in the other stations deserted and ran away,
fearing for their lives. Most of south and west Sri Lanka fell
into the hands of the JVP.
It was rumoured that JVP armed groups were marching
ahead in an attempt to capture Colombo. Prime Minister
Srimavo Bandaranaike feared for her life and was hiding
under her table. Her office had received false information
that JVP armed men had crossed the parliament building
and were marching on the Galle Road, on their way to the
Temple Trees, to capture Mrs. Bandaranaike. That night, she
left for Colombo harbour to spend the night on an anchored
ship.
Though this sudden uprising took the Government by
surprise, the state machinery took swift counter-insurgency
measures to contain the situation. The rebellion was poorly
organised, poorly armed, had no command and control
structure and was without a coherent policy and strategy.
The army was called in, which quickly took control of the
police stations by driving the JVP away.
The whole operation took three weeks. The Government
claimed that it killed more than 5,000 JVP armed men.
According to unofficial figures reported by several
magazines, nearly 25,000 Sinhalese youth were feared to
have been killed. More than 18,000 youth were taken into
custody following the insurgency. Rohana Wijeweera was
sentenced to life imprisonment, which was later reduced to
20 years.
Srimavo Bandaranaike blamed North Korea for all the
troubles. The North Korean Embassy was ordered to be
closed down for alleged complicity in the insurrection.
Even before the JVP insurrection, on 20th February 1971, the
Federal Party leaders Chelvanayagam and Amirthalingam
went to Madras (later Chennai) in India to appraise the
Indian Tamil political leaders of the situation prevailing in
Ceylon. They also lobbied for the support of the Indian
leaders for the cause of Tamils in Ceylon.
*
East Pakistan was carved out as a separate country called
Bangladesh on 16th December 1971, thanks to Indira
Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India. Tamils in Sri Lanka
showed keen interest in the Bangladesh freedom struggle.
Urdu and Panjabi-speaking West Pakistan and Bengali-
speaking East Pakistan were brought together as a single
nation in 1947. Yet, they could not continue to co-exist due
to ethnic, linguistic and historical differences between the
two regions. Ultimately in 1971, Bangladesh got freedom
with the help of Indian intervention.
During the Bangladesh war, India banned Pakistani
aeroplanes flying over the Indian skies. Srimavo
Bandaranaike’s Government came forward to assist
Pakistan, by permitting Pakistan fighter planes to stop over
and refuel in Sri Lanka. During the Indo-China war in the
1960s, Ceylon Government had stood by China. It once
again took an anti-Indian stance during the Bangladesh war
by directly assisting Pakistan. As a symbol of gratitude,
Pakistan presented two armed helicopters to Sri Lanka.
While the Sri Lanka Government directly supported Pakistan,
the Tamils in Sri Lanka supported India and expressed
solidarity with the Indian cause in the Bangladeshi war.
Chelvanayagam collected money from Tamils to be sent to
India but the Sri Lankan Government prevented this move.
The Tamils in Sri Lanka felt that their struggle for rights had
several things in common with the Bangladeshi freedom
struggle. They hoped that the regional superpower India
would free them from the Sinhala oppression, just as it freed
Bangladesh from the Pakistani oppression.
The Federal Party organised several events in Jaffna
peninsula to celebrate the Indian victory and to congratulate
India and Indira Gandhi. A massive rally was held in
Kankesanthurai on 12th January 1972 to celebrate India’s
victory in the Bangladesh war. Chelvanayagam told the
gathering that India would do to them what it did for the
Bangladeshis.
Militant youth, on the other hand, did not have such
illusions. They objectively viewed both the JVP insurrection
and the Bangladesh independence. The JVP revolt gave
them the confidence that they could fight the Government.
They realised that the state could be effectively challenged
with proper motivation, weapons and leadership. JVP
insurrection was not highly organised and the cadres were
not properly trained. They understood that any operation
with improper training and planning would only spell
disaster.
They learnt another important lesson in terms of warfare
strategy. Unlike JVP, they should not hold on to the territory
if they do not have sufficient numbers. Even though JVP
captured sizable territory, they were run down when the
army and police commenced counter attack.
So, the militant youth decided to adopt the well-tested
urban guerrilla warfare of hit and run, a decision that would
yield substantial results in the decades to come.
5. Formation of militant organisations
Thangathurai and Sinna Sothi were with Prabhakaran, when
they experimented with a home-made bomb. They had
chosen a place behind the palm trees.
5, 4, 3, 2 …. The countdown was not over, but the bomb
exploded. The explotion caused burn injuries to Prabhakaran
and left a scar in his right leg. It took some time to heal, but
Prabhakaran was proud of it. He showed it to all his friends
and told them, ‘Folks, I will now be known as Karikalan.’ It
meant ‘a man with a charred leg’ but was also the name of
a famous Chola King of Tamil Nadu in India, who ruled
during the 2nd century AD.
Prabhakaran had developed a deep interest in history. He
was an admirer of the famous Chola King, Karikalan. He
ruled around 120 AD. He defeated Pandya and Chera kings
in the battle of Venni. He raised the banks of the river
Cauveri and built a dam on it called Kallanai, one of the
oldest water-regulating structures in the world that is still in
use.
‘Like Karikalan, I will also build a Tamil country,’
Prabhakaran kept reminding himself.
Most of the Tamil magazines published in Tamil Nadu in the
1960s and 1970s featured historic novels, serialised every
week. Popular weeklies Anantha Vikatan, Kalki and
Kumutham competed with each other to publish such
novels. Prabhakaran, an avid reader, absorbed all of them.
He also read Ramayana and Mahabharata, the great Indian
epics.
A novel, Kadal Pura by Chandilyan inspired young
Prabhakaran in particular. The novel narrated the story of
naval power through which the Chola kings conquered
Cambodia and Thailand. Kallukkul Eeram by Nalla Perumal,
another work that inspired him, was a story that described
India's independence struggle. It narrated how a group
staged an armed attack on Chennai’s Fort St. George, the
administrative headquarters of the British in South India.
In an interview Prabhakaran himself confirmed: ‘These
novels aroused in me the desire to see our nation rise again
from servitude and that our people should live a life of
dignity and freedom in their liberated motherland. Why
shouldn’t we take up arms to fight those who have enslaved
us?’
*
Alfred Duraiapph was then the Mayor of Jaffna. He was the
chief organiser of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party in Jaffna
District, where the Sinhala party had no base at all. Many
Tamils viewed him as a traitor. Many Federal Party leaders,
especially Amirthalingam, publicly branded Duraiapph as a
collaborator of Sinhalese.
Sivakumaran, who had made an attempt on the minister
Somaweera Chandrasiri in 1970, decided to assassinate
Alfred Duraiapph. On 11th March 1971, he threw a hand
grenade on mayor’s car parked in the Second Cross Road in
Jaffna. Duraiapph was lucky, as he had just parked the car
and walked up to the Jaffna Rest House to have tea with his
friend, when the grenade fell on his car.
Following this incident, Sivakumaran was arrested. It so
happened that the friend Duraiappa was having tea with,
when the grenade was thrown on to his car, was Magistrate
Colin Mendis. The case came up for hearing in his court.
However, Sivakumaran had to be released for want of solid
evidence. However, he had been tortured while in police
custody.
Sivakumaran later told his colleagues that he would never
want to be caught alive by the police. Thus, he decided to
carry with him a cyanide capsule, which he planned to
swallow if he was caught by the police. Sivakumaran had
thus started off the cyanide culture, so prominent amongst
the armed revolutionaries of Tamil Eelam.
The new constitution of Sri Lanka came to effect in 1972. It
replaced the Governor-General with a President as the head
of the state, and the existing Governor-General William
Gopallawa thus became the first President. Ceylon was
renamed as Sri Lanka. It also became an official Sinhala-
Buddhist-unitary state.
It was time for the Tamils to get united. The Federal Party
invited all the Tamil political parties for a meeting. The All
Ceylon Tamil Congress (headed by G.G.Ponnampalam), the
Ceylon Tamil United Front (founded C.Suntheralingam), the
Ceylon Workers Congress (representative for Tamils of
Indian origin from Kandy) and a few other youth and student
organisations took part in that meeting. They met on 14th
May 1972, eight days before the proclamation of the
constitution, at the Town Hall in Trincomalee, and decided to
shed narrow differences and form an organisation for the
Tamils called the Tamil United Front (TUF). Chelvanayagam
was elected the president of the TUF. Kasi Ananthan and
Ganeshamoorthy were elected as joint secretaries.
The Tamil United Front unanimously resolved to reject the
1972 constitution and boycott the ceremonial opening of the
Parliament which had been renamed the National State
Assembly. TUF also decided to observe 22nd May 1972, the
day the new constitution was to be proclaimed, as a day of
mourning. Chelvanayagam described the new constitution,
‘a charter of slavery.’
Srimavo Bandaranaike wanted to punish the Tamils and
banned the import of Tamil movies, Tamil books and Tamil
magazines from India into Sri Lanka. On the day the
constitution was promulgated, 15 out of the 20 Tamil MPs
boycotted the ceremony. However, five MPs took part and
voted for the new constitution. They were three elected
members C Arulampalam, Thiagarajah and Martyn, and two
nominated members Subramaniam and Kumarasuriar.
Kumarasuriar was appointed as the minister of Post and
Telecommunications by Srimavo as a measure of gratitude.
The Tamil United Front organised a massive protest rally on
22nd May 1972, despite a ban on rallies and meetings.
Youngsters took part in large numbers. All shops downed
their shutters and the transport system was brought to a
standstill. Students boycotted the schools. The Sri Lankan
flag was burnt in several places. A ‘funeral procession’ was
held for the new constitution.
Chelvanayagam declared in that meeting: ‘We wanted to
live united. We wanted to live as dignified, respected
partners. That has been denied to us. They want us to be
their slaves. No man with self-respect will accede to that.
We want to live with self-respect. If that can only be done
through separation, then we will have to travel that path. I
wish to declare to my people and the world that we are
being compelled to travel that path.’
It was indeed a paradigm shift as the Federal Party got
transformed into TUF and their federal demand transformed
into a demand for a separate state. In the meantime,
militant youth, and in particular Thangathurai-Kuttimani
group, turned their anger towards the five Tamil MPs who
voted for the 1972 constitution and those who supported
them.
Arulampalam lived in Colombo and hence he was out of
reach. Therefore, they decided to target
Kumarakulasingham, former chairman of the Nallur Village
Council and a close associate of Arulampalam. It was
Kumarakulasingham who enticed Arulampalam to move
from All Ceylon Tamil Congress to SLFP.
The news of Kumarakulasingham’s murder in the hands of
Thangathurai-Kuttimani group shocked the moderate TUF
leadership. Chelvanayagam handed the responsibility of
containing the militant youth to Amirthalingam.
Amirthalingam accepted the responsibility and assured, ‘I
can manage them.’
The Government commenced a massive arrest drive in an
attempt to curb the Tamil uprising. Many members of the
Tamil Students Union were arrested. Sivakumaran, Chelliah
Thanabalasingham (Chetti) and Kasi Ananthan were some of
the people arrested. Such arrests proved to be counter
productive, though.
In a sudden turnaround, the TUF parliamentarians, who
initially rejected the new constitution, changed their mind
and decided to attend the Parliament. On 4th July 1972,
they swore by the new constitution and started attending
the parliament.
That was exactly what the Sinhalese wanted to happen. The
Government demonstrated that Sri Lanka was indeed a
unitary state. This act resulted in creating a big chasm
between the moderate Tamil leaders and the militant youth.
Tamil United Front, in the meantime, had raised a six point
charter that called for the amendment to the constitution to
accommodate the aspirations of the Tamils within a period
of three months, before September 1972. Chelvanayagam
wrote two letters to the Prime Minister Srimavo
Bandaranaike, stating that if the Government did not amend
the constitution, they would launch a freedom struggle.
There was no response whatsoever from the Prime Minister.
As the ultimatum drew nearer, the militant youth urged the
TUF to launch a non-violent struggle to win the freedom and
rights of the Tamil people. Though the TUF remained quiet,
the youth did not.
*
Few armed groups sprang up during that time, partially due
to the TUF’s inaction and also due to JVP insurrection and
the Bangladesh independence in the previous year.
Prabhakaran’s ‘Tamil New Tigers’ (TNT) was one such armed
group. He emphasized ‘Tigers’, because Tiger was the
emblem of the ancient Tamil Chola kingdom. A symbol of
power, it could provide the Tamil community a level of
consciousness and pride. ‘If Lion happens to be the symbol
of Sinhalese, Tiger shall be our symbol. Lion is the king in
every forest, but in ours Tiger shall be the king,’ thought
Prabhakaran.
It is difficult to determine the exact date of the formation of
TNT. Prabhakaran had simply changed the name of his
group from ‘Prabhakaran group’ to ‘TNT’. Ironically, most of
his group members were older than him. They included
Thanabalasingham (Chetti), Periya Sothi, Kannadi
Pathmanathan, Palkunarajah, Kalapathy and Kirupaharan.
True to their moniker TNT (also the name for an explosive
chemical), the group made a mark with an explosion. They
attacked a carnival held at Duraiappah Stadium, Jaffna on
17th September 1972. The reason to attack it was that the
function was patronised by the police and the army. It was a
warning to the Government; it was also a wakeup call to the
moderate TUF politicians. No one was injured in this
incident, though.
In the meantime, the Tamil political leaders were deeply
embarrassed by their participation in the swearing-in
ceremony where they took their oath owing allegiance to
the same constitution they had described as a charter of
slavery. They had accepted the constitution in the hope that
Srimavo would accommodate their six point charter. When
this did not happen, Tamil Students Union and other youth
organisations asked the Tamil MPs to resign their seats and
start fighting for Tamil freedom.
Thanthai Chelvanayagam did exactly that. He chose 2nd
October 1972, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, to resig his
seat from the Kankesanthurai constituency. He challenged
the Government to hold a by-election there and test the
aspirations of the Tamils. The Government did not hold the
by-election till 1975.
*
Police were unable to find the perpetrators who threw
bombs at the Duraiappah Stadium. Members of the
Thangathurai- Kuttimani group and of Tamil Students Union
(TSU) were initially suspected to be behind the attack. Even
the members of TSU who had personally known
Prabhakaran had not heard of the Tamil New Tigers.
Prabhakaran was very secretive in his activities.
TSU leaders were unhappy with TUF and Amirthalingam
could not bring them under his control. But when most of
the TSU cadres were arrested in the crackdown by the
police, Amirthalingam seized the opportunity. He started a
new youth organisation under the umbrella of TUF, known
as Tamil Youth Forum (TYF), in January 1973, in a bid to woo
the Tamil youth away from TSU.
On 20th February 1973, TSU founder Ponnuthurai
Satiyaseelan was arrested by the police. A further round of
arrests followed and most of TSU members as well as the
newly formed TYF languished in prison until 1977.
Fearing arrest, Thangathurai, Kuttimani and a few others
went underground. By March 1973, police came to know of
Prabhakaran. Police Inspector Bastiampillai was sent to
arrest Prabhakaran in mid March. He knocked on the door at
3 am. Sensing that police had come to arrest him,
Prabhakaran escaped through the back door. Prabhakaran
went to his uncle’s place, where he changed his torn
clothes, and kept walking, never to retun home again.
*
Prabhakaran joined Thangathurai and Kuttimani, who had
already disappeared underground. Somehow,
Prabhakaran’s father Velupillai found out the hideout and
went there to meet his son. When he begged that
Prabhakaran return home, Prabhakaran replied: ‘I will
never be of any use to you or to the other members of
the family. If I return there will be trouble for you and our
family. Let there be no trouble for you because of me.
Please allow me to go my own way. In future never expect
anything from me.’
To escape from the police, Prabhakaran and others kept
changing their location. In his 1984 interview to N. Ram of
The Hindu, Prabhakaran said, ‘… you know, leading an
underground life is a very difficult proposition. I have led
an underground life for a long time… it was a very
difficult period for us, with the army on the rampage… to
escape their net was very difficult.’13
At one stage, the wanderers decided that living
underground in Sri Lanka was difficult. So they decided to
go to Tamil Nadu in India. Kuttimani arranged a boat.
Thangathurai, Kuttimani, Periya Sothi and Prabhakaran
set sail and they landed in Vedaranyam, a coastal town in
Tamil Nadu. From Vedaranyam, Thangathurai and
Kuttimani went to Salem in Tamil Nadu while Prabhakaran
and his cousin Periya Sothi stayed back in Vedaranyam.
The Sri Lankan navy captured the boat that transported
the rebels to Vedaranyam, when it was returning to
Jaffna. The Sri Lankan Government alleged that the boat
belonging to ‘smuggler’ Kuttimani was filled with
detonators and demanded that India arrest the
perpetrators.
The Tamil Nadu State Government, under Chief Minister M
Karunanithi, agreed to arrest Kuttimani and deport him back
to Sri Lanka. He was arrested in Thanjavur on 18th
November 1973 and handed over to the Sri Lankan police
officers W.D. Silva and Bastiampillai. Kuttimani was brought
to Colombo and jailed there.
*
Unrest was growing in the Tamil area and in order to
pacify the Tamils, the Government announced on 23rd
March 1973 that the courts in the northern and eastern
provinces could function in Tamil. However, the Tamils
wanted this to be incorporated in the constitution, which
the Government rejected.
TYF was set up by Amirthalingam in order to counter TSU.
However, much to his embarrassment, TYF slipped out of
Amirthalingam’s control and started working with TSU. On
17th May 1973, TUF leaders met at the Federal Party
headquarters in Jaffna. At that time, TYF staged a
demonstration in front of the headquarters and urged
them to work towards fighting for a separate state. While
this was going on outside, inside the meeting,
Suntheralingam suggested at the meeting that all the
Tamil MPs constitute themselves into a Constituent
Assembly and elect a committee to draw up a draft
constitution. The Federal Party and the Tamil Congress,
major constituents of TUF, were not prepared to go that
far and that fast.
This made TYF quite unhappy. Its Colombo branch
president Eelaventhan and secretary Uma Maheswaran
issued a statement calling for the rejection of the Tamil
leadership. Amirthalingam tried to appease them by
assuring, ‘The decision is final. We have abandoned
federalism. The phrase self-rule used in the TUF
resolution should not be interpreted to mean return to
federalism. What is meant by the resolution is the
establishment of a separate state and nothing less.’
He re-assured the same in the Federal Party convention
held at Mallakam on 9th September 1973, where the party
resolved to change its objective from federalism to
separation. As president of the Federal Party,
Amirthalingam declared: ‘To our youth, at the moment,
we can only offer blood, sweat and tears. The immediate
possibility is that you may face baton charge by the
police, attacks by the army and incarceration without
trial. You have to tread the perilous path of freedom.’
Amirthalingam’s speech was well received and cheered.
The youth responded saying, ‘We are prepared to
sacrifice our lives for our freedom, for our motherland.’
The youth were anticipating some concrete plans and
actions, but they were let down by the Tamil leaders. The
TUF invented an innovative method. It posted 10,000
letters affixing already used-up stamps. It also decided to
perform Satyagraha in temples. TYF collaborated with
Amirthalingam by organising 50-day rotational fasts,
where there were 50 batches of students, with every
batch fasting for a day, one day at a time.
Sivakumaran, known as Bhagat Singh of Eelam, ridiculed
and condemned such measures. He said the noble
practice of Satyagraha had been misused for political
purposes. Many militants were struggling for food, hardly
surviving in their hideout, and in effect they were fasting
every day, he said.
The Sinhala Government did not pay any attention to the
‘Freedom struggle’ initiated by TUF. The Satyagraha
resistance movement soon faded and the letters with
used stamps were thrown into dustbins.
6. Avenging Angels
From the coastal town of Vedaranyam, Prabhakaran and
Periya Sothi reached the state capital Chennai by bus. In
Chennai, T.R. Janardhanan – a lesser known Tamil Nadu
politician – came to their rescue. He helped the two to
rent a small house in Kodambakkam for a monthly rent of
Rs 175.
Janardhanan later recollected that Prabhakaran was quite
aware of the political scenario in Tamil Nadu. ‘He was
very young and extremely shy. He had a pair of piercing
eyes. He was itching for action and yearning for
knowledge. I was quite surprised at his searching
questions. He had a deep understanding of Tamil Nadu
politics. I took him often for dinners. I enjoyed the
discussion and he relished the meal.’
Despite Janardhanan’s help, Prabhakaran always fell short
of cash. They cooked their own meals. Periya Sothi
prepared the food most of the times, mostly rice with one
or two vegetables. Prabhakaran cooked a chicken meal
during the weekends.
Prabhakaran was tired of the laid-back life style. Though
he was physically present in Chennai, his mind was
revolving around Jaffna. The Fourth International Tamil
Research Conference was scheduled to be held in Jaffna
from 3-10 January, 1974.
Kumarasuriyar and Alfred Duraiapph, henchmen of
Srimavo Bandaranaike, decided to use the Government
machinery to create trouble during the event. It included
refusal to grant visas to some Indian Tamil scholars.
Permission to use the Veerasingham Hall and to use
loudspeakers was unduly delayed.
The events between 3rd and 9th of January involved only
the scholars and hence the Veerasingham Hall was
enough to accommodate them. The concluding ceremony
on 10th January was open to the public and hence the
organisers had reserved the Duraiappah Stadium in
advance.
To everyone’s surprise gates of the stadium were locked,
and thousands of general public were refused entry to the
stadium. Security guards informed the public that they
would open the gates only if the Mayor, Alfred
Duraiappah, instructed them to do so. The organisers
rushed to meet him, but he could not be traced, as he
had gone into hiding.
So the organisers swiftly arranged a temporary open
stage outside the Veerasingham Hall to go ahead with the
function as planned. Professor Naina Mohammed, a Tamil
scholar from Trichi, Tamil Nadu, was delivering a lecture.
Everyone was absorbed in his speech, when the Assistant
Superintendent of Police Chandrasekera arrived there
with a truck-load of policemen.
Chandrasekera ordered the crowd to disperse. Police
immediately resorted to firing tear gas shells
indiscriminately. Prof S. Vithiananthan, President of the
conference, fell unconscious. Other speakers on the
podium were blinded with the tear gas. Policemen fired
bullets in the air. A shot cut the high voltage electric line,
which fell on the crowd. Seven persons were instantly
electrocuted and killed on the spot. Two more died later in
the hospitals, taking the death toll to nine. Hundreds were
hurt in the stampede and the lathi-charge that followed.
Kumarasuriyar and Duraiappah were obviously pleased as
the function had ultimately failed – after all, it was a
function that did not felicitate Srimavo Bandaranaike and
hence did not deserve a smooth ending. Srimavo and her
Government did not express regret for the killings and the
loss of lives. She claimed that in fact the people had
attacked the police during the conference. Police officer
Chandrasekera was promoted, instead of being punished.
An enquiry commission was setup after persistent
pressure from the Tamils and the commission found the
Police guilty. The Government, however, failed to take any
action on the report submitted by the enquiry
commission.
The militant youth wanted to take revenge on Alfred
Duraiappah, Kumarasuriyar and the police officer
Chandrasekera. Sivakumaran was furious. He was a
leading member of the volunteer force that had helped
organise the conference. Chandrasekera was the first in
his hit list.
Chandrasekera lived near the Kailasanathar Temple in
Jaffna. He would cross that temple everyday before
reaching the police station. Sivakumaran, with his men,
blocked the jeep in which Chandrasekera was travelling,
near the temple. Then, Sivakumaran opened the door of
the vehicle and fired at Chandrasekera. The revolver did
not fire as it was a local make.
Sivakumaran made two more attempts in firing the pistol,
and failed. In the meantime Chandrasekera jumped out of
his jeep. (Some accounts suggest that Sivakumaran had
dragged Chandrasekera out of his vehicle.) Then,
Sivakumaran tried to stab the police officer with a knife.
But fearing capture, he had to abandon the attempt and
run for his life. By then, his friends had already fled.
As Sivakumaran was fleeing, he spotted Alfred
Duraiappah’s car. He waylaid it at Ponnalai Bridge and
aimed at the Mayor. His revolver failed once again.
Sivakumaran continued to flee from the scene.
The Sri Lankan Government declared Rs 100,000 as a
reward for anyone who helped in capturing Sivakumaran.
The cash award was a first in this history of Sri Lanka.
Sivakumaran, who did not possess a moustache, began to
grow one to camouflage himself. Some of his friends
suggested that he should escape to India. Sivakumaran
urgently needed money. Many promised to help, but the
money never materialised.
A disappointed Sivakumaran decided to rob a branch of
the Kopay Bank, on 5th June 1974. There was only one
armed guard at the entrance of the bank. Sivakumaran’s
plan was to gain entry into the bank after shooting the
guard, take the cash and escape. He opened fire at the
guard twice, but missed his target both the times.
Someone had informed the police in the meantime.
As he ran back to his car, he found that his accomplice
and the driver of the car had vanished with the car keys.
Sivakumaran shot at the policemen chasing him and
made his way through the nearby tobacco plantation. The
stub of the harvested plants wounded his legs and he fell
down.
As Sivakumaran realised that he could not escape from
the police anymore, he swallowed the cyanide capsule
that hung from his neck.
Thus Sivakumaran became the first Tamil fighter to bite
into the cyanide pill, in the long history of Tamil freedom
struggle in Sri Lanka. When Sivakumaran killed himself,
he was merely 17 years old. His funeral was held on 7th
June 1974. An unprecedented crowd of more than 15,000
people – largest for any funeral in Jaffna – bid adieu to
their hero.
The Federal Party leader Amirthalingam delivered an
emotional speech at the funeral. He said: ‘Thamby
(younger brother) Sivakumaran had made the supreme
sacrifice for the sake of the Tamil people. His is a heroic
act. Though I differ with him on the violent method he
advocated and practiced to achieve the objective of
getting for the Tamil people their birthright, I bow my
head to him for his commitment and dedication.’14
Sivakumaran is considered as the most loved and
respected freedom fighter and referred to as Eelam’s
Bhagat Singh. A bronze statute was erected in his honour
in 1975 at Urumpirai, his birthplace. The Sri Lankan army
destroyed the statue in 1977, but the people erected it
again a year later. It was once again demolished by the
Sri Lankan army. All Tamil armed groups praise him as the
first martyr in their struggle. Later on, Prabhakaran
ordered his group LTTE to observe Sivakumaran’s death
anniversary as Students’ Day of Uprising.
*
Prabhakaran was dying to get back to Jaffna to avenge
Sivakumaran’s death. The armed resistance movement
had virtually become stagnant with the death of
Sivakumaran. There wasn’t anybody to take it forward.
While in Chennai, Prabhakaran came to know that Chetti
alias Thanabalasingham had escaped from the
Anuradhapura prison in 1973 and was living at Mylapore.
Prabhakaran met Chetti, and they planned to get back to
Jaffna. Though all of them were wanted by the Sri Lankan
police for various crimes, Chetti was also a petty criminal
and was not particularly interested in any ideology.
Kannadi Pathmanathan had also escaped with Chetti from
the Anuradhapura prison. However, Chetti had killed
Kannadi Pathmanathan in a think jungle near Poonakari
and subsequently had robbed Alavetti Co-operative
Society Bank before escaping to India. Prabhakaran,
unaware of this background, teamed up with him.
Periya Sothi was not happy with this and wanted
Prabhakaran to stay away from Chetti. But Prabhakaran
would not listen as he was desperate to get back to
Jaffna.
Periya Sothi subsequently appealed to Thangathurai, who
tried to dissuade Prabhakaran from teaming up with
Chetti. Then, Periya Sothi appealed to Janardhanan.
Prabhakaran told Janardhanan: ‘Anne (brother), I am
aware of Chetti’s criminal side of life. As for me, I will
never, never lose my identity.’
One and a half months after Sivakumaran’s death, in July
1974, Prabhakaran sailed back to Jaffna with Chetti, from
Vedaranyam.
*
A special intelligent team headed by Inspector
Bastiampillai was fully empowered to curb the rising
militancy in Jaffna at any cost. Bastiampillai set about
building an excellent network of informers to collect
information on the militants.
At that time, there was only one university in the whole of
Sri Lanka, based in Colombo. The Tamils’ long time
demand was that a university be set up in Trincomalee, in
the Eastern province. Srimavo Bandaranaike announced
that her Government would setup a university in Jaffna,
instead. The real objective of the Government was to end
the demand for a university in Trincomalee and also
widen the difference between the northern and the
eastern Tamils. The Prime Minister personally arrived in
Jaffna to declare the Jaffna University open, on 6th October
1974. It was also her first visit to Jaffna, despite her
becoming the Prime Minister in 1960. It took her 15 long
years to pay a visit to the cultural capital of the Tamil
people, a mere 250 km from Colombo.
Militant Tamil youth called for the boycott of all the
functions attended by the Prime Minister, including the
opening ceremony of the Jaffna University. TUF agreed to
this, and the general public accepted the same.
Prabhakaran’s TNT was the only active resistance group
in Jaffna at that time. Sivakumaran’s group ceased to
exist with his death. Satyaseelan was in prison and his
Tamil Students Union was ineffective. Thangathurai was
living in Salem in Tamil Nadu and Kuttimani was in prison.
Their group, by now known as ‘Tamil Eelam Liberation
Organisation’ or TELO, was also dormant. So it was
Prabhakaran who was calling all the shots.
Prabhakaran decided to accord Srimavo Bandaranaike a
hot reception. Half a dozen bombs exploded in and
around Jaffna. The explosions did not cause any death or
severe damage to the property, but created panic.
Prabhakaran chose the railway station, Jaffna market,
Kankesanthurai police station and a Tamil politician’s
house (who served as Srimavo Bandaranaike’s
interpreter) as some of the targets. Chetti assisted
Prabhakaran in this operation. Kumarasuriyar and
Duraiappah were upset that their plan to assemble a
huge gathering had failed.
The Government finally decided to hold the by-election
for Kankesanthurai in 1975, a seat that had fallen vacant
by Chelvanayagam’s resignation in 1972. Prime Minister
Srimavo was certain that Chelvanayagam would win
again in that constituency. She announced that her Party
will not contest the elections but instead will extend
support to the Communist Party.
Prabhakaran and other militants worked for
Chelvanayagam’s victory. Likewise, Tamil Youth Forum’s
Colombo branch secretary Uma Maheswaran worked
towards the same cause. They requested the voters to
give their mandate on behalf of Tamil Eelam. For the first
time, Prabhakaran and Uma Maheswaran met each other
face-to-face.
Chelvanayagam won the Kankesanthurai by-election
convincingly. During the victory speech, he said:
‘Throughout the ages, the Sinhalese and the Tamils in this
country lived as distinct sovereign people, till they were
brought under the foreign domination. We have, for the
last 25 years, made every effort to secure our political
rights on the basis of equality with the Sinhalese in a
united Ceylon.
“It is a regrettable fact that the successive Sinhalese
Governments have used the power that flows from
independence, to deny us our fundamental rights and
reduce us to the position of a subject people. This, the
Governments have been able to do, only by using their
discriminatory authority against the Tamils.
‘I wish to announce to my people and to the country that I
consider the verdict at this election as a mandate that the
Tamil Eelam nation should exercise the sovereignty already
vested in the Tamil people and become free. On behalf of
the Tamil United Front, I give you my solemn assurance that,
we will carry out this mandate.’
*
The year 1975 saw the birth of a third armed resistance
group. The two already existing ones were Prabhakaran’s
TNT and Thangathurai-Kuttimani group TELO, which was
reactivated by Thangathurai, who came back to Jaffna from
Tamil Nadu.
Eliyathamby Ratnasabapaty and K D Arutpiragasam alias
Arular founded ‘Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of
Students’ (EROS), in London. The group demonstrated
during the 1975 Cricket World Cup matches held at The Oval
and Manchester cricket grounds where the Sri Lankan
cricket team played. The group’s members ran across the
ground holding up placards condemning the Sinhala regime
for its atrocities against the Tamils. This was the first
incident to internationalise the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.
Prabhakaran had a small band of around 30 dedicated
young men. Chetti was arrested towards the end of 1974
following the bombs planted during Srimavo Bandaranaike’s
Jaffna visit. Chetti’s arrest spelt trouble for Prabhakaran. He
knew that Chetti would disclose all the secrets under torture
from Bastiampillai. Prabhakaran was forced to change his
hideout quickly, to a place unknown to Chetti. Prabhakaran
was also agry at Chetti for diverting the movement’s money
for his personal use.
Prabhakaran decided to carry out the tasks left unfinished
by Sivakumaran. He choose three comrades for the
‘Duraiappah operation’: Kalapathy, Kirupaharan and
Palkunarajah. The place they zeroed in was Varatharajah
Perumal Temple at Ponnalai. The Jaffna Mayor regularly
visited the temple on Fridays. Prabhakaran earmarked 27th
July 1975 for the operation. On the previous night,
Prabhakaran went to a friend’s house in Ponnalai. His
friend’s mother cooked a sumptuous dinner for them.
Prabhakaran chatted with his friend and spent the night
there. His friend noticed Prabhakaran pulling out a revolver
and placing it under the pillow. He also placed a bundle of
matchboxes next to the revolver, which were to be used to
produce bullets for the operation next day.
‘You can’t even shoot a crow or a sparrow with that,’
mocked his friend.
Prabhakaran smiled in reply and said, ‘See what happens
tomorrow. Now let us go to sleep.’
Prabhakaran was missing when his friend got up the next
morning. He had left the house before the break of the
dawn. A tea shop opposite the temple was the meeting
point. Prabhakaran waited for his three comrades to join
him. They had their breakfast at the tea shop and waited for
their victim.
The Mayor’s car stopped under a tree, a few meters away
from the temple entrance. Duraiappah opened the door and
stepped out. While Kirupaharan would be the identifier,
Kalapathy and Prabhakaran would be the executers.
They greeted the mayor: ‘Vanakkam Ayya!’ (Greetings sir!)
Duraiappah replied back: ‘Vanakkam Thambigal!’ (Greetings
boys!)
Hardly had he completed his greeting when Prabhakaran
pulled out the revolver and shot him point blank. So did
Kalapathy. They fired five or six shots that pierced his chest.
Wounded Duraiappah tried to get back to his car. But he
collapsed before he could reach the car, leaving a trail of
blood. The assassins dropped a post card marked with the
letters ‘TNT’ on the spot, which became an indelible mark
forever in the turbulent history of Sri Lanka.
After executing what is now referred to as ‘the first political
murder in the history of Tamil armed resistance’, the
assassins walked to the car. They pulled the driver out from
his seat and drove the vehicle away. Palkunarajah drove the
car. They abandoned it at Neerveli and walked in different
directions. Except Prabhakaran, the others took three
different buses and returned to their respective homes.
The leader of the group, however, had no home of his own
and walked into the house of a reliable friend. He looked
calm and composed, and behaved as if nothing had
happened. Like the previous night, he placed the revolver
under his pillow and had a sound sleep. The next morning,
he was gone, much before his friend woke up. At the break
of of dawn, his friend came to know about the killing.
Duraiappah’s assassination took everyone by surprise and
the members of the TYF burst fire crackers in celebration.
Srimavo Bandaranaike was profoundly shocked. She
directed the police to arrest the murderers before the
funeral of the slain Mayor was to take place. Intelligent
reports from the Criminal Investigation Department of police
identified TUF members as people behind the murder.
Amirthalingam received a special mention as ‘the brain
behind all the violent groups’. It was not entirely untrue as
he regularly met with the leaders of various armed groups.
The militant boys also adoringly addressed him as
‘Thalapathy’ (commander).
All known members of the Tamil Youth Forum were arrested
within the next six days. Sinhala media and Colombo based
English media boasted that the killers were caught. But the
irony was that even the arrested youth had not heard of the
group called Tamil New Tigers (TNT).
Prabhakaran was, however, not complacent. Unfortunately,
Prabhakaran’s comrades were not as careful as he was. At
that time the group had only two revolvers; one was with
Prabhakaran and the other was with Palkunarajah.
Therefore, he advised the other two to keep a knife with
them for safety. Prabhakaran had taught them how to use
kitchen knives and chilli powder for self-defence. However,
they ignored Prabhakaran’s advice.
As a result, Kirupaharan was arrested on 21st August 1975
and Kalapathy, on 19th September 1975 at their respective
homes. Under heavy police torture, they revealed
everything about Prabhakaran.
Thus, the name of TNT and its leader Prabhakaran came to
the forefront. Yet, the police had no idea of how Prabhakaran
looked like. He had destroyed all his photographs before he
left home on that early morning in March 1973. However,
there was one picture of him, taken during his elder sister’s
wedding, when he was a small boy. When the police got
their hands on that picture, they started a Tiger hunt.
Though some sources claim that Prabhakaran escaped to
Tamil Nadu after killing Duraiapph, it is widely believed that
he stayed back in Jaffna.
 
7. Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
Prabhakaran was pleased with the impact Duraiapph’s
murder created. Handful of youngsters came forward and
joined him in the New Tamil Tigers outfit, and they had to be
trained. For that purpose Prabhakaran choose a thick forest
not far from Vavuniya town in the Vanni region. During his
childhood, he had roamed around these forests with his
father, who served as a land officer. It was like a second
home for him then and was going to be his only home in the
coming years.
The training place was 3 kms from Vavuniya. Prabhakaran
named it ‘Poonthottam’ (Flower Garden). It was a flower
garden indeed, spread across 40 acres. It also comprised of
vegetable farms and paddy fields; that continued into a
thick jungle, an ideal place to establish a training camp.
New members in the group worked on the paddy fields and
vegetable farms which produced enough food for the camp.
However, producing food grains was not their aim. They
were imparted training on shooting with the pistol.
Prabhakaran was very particular about accuracy in shooting.
They made cut outs of human figures as targets. Spots
marked on trees also served as targets during practice.
Prabhakaran would become angry if any trainee missed the
target. Sivakumaran would not have died, if he was sharp
with his shooting skills. Prabhakaran would say, ‘If we miss
shooting the enemy, the enemy would shoot us.’
Prabhakaran was a sharp shooter, he never missed his
target. One of his former trainees said of Prabhakaran’s
marksmanship: ‘He walked slowly and took a sudden U turn.
Within no time, he had whipped out the revolver tucked in
his waist and shot at the red spot marked on the tree. He
smiled with a sense of satisfaction.’
Prabhakaran learnt most of his techniques from magazines
and books. He taught others what he had learnt. He also
showed his men vidoes of war movies. He needed money to
run his training camp. They discussed about various means
of raising funds and realised that they could not openly
collect money from the people as the police were closely
watching the people. It was also risky for the people to get
involved, as they could be arrested. Prabhakaran finally
decided to rob the state banks.
He justified his intention by convincing himself that the Sri
Lankan Government collected money from everyone but
spent it only for the development of the Sinhalese,
neglecting the Tamil areas.
They kept a close watch on Puttur branch of the
Government-owned People’s Bank for several days. The
operation was planned meticulously. All information about
the bank’s functioing was carefully gathered - the time
when it opens and closes, its business hours, and the peak
hours when several customers will be present inside. These
details were presented to Prabhakaran and after a detailed
discussion a plan of action was charted out.
It was 5th March 1976. The bank had just opened when
Prabhakaran and his men entered the branch. Waving his
pistol, Prabhakaran ordered all the employees to assemble
in the manager’s room. No one resisted, and Prabhakaran
and his team walked away with Rs 500,000 in cash and
jewels worth Rs 200,000. The entire operation was
completed in a few minutes. Prabhakaran gave away some
money to a temple in his hometown Valvettithurai and
requested the temple management to feed the poor.
Just as EROS was formed in London in 1975, another Tamil
armed resistance group called Eelam Liberation
Organisation or ELO was founded in the same year by a few
members of the Tamil Youth Forum. This group included
Muthukumarasamy and Varadaraja Perumal.
TNT’s success in robbing the Puttur bank inspired the newly
born ELO. This left leaning group targeted the Pulaly Multi-
Purpose Cooperative Society. Unlike the bank robbed by
TNT, the depositors of the cooperative society were mainily
poor people. Varatharaja Perumal and his men were
subsequently arrested and the loot in the form of cash and
jewels was recovered. ELO as an organisation collapsed, and
its members including the founders joined other
organisations.
In 1976, Prabhakaran wanted to make sure that his ‘Tigers’
group did not remain as yet another armed resistance
group. He wanted it to reflect the aim of independence for
Tamil Eelam as its motto. So, on 5th May 1976, he renamed
TNT as Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE, a name that
would remain prominent for years to come. They were also
referred as ‘liberation Tigers’ (Viduthalai Puligal in Tamil
most of the time.
Years later, Prabhakaran told a reporter, ‘I named the
movement Liberation Tigers since the symbol of a Tiger had
a deep root in the political history of Tamils, representing
Tamil patriotic resurgence.’
Prabhakaran already had the designs for the emblem and
the flag for LTTE in his mind. He had prepared the logo when
he was in Tamil Nadu. An artist in Madurai created that logo
for Prabhakaran on his request. The logo contained the head
of a roaring Tiger with its paws outstretched. Two rifles and
.33 bullets formed a circle around the Tiger’s head. The
symbol would be the source of pride for the countless
number of Tamil youth in the coming years.
An official five-member central committee was formed in
the organisation. It had a military and a political wing.
Prabhakaran was elected the political leader and the
military commander. Nagarajah, Sellakili, Iyer and
Visveswaran were the other four members of the central
committee.
This group formed a constitution and a strict code of
conduct for every member of the organisation to follow.
Smoking, alcohol and sex were prohibited for the members
of LTTE. They also had to abandon their family connections.
More importantly, joining other organisations or forming
new ones after leaving the organisation was banned. This
constitution was accepted and adopted by all the existing
members.
An uncompromising code of conduct and strict discipline
were the key traits that distinguished LTTE from other armed
revolutionary groups. JVP stood as a classical example for an
undisciplined group. Even though the Sinhala radical group
that led a daring attack on the police stations in 1971 had
numerous members on its rolls, their self discipline was a
serious subject of debate. There were rumours of JVP cadres
engaging in sexual relationships leading to abortions.
Prabhakaran was aware of this and wanted to prevent such
happenings.
Prabhakaran emphasised the need to set examples in an
interview to journalist N. Ram of The Hindu: ‘When you have
a school with a good standard of discipline and a principal
who believes in this, the students acquire good education
and do well in life. You see this everywhere: certain schools
are rated good, because the teachers and, most important,
the principal stand for discipline. You will find batches and
batches of students who studied under such a principal do
well later on. The same principle applies to our activity. That
is why we lay such stress on stern discipline.’
Discipline is the hallmark of Prabhakaran’s personal life. And
he ensured that his cadres develop the same trait. Journalist
Anita Pratap, who interviewed Prabhakaran when LTTE was
at war with the Indian Peace Keeping Force, writes in her
book ‘Island of Blood’:
‘We slept almost immediately after dinner. As I lay on the
broad bed, I felt like a queen with my minions sleeping
below. I was in a room with twenty young men, but not for a
second did I feel unsafe or threatened as a woman.
Prabhakaran rose in my esteem – that he could inculcate
such discipline in his boys was truly remarkable. I have felt
more vulnerable in the cocktail circuits of New Delhi, and
visually stripped on its streets. But here, there is no
lewdness or lechery in the Tigers’ behaviour, in their
gestures, or even in their eyes. In fact, what was most
reassuring was that they did not look at me as if I was a
woman. I was another object in the room, and they looked
at that with the same expression as when they glanced at
the cloth-line or the lorry battery.’
Prabhakaran’s father Velupillai was the source of inspiration
for his discipline. He spoke about it in an interview: ‘My
father set an example through his own personal conduct. He
would not even chew betel leaves. I modelled my conduct
on his. He was strict... yes, but also soft and persuasive.’15
Prabhakaran divided the military activities of LTTE into three
main categories. First was to destroy the police intelligence
network and eliminate traitors. Second was to deteriorate
the Government administration in the North and the East.
Third was to destroy the army camps in the Tamil traditional
homeland and bring those areas under the LTTE control, and
establish an administrative structure.
LTTE’s constitution draft formulated its objectives:
Guerrilla warfare groups to be gradually and
systematically transformed into a structured army to
indulge in the wars of liberation
Obtaining complete independence for Tamil Eelam
Gradually establishing a sovereign, socialist,
democratic, people's Government.
Few days after the formation of the LTTE, Tamil United Front
assembled together to emphasise the same mission –
independence for Tamil Eelam. The front held its first annual
convention at Pannakam in the Vattukkottai constituency.
The moderate political leaders unanimously resolved to
establish Tamil Eelam. In that convention Tamil United Front
renamed itself as Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF).
What is referred to as the historical ‘Vattukkottai Resolution’
was moved by Chelvanayagam, which read: ‘This
convention resolves that restoration and reconstitution of
the Free, Sovereign, Secular, Socialist State of Tamil Eelam,
based on the right of self determination inherent to every
nation, has become inevitable in order to safeguard the very
existence of the Tamil Nation in this country.’
The elderly statesman also confessed to the crowd: ‘I am
sorry to admit I have failed. From 1948 until recently, I
placed before the Sinhala leaders what I perceived as the
only possible, workable solution for the problem of the Tamil
speaking people – the formation of a federal system in a
united Sri Lanka. They rejected it. Through two pacts and a
series of agreements, I tried to lay the foundation for a
decentralised administrative structure. That effort failed.
Now we are left with no other option but to part company
and establish for ourselves a separate state.’
Amirthalingam in his vivid oration narrated the nature and
shape of the independent Tamil Eelam they proposed to
establish. It would consist of the Northern and the Eastern
provinces. Tamil speaking people from these territories will
become the citizens of Tamil Eelam by default. Yet, Tamils
living in other parts of Sri Lanka and people of Tamil Eelam
origin living anywhere in the world could opt for the
citizenship.
He further stated that the nation will be secular, socialist
and democratic. Tamil will be the official language and the
rights of the Sinhalese will be protected on a reciprocal
basis with the Tamil-speaking minorities in the Sinhala State.
The resolution proposed to permit the Sinhalese who were
earlier brought to the eastern regions through state-aided
colonisation to continue in the Tamil Eelam. They could also
study in Sinhala language and freely practice their religion,
provided Tamils living in the Sinhala Sri Lanka are treated in
the same manner.
Amirthalingam, after announcing the new name for the
party, declared: ‘We are now a liberation movement.’ He
thundered that an action plan to launch a freedom struggle
will be formulated soon, and exhorted the youth to be ready
for the freedom struggle. The youth were naturally excited
and cheered him.
Prabhakaran was one of many youth who were present at
the Vattukkottai Convention. Following the Vattukkottai
Resolution, the youth were anticipating the launch of a
freedom struggle. On 21st May 1976, Amirthalingam and
four other Tamil MPs distributed leaflets in Jaffna bus stand
calling the people to boycott the next day’s Republic Day
celebrations.
The youth were annoyed because that action was no
different from the Federal Party’s previous calls.
*
Inspectors Bastiampillai and Pathmanathan had assiduously
built a network of informers. LTTE realised that they could
not further their struggle without destroying this network.
Prabhakaran also decided to build an intelligence wing in
the LTTE. Intelligence gathering was included as a part of
the training programme.
Nadarajah was the first informer targeted by the LTTE. He
was the owner of a Petrol station in Urumpirai and belonged
to the SLFP. Nadarajah had passed on information about
Sivakumaran to the police.
Prabhakaran did not take part in this operation. He sent two
of colleagues who went to Nadarajah’s house. When
Nadarajah answered the call on the door, he was gunned
down instantaneously. That was the first murder committed
by the LTTE. Even though Prabhakaran and his men
assassinated Alfred Duraiapph earlier, that was when they
were operating under the name TNT.
Eliyathamby Ratnasabapathy, who formed EROS in London,
knew the ambassador of the Palestinian Liberation
Organisation (PLO) to London, Sayed Hameed. That enabled
the EROS to send some of its cadres to Lebanon to train
with PLO. In the first batch, three members - Shankar Raji,
Arular and Kanagasundaram - were sent there. Getting real
life training at the war front was a new experience for these
men who had not seen anything more than a granite. Arular,
whose real name was K.D. Arutpiragasam, had studied
Engineering in a university in Soviet Union.
After three months of training, Arular left for Sri Lanka.
There he trained the new members of EROS with what he
learnt in Lebanon. Few days later, Arular visited
Poonthottam training camp of the LTTE. He met Prabhakaran
and explained to him PLO’s warfare techniques. A
thoroughly impressed Prabhakaran was particularly
interested in the landmines when Arular told him about PLO
success in blowing up Israeli tanks. Arular shared with
Prabhakaran the idea of making explosives. Sometime later,
Shankar Raji also returned from Lebanon and met
Prabhakaran. Raji also insisted that Prabhakaran should take
up the PLO training programme.
In the meantime, it was usual for armed group leaders like
Prabhakaran and Thangathurai to meet Amirthalingam.
During one such a meeting in early 1977, Amirthalingam
suggested that Prabhakaran take Uma Maheswaran (Uma)
into the LTTE. Uma, whose real name was Kadirgamapillai
Nallainathan, was 10 years older to Prabhakaran. He had
served as the secretary of Tamil Youth Forum’s Colombo
branch. Unlike Prabhakaran, Uma was fluent in Tamil and
English. Prabhakaran thought that Uma could add strength
to the movement and agreed to Amirthalingam’s
suggestion.
Until then, Prabhakaran served as the chairman of the five-
member central committee and the commander of the
military wing. Retaining his commander post, Prabhakaran
offered Uma Maheswaran the chairmanship of the central
committee as a mark of respect for his age, his English
speaking skill and the wide network of contact he had.
In early 1977, the LTTE men shot dead three policemen
investigating the Alfred Duraiapph murder case. The first
victim was Karunanithi on 14th February, who was also the
first policeman to be killed by the Tamil militants. Two other
constables, both named Shanmuganathan, were killed
during May 1977.
At the age of 80, Chelvanayagam died of old age on 27th
April 1977. He was suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
Chelva was succeeded by Amirthalingam as the leader of
TULF. General elections were held during the same year.
Srimavo Bandaranaike’s SLFP was mauled in the elections
and J.R. Jayewardene’s UNP won a thumping majority. J.R.
Jayewardene became the Prime Minister and named Lalith
Athulathmudali, Cyril Mathew and Gamini Dissanayake as
ministers in his cabinet among others. In the North and the
East, the Tamils unanimously endorsed the ‘Vattukkottai
Resolution’ and gave their mandate to the TULF in the
understanding that TULF will work for the formation of an
independent Tamil nation.
TULF emerged as the second largest party in the Parliament
after the UNP. TULF had two things to choose from. They
could ignore the Vattukkottai Resolution, cooperate with the
Sinhalese politicians and become the opposition party in the
Parliament or work for the formation of an independent
Tamil nation. They chose the former!
One of the leaders of the TULF, Kathirvelpillai, insisted that
TULF should not miss the golden opportunity and suggested
that they accept the opposition party status. Another leader
Sivasithamparam said, ‘They (the militants) will shout for a
few days and then calm down.’
As expected, the youth organizations revolted. They
questioned: ‘In your election manifesto, you promised to
draft, adopt and implement a constitution for the state of
Tamil Eelam. You promised that the TULF parliamentary
group would constitute itself into a National Assembly of
Tamil Eelam. Now why are you going to the parliament in
Colombo?’
Kathirvelpillai justified that the parliamentary group would
use the Parliament as a forum to canvas for a separate
state. But the youth did not believe it. The Tamil MPs took
oaths by fully affirming their allegiance to the 1972
constitution, which they had earlier dubbed as a ‘charter of
slavery’.
*
A carnival organised by the Rotary Club of Jaffna was held at
the St. Patrick’s College in Jaffna on 12th August 1977. The
aim was to raise funds and build a cancer hospital in Jaffna.
A group of Sinhala policemen in plain-clothes tried to gain
entry into the carnival. When the organisers refused the
police entry without tickets, they bought the tickets but
assaulted the ticket collectors. The policemen went to the
carnival, the next day also. They were not in uniform and
were also fully drunk. They clashed with the public. The
irate public chased away the policemen.
The policemen struck back the next day, 14thAugust 1977.
They stromed out of the station and attacked everyone they
saw on the streets. On the next day, 15th August 1977, when
India celebrated its independence day, the Sinhalese
policemen went on a rampage in Jaffna. They gunned down
four civilians and injured 21 others.
Attacks continued on 16th August and policemen set many
shops on fire. The next day, 17th August, was worse. The
policemen set the Jaffna market on fire and a portion of the
market and the adjoining shops were destroyed, also killing
two.
Amirthalingam, who was performing his ‘democratic duty’
as the leader of the opposition in Colombo, rushed to Jaffna
and visited the market on the morning of 18th August. When
he went to the police station to protest against the strocities
of the police, he was attacked by a policeman with the butt
of a gun.
The news of the police attack on Amirthalingam spread
across like a wild fire. The situation became tense in Jaffna.
Some Sinhalese students, studying in the Jaffna University,
feared for their lives and wanted to go home. They were
safely transported with police escort in special buses. When
the buses stopped in Anuradhapura, some students climbed
on top of the bus and shouted that Tamils were attacking
the Sinhalese in Jaffna.
In no time, riots started in Anuradhapura, a predominantly
Sinhala town with a few Tamil establishments. Tamil shops
and homes were looted and torched. Hindu temples were
desecrated. The riots spread to other areas including Kandy`
Amirthalingam returned to Colombo and took up the issue in
the Parliament. He said, ‘…police aimed their gun at me. I
am lucky to be here today. The men were in uniform but
wore no numbers. When I asked them why they shot
innocent persons the policemen abused me in filthy
language and assaulted me.’
Jayewardene denied Amirthalingam’s accusation and angrily
replied:
‘People become restive when they hear that a separate
state is to be formed, that Trincomalee is to be the capital of
the state, that Napoleon said that Trincomalee was key to
the Indian Ocean and that it is going to be the capital of the
state. I do not think Napoleon ever said that – I do not think
Napoleon ever made a foolish remark like that.
Whatever it is, when statements of that type are made, the
newspapers carry them throughout the island, and when
you say that you are not violent, but that violence may be
used in time to come, what do you think the other people in
Sri Lanka will do? How will they react?
If you want to fight, let there be a fight; if it is peace, let
there be peace; that is what they will say. It is not what I am
saying. The people of Sri Lanka say that.’
After Jayewardene’s provoking speech in the Parliament,
violence spread to the remaining areas as well. Tamils were
hunted in areas including Colombo, under police
supervision. According to official figures, Sinhalese mobs
killed 112 Tamils. But the actual number was more than
that. Officially 25,000 were rendered homeless and property
worth Rs 100 crore was destroyed. But according to certain
independent estimates, 50,000 people were rendered
homeless.
Several Tamil youth lost faith in the political leadership and
joined the various armed groups including LTTE. It was
during this period that Prabhakaran came to know of Anton
Balasingham. He was born in 1938 and started his career as
a journalist. He worked for a Tamil newspaper as sub-editor
in the early 1960s, before becoming a translator with the
British High Commission in Colombo. He was married to a
Tamil woman from Jaffna. When his wife became seriously
ill, British authorities helped them go to Britain for medical
treatment. However, she died in London after suffering from
chronic renal problem for six years.
After this, Balasingham met an Australian nurse named
Adele Anne in London. They were married in 1978. Some
Tamil expatriates came to Balasingham and requested him
to prepare a document on the Tamil nationalism and a
separate Tamil homeland. Being an expert journalist, he
happily agreed and wrote one. A copy of that work reached
Krishnan, the LTTE representative in London and they
became acquainted. Yet, Balasingham did not become a
member of LTTE at that time. He was helping all the Tamil
revolutionary groups.
In the meantime, J.R. Jayewardene attempted to amend the
constitution of Sri Lanka and succeeded in this attempt with
his brutal majority in the Parliament. With the passage of
the new constitution, the President will be the executive
head of Sri Lanka and he would possess unchallenged
powers. The Parliament cannot question the President on
any of his actions.
By virtue of being the Prime Minister at that time,
Jayewardene declared himself as the first President of Sri
Lanka under the new constitution. Subsequent presidents
would be directly elected by the people. The constitution will
also preserve the parliamentary system, but the Prime
Minister will be chosen by the President from the party that
commands the majority in the Parliament. Other Cabinet
ministers will be selected from among the members of the
Parliament.
As far as the Tamils were concerned, it did not matter much
to them. It was the same old wine in a new bottle. The new
constitution merely changed the title of the Sinhala master
who ruled the entire island. The unitary system continued,
without offering any power to the Tamils.
8. LTTE goes public
The TULF leader Amirthalingam met LTTE leaders at his
residence in Jaffna, in November 1977. Amirthalingam had
asked Uma Maheswaran to bring with him all the important
LTTE leaders. Seven of them attended thet meeting - Uma
Maheswaran, Prabhakaran, Nagarajah, Raghavan,
Visweshwaran, Palkunarajah and Baby Subramaniam.
The meeting lasted for 90 minutes and it ended at 07:30
pm, when Amirthalingam finished his monologue. He said
TULF should also be given a chance to test the sincerity of
Jayewardene in finding a solution to the Tamil problem.
Prabhakaran sensed that the TULF leader had given up
people’s mandate for a separate state. Amirthalingam
concluded: ‘I am not asking you to give up violence, but you
should cool down.’16
After a prolonged silence, finally Uma Maheswaran
responded. He suggested that the LTTE could function as the
armed wing of TULF. Amirthalingam agreed to this on the
condition that the arrangement was to be kept secret.
Prabhakaran, having clearly understood that politicians like
Amirthalingam did not mean what they spoke publicly, did
not say anything at the meeting. He had his own plans.
So did Jayewardene. The President tried to create a rift
amongst the Tamils by showing that the people from the
Eastern Province did not like the formation of a separate
Tamil Eelam and he succeeded in that attempt.
On 19th December 1977, Canagaratnam, who was elected as
a Member of Parliament from the Pottuvil constituency on a
TULF ticket, jumped over to the ruling UNP. He said he
trusted in Jayewardene to do justice to the Tamils. He added
that though the Tamils in the Eastern Province had voted for
TULF, they did not support the establishment of a separate
state.
Amirthalingam branded Canagaratnam a ‘traitor’. LTTE
central committee that met on 22nd December 1977 also
concluded that Canagaratnam was a traitor.
Uma Maheswaran kept a close watch on Canagaratnam for
about two weeks in Colombo. Then he sent out a message
to Prabhakaran. On 26th January 1978, Prabhakaran boarded
the night train from Jaffna to Colombo. Uma was waiting for
him at Colombo Fort station and they went to a Tamil
restaurant, Ananda Bhavan, which was opposite the Station
and had their breakfast.
Then they took a bus to Kolupittiya where Canagaratnam
lived. The MP usually left his home by car at 9.00 AM. On
that morning too, as he was walking up to his car, he was
shot in his chest. The MP collapsed and was rushed to the
hospital. In the meantime, the gunmen escaped. But
Canagaratnam survived despite multiple buller injuries. He
told the investigators that he saw tow boys running away
after shooting him. He said, ‘One was tall boy and the other
was short’.
Uma Maheswaran, the taller one, stayed back in Colombo.
Prabhakaran, the shorter one, went back to the Fort station
and took a tain to Jaffna.
Canagaratnam lived only for a short while. Being a diabetic,
he died after three months due to the exhaustion.
All the previous political murders took place in the Jaffna
peninsula and the victims belonged to the northern region.
However, this was unique, for Canagaratnam belonged to
the eastern region and the killing took place in the capital
city, Colombo.
Jayewardene could not digest the fact that two Tamils
militants could come to Colombo and kill a Member of
Parliament. He launched a media campaign against
Amirthalingam and accused him as rhe mastermind behind.
A special investigation team headed by Inspector
Bastiampillai was set up to inquire into the Canagaratnam
murder case. He began his hunt for the ‘tall boy’ and the
‘short boy’. He printed 10,000 posters containing the
photographs of four wanted men. But Prabhakaran’s photo
was not there, for the police never had his photo.
Bastiampillai came to know through his informer network
that Prabhakaran's group was running a secret training
camp in the thick jungles somewhere in the north-west
Mannar district. Bastiampillai and his team left at midnight
towards Vavuniya.
The search team comprised three other people apart from
Bastiampillai:- Constables Perambalam and Balasingham
and driver Sriwardene. They had with them a sub-machine
gun, two shotguns, a few revolvers and a few pistols. On the
dawn of 7th April 1978, the police vehicle approached the
rebel hideout.
The LTTE camp was a few hundred meters inside the
luxuriant forest, from the road. Uma Maheswaran and
Nagarajah who were manning the observation post atop a
tall tree saw the headlights of a car at around 6 a.m. It was
travelling very slowly and stopped near the footpath that led
to their camp. They saw Bastiampillai and Perampalam
getting out of the vehicle. Uma Maheswaran and Nagarajah
froze.
They wasted no time in passing the information on to the
men in the hut a few meters away from the tree. All
members of the central committee except Prabhakaran
were there. Chellakili took charge and sent two men not
known to the police along the footpath.
Bastiampillai stopped them, asked for their identity and
enquired, ‘Are you the ones involved in illicit cutting of
trees?’
They replied in the negative.
The inspector told them that they were from the Murungan
police station and were investigating a complaint about
illicit felling of trees. He said his team was going to search
their hut.
The two took the police team to the hut where Chellakili was
present. Bastiampillai recognised Chellakili instantaneously
but didn’t show it on his face, and Chellakili realised this.
Bastiampillai went into the hut for inspection. He carried the
sub-machine gun. Balasingham carried the shotgun and
followed Bastiampillai closely. Perampalam carried a
revolver, went around the shelter and inspected the
surroundings. Sriwardene made sure that he blocked the
footpath to prevent anyone from escaping.
After completing his inspection in the hut, Bastiampillai said,
‘Alright! We have to perform our duty. You come over to the
station and give us a statement. It’s only a formality. We will
bring you back once it is done.’
Chellakili nodded his head and said, ‘We are brewing some
tea. Let us have it before we go.’
One person served tea to Bastiampillai. He put his sub-
machine gun aside and took the cup of tea in his hand,
without any suspicion. That was enough for Chellakili. He
pounced on the sub-machine gun, hit Bastiampillai on this
head with it and opened fire at him. The most-feared
inspector was killed instantaneously. Then Chellakili turned
the gun at Balasingham and shot him down. In the
meantime, the other LTTE men overpowered Perampalam
and caught the fleeing driver Sriwardene. Both were quickly
killed. When Uma Maheswaran and Nagarajah got down
from their watch point, they found all the policemen dead.
They threw Perambalam’s body into the well and threw the
discarded bodies of others in the forest. The hut was burnt
down and the camp abandoned. They travelled in
Bastiampillai’s car to Kilinochchi where they burnt the
vehicle in the midst of the thick jungle. Then they spilt into
small groups and dispersed from there. Finally, all of them
assembled in their Poonthottam training camp near
Vavuniya where Prabhakaran was waiting for them.
Prabhakaran was delighted to hear the news. He hugged
Chellakili and said, ‘You have done the Tamils proud.’
Chellakili had also taken with him Bastiampillai’s sub-
machine gun, which was the cause for Prabhakaran’s
excitement. He was always passionate about modern
weapons. The group can now upgrade their armed struggle
from a handgun to a sub-machine gun.
The central committee of the LTTE debated on their
movement going public. They considered it to be the right
moment. Like the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)
and the Irish Republic Army (IRA), they also wanted to
identify themselves as an armed revolutionary movement.
They decided to issue a statement claiming responsibility
for the killings of Alfred Duraiapph, Canagaratnam and
others. Uma Maheswaran was assigned the task of drafting
a statement and disclosing it to the world.
The chairman of LTTE’s central committee pulled out a
paper and started writing names of people killed by LTTE.
Armed with the draft copy and the LTTE letter pad printed in
Chennai in 1976, he travelled to Colombo.
*
Uma Maheswaran met Urmila Devi, who was working in an
optical shop at that time, in Colombo. She was his distant
relative and a divorcee. She was an active member of the
Colombo branch of TYF and TULF Women's Front headed by
Sivakumaran’s mother, Annalakshmi. Amirthalingham’s wife
was an important person in that organisation and hence
Urmila was also a close acquintance to Amirthalingam.
On 25th April 1978, Uma Maheswaran sought Urmila’s help
in getting the letter typed. He requested her to make eight
copies.
The letter read:
‘The Bastiampillai party came in search of the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam at about 6.00 AM on 7th April 1978
with SMG, shot gun, revolvers and pistols, and attackeds the
Tigers, but the Tigers destroyed them without any loss to
their side and the car in which police were travelling was
also destroyed.’
It further said, ‘No other groups, organisations or individuals
can claim these killings. Serious action will be taken against
those who claim otherwise, whether in Ceylon or abroad.’
The letter further claimed the responsibility for the killing of
11 people, starting with Alfred Duraiapph. The list contained
seven policemen, two police informers, and Canagaratnam.
The letter was typed with a couple of spelling mistakes and
its copies were sent to the President of Sri Lanka, the leader
of the opposition Amirthalingam and various media
organisations. Tamil newspaper Virakesari published the
letter in full. Colombo-based English and Sinhala magazines
published the news on their front pages. Until then, they
had only published news related to the Tamil militants in a
tiny corner of an inside page. The LTTE was a force to reckon
with, from then on.
The interesting thing about the letter was the place where it
was typed. Urmila Devi had gone to the office of the Leader
of Opposition in the old parliament building that had been
allocated to Amirthalingam. She had used Amirthalingam’s
official typewriter, without the knowledge of Amirthalingam,
to type this historical letter.
The public statement issued by LTTE sent shock waves
across Sri Lanka. It also encouraged other militant groups.
Kuttimani-Thangathurai’s TELO decided to get rid of
Inspector Pathmanathan, who had taken charge, after
Bastiampillai’s killing. The operation was executed by
Kuttimani on 5th May 1978. He had been released from jail
the previous year, when Jayewardene had become the Prime
Minister.
With the killing of Bastiampillai and Pathmanathan within a
span of one month, police intelligence network shrank
considerably and the informers also dwindled. The Sri
Lankan Government issued a list of 38 wanted men, and the
first among them was that of Prabhakaran. That apart, most
of the men in the list belonged to the moderate TULF, which
included poet Kasi Anandan, Mavai Senathirajah,
Pushparajah, who later joined EPRLF and Sri Sabaratnam,
who later went on to head TELO. These men surrendered
themselves to the police even though none of them was
involved in Bastiampillai murder. On the other hand, no one
involved in the murder surrendered, nor could they be
arrested.
Jayewardene Government said it was proscribing the
organization LTTE.
But LTTE had different plans. Prabhakaran and Baby
Subramaniam handled the making of bombs. Uma
Maheswaran and Raghavan organized two tickets in an
AVRO 748 flight bound to Colombo’s Ratmalana airport from
Palali, Jaffna for 7th September 1978, the day earmarked for
the ceremonial opening of the Parliament. At Ratmalana
airport, Baby Subramaniam and Raghavan were the last of
35 passangers to deplane. Before disembarking, they had
activated the bomb.
The plane was to fly to Male in the Maldives and passengers
were waiting to board the aircraft. The accurately-timed
bomb exploded before anyone boarded the plane. By then
Baby Subramaniam and Raghavan had left the airport. LTTE
joined a select band of armed freedom fighters who
possessed the ability of planting bombs in aircrafts.
The LTTE promptly claimed responsibility for the aircraft’s
bombing. The ban and the bombing of the aircraft attracted
international attention.
After this, Prabhakaran wanted to create another sensation,
a bank robbery.They observed the Tinnaveli branch of the
state owned People’s Bank for over a month and
meticulously planned the operation. Chellakili befriended
the cashier of the branch called Sabaratnam, who later
became a member of LTTE. Chellakili came to know from the
cashier that all the branches usually deposited their weekly
collections on Fridays with their head office in Jaffna. The
money would be kept in the cashier’s room, ready to be
transported at around noon. Chellakili, who obtained the
sketch of the branch office from Sabaratnam, visited the
branch a couple of times.
On 5th December 1978, there was only one police guard,
named Kingsly Perera, at the bank entrance. Chellakili
pounced on Perera, wrested his sub-machine gun and shot
him dead.
While Chellakili guarded the bank entrance, Prabhakaran
and four others went inside the bank. They herded the
employees into the manager’s room and transferred the
neatly packed bundles of cash into gunny bags they had
brought with them. By the time they came out, a police jeep
had arrived at the entrance, driven by constable
Jayaratnam. Chellakili gunned down Jayaratnam; the rebels
fled with the sub-machine gun and Rs 1.2 million in cash, a
huge sum those days.
Soon after the AVRO blast, several youth joined the LTTE
movement. They included Kittu (original name:
Sathasivampillai Krishnakumar), Mahattaya (original name:
Gopalasamy Mahendrarajah) and Raghu. These names
would become household names among the Tamils in the
years to come.
Kittu and Mahattaya were students of Chithampara College
where Prabhakaran also studied. Kittu, born in 1960, was
Prabhakaran’s relative and hailed from Valvettithurai.
Mahattaya was born in Point Pedro in 1956. Raghu wanted
to join the police service, but did not get selected. Raghu
believed it was because he was a Tamil from Valvettithurai.
So he decided to join LTTE.
Bank cashier Sabaratnam, who helped LTTE in the bank
robbery, quit his job and became a member of LTTE. Initially
known as Ranjith Appa, he was called Thamilenthi later. He
served as the official treasurer of LTTE.
Prabhakaran took all his new recruits to his favourite
Poonthottam camp and organised intensive training for
them. In the meantime, Arular and Shankar Raji, the EROS
leaders who had attended the training programme with the
PLO in Lebanon, frequented the LTTE camp. The LTTE central
committee was enthused and decided to send a couple of
cadres to the PLO for training. Uma Maheswaran and
Vijayendra were sent to Lebanon, and EROS was paid Rs
100,000 for arranging the trip.
Uma and Vijayendra returned after three months and said
they were dissatisfied with the training programme. They
were spending most of the time sleeping in the camps as
they were not allowed go out into the war field. They did not
take part in real fighting and eventually did not learn
anything.
Prabhakaran felt that EROS had betrayed him. He severed
the agreement with EROS and demanded his money back.
But EROS had already spent the money. Shankar Raji was
asked to give an explanation to the central committee of
LTTE but he refused to do so. Prabhakaran took up the
matter to Amirthalingam, who mediated a settlement after
listening to both the sides. As per his advice, EROS paid
back a part of the money to LTTE.
In July 1979, the Government enacted the Prevention of
Terrorism Act and declared emergency in the Tamil areas.
The act bestowed unquestionable authority to the police
and the army. The armed forces were given the right to
shoot and kill any person they suspected.
Following this, several youth in the Northern regions were
killed overnight by the police force headed by the Sinhala
police officers Karunaratne and Pathirana. Hundreds of
suspected Tamil rebels were arrested and tortured to death.
Key LTTE leaders decided to flee to India by boat.
Prabhakaran crossed the sea with Raghavan, Iyer,
Sundaram and Urmila and landed on the Tamil Nadu coast.
Before they arrived there, Uma Maheswaran and Nagarajah
were already in Chennai and rented a house in
Thandaiyarpet. All of them stayed together in that house.
It was here that LTTE faced their first internal conflict. Some
of the members complained to Prabhakaran about Uma
Maheswaran’s misconduct. According to the recorded LTTE
literature recorded by Adele Balasingham, ‘the cadres had
seen Uma Maheswaran and Urmila in a sexually
compromising position and they reported the matter to
Prabhakaran.’
Prabhakaran who had inducted Uma Maheswaran into the
organisation also made him the Chairman of the central
committee, straightaway. This had angered several old
timers, but Prabhakaran had convinced them that Uma
Maheswaran’s commitment to the armed revolution, his
English speaking ability and his networking skills will be of
immense use to the organisation.
Uma Maheswaran had brought Urmila Devi into LTTE. They
had known each other even before becoming members of
LTTE. Yet, they had agreed to abide by the strict code of
conduct of the organisation which banned smoking, drinking
and sex.
An extremely agitated Prabhakaran exploded: ‘If the
Chairman of the movement breaks the rules, how will the
other members follow it? And how can he then strictly
enforce the code of conduct on others?’ Prabhakaran and
the central committee expelled Uma Maheswaran from
LTTE. Prabhakaran later recalled this incident in his maiden
media interview in 1984: ‘A leader of a revolutionary
movement should commit himself totally to the discipline of
the organisation. If a leader violates the basic rules and
principles, then there will be chaos and the organisation will
crumble.’17
‘Uma Maheswaran violated the rules of our movement and
as a disciplinary action he was expelled by the central
committee. Being the founder of the movement and the
person who had appointed Maheswaran as the Chairman, I
had no other alternative but to uphold the decision of the
central committee,’ he added.
But Uma Maheswaran refused to leave the organisation and
stood firm in his stance. Moreover, there was a problem in
removing him from the post of Chairman. The group’s
London representatives had introduced him as the leader of
the LTTE to various revolutionary movements from Third
World countries and their London office did not anticipate
this controversy. They found it embarrassing to go back to
these organisations and explain to them that they had
sacked their head because he slept with a woman.
LTTE’s London representatives Krishnan and Ramachandran
came to Chennai to broker a settlement. But Prabhakaran
did not give in. He had a point, after all.
Urmila Devi was the first woman cadre of LTTE and was
expected to be a role model. ‘Who will allow their daughters
and sisters to join a revolutionary movement if they come to
know that the leader had illicit sex with the female cadre?’
Prabhakaran asked the London representatives. They had no
answer to this and flew back to London.
Uma Maheswaran continued to claim his leadership in the
organisation despite being sacked by the central committee.
In the meantime, Uma’s confidant Suntharam (original
name: Sivashanmugamoorthy), removed some weapons
from the LTTE hideout. Prabhakaran, the military
commander, acted swiftly to shift the remaining arms to
fresh hideouts.
LTTE’s London representatives did not give up. They
persuaded Anton Balasingham and his wife Adele
Balasingham to go to Chenani to settle the dispute between
Prabhakaran and Uma Maheswaran.
At midnight, Baby Subramaniam in his traditional white
dhoti and Prabhakaran in his trousers and a light-coloured
printed shirt arrived at the lodge where Balasinghams were
staying. Adele Balasingham recorded her first impression of
Prabhakaran: ‘I must admit that I was taken aback by how
young and innocent these two ‘terrorists’ looked. Indeed
their appearance belied their reputation. Both were short,
neat little men who looked like butter wouldn’t melt in their
mouths.’18
She could spot the revolver tucked into his waist: ‘Only a
careful observer would have noticed the bulge from the
weapons he had tucked into his waist and covered by the
shirt that hung loosely over him. Cleverly too, the buttons
disguised a row of press studs sown underneath which
allowed them to tear open, giving him easy and quick
access to his weapons.’
The first meeting between Anton Balasingham and
Prabhakaran went into the early hours of the next day. In
fact, Balasingham was not unknown to Prabhakaran. He had
read Balasingham’s political writings and his translations of
Che Guevara and Mao Tse-Tung. A little pamphlet titled,
‘Towards Tamil Eelam’ written by Balasingham had won
Prabhakaran’s admiration.
However, this was not enough for Prabhakaran to trust
Balasingham fully. According to Adele, ‘He watched intently
with his piercing eyes every movement of Balasingham’s
facial muscles. He questioned Balasingham about his
personal background and beliefs.’
In effect, both were evaluating each other. They assessed
each other’s commitment to the cause of Eelam. In the end,
they liked each other. Even though there was an instant
liking between the two, it took many yeas to build a unique
friendship.
Prabhakaran realised that the quality of the lodge where
Balasingham couples were staying was poor. It was a dirty
room with a filthy, leaking toilet. So, Prabhakaran arranged
a better hotel for the couple to stay.
In the next few days, Prabhakaran met Balasingham often
and exchanged views. It was decided that Balasingham will
conduct political classes to the cadres of LTTE. Around 15
members attended these classes, which included
Prabhakaran and Uma Maheswaran, who continued to claim
the membership of LTTE. While Prabhakaran sat through the
classes attentively, Uma Maheswaran disrupted the classes
regularly by asking a series of questions and kept
challenging Balasingham.
Through irritated, Balasingham tried to work out a
rapprochement between Uma Maheswaran and
Prabhakaran, but didn’t succeed. Disappointed, he returned
to London.
9. First internal crisis
 
At the beginning of 1980, when the LTTE was deeply divided
into Prabhakaran faction and Uma Maheswaran faction,
Prabhakaran returned to Jaffna. Uma Maheswaran was
spreading information that Prabhakaran behaved like a
dictator in the organisation. The LTTE central committee met
twice in Jaffna and Vavuniya to discuss this issue.
 
Uma argued that considerable changes were needed in the
organisational structure and its activities. He accused
Prabhakaran of dancing to the tunes of Amirthalingam. Uma
Maheswaran was a good orator and more educated than
Prabhakaran.Prabhakaran, on the other hand, was a man of
action who did not believe in talking. Prabhakaran was also
not interested in decentralising the power within the
organisation.
 
Ironically, Nagarajah and Iyer, the two LTTE members who
brought up Uma Maheswaran’s sexual misconduct in
Chennai and had demanded Uma Maheswaran’s expulsion
from the organisation, now suddenly shifted changed sides
and supported Uma Maheswaran. They suggested in the
Vavuniya meeting that the LTTE be transformed into a mass
movement.
 
Prabhakaran realised that his dream plan to build a
disciplined armed resistance movement was shattered. He
categorically rejected the idea of arriving at a common
consensus before getting into any action. He pointed out,
‘Then we will end up like a political party, always talking and
not acting.’ However, nobody was ready to listen to
Prabhakaran.
 
He was disappointed and felt let down by his comrades. He
broke into tears and announced in choked voice, ‘I have
done so much for the movement and sadly nobody
recognises it. I am quitting.’ As he started walking, the
astonished members of the central committee tried to
persuade him to change his decision. But he refused to
listen to them. Someone offered him a pistol as a souvenir,
but Prabhakaran declined to accept it. He walked away
empty handed from the very organisation he had built from
the scratch.
 
He went to an uncle’s house in Tinnaveli where he spent
some time planning his future. His uncle arranged a meeting
between Prabhakaran, Thangathurai and Kuttimani.
Prabhakaran told them, ‘I left you as a Thamby (younger
brother). Now I have come back as a Thamby.’ Thangathurai
and Kuttimani were glad to take him back.
 
Thangathurai and Kuttimani decided to make Prabhakaran
the head of TELO training camps. Prabhakaran accepted the
offer and left for Tamil Nadu again. A TELO training camp
was started near Trichy and some time later, another one
was set up near Madurai.
The men built cottages in thick forest. They cooked for
themselves and slept on mats. While everyone used straw
mat and pillow, Prabakaan used neither and slept on the
hard floor.
While in charge of TELO’s training camps, Prabhakaran was
still thinking about building his own organisation. He was
clear on one thing, though. This time, there will be no more
central committees and internal democracy. He will raise a
dedicated group of highly motivated cadres, and discipline
and loyalty to himself and his ideals will be the foundation
of a successful guerrilla unit.
Prabhakaran re-established contact with some of his most
reliable former colleagues - Baby Subramaniam, Pandithar,
Raghavan, Kittu, Chellakili and Seelan (Charles Anthony).
They came together again and Prabhakaran got ready for
his second innings.
 
Pandithar sold his mother’s cow and raised some money
from which the group bought a .38 pistol from an Indian for
Rs 300. Then Prabhakaran procured a G-3 rifle from a retired
Indian army officer for Rs 3,000. Money was hard to come
by, Prabhakaran suggested to his colleagues: ‘We cannot go
on like this. We must, in future, wrest our weapons from our
enemy.’
 
The year 1980 was incident-free. Thangathurai-Kuttimani’s
TELO was focusing on training camps and Prabhakaran was
busy rebuilding his movement. TELO and Prabhakaran’s
group had perfect understanding between them and
resolved to work together.
 
The combine undertook their first joint operation on 16th
March 1981. Chetti alias Thanbalasingham, an associate of
Prabhakaran in the early years, was the target. He had
become a police informer. Prabhakaran and Kuttimani went
cycling all the way to Kalviyankadu on the outskirts of the
Jaffna city and spotted Chetti near a bus stop talking to a
friend. He was shocked to see Prabhakaran and Kuttimani
coming together and realised that they were there to kill
him. Before Chetti could react and pull his pistol out, the two
shot him dean on the spot.
 
On 5th April 1981, the TELO leaders Thangathurai, Kuttimani
and Thevan alias Sellathurai Sivasubramaniam were
arrested at Manalkadu, a coastal village in Point Pedro, while
waiting on the beach for a boat to go to India. Sri
Sabaratanam, who would become the next leader of TELO,
had dropped them assuring that the boat would be ready by
11.00 PM. But it was not the boat, but the police that
arrived. Thangathurai and Kuttimani, were handcuffed,
chained and airlifted to Colombo, and confined to the
Panagoda Detention Camp.
 
TELO suffered another blow three weeks after the arrest of
Thangathurai and Kuttimani. On 26th April 1981, Jegan alias
Ganeshanathan Jeganathan, another TELO top man was
arrested on a tip-off. Prabhakaran became more alert after
these arrests. The police and the army mounted a massive
hunt to capture Prabhakaran. He retreated to the Vanni
jungles and kept a low profile.
 
Prabhakaran decided that the time was not the right for any
further attacks. He handed over the Jaffna operations to
Mahataya and left for Tamil Nadu on 6th June 1981, along
with ten of his confidants, including Seelan.
 
*
Between the arrest of Thangathurai and Kuttimani and
Prabhakaran’s fleeing to India by boat, a disaster took place
that was to leave a deep scan in the psyche of the Eelam
Tamils.
Elections to the District Development Councils were to take
place across Sri Lanka. Jayewardene wanted to win the
Jaffna council polls at any cost. He sent two of his most
provocative Sinhala extremist ministers, Cyril Mathew and
Gamini Dissanayake, to Jaffa to campaign for the ruling
United National Party.
During an election propaganda meeting involving the
ministers on 31st May 1981, violence erupted. The armed
forces, under the direct supervision of the two ministers,
resorted to widespread attacks on temples, the adjoining
houses and passing motor vehicles. Then they went to the
market and set fire to the shops. Several commercial
establishments were also burnt down by the police.
At midnight, the police surrounded the house of
Yogeswaran, the Member of Parliament for Jaffna and the
leader of TULF youth wing and set it on fire. They also set
his jeep and his friend’s car on fire. Yogeswaran in his lungi
and his wife in her in-skirt jumped over the rear wall and
escaped. He was lucky to be alive that night.
The armed forces then burnt TULF headquarters and also
surrounded the office of Eelanadu, a Tamil news paper, and
set it ablaze. Most of the city was up in flames. The police
chased away those who attempted to dowse the fire.
Cyril Mathew and Gamini Dissanayake gave their full
blessing and support to the policemen. On 1st June 1981,
they torched the Jaffna library, one of the finest in Asia. A
priceless collection of 97,000 volumes comprising culturally
important works, rare manuscripts, historical collections and
books were reduced to ashes. More than thousand of them
were handwritten manuscripts, lost forever.
This distruction can only be compared to the burning of the
Nalanda University and its library in the 12th century during
the Muslim invasion of India and the Portuguese Army’s
burning down of the Saraswathy Mahal library in Tanjore in
Tamil Nadu in 1619.
The western world records Hitler’s book burning as one of
the worst cultural destructions in the 20th century. The Nazi
regime incinerated about 20,000 volumes on 10th May 1933.
The Sinhala thugs destroyed five times more than that.
Burning Jaffna library was not an isolated event. In 1984, the
library at the Hartley College, Point Pedro was burnt by the
Sri Lankan armed force personnel. The event resulted in the
burning of 6,690 books. In the same year, the local library of
Valvettithurai was set ablaze by the armed forces. Not
content with public libraries and university collections, they
did not spare even private book collections of Tamil. TULF
politician Eeelaventhan’s book collection was specifically
targeted and destroyed in 1977, in Colombo. Likewise, TULF
leader Sivasithamparam’s collection was burnt in the 1983
ethnic riots.
The Tamil public considered the 1981 Jaffna library burning
as worse than the killing of nine innocent persons during the
Fourth International Tamil Research Conference in 1974.
Hundreds of helpless and angry Tamils watched the flames
guzzle their culture treasure, the Jaffa library, with
unbelievable shock.
Prabhakaran was one of them. ‘Complete destruction of our
culture’, he remarked. It was something he could not bear,
and he left for Tamil Nadu.
*
 
Tamil Nadu was safe, but Prabhakaran had no money.
Maintaining the group in Chennai was not easy for him.
Living on a daily allowance of Rs 10 per person was a mjor
struggle. The stayed in a house in Valasaravakkam,
Chennai, and cooked and ate together.
 
After being unsuccessful in trying to sort out the dispute
between Prabhakaran and Uma Maheswaran, Balasingham
and his wife left for London in 1979, but retuned back to
Chennai towards the end of 1981. They started living with
Prabhakaran and his men. By then, Balasingham had clearly
understood Prabhakaran’s commitment towards Tamil Eelam
and decided to work closely with him.
 
‘Combined cooking of Bala (Balasingham), Pandithar,
Sankar, Raghu, Baby and I was filled with fun, laughter and
teasing,’ recalled Adele Balasingham in her book.
Prabhakaran was an expert cook too. Anton Balasingham,
Adele Balasingham and Pandithar travelled by the state-
owned city from Valasaravakkam to Porur, where they
bought the vegetables and fish required for the day’s
cooking. Balasingham, a hard bargainer who would
represent the LTTE in most of the peace talks for more than
three decades to come, took the role of bargaining with the
vegetable vendors.
 
The members were allowed to watch only one movie a
week. They bought only two pairs of clothes in a year - one
for the Tamil New year’s day falling in April and the other
during Deepavali festival, in October or November. They
washed their own clothes, leader and cadre alike. One day,
Prabhakaran was spotted washing others’ clothes. When
asked about it, he replied, ‘If I don’t do some work, I will
become lazy. That is why I am doing this.’
 
Uma Maheswaran named his group People’s Liberation
Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE). After the arrest of
Thangathurai and Kuttimani, TELO functioned under the
leadership of Sri Sabaratanam. EROS, founded in London by
Ratnasabapathi, Shankar Raji and Arular also existed,
without carrying out any attacks. Prabhakaran’s group still
functioned from Jaffana.
 
Apart from these four groups, a fifth group emerged in
October 1981. Gunasekaran, Pathmanabah, Douglas
Devananda and a few others parted away from the EROS
and launched Eelam People Revolutionary Left Front (EPRLF)
in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu.
 
During this period, Sri Sabaratanam suggested that
Prabhakaran’s group be merged with TELO. But Prabhakaran
did not entertain that proposal. Uma Maheswaran, while
operating under the name PLOTE, still claimed that his
group was the real LTTE. Therefore, Prabhakaran reasoned
out that if he merged with TELO, there will be no objection
to then Uma Maheswaran’s using the name LTTE.
 
Balasingham and Baby Subramaniam launched a campaign
from Chennai against Uma Maheswaran. They wrote lengthy
letters to LTTE supporters in the western countries
explaining the reasons behind Uma Maheswaran’s expulsion
from the organisation.
 
The year 1982 dawned with a big blow to Uma Maheswaran.
On 2nd January, Seelan from Prabhakaran’s camp shot dead
Sundaram in Jaffna. Sundaram was Uma Maheswaran’s right
hand man whose Tamil magazine ‘Puthiya Pathai’ (New
Path) vehemently criticised and discredited Prabhakaran
and his associates.
In the meantime, the Sri Lankan army was also intensifying
its search operation. Uma Maheswaran decided to flee to
Tamil Nadu by boat on 25th February 1982 with Kannan,
Kaka, Anton and Thasan. The Sri Lankan navy arrested
Anton on his return after dropping the others. He confessed
to the authorities that Uma Maheswaran took with him 20
packets of gold looted from the Kilinochchi Bank. Three days
after Uma’s escape, the army raided the PLOTE camp in
Vavuniya, killing several cadres and seizing arms and
ammunition in large numbers.
Even in India, the militants carried weapons with them. Even
Adele Balasingham, addressed by everyone as ‘aunty’, was
trained in the use of arms, personally by Prabhakaran, in a
casuarinas grove south of Chennai. Each bullet cost Rs 25,
so they were frugal and prudent with the utilisation of
resources.
Uma Maheswaran was looking for an opportunity to kill
Prabhakaran, especially after the assassination of his aide,
Sundaram. Prabhakaran also wanted to get rid of Uma. On
19th May 1982, Prabhakaran and Raghavan were on their
way to a restaurant in Pondy Bazaar, Chennai for dinner
after watching a Hollywood movie. They noticed Uma
Maheswaran starting his motorcycle parked nearby. He was
with his accomplice, Kannan.
Kannan noticed Prabhakaran and Raghavan, and alerted
Uma. Both Prabhakaran and Uma Maheswaran drew their
revolvers but Prabhakaran was quicker. He fired six rounds
of bullets at Uma Maheswaran, who ducked and drove away,
leaving Kannan on the spot. Prabhakaran bullets struck
Kannan’s leg and he fell on the road, bleeding.
Pondy Bazaar is a busy shopping street in T.Nagar. On
hearing gun shots, crowds gathered around the place and
there was commotion. Prabhakaran and Raghavan started
running and just as they reached Pondy Bazaar police
station, the police Inspector in-charge stepped out hearing
gun shots and commotion. Prabhakaran and Raghavan were
arrested. Pondy Bazaar Inspector Nandakumar would not
have realised at that time that he was going to be the only
man who would ever arrest Prabhakaran in his life.
Kannan was admitted to the Royapettah Government
Hospital with bullet injuries. Within a week, on 25th May
1982 Uma Maheswaran was arrested while waiting for a
train at the Railway Station.
10. Taking on the army
The Tamil Nadu police had no idea to as to the identity of
the arrested men. Prabhakaran and Raghavan, and later
Uma Maheswaran, were taken to the Island Grounds police
station. Prabhakaran had given his name as Karikalan and
Uma Maheswaran Mugunthan. There were treated like
common criminals on the change of attempted murder.
During interrogation, though they disclosed that they were
from Sri Lanka, they did not reveal that they belonged to
LTTE or PLOTE. Only after interrogating the hospitalised
militant Kannan, did the police come to know the real
identity of the captured men.
Sri Lankan Government was excited with the news of these
arrests. The Jayewardene administration announced a
reward of Rs 1,000,000 for the Tamil Nadu police. In Sri
Lanka, Prabhakaran was wanted for 18 murders and two
bank robberies while Uma Maheswaran was wanted for 9
murders and one bank robbery. A delegation headed by
police officer Rudra Rajasingham rushed to Chenani to
negotiate deportation and to give away the reward to Tamil
Nadu police.
At the same time, Chandrahasan, the lawyer-son of late
leader Chelvanayagam arrived in Chennai. Prabhakaran’s
father Velupillai had requested Chandrahasan to prevent his
son from being deported to Colombo. If that happened, he
knew, Prabhakaran will be killed in custody. Chandrahasan
met the DMK leader, former Chief Minister and the leader of
the opposition in Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanithi and pleaded
with him to save Prabhakaran. Karunanithi promised to take
the matter up with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, with whose
party he had a political alliance.
Tamil Nadu chief minister M.G. Ramachandran, the
charismatic filmstar-turned-politician, had a soft corner for
the cause of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. He instructed Tamil
Nadu Inspector General of Police K. Mohandas, ‘Go slow on
the matter involving the boys.’ With strong political backing,
Tamil Nadu police politely refused to accept the reward
offered by the Sri Lankan Government and also declared
that the arrested persons will be subject to Indian laws and
not be deported to Sri Lanka.
Several members of LTTE were in Tamil Nadu at the time of
Prabhakaran’s arrest. Kittu, Ponamman and Pulendran
rushed to Chennai from their Madurai Camp. They discussed
with Pandithar and then collectively decided to jump from
the fourteen storied LIC building on Mount Road, the tallest
building in Chennai at that time, and kill themselves if
Prabhakaran was not released.
When Baby Subramaniam heard of this plan, he dissuaded
them from doing this. He rushed to meet P. Nedumaran, who
was a close associate of late congress leader K. Kamraj and
was in the good books of the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
He had saved Indira Gandhi when a gang attacked her
political meeting in Madurai. Though Nedumaran had left
the Congress party and was leading his own party called
Tamil Nadu Kamaraj Congress, he had good relationship with
Indira Gandhi.
On 1st June 1982, Nedumaran organised an all-party
meeting. The meeting unanimously resolved to urge the
Tamil Nadu State Government and the Central Government
of India not to deport the arrested militants to Sri Lanka.
Indira Gandhi was suspicious of the Sri Lankan president,
J.R. Jayewardene. She felt that he was acting against the
interests of India. In the 1970s and 1980s, India was close to
Soviet Union. But Jayewardene had moved to the US camp.
He had allowed the US and Israel to set up military posts in
Sri Lanka. Trincomalee harbour was offered to the US navy,
an act Indira Gandhi did not fail to notice.
On 6th June, a Chennai magistrate released both
Prabhakaran and Uma Maheswaran on conditional bail. The
court ordered them to stay in different places in Tamil Nadu
till the trial was over. Prabhakaran went with Nedumaran to
stay in Madurai. Uma Maheswaran stayed with a Tamil
linguist and activist Perum Chithiranar in Chennai.
Prabhakaran stayed with Nedumaran for seven months in
Madurai. During this time, Prabhakaran received a message
from Amirthalingam asking to meet him in Chennai. They
met in a hotel room, and the TULF leader wanted to sort out
the differences between Prabhakaran and Uma
Maheswaran.
Subsequently, they met again at Perum Chithiranar’s house,
where Uma Maheswaran was also present. During the
meeting, it was resolved that Uma Maheswaran will not
claim to be a member of LTTE. Uma Maheswaran’s
organisation will be PLOTE while Prabhakaran’s will be LTTE.
Nor will Prabhakaran make any attempts on Uma
Maheswaran’s life.
*
President Jayewardene visited Jaffna on 29th September
1982 to campaign for the presidential election. The LTTE
planned to give him a warm welcome. The militants led by
Chellakili, launched their first landmine operation. The
mission to mine the naval convoy failed. Chellakili pressed
the exploder when the jeep was about 50 meters away.
Jayewardene won the presidential elections held on 20th
October 1982, to retain his office. A week after the
presidential election, on 27th October, a team of LTTE men
led by Seelan attacked the two storied Chavakachcheri
police station. The eight-member team comprising Seelan,
Aruna, Shankar, Pulendran, Raghu, Mahattaya, Santhosam
and Bashir Kaka arrived there in a hijacked minibus. The
attack lasted for 15 minutes, involving heavy exchange of
fire. In the end, the rebels seized two sub-machine guns,
nine rifles, one pistol, 19 Repeater shot guns and two shot
guns from the police armoury. During the exchange of fire,
one bullet hit Pulendran's shoulder, another hit Raghu in his
right hand, a third hit Seelan’s kneecap and seriously
wounded him. He was taken into the minibus by his
colleagues.
Jaffna University lecturer couple M Niththyanandan and
Nirmala provided shelter for Seelan. He rested there for two
weeks and was subsequently ferried to Tamil Nadu for
medical treatment. He was accompanied by Shankar, who
also took part in the Chavakachcheri police station attack.
On 20th November 1982, Shankar came back to inform
Nithyanandan and Nirmala that Seelan had safely reached
Tamil Nadu. However, the army was watching that house
and quickly moved in to capture him. Shankar started
running and was shot in his stomach. He ran three
kilometers tightly holding his bleeding stomach and reached
a safe house. He handed over his revolver to his comrades
and fainted due to blood loss.
His colleagues did not waste much time. Anton put him in a
boat and ferried him to Kodiakkarai coast in Tamil Nadu.
Shankar was rushed to Madurai and admitted to a private
hospital. But his condition was serious as he had lost
excessive blood. Prabhakaran, who was in Madurai then,
rushed to the hospital. The 22-year-old Shankar breathed his
last on Prabhakaran’s laps.
Shankar’s body was cremated in Madurai. His death was not
announced publicly. LTTE was a closely knit group of just 30
young men. This was the first death amongst their cadre
and it was hard for them to digest it. They were aware that
they would lose many more from their group in the years to
come.
LTTE announced Shankar’s death on 27th November 1983,
his first death anniversary. Wall posters describing his
heroism and sacrifice were put up all over Jaffna. Since then,
LTTE has observed Shankar’s death anniversary as ‘Heroes
Day’ every year. It was customary for Prabhakaran to give
an inspiring speech on that day and make policy
announcements. Respects are paid to all the martyrs who
have sacrificed their lives for the cause of Tamil Eelam.
*
Late leader Chelvanayagam, while believing in a federal
solution, still called on the Tamils to observe Sri Lankan
Independence Day as a black day. He continued to follow
that all this life. Amirthalingam, who inherited political
leadership from Chelvanayagam, did not observe the 1983
Independence Day as a mourning day. But the youth did not
like it and on 4th February, school students and some other
youth protested in front of the Jaffna secretariat and they
called for a general strike.
Prabhakaran was observing this from Madurai. He realised
that the trust Tamils had for Amirthalingam was slowly
diminishing. He also sensed the increasing mistrust they
had for Jayewardene. It was an ideal environment to re-
launch the armed revolution with full intensity. Prabhakaran
wanted to go back to Jaffna but the case registered by Tamil
Nadu police was still pending against him. He was on a
conditional bail and was expected not to leave Madurai city
limits. Prabhakaran sought Nedumaran’s advice. The mentor
replied, ‘Do what is good for you and your struggle.’
At around the same time when Prabhakaran reached Jaffna,
Thangadurai’s trial was up for hearing in a Colombo court.
On 24th February, the Judge asked the accused whether he
had anything to say before the judgment could be read.
Thangadurai delivered a historical speech that articulated
the atrocities committed by the Sinhala ruling class against
the Tamils. His counsel Satyendra translated the speech for
the Judge at the beginning, but burst into tears and couldn’t
complete the rest. Sivasithamparam, who assisted
Satyendra, translated the rest of the speech.
On 16th February 1983, Seelan, who had recovered from his
knee injury, and Prabhakaran left for Jaffana. The day
Prabhakaran landed near Valvettithurai, four Tigers shot
dead the Point Pedro Police Inspector E.K.R. Wijewardene at
08:15 PM when he went out to buy cigarettes. LTTE was on a
low profile after the Chavakachcheri police station attack in
which Seelan and others were injured. But they intensified
their attack after Prabhakaran’s return.
Police inspector Wijewardene was a terror. He used the
unquestionable powers granted by the Prevention of
Terrorism Act to arrest and torture innocent civilians.
Residents of Vadamarachchi were understandably relieved
after his murder.
 
Towards the end of March 1983, Lalith Athulathmuthali
became the minister for National Security in Sri Lanka.
Athulathmudali had served as a professor in an Israeli
university. He maintained close ties with Israel and used
their help to strengthen the army.
 
Jayewardene’s presidency was due to end in 1988. For Lalith
Athulathmudali, who looked forward to becoming the
President one day, the National Security ministry came as a
godsend.
 
Gamini Dissanayake, the Minister of Land and Mahaveli
Development, was considered close to Jayewardene for his
relentless expedition of state aided colonisation in the Tamil
areas. Right from the first Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake,
the Sinhala politiians used various development schemes to
settle large number of Sinhalese in the traditional Tamil
homeland and alter the ethnic composition in those areas.
The idea was to discredit the concept of traditional
homeland for Tamils.
 
During Jayewardene regime, Gamini Dissanayake expedited
state-aided settlements, an act that drew him closer to
Jayewardene. Lalith Athulathmudali thought that if he could
crush LTTE, he could also win Jayewardene’s confidence and
improve his chances of winning the candidacy from his party
foe the presidential election.
 
As soon as Lalith Athulathmudali became the minister for
National Security, he organised a National Security
Conference in Jaffna. Normally, such a conference will be
held in Colombo. The idea this time was to get TULF and
Amirthalingam participate in the conference and hence
Jaffna. But Amirthalingam was not willing to attend the
conference. Jayewardene had to lure him for the meeting.
Earlier, the local administration in the Northern region was
under the control of TULF. Then the Central Government in
Colombo took control of local administration by not
conducting the elections.
 
Jayewardene sent feelers to Amirthalingam that he was
willing to hold elections to the local bodies. This was enough
to bring Amirthalingam to the conference.
 
The real intention behind getting Amirthalingam and TULF to
the conference was to show the International donor
community that the Government was working closely with
the Tamil leaders in matters concerning national security
and it was also looking at reactivating democracy in the
Tamil areas. Jayewardene would showcase this to get some
aid, which he will divert to strengthen the army.
 
The militants saw through this game plan, but
Amirthalingam did not. The conference was scheduled to be
held in the Jaffna Secretariat. LTTE implanted in the
Secretariat building, blasted the wings of the building and
claimed responsibility for the incident. Its statement read:
‘An armed revolution cannot be suppressed by State
terrorists with the help of political opportunists. We bombed
the Secretariat to get this message across.’
 
It was a decisive moment. For Prabhakaran and other armed
groups, Amirthalingam had become a political opportunist.
 
TULF had won the seats in the 1977 general election
seeking people’s mandate to form a separate state. But it
went back on the mandate and accepted the post of the
leader of the opposition by taking oath on the 1972
constitution, which did not even concede a federal set up.
Later, when Jayewardene put forward District Development
Councils (DDC) as a solution to the decentralisation of
power, Amirthalingam endorsed it by contesting in the DDC
polls.
 
The DDC did not do much towards the decentralisation of
power and offer sufficient safeguards to the Tamils. Thus,
Amirthalingam had taken the issue of self determination of
Tamils several steps backwards. Chelvanayagam took the
time between 1949 and 1975 to go from Federalism to
separatism. Amirthalingam went back to something lesser
than Federalism.
 
Amirthalingam’s popularity began to slide with the DDC
polls and took a severe beating when TULF decided not to
contest in the presidential elections. The Tamils suspected
that there was a secret understanding between
Jayewardene and Amirthalingam. With this backdrop, TULF
decided to contest the local administration elections to be
held on 18th May 1983.
 
It was a decisive turning point that would effectively shift
the political leadership of Tamils from Amirthalingam to
Prabhakaran. Prabhakaran issued his first signed leaflet and
asked the people to boycott the polls. His letter said:
‘While the blood is still dripping from the mouth of the state
terrorist wolf which bit the people of Tamil Eelam recently,
there are attempts by the Sinhala chauvinist state to justify
its terrorist acts to the International community by holding a
local Government election. We cannot permit the actions of
the traitors who are collaborating in this effort of Sinhala
chauvinism.
The people of Tamil Eelam should get out of the mirage of a
Sri Lankan election. They should rally around a popular
armed struggle.’
 
Amirthalingam did not take this letter seriously. He believed
that the people were still with him. He also did not pay
attention to the rationale that Jayewardene would use this
election to lure the International community, obtain aid from
them and use the same money to buy weapons and destroy
them.
 
Many Tamil candidates withdrew their nomination as a
consequence of the LTTE warning. They also advertised in
the Jaffna daily Eelanadu stating, ‘I, ____________, have
decided to withdraw my candidature.’ Everyone except the
ruling UNP and TULF was out of the fray.
 
Two candidates of the UNP were gunned down by LTTE. The
LTTE gunmen left handwritten notes beside the victims. The
letters read: ‘This person (name) had been sentenced to
death for defying the LTTE ban on contesting the elections.’
Following this incident, the UNP candidates also rushed to
Eelanadu carrying their advertisements announcing their
withdrawals from the contest.
 
Amirthalingam, however, was unmoved. TULF was still in
the fray. He publicly declared, ‘I challenge Thambymar
(younger brothers) to take the boycott call to the people. Let
the people decide. We are ready to accept the verdict of the
people.’
 
LTTE did not harm any of the TULF candidates. They let the
people decide. In Valvettithurai, the birthplace of
Prabhakaran, only 2% voters went to the polling booth, with
the rest boycotting the elections. Point Pedro was worse,
with only 0.75% voting. Across the Tamil country, 95% of the
voters boycotted the election.
 
*
 
It was 6th July 1983, 2:30 early in the morning. Two army
jeeps arrived at the Government owned cement factory gate
in Kankesanthurai. The soldiers guarding the entrance
saluted a person in army uniform.
 
The officer informed the soldiers in Sinhala: ‘We have
received information that the LTTE terrorists are going to
steal the exploder devices. We have come to provide
additional security. Do not allow anyone to enter the
premises. If anyone comes, stop them right here. We will
come back and check in a short while.’
 
The officer was Seelan of LTTE. He and his men drove the
jeep straight to the store where the exploders were kept.
The obtained the store key from the workers, loaded five
exploder devices onto the jeep, and locked the store. Seelan
did not fail to slow down at the entrance to thank the
soldiers for their ‘cooperation’.
 
The Government was angered by the audacity of LTTE. Not
knowing how to tackle LTTE, they decided to come down
heavily on the people of Jaffna. The train service between
Colombo and Jaffna was severed and other essential
services to Jaffna were restricted. The Government even
stopped private buses plying from Colombo to Jaffna. A bus
from Point Pedro to Colombo was set afire by the army.
 
The Sri Lankan army officer Major Sarath Munasinghe learnt
about an LTTE hideout through the information provided by
his intelligent network. Munasinghe resolved not to
approach the LTTE hideout in an army vehicle. He adopted
the same tactics deployed by Seelan.
 
On 15th July, two army soldiers dressed like LTTE fighters
stopped an empty minibus, overpowered the driver and the
conductor, and drove the bus to the army camp. The driver
and the conductor were locked up in the camp. From there,
Sarath Munasinghe drove the minibus himself. The vehicle
roamed around for the whole day and the crew, in civilian
clothes, finally decided to return to the camp. While they
were returning back at around 6.00 PM, Munasinghe noticed
three men on two bicycles ahead of them. One bicycle had a
billion rider. The army officer did not know that it was
Seelan, the man he was searching for. He did, however, spot
a sub-machine gun in Seelan’s hand.
 
When the bus got closer to the cyclists, the soldiers started
firing at them. The three militants abandoned their bicycles
in the middle of the road, jumped over the fence and ran
into the thicket. One of them, Ananthan, was shot at, and he
fell down. Seelan also fell down while running. The soldiers
thought they had shot him, but in reality his knee was not in
a good condition after the surgery earlier in Tamil Nadu, and
this was the reason why he couldn’t run.
 
The third militant Aruna tried to help Seelan, but couldn’t.
As the soldiers came closer, Seelan decided that he had to
die. He wanted Aruna to escape and also wanted the sub-
machine gun to reach other LTTE cadres.
 
‘Shoot me and run,’ Seelan shouted at Aruna.
 
Aruna stood speechless. He could not imagine killing the
‘Number 2’ in LTTE even in his wildest dreams.
 
When Seelan commanded him, Aruna had no choice. The
enemy was fast approaching. Aruna placed the gun on
Seelan’s forehead and pulled the trigger. Then, he began to
run with the sub-machine gun. A bullet hit him and he fell
down but still kept managed to escape till he reached
Chavakachcheri where he saw a car. He stopped the car and
pushed the driver out and drove the car to Tinneveli. The
army found the steering wheel fully soaked in blood the next
day. At Tinneveli, Aruna forcibly took a motorcycle from a
rider and rode it to the LTTE hideout at Neerveli.
 
When Prabhakaran heard about this, he was terribly
shocked. Prabhakaran held Seelan in high regard. Seelan
was intelligent, aggressive, composed and committed to the
cause. Prabhakaran ordered that the two who sacrificed
their lives be honored. Posters were put up throughout the
North and the East saluting, Seelan and Ananthan.
 
The LTTE, with a strength of thirty plus cadres, lost Shankar,
Ananthan and Seelan within a short span of time.
Prabhakaran and Chellakili decided to take revenge on the
army. Their first two landmine attempts had resulted in a
failure. But Chellakili was optimistic. They decided to
ambush the army convoy that patrolled Jaffna city and its
suburbs every night. On 23rd July, they decided to target the
vehicles going to Mathagal Army Camp.
 
The telephone department had dug up the road for laying
underground cables. LTTE men dug it up further and placed
two landmines there. Fourteen members of LTTE, led by
Prabhakaran, were lined up for the operation. Chellakili was
holding the exploder firmly. They had been, in fact, stolen by
Seelan from the Kankesanthurai cement factory.
 
First came the jeep, followed by a truck. Chellakili pressed
the trigger to explode the mines simultaneously. The first
landmine exploded while the jeep was over it. It was thrown
up high into the air, instantly killing everyone travelling in it.
 
The second mine exploded when the truck was few meters
in front of it. The driver had applied the brake to slow the
vehicle. Prabhakaran and his men opened fire from either
side of the road. Most of the soldiers in the truck were killed.
 
The LTTE men collected the arms from the army truck and
walked back to the minibus. Prabhakaran walked in the
front. Others followed and found Chellakili missing. They
started searching for him frantically and found him dead in a
pool of blood. A bullet had pierced his chest, killing him.
Prabhakaran broke down, sobbing inconsolably. Kittu
recalled in an interview that was the first time he saw
Prabhakaran cry.
 
The explosion was so loud that it could be heard at the army
camp. Major Sarath Munasinghe immediately left his
Gurunagar Army Camp in Jaffna, to investigate the incident.
He was terribly shocked to see 13 of his soldiers dead.
 
The next day, 24th July 1983 dawned to herald a new era in
Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict. It would also be altering the lives
of countless Tamils for generations to come.
 
11. Black July
The Sri Lankan army brought the mortal remains of the 13
soldiers to Colombo in blood-soaked polythene covers
instead of coffins. The news spread like widefire in southern
Sri Lanka. Enraged Sinhalese gathered in thousands at the
Kannatte cemetery in Colombo. At the last minute, the
Government announced that the funerals will not be held
there. The enraged the mob even more and they started
attacking the shops owned by Tamils in Colombo. In no time,
49 Tamils were killed.
Sadly, it was not the end but only the beginning. July 1983
was a black chapter in the history of troubled Sri Lanka, and
is painfully remembered as ‘Black July.’ Thousands of Tamils
were butchered on the streets of Colombo, women raped,
men and children thrown into fire and in bizarre twist, ‘Tamil
meat’ was sold in the shops in the Sri Lankan capital.
Even though the Jayewardene administration justified these
acts as spontaneous Sinhala ‘reaction’ to the killing of 13
soldiers by LTTE, the events before and after the riots
revealed that it was indeed a meticulously planned scheme
that was waiting for an opportune moment. The plan had
full blessings and support from Jayewardene. Sinhala thugs
were brought to Colombo from southern Sri Lanka. The
Sinhalese political forces had expected trouble in Jaffna and
decided to use it to their advantage elsewhere.
The aim of the riots was to destroy the economic, social and
professional base of the Tamils and reduce them to a weak,
subject race. The Times (London) said, ‘as he [President
Jayewardene] put it, the burning of innocent people and
property was a way to solve the problems that faced Sri
Lanka’s multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-caste society.’19
Welikada Prison was a high security detention camp in Sri
Lanka. Tamil inmates in the prison were targeted for
massacre. Retired Deputy Commissioner of Prisons RJN
Jordan later revealed the plan to massacre 53 Tamil
detainees. An underworld criminal named Gonawala Sunil,
who was convicted and jailed for raping a 14-years-old girl,
was chosen by the ruling UNP to execute the plan. In 1982,
he had been released by Jayewardene on presidential
amnesty.
When Gonawala and his men arrived, the jail authorities
welcomed them and let them in. About 400 in number, they
were fully drunk and came armed with axes, swords,
crowbars, iron pipes and wooden sticks.
Kuttimani, Thangathurai and few other Tamil political
prisoners had been detained there. Every cell was opened,
and the Tamil prisoners were beaten to death. Kuttimani, a
karate and boxing expert, fought back with bare hands but
was soon outnumbered. His tongue and eyes were cut out.
Another inebriated thug drank his blood and boasted, ‘I
have drunk Tiger blood.’ Another thug cut down his penis.
Tamil political prisoners, 35 in number, were killed. Their
bodies were heaped in front of Lord Buddha’s statue
beneath a pipal tree inside the prison campus, as if he was
being presented with sacrificial offering.
Active participation of the prison officers in the massacre
was confirmed by Mark Tully of the BBC. Deputy
Commissioner of Prisons RJN Jordan also confirmed it later. A
senior minister later said that the Sinhalese were ‘pacified’
only after the massacre at Welikade.
Dead bodies of the cruelly killed prisoners, including
Thangathurai and Kuttimani, were not handed over to their
relatives. There was no postmortem or legal enquiry into the
incident. Prision officials and Sinhala convicts transported
the dead bodies in a prison truck, threw them into a large
pit, poured petrol over them and burnt them to flames.
While 25th July was a day of massacre at Welikada, 26th July
was comparatively quiet. On 27th July, riots broke out in the
prison again. Eighteen more Tamils were beaten to death. In
all, 53 men, kept under the law, kept under the protection of
the armed forces, died there in the prison in the hands of
thugs.
Even before the Welikade prison murders started, attacks
were in full swing across Colombo. On 25th July, Tamils
civilians were dragged from their cars and burnt down. The
armed forces and the ruling party politicians helped the
rioters. Anita Pratap, the only Indian journalist who was in
Colombo at that time, pointed out, ‘They were demons
escaped from some infernal region of hell. Most of them
were drunk. It is not possible for human beings in their
senses to commit such ghoulish crimes.’20
Tamil homes were singled out by the rioters with the help of
voters’ list and their families were wiped out. Jayewardene
delayed the imposing of curfew, even though he was fully
aware of the developing situation in Colombo. He delayed it
until more than enough damage was done to the lives and
properties of Tamils, and proved that the riots were state
organised. It was evident that he decided to completely
eradicate Tamil speaking community in Colombo.
Well directed ethnic killings in Colombo and elsewhere in Sri
Lanka generated great turmoil in Tamil Nadu. Both the ruling
AIADMK and the opposition DMK jumped into action.
Students gathered in large numbers and protested. Strong
condemnations came from other parts of India, including the
then Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister NT Rama Rao and
Karnataka Chief Minister Ramakrishna Hedge.
Indian Parliament saw a heated debate. MPs from DMK and
AIADMK voiced their concern in unison. They proposed
severing of diplomatic ties with Sri Lanka and sending back
the Sri Lankan High Commissioner. They asked India to
recognize the LTTE similar to India recognizing Yasar Arafat’s
PLO.
On 27th July, when the looting and killing had still not abated
in Sri Lanka, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi telephoned
Jayewardene and proposed to send External Affairs minister
PV Narasimha Rao to Colombo. Narasimha Rao could meet
Jayewardene, but was not permitted to visit the refugee
camps. He was only allowed to visit the Indian deputy high
commission in Kandy. On Friday, 29th July, he returned back
to Colombo.
The previous night, the Sri Lankan President and Prime
Minister had addressed the nation on Radio and television.
In his address, Jayewardene justified the attacks on the
Tamils. Prime Minister Premadasa went a step further,
labelling the violence as ‘wild rumors.’ Encouraged by these
speeches, fresh violence erupted on Friday morning.
Narasimha Rao met his Sri Lankan counterpart ACS Hameed
and narrated the horrifying sights he had seen in the
morning. That night Rao left for New Delhi.
In Tamil Nadu, DMK leader Karunanithi called for a general
strike on 1st August. So did his political adversary and Chief
Minister MG Ramachandran, affectionately known as MGR.
He urged India to intervene and request the United Nations
to send its troops to protect the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Karunanithi demanded that India send its armed forces to
liberate Eelam Tamils and create independent Tamil Eelam
on the lines of the 1971 Bangladesh liberation.
In wake of the mass killing of more than 3,000 innocent
Tamils on the streets of Colombo, Nedumaran started a
‘Pilgrimage to Eelam’ on 7th August. He led an eight-day
march from Madurai to Rameswaram with more than 5,000
volunteers and planned to cross the Palk Straits to Jaffna in
a flotilla of fishing boats.
But the MGR administration had removed all the boats from
Rameswaram to prevent this. On 15th August, Nedumaran
and his supporters were arrested by the coastal guards and
taken back to the shores.
Amirthalingam and other MPs of the TULF were in Vavuniya
attending a conference, when the riots broke out on 25th
July. Amirthalingam decided to immediately go to India to
brief the Indian leaders and the world on the genocide in Sri
Lanka. Going to Colombo was risky for him as the mob
would instantly kill him. Still, he managed to reach to
Colombo riding a motorcycle. In Colombo, the officials of the
Indian high commission came to his rescue. They arranged
his travel to India. Amirthalingam flew to Chennai on 11th
August. The same evening, he met Tamil Nadu Chief
Minister MGR and opposition leader Karunanithi. The next
day, he left for New Delhi. Indian Foreign Affairs Minister
Narasimha Rao joined him in the flight, at Hyderabad.
A three member TULF delegation, comprising
Amirthalingam, Sivasithamparam and Sampanthan, called
on the Indian Prime Minister on 14th August. Amirthalingam
briefed Indira Gandhi on how Tamils were deceived by the
Sinhalese politicians, right from the time of Chelvanayagam,
how injustice was meted out to the Tamils and how their
non-violent struggle for basic rights was crushed by the
State sponsored violence. He explained that they were
forced to consider separation, as their request for an
autonomous region within a federal setup was rejected.
In the two hour long conversation, Indira Gandhi patiently
listened to Amirthalingam and suggested that they consider
a federal system, an autonomous region comprising
northern and eastern Sri Lanka within a united Sri Lanka.
She advised them to go back to their original demand and
promised them that India will fully support them.
Amirthalingam, though weary of dealing with the Sinhalese
politicians, agreed to go back to the federal demand, with
complete faith in Indira Gandhi and India.
The next day, on 15th August 1983, Amirthalingam was
invited as a special guest for the Indian Independence Day
celebrations at the historic Red Fort. India normally
accorded this special honor to the heads of states or heads
of Governments. But Amirthalingam was only an opposition
leader, of a small nation. By according him this honour,
Indira Gandhi was sending a strong message to the world
that she took the Sinhala atrocities seriously and was
determined in finding a honorable solution to the Tamils.
After hoisting the flag, Indira Gandhi addressed the nation
from the ramparts of the Red Fort. She warned that India
will not tolerate the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka. She
announced that India would help the Tamil people live with
dignity and security.
*
Jayewardene conceived a plan to counter India’s opposition.
After having killed thousands of Tamils who practiced
Hinduism, he created a new ministry and appointed Tamil
MP Rajadurai as the Minister for Hinduism. Jayewardene
then sent Rajadurai to India to meet the Sankaracharya of
Kanchi and several other Hindu political and religious
leaders. The Sri Lankan Government organised a ‘World
Hinduism Conference’ in Colombo and invited numerous
Hindu saints and religious leaders from India. Organisations
such as Vishwa Hindu Parishat (VHP) participated in this
conference.
In short, Jayewardene tried to project himself to the Indian
public as a protector of Hinduism, especially after driving his
armed forces to demolish many a Hindu temple in the
northern and eastern Sri Lanka. He also had to counter the
pressure from the International community. The Government
magically ‘discovered’ JVP’s hand behind the violence. The
president also accused the leftist JVP for plotting to
overthrow his Government by creating communal
disturbance in the country.
*
Jayewardene conceived of a two-track approach to tackle
the Indian pressure. Dragging the peace talks endlessly was
the first track. The second track was to delay the
negotiation, buy time and use that time to strengthen the
armed forces and destroy the militants. In the process, he
will also discredit the moderate Tamil politicians and
marginalise them.
Indira Gandhi could understand the old fox Jayewardene
quite well. The Indian Prime Minister also adopted a two-
track approach. First was at the diplomatic level. The second
was to train the Tamil militants and exert pressure on
Jayewardene and bring him to the negotiation table.
Almost all the Tamil armed groups accepted the military
training offered by India. They went on a recruitment spree
to strengthen their cadre base, and had plenty to choose
from. Several Tamils had just been rendered homeless by
the Sinhalese mobs.
Unlike other militant organisations, Prabhakaran was very
selective in inducting new recruits to LTTE. He preferred to
manage 50 disciplined and dedicated fighters to 500 not-so-
dedicated men. This unique quality of hand-picking daring,
loyal and disciplined members distinguished Prabhakaran
from the other groups. LTTE was also the last to accept the
invitation from India and sent about 200 youngsters to the
training camps run by India.
TELO, which had come under the control of Sri Sabaratnam
after the murder of Kuttimani and Thangathurai in the
Welikada prison, was the first to attend the armed training
camp organised by the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW),
India’s intelligent agency. The first batch of 350 men
underwent training in September 1983 at Dehra Dun, in the
hills of Uttar Predesh.
Anton Balasingham, observing these developments in
Chennai, wanted not to be left out and sent a message to
Prabhakaran. Though Prabhakaran was skeptical, he sent
Raghu and Mahathaya to Tamil Nadu to meet Balasingham.
Subsequently, Prabhakaran came to Tamil Nadu and a
meeting was arranged between Prabhakaran, Balasingham
and the RAW officers in Pondicherry. In the end, the LTTE
agreed to attend the Indian military training programme.
LTTE attended the training programme in November 1983.
Unlike other armed groups, Prabhakaran instructed his
cadres not to register their real names with the Indian Army.
The Tigers enrolled their organisational name – ‘iyakka
peyar’ or nom de guerre. Among the five armed groups, it
was LTTE that impressed the trainers most. During the
training, a close bond was developed between Kittu and the
instructor. Kittu delivered an emotional speech at the end of
the training session.
Ponamman described this incident to Prabhakaran after they
returned to Jaffna. Prabhakaran listened carefully and
replied, ‘We joined the training with a certain objective.
They (Indians) gave the training with a different objective. If
their army is used, one day or the other, against us, I will
order Kittu to fight the Indian army and Kittu will have to
fight.” 21
It was also this ability to foresee events beforehand that
separated Prabhakaran from others.
Even though the Indian Government’s decision to train
militants was perceived to be intended to appease the
erupting public opinion in Tamil Nadu, Prabhakaran realised
that the training was offered because of Jayewardene’s anti-
India stance. India will change its approach if Jayewardene’s
UNP lost the polls and Srimavo Bandaranaike came to
power.
Srimavo enjoyed good personal relationship with Indira
Gandhi. Therefore, Prabhakaran believed that India’s
support and military training will only be momentary, not
permanent. He was however keen to derive maximum
benefit from the Indian training and support, but that was
not all. He wanted to mould his resistance movement so
that it did not depend on the Indian assistance alone. For
this, LTTE had to build its own training and arms facility.
The Tigers already ran training camps in Vanni in Sri Lanka,
and in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. Prabhakaran resolved to
organise more camps. A new camp was opened at Kolathur,
near Mettur in Tamil Nadu, with the help of Dravidar
Kazhagam activist Kolathur Mani. Another camp was held at
Sirumalai near Dindugal, with the help of Nedumaran. At the
same time, other armed Tamil groups also organised
training camps all over Tamil Nadu.
In November 1983, Jayewardene came to New Delhi to
attend the Commonwealth Head of Government Meeting. In
a meeting with Indira Gandhi, he agreed to merge the
District Development Councils and form provincial councils
in the North and the East. After returning to Colmbo,
however, he went back on his agreement. That was when
India decided to provide arms, on top of the training, to the
Tamil militant groups.
Naturally, the rebel groups were excited. Prabhakaran was
the only one who decided to also purchase arms directly
from the world arms market.
India was giving them enough weapons and there was no
need to order more. Yet, Prabhakaran visualised a scenario
where every group will have the same Indian weapons and
he wanted to possess something different. There was
another reason. If LTTE depended on India for everything,
India will be able to coerce them to agree to India’s strategic
objectives. Sometimes, this may turn out to be against the
interests of the self determination struggle for Eelam.
Deciding to procure arms was a historic decision taken by
Prabhakaran in early 1984.
12. Prabhakaran’s marriage
After the July 1983 riots, Tamil students studying in the
universities of Colombo, Peradeniya and Moratuwa were
chased away. When the universities reopened, Tamil
students, fearing for their lives, refused to return to the
Sinhalese areas. They requested that they be transferred to
Jaffna University. The authorities turned down these
requests. The requests gradually turned into non-violent
protests.
On 9th January 1984, nine university students – four girls and
five boys – launched a fast unto death, pressing for their
demands. Their condition deteriorated quickly after six days
of fasting. Minister Lalith Athulathmudali announced that
the Government would not be intimidated by fasts and
indicated that they will not care even if the fasting students
died.
On 16th January, the seventh day of the fast, a group of LTTE
cadres led by Victor took the nine students in a van and
disappeared. They were taken to LTTE hideout at Atchuveli
in Jaffna. They were given food, and ferried to Tamil Nadu by
boat. The students were first taken to Madurai and treated
at a hospital.
A statement from the LTTE read: ‘We took the students away
in order to save their lives. We took them with their full
consent. Now, they are in good health. Students should not
be allowed to die. If they had died during the fast, the
Government would not have repented. We saved the fasting
students because the Government would not listen to non-
violent protests.’
The four girls, Mathivathani, Vinoja, Jeya and Lalitha were
brought to Chennai and handed over to Adele Balasingham.
Tall and fair looking Mathy was beautiful. She was from a
village in Pungudutheevu, one of the 113 small islets around
Sri Lanka. Her father, Earambu Master, was a teacher. Her
mother's name was Sinnammal. Mathi did well in her
studies. She got admission to study veterinary science, but
she chose to study agricultural science instead. She was in
her second year when the Tamil students were attacked in
Peradeniya University. She stayed with her parents in
Pungudutheevu before she began fast unto death.
Adele was relived of her regular cooking duties with the
arrival of the girls. They had brought with them, liveliness
and mirth. Prabhakaran visited Adele and the girls at their
Thiruvanmyur home often. He was attracted to
Mathivathani. In Adele Balasingham’s language, ‘His heart
was filled with love on that girl. Prabhakaran was absolutely
besotted with Mathi and Mathi with Prabhakaran.’22
Love and sex were, however, prohibited in the LTTE.
Several senior militants had earlier sacrificed their love for
the movement, in order to comply with the strict code of
conduct of the movement. Predictably, they were displeased
with the Prabhakaran-Mathivathani affair. Anton and Adele
tried to convince others into accepting this.
Even during Uma-Urmila affair, Anton and Adele suggested
that they get married, but Uma Maheswaran had
vehemently denied the charges and maintained that he was
not guilty. But Prabhakaran’s case was different.
It is noteworthy to quote S. Pushparajah here. Pushparaja
worked for the rival EPRLF, represented it in France and
remained as one of Prabhakaran’s strongest critics. In his
book he says: ‘Uma Maheswaran-Urmila relationship and
Prabhakaran-Mathivathani were not similar. Uma
Maheswaran and Urmila affair was “Extra-marital Illicit Sex’.
Prabhakaran and Mathivathani came under the ‘Prohibition
of Love and Marriage’ clause of the code of conduct.
‘At this point, it is noteworthy to look at how Prabhakaran
approached this issue. He tried to get consent from
everyone in the organisation before marrying Mathivathani.
He did not thrust his decision down everyone’s throat. He
also made necessary changes in the code of conduct rules
of the organisation, with the consent of a majority of the
members, before initiating his marriage.’23
At the same time, as pointed out by Pushparajah,
Prabhakaran who was ready to amend the rules to justify his
actions, was not so kind to his colleagues when they had
fallen in love earlier. Yet, one should note that the rule was
not relaxed specifically for the leader but amended and
made applicable to everyone.
Balasingham told Prabhakaran that he should marry
Mathivathani only with her parents’ consent. Earambu
Master and Sinnammal travelled to Chennai to discuss the
matter with their daughter. Prabhakaran being the most
wanted man in Sri Lanka, her father explained to his
daughter the difficulties she would face if she married the
guerrilla leader. Her life would change for ever. That did not
deter Mathivathani. She was determined and prepared to
sacrifice her life for the sake of love. Her parents gave their
consent.
A Hindu wedding involves the groom’s tying a thali around
the bride’s neck, a thread with a unique gold ornament,
which is generally bought by the groom’s family. Though
Prabhakaran was managing the finances of LTTE, he was
particular that the money for the gold should come from his
personal savings. But he didn’t have any. So, he sent a
message to his uncle in Jaffna and requested him to
exchange some family jewels for four grams of gold and
send it to Chennai. The auspicious thali, embossed with the
imprint of lord Ganesha, reached Chennai.
On 1st October 1984, Prabhakaran tied the knots, and the
couple exchanged floral garlands as per the Hindu customs,
at a Murugan Temple in Thiruporur near Chennai. This
marriage was a trendsetter. Many LTTE cadres would marry
and give birth to children in the days to come.
*
After the July riots, a sizable number of affected Tamil girls
also came forward to join the militant groups. Since the
rebel organisations were in their infancy, they decided not
to recruit female cadres. However, the TELO under the
leadership of Sri Sabaratnam decided to induct them.
TELO transported them to Tamil Nadu but had not made any
arrangement to accommodate them. The girls were
stranded and approached a Catholic priestasking for help.
The priest in turn passed on the information to Prabhakaran.
The LTTE had not established a women’s wing at that point
in time, but Prabhakaran always had this on mind. He was
waiting to recruit women in suffient number after building a
proper infrastructure. Till such a time, he offered to provide
them with accommodation and sent them to Adele in
Chennai.
In addition to Mathivathani and her three friends, the young
women also shared the Thiruvanmyur home. Sothia was one
of them. She would become the first woman leader of the
LTTE’s military wing. With the addition of new girls, they
shifted to a larger house in Thiruvanmyur.
Adele and Anton Balasingham occupied a single room in the
upper floor which had a balcony. The entire ground floor was
crammed with the girls. LTTE opened its women’s wing
towards the end of October. Earlier that month, on 1st
October, Mathivathani had married Prabhakaran and she
moved with him. Thereafter Balasinghams did not require
such a big house. They moved to a two-bedroom flat in
Besant Nagar in Chennai.
*
Anita Pratab was the first journalist to meet Prabhakaran
face to face. Her reports in The Telegraph published from
Kolkata exposed the cruelty of 1983 July riots to the world.
She met Prabhakaran at the LTTE ‘office’ in Besant Nagar for
an interview that would bring fame for both the interviewer
and the interviewee.
While waiting for him, Anita watched video documentaries
on LTTE and its ideologies. She was expecting to meet a
superman. When the short, stocky and ordinary looking man
walked in, she didn’t recognise him. He resembled and
represented a million other Tamil men. She thought he was
a LTTE supporter and gave him a cursory nod, then looked
out of the window to kill time. A few minutes later the man
identified himself: ‘I am Prabhakaran.’
‘He could see today what his opponents would do years
later. He would have made a brilliant chess player,’ wrote
Anita Pratap.24 Prabhakaran admired her courage for daring
to visit the killing fields of Colombo to report on the Black
July riots. He told her, ‘We are guerilla fighters; we have
chosen a path of danger, so it’s normal for us to face such
difficult situations. But you as a journalist didn’t have to risk
your life, or actually be in the conflict zone, for the sake of
reporting the truth. It was your reports that internationalized
the Tamil problem and for that Tamil people will always be
grateful to you.’
The magazine did not carry an ‘off the record’ conversation
they had at the end of the interview. Prabhakaran had told
her, ‘Eventually I will have to battle India.’ Anita Pratap was
shocked to hear this. ‘How could you bite the hand that
feeds you? It is not only ungrateful, will it not be suicidal?’
she retorted.
To this, Prabhakaran replied: ‘Even more than Sri Lanka,
India will not allow us to create Tamil Eelam because of its
own fifty-five million Tamils in Tamil Nadu’
*
Prabhakaran felt that India’s motive was to have the armed
Tamil groups apply pressure on the Sri Lanka army, but not
defeat it. Prabhakaran’s ambition was not only in defeating
the Sinhalese army, but also to establish Tamil Eelam.
His vision warranted modern weapons, which in turn
required funds. Luckily, Tamil Nadu chief minister MGR’s
acquaintance and assistance came to Prabhakaran’s rescue.
The first meeting between these two reportedly took place
in April 1984. It is said that MGR had provided financial
assistance to Prabhakaran to buy sophisticated arms and
ammunition.
Towards the end of 1983, Prabhakaran had established a top
secret unit within LTTE to procure arms in the international
market. He made Kumaran Pathmanadan (original name:
Shanmugam Kumaran Tharmalingam), popularly known as
KP, in charge of the procurement wing.
KP, five months younger to Prabhakaran, is said to be his
relative. He was born in Mayilitti village near Point Pedro in
Jaffna peninsula. KP’s role and contribution in LTTE’s
evolution from revolvers to aircrafts has been undeniable.
With MGR’s financial help, the Tigers ordered the latest
weapons from Lebanon. KP transported them to Chennai on
a vessel in May 1984. A container-load of AK47s and RPGs
(Rocket Propelled Grenades), sniper rifles, explosives, night-
vision devices, anti-tank weapons, advanced radio and
communication systems and other ammunition arrived in a
foreign ship at the Chennai harbour.
The Customs officials seized the container. Only a month
earlier, Uma Maheswaran’s PLOTE had faced a similar
problem. Uma Maheswaran too, like Prabhakaran, could
understand India’s real motives and decided to purchase
weapons from the global markets. A container full of arms
imported by Uma Maheswaran from Thailand was seized at
the Chennai harbour. This incident clearly demonstrated
India’s intentions, which preferred the militant groups to be
kept within its control and didn’t like them to be
independent.
Prabhakaran was concerned, as he was aware of the PLOTE
arms capture. MGR intervened, and the container was
cleared. It is suggested that the Tamil Nadu police helped in
safe transportation of the weapons to LTTE’s safe house.
The Tigers gradually moved the weapons to Sri Lanka, by
boat.
The First Eelam War was ready to break out.
13. The First Eelam War
Starting from 1984 to June 1987, when the Indo-Sri Lankan
Peace Accord would be signed, the Tamil militants
continually engaged the Sri Lankan armed forces. This
period is known as the first Eelam war.
On 4th August, a Sri Lankan naval boat came under LTTE
attack. A sea battle off the coast of Polikandy near
Valvettithurai broke out between the Tigers and the Navy.
Four sea Tigers killed six naval ratings and wounded three in
the intensive fight.
An enraged Navy cordoned the Valvettithurai coast off the
next day and shot dead hundreds of people including
women and children. Over 5,000 people fled their homes to
take refuge in the nearby schools. People witnessed
roundups, mass arrests, burning of huts, vehicles and
fishing boats and indiscriminate firing. Colombo announced
the death of a large number of ‘terrorists’.
The Tigers retaliated with a sustained guerrilla
confrontation. That night, they ambushed the combined
police and army patrol with a powerful landmine. A jeep was
blown up and nine soldiers were killed. The militants
attacked a police station in Mullaithievu, killing two
policemen and capturing large quantity of weapons.
Simultaneously, a group of 60 LTTE fighters, led by
Mahattaya, attacked the Oddusuddan police station in
Mullaitivu district. They split into two groups, surrounded the
two-storeyed police station building and opened fire. Eight
policemen were killed and the rest were chased away.
Again, LTTE captured a large cache of weapons including
machine guns, and blasted the building.
On 6th August, in Vavuniya, a time bomb placed under the
table of Police Superintendent Arthur J. Herath tore his body
into pieces. This was an act by PLOTE. The police and the
army took revenge by destroying all the Tamil shops in
Vavuniya, and killing seven innocent civilians. The next
morning, the bodies of ten more civilians were found on the
Vavuniya-Mannar road, three kilometers from Vavuniya
town. In another incident, Sinhala Air Force men abducted
four Tamil women travelling in a private bus to Jaffna, gang
raped and killed them.
On 1st September 1984, five police commandos were killed
in a landmine attack at Thikkam, a coastal village five
kilometers west of Point Pedro. The enraged soldiers
retaliated by attacking Point Pedro town, setting fire to the
shops and houses, and killing 16 civilians. During this
violence, the 100-year-old library and science laboratory of
Hartley College were burnt down by the army. Two days
later, on 3rd September, a Navy patrol shot and killed eight
fishermen, east of Point Pedro. On 11th September, the
soldiers belonging to Vavuniya camp stopped a private bus
travelling from Colombo to Jaffna and shot and killed 28
civilians.
The first Eelam war that broke out in the northern and
eastern parts of Sri Lanka was extended to Colombo by
EROS. Around ten bombs exploded in Colombo on 22nd
October 1984, killing three and creating panic across the
cpaital.
Jayewardene, who felt the intense heat, must have heaved a
sigh of relief on 31st October 1984 when the Indian Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own Sikh
bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh. While the
Tamils in Sri Lanka mourned her death, the Sinhalese were
delighted. Sinhala soldiers danced on the streets and
taunted the mourning Tamils, ‘Where is the mother? Where
is the mother?’
Amirthalingham observed, ‘The only shield the Tamils had
against the genocide has now vanished.’
*
Minister Lalith Athulathmudali made an announcement on
29th November 1984, banning all private vehicles in Jaffna
peninsula. Buses, cars, motorcycles, trucks, lorries, tractors
and even bicycles were banned. The minister only permitted
state buses, that too for only two hours a day.
‘If we don’t occupy the border, the border will occupy us,’
said Jayewardene. Allowing aggressive Sinhalese settlers
build settlements at the borders, providing them with arms
and gradually expanding the border was an important Israeli
strategy that the Sri Lankan Government tried to copy from
the Israelis. Dollar and Kent Farms was one such settlement.
Tamils in that region were evacuated and Sinhalese convicts
were allowed to settle there.
Prabhakaran drew a plan to counter the Sri Lankan version
of the Israeli strategy and Mahattaya executed it. LTTE shot
dead 85 ex-convicts and by the time the police arrived, the
group of 50 Tigers had escaped. The army and the police
conducted a hunt and in the end claimed killing 30
terrorists. But the people killed were innocent civilians.
Dollar and Kent was the first incident where the Tigers
turned their guns on Sinhalese civilians. On 1st December
1984, LTTE fighters entered two Sinhalese fishing hamlets,
in Nayaru and Kokkilai, which formed the northernmost
points in the string of Sinhalese fishing settlements
established along the coast from Trincomalee to Mullaitivu.
LTTE gunned down fifty plus Sinhalese. The surviving
Sinhalese fisherman in Nayaru and Kokkilai returned to
Negambo and Chilaw in the South where they originally
belonged.
After this incident, even though the Government wanted to
export more Sinhalese to the Tamil areas and alter the
ethnic composition, the Sinhalese citizens gave a second
thought to this scheme.
The army retaliated in the best possible way it is known for.
In Kaithadi, a village outside the Jaffna Municipal limits, 200
Tamil students were taken into police custody while
returning from tuition on 12th December. The Defense
Ministry, however, announced that it had arrested 200
terrorists. On 19th December, more than 1,000 young men
were rounded up in Jaffna by the army.
With an increased attack on civilians by the Sri Lankan
armed forces in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination
and the unabated intensity of the first Eelam war, year 1984
came to an end. Indira Gandhi’s son Rajiv Gandhi won the
general elections held in December 1984 and succeeded his
mother as the Prime Minister of India.
LTTE’s cadre strength was only around one thousand at that
time, very small compared to other armed Tamil groups,
which had as many as six thousand or more. Nonetheless,
LTTE was the most effective organisation, thanks to a
leadership with a steadfast vision, proper organisational
structure, thorough training, control, discipline, dedication
and loyalty.
At one point of time, there were as many as 40 armed
resistance groups, small and big in Sri Lanka, including the
top five namely TELO, EROS, PLOTE, EPRLF and LTTE. The
combined strength of these organisations amounted to an
astonishing thirty thousand fighters, which was twice the
strength of the Sri Lankan army!
In the first three months of 1985 alone, the Sri Lankan army
carried out 52 reported incidents of round-ups and mass
arrests in the northern and the eastern regions. More than
ten thousand Tamils were taken into custody. Most of them
were shot in their legs after being taken into custody, to
paint a picture that they were captured while they were
while fleeing. The arrested youth were mercilessly tortured
until they were made to confess that they were ‘terrorists’, a
fact confirmed by the Amnesty international.
On 13th February 1985, LTTE carried out a massive attack,
like never before, in the history of the Tamil armed struggle.
The attack was on the Kokkilai army camp in Mullaitivu
district, which was established to protect the Sinhalese
settlements the Government had created along the
Northern Province border. Over 100 Tigers, dressed in army
uniform, hit the Kokkilai camp. After a five-hour-long
fighting, 106 army men were killed while LTTE lost 16
fighters. The Government, however, announced that the
army had killed 14 rebels and lost only 4 soldiers. The
Sinhala security forces took revenge by attacking a refugee
camp in Mullaitivu district on 15th February, killing 52
innocent Tamil civilians there.
On 20th February, Jayewardene announced in the Parliament
the need to encroach into the Tamil areas. He was referring
to a new programme under which the Government aimed to
settle 30,000 Sinhalese in the Vanni dry zone area of the
Northern Province, stretching from Mannar in the west to
Mullaitivu in the east. Each Sinhalese family was given half
an acre of land and money needed to build a house these.
On top of that, each settlement was to be given 25 machine
guns and 200 rifles to protect themselves. It was an act of
state sponsored terrorism and an attempt to alter the ethnic
makeup of traditional Tamil lands.
An attempt was made to bring the Tamil armed groups
together in April 1984. EPRLF, EROS and TELO came
together, to form Eelam National Liberation Front (ENLF).
Prabhakaran’s LTTE and Uma Maheswaran’s PLOTE did not
join this group at that time. They had agreed not to cross
each other’s path and also not to travel together. However,
Prabhakaran and Anton Balasingham felt the need to be
united and attended the ENLF meeting held on 10th April
1985.
Prabakakran of LTTE, Sri Sabaratnam of TELO, Pathmanabah
of EPRLF and Balakumar of EROS issued a joint statement in
which they resolved to not settle for anything less than an
independent Eelam. It was during this meeting that
Prabakakran met Pathmanabah for the first time.
Following the landmark event in which LTTE became, in
some sense, a part of the ENLF, the militant groups carried
out some of the most daring attacks on the Sri Lankan
troops. Every time the army suffered casualty at the hands
of the Tamil militants, they hit back on the innocent civilians
in retaliation. The insecurity made a sizable number of the
civilians to flee to Tamil Nadu as refugees.
On the full moon day of 14th May 1985, a religiously
significant day for the Sinhala Buddhists, a group of Tigers,
led by Victor, drove a hijacked bus to the central bus station
in Anuradhapura and opened fire. Then they went to the Bo
Tree venerated by the Buddhists and shot people praying
there. On their way back, they opened fire at a police
station. In all, 148 Sinhalese were killed.
Even though 148 is an insignificant number in comparison
to thousands of innocent Tamils massacred by the armed
forces and Sinhala thugs, this incident remains as a black
mark in the history of LTTE.
According to Uma Maheswaran’s 1989 interview to the Time
magazine, it was India’s RAW that had encouraged LTTE to
attack the Sinhala public to make Jayewardene come down
from his position:
‘A RAW officer asked us to throw a grenade into a Sinhalese
cinema [hall] or put a bomb in a bus or market in a
Sinhalese town. Only we and the EROS refused.
In May 1985 two busloads of Tigers drove into the ancient
Sinhalese capital of Anuradhapura and, in the town's main
bus station, opened fire with automatic weapons,
slaughtering 143 civilians there and elsewhere. According to
one of the participants in the killing spree, Tiger leader
Vilupillai Prabhakaran was in radio contact with RAW agents
during and after the massacre.’25
The motivation behind this massacre is unknown to this day.
Also whether Prabhakaran did this at the behest of RAW is
still a mystery.
The next day following the Anuradhapura massacre, there
was retaliation.
More than a hundred islets lie scattered around the Jaffna
peninsula and ferrying is the only means of transport across
these islets or to the Jaffna city. A ferry named Kumuthini,
carrying 80 Tamil passengers, mostly women and children,
between Delft and Nainathievu, was waylaid by the Navy
the ferry and shot dead 48 people.
In Kalmunai, in the eastern Amparai district, the army
commandos took around 40 Tamil youth to the cemetery
and ordered them to dig their own graves. The commandos
then shot them dead and buried the dead bodies in the
graves they had just dug.
The militant groups had made heavy inroads into the Sri
Lankan armed forces. They had a decisive upper hand, both
in numbers as well as in attacks. It is widely believed that if
India had not intervened in 1985, the militants would have
carved out an independent Tamil Eelam.
India, however, did not let that happen.
Rajiv Gandhi’s Government in New Delhi forced the two
sides to a ceasefire and almost dragged the militant groups
to a peace talk with the Sri Lankan Government. The talks
began on 8th July 1985 in Thimpu, the capital of Bhutan.
On the first day of the Thimpu talks, the Jaffna peninsula
witnessed a general strike called by school and college
students. They carried banners that read: ‘We want Eelam’,
‘Ceasefire down down’, ‘We don’t want talks.’
Prabhakaran did not go to the Thimpu talks. He sent his
representatives instead. Leaders of the other militant groups
- Sri Sabaratnam, Pathmanabah and Balakumar - also sent
their representatives on behalf of their respective groups
and stayed back in Chennai. Amirthalingam,
Sivasithamparam and Sampanthan represented TULF.
All the Tamil representatives spoke in single voice,
something that was not anticipated by the Sri Lankan
delegation led by Hector Jayewardene, brother of Sri Lankan
President Junius Jayewardene.
The four cardinal principles put forth by the Tamil delegation
were:
1. Recognition of the Tamils in Sri Lanka as a distinct
nationality.
2. Recognition of an identified Tamil homeland.
3. Recognition of the inalienable right to self-
determination of the Tamil nation.
4. Recognition of the right of full citizenship and other
fundamental democratic rights of all Tamils.
The peace talk could not yield any fruitful results. The first
round of Thimpu talks ended on 12th June and the second
one resumed on 12th August. Even as peace negotiations
were on in Thimpu, the Sri Lankan armed forces continued
their killing spree. Army gunmen stopped a minibus going
from Colombo to Trincomalee on 14th August, ordered its six
Tamil passengers to alight, and hacked them to death.
LTTE retaliated with an attack on the army camp at
Murungan in Mannar district. No casualty was reported, yet
it was a warning. On 16th August, the Air Force personnel
shot dead 15 Tamil civilians and torched several shops in
Vavuniya town. The same night, about 400 soldiers
cordoned off farming villages and brutally murdered 120
people, including eight children below ten years of age.
‘Enough s enough,’ said the Tamil delegations and walked
off the talks in Thimpu.
This being the only time when all the armed groups stood
together, the failure of the Thimpu talks brought about a
considerable change in the relationship between the groups,
with the Indian agency RAW playing a significant role in it.
Though all the Tamil representatives - LTTE, TELO, EPRLF,
TULF and PLOTE - had walked out of the Thimpu talks,
Hector Jayewardene went to Delhi from Thimpu with a
proposed District Development Council as the possible
solution to the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka. Rajiv Gandhi
administration asked the Tamil representatives to come to
New Delhi to discuss about it. Only the TULF and the PLOTE
accepted the invitation and went to Delhi. LTTE criticised
these two organisations openly.
The period following Thimpu talks brought about a change
among the Tamil militant groups. In September 1985, TELO
leader Sri Sabaratnam ordered the murder of two MPs from
TULF - A. Alalasundaram and V. Dharmalingam. The TELO
leader blamed LTTE for the killings with an astute logic
tracing back to Thimpu. It was easy for Sri Sabaratnam to
accuse LTTE for these killings. Prabhakaran suspected that
RAW could be the driving force behind TELO.
A LTTE boat came under attack from the Sri Lankan Navy on
25th April 1986 in which Tiger leader Major Aruna was killed.
He was the man who shot Seelan on his order when chased
by the Sri Lankan army and fled with the sub-machine gun
in July 1983. LTTE put up posters in praise of Aruna all over
Jaffna. At Kalviyankadu, the posters were torn up by the
TELO cadres. Two fighters from LTTE, who went to the TELO
camp to register their protest, were beaten up and jailed.
LTTE sent one of its senior leaders Lingam to the TELO office
to get their cadre released. Lingam was shot and killed by
the TELO.
When this news reached Prabhakaran and Balasingham in
Chennai, they stopped attending ENLF meeting.
Prabhakaran decided to wipe out TELO.
The operation was led by the LTTE’s Jaffna commander Kittu.
Hundreds of LTTE fighters attacked TELO camps. The TELO
leader Sri Sabaratnam was present at the Kalviyankadu
camp and the attack came as a surprise to him. The TELO
camps fell one after other, and came under LTTE’s control
within no time.
Not able to withstand the intense fighting, many TELO
cadres surrendered themselves, while the rest fled away
from the scene. Despite having a large number of cadres,
the TELO could not confront Tigers’ force. Sri Sabaratnam
escaped from Kalviyankadu camp and was into hiding. LTTE
announced that anyone providing shelter to the TELO leader
and cadres would have to face the consequences. They also
warned PLOTE and EPRLF not to intervene in the clash.
An exhausted Sri Sabaratnam was finally spotted by Kittu
and his men in a tobacco farm, at Kondavil. Sri Sabaratnam
had planned to escape to India from there. The EPRLF leader
Pathmanabah had clandestinely arranged to parcel him in a
tobacco packed truck to be taken to the seashore and
subsequently ferry him to Tamil Nadu. Before that plan could
materialise, he was captured by Kittu.
‘Let me talk to Prabhakaran. Please don’t shoot me,’ Sri
Sabaratnam pleased with Kittu. However, Kittu pumped him
with 28 bullets from his AK47 machine gun. His battered
body was kept for display at the Kondavil bus stand before
being handed over to his family for final rites.
TELO, founded by Thangathurai and Kuttimani, forerunners
of the Tamil armed resistance movement, was completely
wiped off in 1986.
*
The Government had been continually brining in Sinhalese
from the southern regions and settling them in the northern
and the eastern provinces since 1930. The eastern region
was the most affected by this state-aided colonisation,
where the Sinhalese population had considerably gone up.
Therefore, Jayewardene conceived a proposal known as
‘trifurcation of the eastern region’. One part will be for the
Muslims, one for the Sinhalese and the third for the Tamils.
Jayewardene further proposed to link the one-third Tamil
part of the eastern region with the northern region. His aim
was to shrink the Tamil homeland and confine it
predominantly to the northern regions.
Moreover, Jayewardene knew that giving a portion of the
region to Tamil-speaking Muslims could create a permanent
rift between the Muslims and the Tamils. He knew that the
LTTE would not agree to this proposal. He also knew that
Rajiv Gandhi and his administration, desperate to claim the
credit for resolving the Sri Lankan ethnic crisis, would not be
pleased with the LTTE, if they resisted.
The Sri Lankan Government showed this proposal to the
Indian High Commissioner J.N.Dixit in Colombo. Dixit quickly
spotted the problem in it: ‘I frankly told him that both the
Government of India and Tamils will perceive this proposal
as a way to circumvent the Tamil demand for a linkage of
the northern and the eastern provinces and to have this
united province acknowledged as a Tamil homeland. I
expressed fear that his Tamil protagonists would view this as
a motivated tactical exercise.’26
Despite realising the inadequacies of Jayewardene’s
proposal and being fully aware that it would not meet the
aspirations of the Tamils, the Rajiv Gandhi administration
was determined to force LTTE to accept it. What was termed
as ‘Operation Tigers’ following the Hindu festival of lights,
Deepavali, was organised to intimidate Prakaran and force
him to agree to the Sri Lankan proposal.
While everyone in Chennai was celebrated Deepavali by
bursting firecrackers on 1st November 1986, Douglas
Devenanda of EPRLF opened fire on the local residents in
Choolaimedu. A dispute over hiring an auto rickshaw caused
this, and in the firing Devenanda killed a young lawyer and
injured few others.
City Police Commissioner Walter Devaram arrested
Devenanda and his men and remanded them to custody,
but he was released soon after. It is alleged that the Indian
intelligence agency RAW had intervened, and Douglas
Devenanda was released and safely transported to Jaffna.
While the man from EPRLF, who triggered the violence, was
released from the prison, the Indian Government used the
opportunity to disarm LTTE cadres in India. ‘Operation Tiger’
was launched on 8th November 1986.
Uma Maheswaran who was in New Delhi was kept under
house arrest by the Delhi police. In Tamil Nadu, the police
raided the offices and training camps of LTTE, confiscated
weapons and arrested its leaders. Prabhakaran and his
political advisor Balasingham were taken to different police
stations, where they were treated like common criminals.
They were photographed and their finger prints were
recorded. Later they were freed from police custody but
kept under house arrest.
The Tigers doubted that even the Choolaimedu incident
might have been engineered to achieve this intimidation.
An Indian Air Force plane took Prabhakaran and
Balasingham from Tambaram, Chennai to Bangalore on 17th
November. Indian High Commissioner for Sri Lanka, Dixit,
Foreign Secretary A.P.Venkateswaren and Minister of State
for External Affairs Natwar Singh met them and tried to sell
Colombo’s trifurcation plan to Prabhakaran.
Balasingham translated Prabhakaran’s response in English:
‘The Tamil homeland is one and indivisible and we will not
allow Jayewardene to dismember it.’27
Undeterred, Rajiv administration flew in the Tamil Nadu
Chief Minister MGR, an ally of Rajiv Gandhi, to Bangalore. He
was accompanied by his colleague in the Tamil Nadu
ministry, Panruti Ramachandran. But MGR could not
persuade Prabhakaran. Prabhakaran was even ready to drop
the idea of separation and willing to accept a federal
solution like in India, but he wanted a combined state of the
northern and eastern regions. He was dead against the
trifurcation of the eastern region.
Indian authorities promised to appoint Prabhakaran as the
chief minister of the Tamil province to be formed with the
northern region and one-third of the eastern regions. But
Prabhakaran was firm on his resolve.
As anticipated by Jayewardene, the Bangalore ‘peace
initiative’ ended in failure, and the diffferences between
India and LTTE widened. Jayewardene realised that the Rajiv
Gandhi administration desperately wanted to seal a pact
even if it did not reflect the aspirations of the Tamil speaking
people in Sri Lanka. So, Jayewardene was determined to
make the most of Rajiv Gandhi’s political immaturity.
Rajiv Gandhi was annoyed. He had planned to announce a
solution to the Sri Lankan ethnic problem at the South Asian
Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit that
was scheduled to take place in Bangalore. Rajiv Gandhi
hoped that this will get him International recognition. But,
his only hurdle was Prabhakaran.
India decided to display its displeasure to Prabhakaran and
indicate that India’s patronage should not be taken for
granted. Vital communication devices and arms were
confiscated from LTTE offices. Prabhakaran was deprived of
communication with all the guerilla bases in the fighting
field.
Adele Balasingham describes Prabhakaran’s status: ‘Given
this background, Prabhakaran believed that his life could be
in danger if he continued to be in India. Before closing down
the LTTE camps in Tamil Nadu and returning back to Jaffna,
he wanted to retrieve his confiscated communication
equipments.’28
Prabhakaran made a dramatic decision to fast-unto-death if
the communication equipments were not returned to him.
He launched his fasting protest at Balasingham’s home in
Indira Nagar, Adyar, Chennai. Newsmen asked him why he
had decided to choose a non-violent protest against India
while he was carrying out an armed revolution in Sri Lanka.
‘Our enemies decide which weapons we ought to take,’
replied Prabhakaran.
The media gave good coverage and editorials condemned
the authorities for their arbitrary actions. This created an
uncomfortable and embarrassing situation for the Tamil
Nadu Chief Minister, MGR. He was further humiliated by the
statement made by the Minister of State for Internal
Security P. Chidambaram which said that the Central
Government was aware of the seizure of LTTE’s
communication equipments.
MGR ordered the police to return the confiscated sets within
48 hours.
When LTTE was fighting TELO, Prabhakaran had asked other
militant organisations not to intervene. Despite these
warnings, EPRLF had tried to wish Sri Sabaratnam out, but
failed. After TELO vanished from the scene, Prabhakaran
suspected that RAW and EPRLF were hand in glove to
intimidate LTTE through ‘Operation Tiger’.
On 13th December 1986, Jaffna division of EPRLF issued post
cards printed by them, to be used in the Tamil areas. On the
same day, LTTE launched an attack on EPRLF in the Jaffna
peninsula. Kittu, Jaffna commander of LTTE, announced a
ban on EPRLF in Sri Lanka. Within a few days EPRLF lost
more than 100 cadres.
With the TELO already wiped off in early 1986, with PLOTE
withdrawing itself from Jaffna by October 1986 and with
EPRLF proscribed and chased out of Tamil areas in Sri Lanka,
the LTTE emerged as the most dominant Tamil militant
group by the end of 1986.
By then, Prabhakaran had come to a conclusion. He could
not rely on India’s patronage for ever. He decided to leave
Tamil Nadu, and crossed the Palk straight in early January
1987, to reach Jaffna.
14. We Love India
 
There were rumors in the air among the Sinhala circles in
Colombo that the LTTE had decided to announce a unilateral
declaration of Independence for Tamil Eelam on 1st January
1987. The Tigers did not do that. Instead, they created an
area where they had de facto control, distinct from the
areas under that came under the Sri Lankan Government.
 
When 1987 dawned, the LTTE declared that they will provide
licenses for all motor vehicles plying in the Jaffna district
and created a uniformed police force to manage law and
order. The Tigers took control of the traffic throughout the
district and other areas where the Sri Lankan civil
administration was missing. This came as a prelude to
LTTE’s taking over the civil administration in the northern
and eastern provinces.
 
An incensed Jayewardene reacted sharply. An economic
embargo was imposed over the Northern Province on 2nd
January, with immediate effect. Transport of fuel, food and
other essentials items were proscribed. Food prices in Jaffna
skyrocketed, resulting in shortage of food and starvation.
Fishing, the primary vocation in the coastal areas, was
severely affected.
 
Jayewardene ordered a massive attack on the Northern
Province, including air strikes. Loss of civilian life was not
going to be a problem and the Sinhala air force bombed
even the hospitals. On 11th February, Sri Lankan Air Force
planes bombed the Government hospital at Adampan in
Mannar district causing the death of more than 50 patients
and employees.
 
LTTE vowed to fight back. By then, LTTE had close to ten
thousand fighters and they took the army head on. In the
meantime, the Sri Lankan Air Force had invented a deadly
bomb called ‘barrel-bombs.’ It was nothing but an
improvised oil drum filled with massive quantities of Tri-
Nitro-Toluene (TNT) explosive, nails, rubber pieces and
human excreta. These barrel bombs were dropped
indiscriminately in the Tamil areas; invariably targeted
civilians including those taking shelters in temples.
 
On 31st March 1987, an unidentified assailant threw a
grenade into the motor car in which Kittu was travelling. The
Jaffna commander of LTTE was on his way to meet his
girlfriend, a medical student at the Jaffna University. Two of
Kittu’s bodyguards died instantaneously, while another was
seriously injured. Kittu survived, but his right leg was
severely damaged. Thought he was immediately rushed to
the hospital the doctors suggested that his leg must be
amputated. The Tigers ferried him to India in a speed boat.
 
The intelligence division of LTTE later found out that the
attack was carried out on Mahattaya’s orders. Both Kittu
and Mahattaya had joined LTTE in 1978 and grew in the
organisation equally. Mahattaya somehow could not tolerate
Kittu being made the Jaffna commander. Even though
Mahattaya was serving as the commander of Vanni regions,
the international media concentrated on Jaffna, thus giving
wide coverage to Kittu. The Jaffna commander was treated
as number 2 in the organisation. Mahattaya, in his envy,
sent his close confidante Visu to kill Kittu.
 
The Sri Lankan Government, after enforcing the economic
embargo over the Northern region and launching an
aggressive war since January 1987, declared an all out war
on 26th May intending to capture all the areas under LTTE
and bringing them under the Government control.
Jayewardene’s administration called it ‘Operation
Liberation’.
 
National security minister Lalith Athulathmudali ordered the
armed forces to retort to as much of aerial bombing as
possible. The Tigers can fight back the field forces; they can
retaliate and can cause casualties; but how can they
confront the air force?
 
Jaffna was bombed to smithereens. According to recorded
reports, Jayewardene had given instructions to his field
commanders ‘to raze Jaffna to ground, burn the town and
rebuild it’.29
 
With the same vigour, the Sri Lankan armed forces attacked
Vadamaratchi region which included Point Pedro and
Prabhakaran’s birth place, Valvettithurai. The devastation
was unprecedented. Countless number of people lost their
lives and properties. Within a week, the costal town of
Vadamaratchi was reduced to rubble.
 
The LTTE men retreated from Vadamaratchi regions. The
Tigers were tired and they retreated into the jungles. The
Government claimed that it had ‘liberated’ Vadamaratchi
and chased the rebels away. Anton Balasingham described it
as ‘tactical withdrawal’. Prabhakaran just followed Mao’s
advice: ‘Keep men, lose land - Land can be taken again.
Keep land, lose men - Land and men both are lost’
 
In the meantime, people in Tamil Nadu demanded Rajiv
Gandhi to prevent the starvation of Jaffna Tamils due to the
economic blockade and military assault by the Sinhalese
administration. On 3rd July 1987, a flotilla of 19 fishing
vessels loaded with 40 tonnes of food supplies, flying Red
Cross flags, set sail for the Jaffna peninsula from
Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu. On Jayewardene’s order, the Sri
Lankan navy intervened and blocked the Indian vessels
carrying the supplies.
 
Jayewardene’s belligerent response to India’s humanitarian
gesture naturally annoyed Rajiv Gandhi and he decided to
airdrop food and humanitarian relief supplies to the starving
population of Jaffna. On the very next day, on 4th July, the
Indian Air Force dropped 25 tonnes of relief material in the
Jaffna peninsula. Sri Lanka was given 35 minutes’ prior
notice. This operation, called ‘Operation Poomalai (garland)’,
was an indication that India might not hesitate to intervene,
if necessary militarily, to safeguard the Tamils from
genocide.
 
It indeed gave a strong message to Sri Lanka. Jayewardene
suspended his military-offensive operations in Jaffna.
Moreover, the Sri Lankan Government agreed to allow ships
carrying Indian relief materials to Kankesanthurai harbour.
 
In the meantime, the Tigers began infiltrating back to the
areas they lost to the Government troops. On 5th July 1987,
Captain Miller carried out the most devastating attack to
that date. He drove a truck full of explosives into the
military headquarters housed in the Central College building
at Nelliady, in the Vadamaratchi region and detonated the
explosives. The Tigers said in their statement that more
than hundred soldiers were killed. The Government
maintained that only 20 armed men died.
 
Captain Miller, who detonated himself with hundreds of
other Sinhala soldiers, became the first suicide bomber in
LTTE. Miller, apparently chosen for the mission because of
his driving skills, gave birth to the ‘black Tigers’ unit, the
dreaded suicide squad.
 
The Sri Lankan Government and Jayewardene were shocked
by Operation Poomalai. On 18th July, the Sri Lankan
President met the Indian High Commissioner J.N. Dixit and
told him that he was willing to merge Northern and Eastern
provinces. The next day, Hardeep Singh Puri, the first
Secretary of the Indian High Commission in Colombo, paid a
visit to Jaffna to supervise the unloading of the Indian relief
ship docked at Kankesanthurai harbour.
 
Puri and Prabhakaran met. Prabhakaran was accompanied
by Yogaratnam Yogi as an English translator, as
Balasingham was in Chennai at that time. Puri told
Prabhakaran that the Sri Lankan President had in principle
agreed to the merger of North and the East. He further
advised Prabhakaran to go to New Delhi to discuss the
matter further.
 
Four days later, on 23rd July, two Indian military helicopters
landed near Suthumalai Amman Temple in Jaffna to pick up
Prabhakaran, Yogi and Thileepan along with Puri.
Prabhakaran had crossed the Palk Straight and reached
Tamil Nadu several times before. This was the first time he
was taking the aerial route. The helicopter landed in Trichy,
and the men shifted to another Air Force plane bound to
Chennai. Balasingham received him at the Chennai airport
at Meenambakkam. They called on the Tamil Nadu Chief
Minister MGR in Chennai before flying to New Delhi.
 
From the Delhi airport, they were taken to the Ashoka Hotel
in the heart of the city. Special security commandos
guarded the hotel. Other Tamil militant group leaders and
the leaders of TULF were already in New Delhi. Prabhakaran
and his delegation were prevented from meeting the
journalists while no such restriction was placed on other
Tamil groups. (Yet, Anita Pratap somehow managed to
infiltrate inside the Ashoka Hotel pretending to be a hotel
employee and conducted an interview.)
 
High Commissioner Dixit was the first to meet Prabhakaran
and his team. He informed them about a bilateral
agreement reached between India and Sri Lanka. Rajiv
Gandhi would visit Colombo soon to sign the agreement
with Jayewardene. Dixit took out a copy of the agreement
and gave it to Balasingham to translate it for Prabhakaran.
 
The main feature of the agreement was merger of the
northern and eastern provinces into one single
administrative unit. The merger itself was interim, to be
subject to a referendum allowing the people to vote on it to
make it permanent. That was the twist.
 
The agreement, which did not guarantee a permanent
merger of the North and the East, stipulated that all the
Tamil militant organisations be disarmed within 72 hours of
signing of the pact. Prabhakaran reasoned out: ‘How can the
militants put down the arms taken up for the right of self
determination, when the agreement did not even assure
regional autonomy over their traditional homeland?’30 A
string of Indian diplomats tried to coerce the LTTE leader
who was firm in his resolve.
 
MGR arrived in Delhi on 26th July with his colleague Panrutti
Ramachandran. Balasingham wrote about this later: ‘We
tried to convince the Chief Minister that it was unfair and
unreasonable on the part of the Indian Government to
demand the disarming and surrender of our freedom
fighters when the Tamil national question was not resolved
permanently.’31
 
Knowing that Prabhakaran was determined in his demand
for a permanent merger, Rajiv Gandhi sent out feeler
through his aide: ‘If he accepts the accord, he will become
the Chief Minister of the northeast Sri Lanka. He must then
move on.’ Prabhakaran did not relent.
 
Rajiv Gandhi was disappointed and finally wanted to meet
Prabhakaran before flying to to Colombo. According to
Balasingham who accompanied Prabhakaran, the Prime
Minister assured them that he could persuade Jayewardene
not to hold a referendum, and convert the temporary
merger into a permanent one.32
 
Prabhakaran was not fully convinced and explained his
fears. The Prime Minister allegedly replied, ‘You need not
accept the agreement. What we are suggesting is that you
shouldn’t oppose it.’
 
Rajiv Gandhi promised that he will keep the interests of LTTE
in his mind. He commented that Jayewardene would not
have agreed to the pact if not for the sacrifices of the Tamil
Tigers. The Prime Minister promised to give a lion’s share to
LTTE in the proposed interim north-east administrative
structure in Sri Lanka.
 
Many reports and the LTTE literature suggest a secret
unwritten understanding between Rajiv Gandhi and
Prabhakaran. LTTE would give up tax collection in the areas
controlled by it while India will pay LTTE, Rs 5,000,000 every
month to meet its expenses.
 
Then came the critical issue of disarming the Tamil fighters.
Rajiv Gandhi assured them that LTTE need not surrender all
the weapons or disband their guerrilla army. A symbolic
surrender of few weapons would be sufficient to convince Sri
Lanka and the international community that LTTE was
abiding by the Indo-Sri Lanka accord.
 
Tamil Nadu minister Panrutti Ramachandran suggested:
‘Hand over a few old, defective weapons you received from
India.’33 Rajiv Gandhi smiled approvingly at around 2.00 am
on 27th July, the day he would make history in Colombo.
 
*
 
Sinhala hardliners reacted strongly against the agreement
to be signed between the Indian Prime Minister and the Sri
Lankan President. The fanatics lamented that Jayewardene
had surrendered the sovereignty of Sri Lanka to India. The
opposition SLFP led a massive protest march in Colombo.
The radical JVP reacted angrily. Mobs of Sinhala hardliners
torched more than 200 buses in Colombo. The violence took
the lives of at least 40 people.
 
Jayewardene faced stiff opposition from some of his senior
ministers in the Cabinet. Prime Minister Ranasinghe
Premadasa and the Minister for National Security Lalit
Athulathmudali openly denounced the accord. J.N. Dixit
would recall later: ‘The situation in Sri Lanka had become
not just tense, but violently volatile from the evening of July
27. We had reliable reports that both Premadasa and Lalith
Athulathmudali actively encouraged these disturbances.’34
The duo also boycotted the function organised to receive
Rajiv Gandhi at the President's House.
 
Colombo was under curfew when Rajiv landed in the Sri
Lankan Capital. From the airport, the Indian Prime Minister
drove through deserted roads to the President's House in a
bulletproof car, witnessing broken glasses, stones and
clotted blood as a result of protests, arson, rioting and
looting.
 
At a grand event on 29th July 1987, Rajiv Gandhi and
Jayewardene made a history by inking the Indo-Sri Lanka
Agreement. Some salient features of the agreement
included the following.
 
o Cessation of hostilities between the Sri Lankan
Government forces and the Tamil fighters would begin
by 31st July.
o The Sri Lankan army would return to its barracks by
2nd August.
o The militants, referred to as combatants, would
surrender their weapons by 3rd August.
o India guaranteed to disarm the militants, either by
persuasion or by coercion. In return the militants would
be granted a general amnesty.
o The northern and eastern provinces would be
temporarily merged and to make it permanent, a
referendum would be held in the eastern province by
the end of 1988.
 
At a press conference after the Accord was signed, President
Jayewardene confirmed that at the polls in the Eastern
Province he would campaign against the merger. During the
press conference, Jayewardene said he would dissolve the
Parliament if his ministers and the MPs did not allow passing
the agreement into a law.
 
A reporter asked the Indian Prime Minister, ‘If Prabhakaran
refuses, are you going to put jail him?’ His reply was: ‘Well...
I talked with him yesterday; I think I will be able to get a
solution.’
 
Everything seemed bright. The Tamils of Sri Lanka,
repeatedly betrayed by Sinhalese political leaders, were in
jubilant mood that they were finally going to see a new
dawn. They earnestly believed that the Indian Prime
Minister provided them a ray of hope, at last.
 
Rajiv Gandhi had reasons to be delighted too. He was at a
low point in his political career, in India. The militancy
problem in Punjab was far from over. He was being accused
of accepting an alleged kickback with regards to Bofors
arms deal. His Congress Party had had its worst ever defeat
in the North Indian state elections. Rajiv Gandhi felt that
finding a solution to the decades-old ethnic conflict in Sri
Lanka would be a feather in his cap and a quick fix to repair
his political image.
 
Before returning to India on 30th July 1987, Rajiv Gandhi was
invited by the Commander of the Navy, Ananda Silva, to
inspect a guard of honour. The Indian leader obliged,
without knowing what was in store for him.
 
One sailor would hit the Indian Prime Minister, who dared to
broker a peace accord, on his head with the butt of the rifle
he was holding upright. When Rajiv Gandhi falls down, two
men adjacent to the first one would pounce on him and
assault him with the sharp edge of their rifles.
 
That was the plan.
 
Wijemuni Vijitha Rohana de Silva took up the responsibility
of assaulting the Indian Prime Minister. When Rajiv Gandhi
went past him, de Silva swung his rifle at him. Neither
Ananda Silva nor the other guards responded quickly
enough to push Rajiv Gandhi away from the sailor or to
prevent the attacker.
 
It was Rajiv Gandhi’s quick reflexes that saved him that day.
His eyes, trained as a pilot, spotted de Silva almost instantly
and he ducked away spontaneously. The Prime Minister
escaped narrowly, avoiding a head injury which might have
been fatal. He received only a minor injury on the neck and
a lump on one shoulder. As de Silva missed his target, the
other two did not go ahead with their plot.
 
Wijemuni Vijitha Rohana de Silva was court-martialled and
sentenced to six years of imprisonment, only to be released
after two years. The Sri Lankan President told the press
reporters that the guard fainted and inadvertently dropped
his gun on the visiting leader. Earlier he said to Dixit: ‘Rajiv
Gandhi tripped a little and slightly lost his balance as he was
reaching the last group of soldiers in the guard of honour.’35
 
In the meantime, Prabhakaran and other LTTE delegates
were freed from Ashoka Hotel in New Delhi. They returned
to Chennai where the General Officer Commanding-in Chief
of Southern Command, Lieutenant-General Deepinder
Singh, wanted to meet him. Prabhakaran was accompanied
by Yogaratnam Yogi who did the interpreting.
From Chennai, Prabhakaran was flown to Palaly, Jaffna, in an
Indian military aircraft on 2nd August. He was then driven to
Suthumalai, from where he was originally picked up by the
Indian authorities. In his return journey, the Tiger leader had
the company of his wife and children and his erstwhile Jaffna
commander Kittu, who had lost a leg. That was when Major
General Harkirat Singh, who was going to command the
Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), met him first.
They decided to meet the next day at around 11.00 am. The
meeting took place on 3rd August in the Jaffna Medical
College and lasted for 5 hours. Prabhakaran then gave a
handwritten letter to Harkirat Singh stating that the Tigers
would hand over the weapons to the IPKF on 5th August.
On 4th August, the day after handing over the letter to the
IPKF commander Harkirat Singh, Prabhakaran addressed his
first public meeting.
More than 100,000 people assembled in the ground of
Suthumalai Amman Temple grounds to listen to his historical
speech. He explained that he had no other option but to
accept India’s persuasion to go by the agreement, which
was concluded in haste, without consulting them. He said:
‘The agreement directly affects the political projects of our
liberation organisation; it affects the mode of our struggle; it
attempts to put an end to our armed struggle. The
agreement suddenly disarms us, without providing
adequate time, without getting the consent of our fighters,
without offering for the safety and security of our people.
‘The weapons that we took up and deployed for your safety
and protection, for your liberation, for your emancipation,
we now entrust to the Indian Government. From the very
moment we handover our weapons, we hand over the
responsibility of protecting our people to India. In receiving
our weapons from us – the only means of protection for the
Eelam Tamils – the Indian Government takes over from us
the tremendous responsibility of protecting our people.’
He further hoped that India would not permit the State
organised violence and genocide directed at Tamils and
observed, ‘We love India. We love the people of India.’ He
concluded his speech with: ‘I wish to declare, firmly, that
under no circumstances and at any point in time will I ever
contest elections or accept the office of Chief Minister.’
After this popular ‘we love India’ speech, LTTE handed over
a reasonable quantity of arms and ammunition on 5th
August, as agreed upon. The ceremony was organised at the
Palaly air base where the Indian troops were stationed. Over
200 journalists and photographers had assembled there.
The LTTE men carried with them two van loads of weapons,
comprising machine guns and anti aircraft missiles.
Yogaratnam Yogi represented the LTTE and placed a German
Mauser pistol on the table as a symbolic gesture of putting
down the arms.
Simultaneously Prabhakaran aimed to prepare his cadres on
the political front. The LTTE men knew how to shoot; not to
speak. He turned to poet Kasi Ananthan who was requested
to train the LTTE members in articulation skills.
Prabhakaran felt that LTTE, which remained as an armed
resistance group for the past 15 years, was at a historical
juncture to transform into a political organisation. While
addressing a meeting of LTTE cadres the Jaffna University
Ground, Prabhakaran became emotional and said those
whoever wanted to go back to their families could do so.
The Indian Intelligence agency RAW, in the meantime,
started arming militant groups other than LTTE. Major
General Harkirat Singh wrote about this in his book
published in 2007: ‘We persuaded the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam to hand over the weapons. They were
surrendering the arms throughout August (till August 21,
1987 to be precise). At the same time, our intelligence
agency RAW, under directions from the Prime Minister’s
office, was rearming Tamil militant groups other than the
LTTE.’36
Harkirat Singh also said that the Indian High Commissioner
in Sri Lanka, J.N. Dixit told him that India was interested in
discrediting LTTE. The groups armed by India, TELO, PLOTE
and EPRLF, came together, and would soon start attacking
an unarmed LTTE. But before that, an event of momentous
importance took place in the east.
On 13th September, the Tamils were attacked by the
Sinhalese in the East. State aided colonisation in the east
had not stopped at all. On 15th September, Thileepan
commenced a fast unto death in front of Nallur
Kandaswamy Temple in Jaffna, in protest against the
following.
Increased Sinhala colonisation in the eastern
province and India’s inability to stop this.
 Non release of political prisoners according to the
Indo-Sri Lankan agreement.
Delay in setting up the interim administration in the
North and East as per the agreement.
Non implementation of the secret pact reached
between Rajiv Gandhi and Prabhakaran in New Delhi,
through which money will be paid to the LTTE.
Attack of Tamils in the Eastern regions by the
Sinhalese.
Thileepan, leader of LTTE’s political wing in Jaffna, was part
of the Tigers’ delegation that had gone to New Delhi with
Prabhakaran in July 1987.
Around the same time, the commander of IPKF, Major
General Harkirat Singh was asked by J.N. Dixit, the Indian
High Commissioner, to either kill Prabhakaran or at least
arrest him and hand him over to the Sri Lankan
Government. In a 2007 interview to Junior Vikatan, a Tamil
magazine, Major General Harkirat Singh said: ‘I received a
telephone call from J.N. Dixit on the night of September
14/15 in 1987. He directed me to shoot Prabhakaran or at
least arrest him and hand him over to the Government of
India. Not expressing my shock, I replied Dixit that I would
get back to him after consulting with my Field Commander
Lt. General Deepinder Singh and hung up.’
In that interview, Harkirat Singh told further: ‘I then spoke to
Dixit in Colombo and conveyed the message that I would
not obey his directive. He replied, ‘The orders I issue to you
are not mine. He (Rajiv Gandhi) has given these instructions
to me and the army should not drag its feet, and you as the
GOC, IPKF will be responsible for it.’’
Whether the above story was true or not, India’s intentions
towards LTTE were clear - isolate LTTE, disarm them, arm the
rival Tamil groups and if possible, capture or eliminate
Prabhakaran.
In the meantime, Thileepan continued his fast, without even
drinking a drop of water. People came in large numbers to
see him. Harkirat Singh, fearing that the situation may out
of hand and people may revolt against IPKF, asked Dixit to
address the situation. J.N. Dixit landed in Jaffna on 22nd
September. Prabhakaran and Balasingham met him and
pleaded with him to visit Thileepan and assure him that
India would fulfil the pledges it gave to LTTE. But Dixit
refused.
Another meeting between Dixit and Prabhakaran was
scheduled on 26th September in Jaffna. Thileepan was at the
threshold of his death. Two minutes before the scheduled
meeting between Dixit and Prabhakaran, Thileepan
breathed his last. His fast lasted 11 days and 58 minutes. It
was a supreme sacrifice.
When the news of his death broke out, people became very
angry and agitated. A few days before, when Thileepan was
still continuing his fast, Lt. General Deepinder Singh landed
at the Jaffna Fort by helicopter. When he tried to leave the
Fort, more than two hundred children blocked the main
gate, demanding to save Thileepan. Now, the irate mob
came to the streets and burnt two buses.
After paying his tributes to Thileepan’s body, Prabhakaran
issued a statement that read: ‘His death is a great historical
event, which will bring about a decisive change in the
history of the Tamil Eelam liberation struggle.’
Later, the body was donated to the medical faculty of Jaffna
University, as per Thileepan’s last wish.
In this backdrop on 2nd October, Mahatma Gandhi’s birth
anniversary, Gorakh Ram, an Indian soldier in the IPKF was
killed when the Sri Lanka Home Guards opened fire on the
IPKF post near the town hall in Trincomalee. The Indian army
officially registered this as ‘a violation of the accord by the
Sri Lanka Army’. 37
On the same day, the Sri Lankan Navy seized a boat near
Point Pedro and captured 17 LTTE members, including
Kumarappa, Pulendra and Raghu. Kumarappa, who hailed
from Valvettithurai, joined LTTE after the 1983 genocide
against the Tamils. Following the assassination attempt on
Kittu, in which he lost his right leg, Kumarappa was elevated
as the Jaffna commander of LTTE. Pulendra served as the
LTTE commander for Trincomalee region. Raghu was
Prabhakaran’s former trusted bodyguard.
The Indo-Sri Lankan agreement signed by Rajiv Gandhi and
Jayewardene granted general amnesty for all the Tamil
militants. The agreement also permitted senior commanders
to carry weapons for self-protection. As per that clause,
Kumarappa and Pulendra, being regional commanders and
senior members of LTTE, carried weapons. The boat
accordingly had only two weapons.
The Tigers argued that it was unjust to arrest them. All the
17 apprehended militants were kept at the Palaly camp
under the control of the Indian army. The Sri Lankan
Government wanted to take them to Colombo for
interrogation. Minister for national security, Lalith
Athulathmudali was very keen to take them to Colombo.
The IPKF commanders, including Maj. General Harkirat Singh
and Lt. General Deepinder Singh, tried to protect the Tiger
cadres. Deepinder Singh flew to Colombo to urge
Jayewardene not to shift the militants to Colombo, but his
efforts were in vain. J.N. Dixit could have intervened to
produce positive results, but he did not.
In the meantime, Lalith Athulathmudali sent a special flight
to Palaly to airlift the arrested LTTE militants. The militants
were fully aware that they would be subjected to torture if
they were taken to Colombo. They sent out a letter to
Prabhakaran, through Balasingham who called on them at
the IPKF headquarters.
‘I delivered the letter to Prabhakaran. I watched his eyes
turn red and moist when he read that letter. They had
requested him to send them cyanide capsules,’ recalled
Balasingham.38
On Prabhakaran’s advice, Balasingham and Mahattaya
passed on cyanide capsules to the prisoners. While rest of
the captured bit one capsule each, Kumarappa and Pulendra
swallowed two each. IPKF, which came to establish peace in
Sri Lanka and provide dignity to Tamils, started on a
disastrous note.
15. An appeal for peace
The news of the mass suicide of LTTE cadres, including
Kumarappa and Pulendran, spread like wild fire throughout
the Tamil regions. The public were already incensed about
India’s inability to prevent Thileepan’s fasting death. Now,
they were wild with anger.
The very fact that the tragedy took place at the
headquarters of IPKF made the Tamil speaking people
hostile towards the Indian army. LTTE, justifiably, felt that
India had deceived them.
Prabhakaran was furious and ordered revenge attacks. The
Tigers captured and killed eight Sri Lankan soldiers. In the
Eastern Province, wherever state aided colonisation was
going on, Sinhalese civilians were attacked.
The Sri Lankan president Jayewardene knew very well that
Rajiv Gandhi would not let the Indo-Sri Lankan peace
agreement fail, and would somehow try to implement the
accord to save his political image. So, Jayewardene
demanded that India immediately disarm the Tigers and
crush LTTE. Else, he threatened that the IPKF would be
asked to leave Sri Lanka.
On 7th October 1987, the Indian Army Chief, General K.
Sundarji (Full name: Krishnaswamy Sundarrajan) and the
Defence Minister for India, K.C. Pant, flew to Colombo to
meet Jayewardene. The Indians agreed to Jayewardene’s
suggestion. The IPKF will disarm LTTE.
Neither Lt. General Deepinder Singh nor Major General
Harkirat Singh preferred a military confrontation with the
Tigers. However, the political forces had gone ahead and
decided on something that the military was forced to
accept.
Harkirat Singh recalls: ‘On 8th October 1987, General
Sundarji visited the IPKF Headquarters at Palaly and ordered
me to adopt the hard option against the LTTE. The IPKF from
being a peacekeeper had to suddenly adopt an offensive
stance.’39
General Sundarji promised Rajiv Gandhi that LTTE could be
finished off within two weeks and recommended the hard
option against the militants.
During the Bangladesh war in 1971, Field Marshal Sam
Manekshaw was in charge of the Indian Army. When Indira
Gandhi pressurised him to move ahead with the offensive,
Manekshaw resisted, and did not move until the right
moment. However, General Sundarji, on the other hand, had
a different track record. When he was the commander of the
troops in-charge of Operation Bluestar, a combat operation
designed to flush out Sikh militants holed up inside the Sikh
holy place of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, he rushed
through and made a mess of it. This eventually resulted in
two angered Sikh bodyguards gunning down Indira Gandhi
in 1984.
Sundarji reacted likewise in launching the war against LTTE.
The war, estimated to get over within two weeks, went on
for more than two years and seven months making it the
longest war that India had ever faced. Despite this, the
Indian Army would return unsuccessful in its mission to ‘cut
the Tigers to size’. The Chief of the Indian army was
unaware then that just as his Operation Bluestar cost India
the life of Indira Gandhi, Operation Pawan would prove fatal
for Rajiv Gandhi.
On 10th October 1987, Indian troops attacked LTTE’s radio
station and television station ‘Nidarsanam’ in Jaffna and
destroyed them. The offices of two pro-LTTE newspapers,
‘Elamurasu’ and ‘Murasoli’ were blown up by the Indian
army. The IPKF felt that it was so vital to blow up the media -
before beginning full scale hostilities – that the atrocities
won’t come to light.
Prabhakaran was forced to fight the fourth largest army in
the world, exactly as he had envisaged during his first
media interview with Anita Pratap, three years earlier.
Prabhakaran had two options in front of him. Surrendering
was the easiest, but that would have meant certain death.
The other option was to fight. If death resulted, it would at
least be a dignified one. It also offered a possibility of
survival.
The LTTE leader wrote a letter to the Indian Prime Minister
on 12th October, the third day after the declaration of war,
pleading for the cessation of hostilities and to work out a
negotiated settlement. He sent a letter to the Tamil Nadu
Chief Minister MGR, who was unfortunately bed ridden with
an ailment. Two days later, on 14th October, Prabhakaran
wrote his second letter to Rajiv Gandhi. It read: ‘To date, 150
civilians have been killed and about 500 injured.’ But there
was no response from Delhi.
The Sri Lankan Army headquarters in Jaffna intercepted a
LTTE radio communication and informed the Indian troops
that Prabhakaran was directing his military operations from
his headquarters at Pirambady Lane, Kokkuvil, not far from
the Jaffna University, on the outskirts of Jaffna. Hitting the
nerve centre and eliminating the head would certainly
demoralise the Tigers. If the top LTTE leaders were captured,
then the remaining militants would quickly surrender.
‘The operation was launched on the night of 11/12 October
after meticulous planning and aerial reconnaissance of the
objective area. The football field in the Jaffna University
medical facility was the landing zone,’ wrote Harkirat Singh
later.40
Prabhakaran had his own calculation. He did not fail to
foresee his enemy’s move. He knew that the prime
objective of the Indian troops was to capture him. He also
rightly estimated that the Jaffna University medical facility
would be the landing spot for IPKF in their special mission.
The operation began in the early hours of 12th October. As
per plan, one Para-military unit with 72 commandos and
another unit with 91 commandos will approach from either
side of Prabhakaran’s base, to round him up. A further two
commando units comprising 303 soldiers and 33
commandos will be airdropped simultaneously to strengthen
the first two units.
Prabhakaran had positioned his ablest LTTE fighters in the
university buildings around the football ground. Mahattaya,
Johnny, Pottu Amman, Yogi and Natesan were some notable
figures amongst them.
The troops dropped down from a helicopter came under
intense LTTE fire. As the commandos were alighting, the
Tigers rained bullets on them. Out of the 296 Indian soldiers
who came to capture Prabhakaran, everyone except one
was killed. The lone survivor, Sepoy Gora Singh was taken
prisoner by the Tigers. He was released by the LTTE later on
to share the story with the outside world.
Kokkuvil mission on 12th October turned out to be a black
day in the history of Independent India’s army. As recorded
by J.N. Dixit, the IPKF's plans to capture the entire
leadership of LTTE, including Prabhakaran, from their
headquarters in the Jaffna University grounds ended in
shambles. There were casualties from the Tigers’ side too, in
Adele Balasingham’s words Pottu Amman was “critically
injured.”
Pottu Amman, the head of the Intelligence wing of LTTE, was
rushed to the Jaffna hospital in a critical condition. There he
underwent a surgery and was subsequently taken to a safe
house in Valvettithurai, where Kittu’s mother lived. Adele
Balasingham, a qualified nurse, took care of Pottu Amman
and other injured LTTE cadres.
India, which had accused the Sri Lankan armed forced for
indiscriminately killing Tamils in the Northern Province
during Operation Liberation earlier in May 1987, was
criticised by the Tamils for doing the same now with
Operation Pawan. India offered the same lame excuse
earlier offered by the Sri Lankan troops, that LTTE deployed
civilians as their shield. Indian army did not permit
journalists to visit Jaffna and report on the civilian
casualties.
Asia Week magazine dated 30th October 1987 reported: ‘The
battle for Jaffna had entered its second week, and Nallur
Kandaswamy Temple was packed. More than 50,000 men,
women and children in Jaffna City were crowded within its
walls.’ Prabhakaran’s wife Mathivathani and his children
were among those inside the temple, under IPKF control.
On 21st October, IPKF ambushed the Jaffna hospital and
killed more than a hundred civilians. Among the dead
included 21 doctors and nurses. On 27th October, helicopters
hovered around Chavakachcheri marketplace, and killed 30
and injured 75. IPKF maintained that LTTE was behind the
killings. The Tamils started calling IPKF as ‘Indian People
Killing Force’.
Sixteen days after the declaration of war, on 25th October,
the Indian army announced that Jaffna was completely
under its control. But the price the Tamils paid for this IPKF
victory was heavy. Operation Pawan was launched by IPKF
to capture the Jaffna city and the rest of the peninsula from
the Tigers. LTTE rebels retreated from the peninsula and hid
in the thick jungles of Vanni. From there, they fought a
prolonged guerrilla war. Some militants hid their arms inside
the forest before mingling with the common people in the
refugee camps.
LTTE had a ‘home ground’ advantage. Unknown territory
(the Indian army landed in Northern Sri Lanka armed only
with tourist maps), unfamiliar language, underestimating
the inherent strength of the LTTE cadres, failure to obtain
sufficient intelligence information from spying agents, the
ability of the Tigers to mix with the people and launch
offensive operations and getting into a war with the Tigers
without knowing the ultimate purpose behind the war – all
of these worked against the IPKF.
As a result, the war was a long drawn out one. Harkirat
Singh was relieved off his duties at the end of October 1987
and was replaced with Lt. General Amarjit Singh Kalkat.
The Economist magazine dated 14th November 1987
reported: ‘Last week in Madras, Tamil Nadu’s capital, young
people took to the streets, made a human chain several
miles long and chanted ‘Indian army stop killing Eelam
Tamils’.’ Time magazine dated 9th November 1987 reported:
‘Despite claims to the contrary, Indian artillery and mortar
units were not pinpointing their fire on military targets but
were aiming broadly. In two cases, Indian shells landed
directly on refugee camps.’41
Opposition parties staged a walked out from the Indian
Parliament to register their protest against Rajiv Gandhi’s Sri
Lankan policies.
The cleverness of the Sri Lankan politicians in dragging India
into the quicksand of Sri Lankan problem was openly
pointed out by the Sri Lankan Minister for National Security,
Lalith Athulathmudali: ‘If victory was to be achieved, it could
not be done by uniting all opposing forces but by dividing
them and creating dissension among them. Sri Lankan Kings
never opposed the entry of India. When there was a conflict
with the Pandyas, they sought the aid of the Cholas and
acted against the Pandyas. When the Pandyas and Cholas
combined, they sought the aid of Kalinga. Sinhala Kings had
high intelligence and knowledge of statecraft.’42
President Jayewardene himself acknowledged this in his
interview to Lanka Guardian. He said, ‘(Though the fighting
went on) no Sinhalese, no Sinhalese soldiers were killed...
only the Indian soldiers and the LTTE (were killed). Yes, (I
had to invite a foreign army to do this on our sovereign
soil)... I was doing what so many Sinhala kings had done in
the past in similar circumstances.’43
In another instance, he went one step ahead and said,
‘Indian troops are dying in their fight against the LTTE while
our soldiers are playing volleyball.’44
Nearly a decade later Panrutti S. Ramachandran, MGR’s
close aide and an advisor to Rajiv Gandhi on Sri Lankan
affairs recalled in an interview, ‘The Sri Lankan Government
stabbed India by arresting [17] LTTE cadres, who ultimately
committed suicide under the custody of the Sri Lankan
army. The IPKF presence in Sri Lanka could not save their
lives. Naturally LTTE was unwilling to go by the accord.
Instead of pacifying or renegotiating with the LTTE, Rajiv
ordered IPKF to disarm them. That was the fateful decision
taken at Delhi in which I too participated. I was asked to
leave the meeting because of my strong protests against
the decision. Immediately, I met G. Parthasarathy at his
residence in Delhi and apprised him of what happened in
the meeting. He said, ‘This boy (Rajiv) is immature;
everything is gone; nothing can be saved.’’45
On 18th November, an opportunity for returning to normalcy
emerged when the Tigers released 18 Indian soldiers,
prisoners of war, as a goodwill measure. On that evening
Mahattaya handed over the soldiers to the Indian army at
an open field in Jaffna in the presence of journalists. The
Indian troops reciprocated the gesture by declaring a 48-
hours cessation of hostilities, starting on 21st November.
However a permanent truce could not be achieved.
Even as the fight went on, Prabhakaran wrote his third letter
to the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on 13th January
1988. He literally begged him: ‘I kindly plead with you once
again to initiate conciliatory measures to cease armed
hostilities and to restore peace and normalcy in Tamil
areas.’46
The rebel leader further assured, ‘We pledge to lay down
our weapons as soon as the Interim Administrative Authority
is institutionalized with a preponderate role to the LTTE as
we entered into an Accord in Delhi.’ With that assurance he
wrote, ‘I also urge you to advise President Jayewardene to
declare general amnesty to our fighters.’47
Prabhakaran then stopped writing to the Indian Prime
Minister. Balasingham, in his book, mentioned that the LTTE
leader wrote three letters to Rajiv Gandhi requesting him to
end the war. When the author of this book met V.
Gopalsamy (Vaiko), general secretary of MDMK in Chennai,
he asserted that Prabhakaran had in fact written ten letters
to Rajiv Gandhi and that he had a copy of each of those
letters.
Prabhakaran never received answers to any of his letters.
The call for cessation of hostilities was interpreted as ‘a
desperate cry from an organisation in disintegration’, as per
Balasingham.48
16. The second Eelam war
Vijaya Kumaratunga, popularly called ‘Vije’ was a popular
Sinhala movie star in the 1970s. He unsuccessfully
contested the 1977 parliamentary general elections for the
SLFP. He married Srimavo Bandaranaike’s daughter
Chandrika 1978, and actively involved himself in Sri Lankan
politics. He met Tamil militant group leaders in the 1980s.
On 21st October 1986 he and his wife Chandrika visited
Jaffna. At that time, the entire Jaffna peninsula was under
the control of LTTE. They met Kittu, the Jaffna commander of
LTTE, and requested the release of Sinhalese prisoners of
war held by LTTE. At the end of the meeting, Kittu released
them.
One can easily guess the kind of popularity Vijaya
Kumaratunga achieved then amongst the Sinhalese masses,
after this incident. Vijaya Kumaratunga was a radical
politician with a sympathetic understanding of the freedom
struggle of the Tamils. He visited Chennai in early 1986 to
meet Anton Balasingham. During that meeting he said, ‘The
Tamil people are fighting for an independent state because
they have been suppressed and discriminated by successive
Sri Lankan Governments.’49
He was one of the very few Sinhalese to support the Indo-Sri
Lankan peace Accord, widely opposed by a majority of
Sinhalese. The Sinhala extremist group JVP was however
against the accord. On 16th February 1988, the matinee idol-
turned-politician was shot dead outside his home in
Colombo.
Even though LTTE was locked up in a deadly war against the
Indian troops in Sri Lanka, LTTE’s political offices in Tamil
Nadu were not closed down. Kittu was in charge of the
political office, surrounded by the police all the time, in
Chennai. Indian officials and Kittu met to explore the
possibilities of a ceasefire, and creating an environment to
take the peace process forward. Kittu sent Johnny to Vanni
jungles to meet Prabhakaran to brief him of the negotiation
held in Chennai. While cycling through the Vanni jungle to
reach Prabhakaran, Johnny was shot dead by IPKF. That spelt
the end of the final peace initiative.
Immediately, the Tamil Nadu police ordered the closure of
the 12 political offices of LTTE in August 1988. All the 154
members of LTTE, including Kittu, were arrested on 7th
August. They were neither released nor brought to trial until
10th October, when Kittu and others decided to launch a fast
unto death. Subsequently all of them were released and
dropped in Jaffna, which was under IPKF control. From there,
Kittu reached Vanni to join Prabhakaran.
When President Jayewardene’s second term came to an end,
presidential election was held in 198 in which Ranasinghe
Premadasa defeated Srimavo Bandaranaike, and took over
as the President of Sri Lanka on 2nd January 1989.
Jayewardene’s last act before his term ended was dissolving
the Parliament and calling for fresh elections. In the past,
Jayewardene used to simply hold referendums to extend the
tenure of the Parliament. The ruling UNP won the elections
in February 1989 which was being held after nearly 12
years.
Athulathmudali and Dissanayake were believed to be the
contenders for the post of Prime Minister. Premadasa proved
everyone wrong by nominating a virtually unknown D.B.
Wijetunge to the post of the Prime Minister. He also
removed Lalith Athulathmudali from the Ministry of National
Security and appointed Ranjan Wijeratne in that place. Ranil
Wickremasinghe, J.R. Jayewardene’s nephew, was appointed
the Leader of the House.
The TULF leaders fared badly in the elections.
Amirthalingam and Yogeswaran, who received thumping
victories in 1977, were amongst the losers. However, the
alliance formed by TULF, EPRLF, ENDLF and TELO proposed
Amirthalingam as a nominated member of the Parliament.
In Tamil Nadu too, assembly elections were held after a year
of President’s rule. DMK, which was deprived of power for
more than a decade, won the elections and Karunanidhi
became the Chief Minister on 27th January 1989.
While the war was going on between the Indian Army and
LTTE, Prabhakaran’s popularity in Tamil Nadu was at a
historic high. During this time, DMK MP V. Gopalsamy
(Vaiko), created an unparalleled sensation. He went to Sri
Lanka clandestinely in a boat, met the LTTE chief
Prabhakaran on 6th February 1989 and was in the LTTE
hideout for 24 days. Vaiko described those 24 days as ‘the
best period of my life’.
V.P. Singh, who later became the Prime Minister of India in
December 1989, in an interview to the Frontline magazine,
dated 29th November-12th December 1997, said: ‘In March
1989, Rajiv contacted Karunanithi and said that he wanted
to meet Prabhakaran. But Karunanithi did not act on it
because the Congress was getting closer to Jayalalitha
(General Secretary and head of AIADMK, an opponent of
DMK). And he said that if they are getting closer, then they
will use this against me and I will be in a quandary.’
Thus, another possible peace initiative was thwarted for
narrow political gains.
The new President of Sri Lanka, Ranasinghe Premadasa, did
not hesitate to turn hostile towards India. He was against
the Indian intervention right from the beginning and did not
see Jayewardene eye-to-eye with. He called both JVP and
LTTE for negotiations, saying, ‘We should not and will not
create situations that provoke or invite intervention. Our
own affairs must be conducted in a manner that makes
foreign intervention unnecessary.’50
Premadasa was a Sinhala Buddhist fundamentalist. He held
his presidential inauguration ceremony at the Tooth Temple
in Kandy. He was always in favour of Sinhala domination and
a unitary Sri Lanka. He, however, feared that prolonged stay
of IPKF would permanently jeopardize the unitary system in
Sri Lanka and lead to a possible federal setup, similar to
that of India. He was, therefore, keen on sending the Indian
troops off the island. Once the Indian army was gone, he
thought, the Sri Lankan army could easiy crush the Tamil
militants.
While Premadasa’s calculation revolved around this political
game plan, Prabhakaran had done his own calculation too.
Understandably, he too wished an early exit of the IPKF. As
long as Indian troops remained in that island, the demand
for a separate Tamil state would not be entertained. In short,
both Premadasa and Prabhakaran wanted to see the IPKF to
leave Sri Lanka.
On 12th April 1989, Premadasa announced a unilateral
ceasefire between the Sri Lankan armed forces and LTTE as
a goodwill gesture to mark the Tamil and Sinhala new years.
On 26th April, Balasingham arrived in Colombo from London.
Earlier, he had fled Sri Lanka in a boat to India from where
he had flown to London.
The LTTE leader was accommodated at the 5-star Colombo
Hilton hotel. Subsequently, Sri Lankan Air Force helicopters
brought to Colombo an LTTE delegation comprising
Yogaratnam Yogi and others from the Vanni jungle on 3rd
May. Two days later, the rebels met the President Premadasa
at his residence.
The LTTE delegation was headed by Balasingham while the
Foreign Minister A.C.S. Hameed led the Government
delegation. The first round of talks between the Government
and the Tigers was held in six sittings till 30th May. After this,
the rebel negotiation team was taken to Vanni by the Sri
Lankan Air force helicopter.
While the LTTE leadership was assessing Premadasa’s
strategy, the Sri Lankan President demanded that the Indian
troops withdraw from Sri Lanka by the end of July 1989,
which would mark two years since the signing of the Indo-
Sri Lankan agreement. This irritated Rajiv Gandhi. He
refused the withdrawal of IPKF, claiming that the terms of
the Indo-Sri Lanka agreement were not yet fulfilled.
As far as Premadasa was concerned, the Indian army had
transformed from a peace-keeping force into an occupying
army. Premadasa ordered the Indian troops to confine
themselves to their barracks if they were not withdrawn by
July end. The ultimatum was handed over to Lt. General
Amarjit Singh Kalkat on 23rd July. However, Kalkat responded
that the IPKF would be forced to take offensive action
against the Sri Lankan forces, if they were attacked.
The Sri Lankan army did not possess the wherewithal to
confront the Indian military. So Premadasa decided to leave
the job to LTTE. He began supplying arms to the Tigers and
encouraged them to fight IPKF.
*
Leaders of TULF, Amirthalingam, Sivasithamparam,
Yogeswaran and Mavai Senathirajah shared an apartment in
Cinnamon Garden, Colombo. Amirthalingam and Mavai
Senathirajah lived in the ground floor while Yogeswaran
shared the upper floor with Sivasithamparam.
Yogeswaran had informed police sub-inspector Kandasamy
who guarded their residence that some youth from LTTE
would visit them on 13th July. The guards were told to allow
the visitors in without a body-search. Two of the three
visitors went up to Yogeswaran’s apartment, while the third
man stayed at the gate.
The visitors and the politicians began talking. During the
course of the discussion, Yogeswaran’s wife Sarojini served
snacks and beverage to the men. As the young men rose to
place the cups on the table they pulled out their revolvers.
Amirthalingam was shot in his head and Yogeswaran
received bullets on the chest and stomach. Both were killed
instantaneously. Sivasithamparam who was wounded on his
right shoulder survived.
Security guards heard the gunshots, and in the ensuing gun
battle killed all the three men. The two who shot the TULF
leaders were identified as Aloysius and Visu. The person
who stayed at the gate was identified as Vignan. Visu had
been a former head of the LTTE political wing in Vavuniya
and a close confidante of Mahattaya. He was the one who
had thrown a bomb on Kittu’s car in 1987, resulting in Kittu
losing a leg. It is suspected that it was on the orders of
Mahattaya that Visu had murdered Amirthalingam and
others.
‘The murder of a moderate’ is the title of the biography on
Amirthalingam, written by T. Sabaratnam. The murder of
this moderate helped India the most. The killing of the TULF
leaders on 13th July allowed the Indian Government to argue
the need for a prolonged stay of IPKF in Sri Lanka, despite
the July 31 ultimatum issued by Premadasa.
The Tigers had branded Amirthalingam a traitor and warned
him of consequences if he deviated from the goal of Eelam.
Media propaganda worked in India’s favour. The essence of
the campaign was simple: ‘If Tamil politicians are unsafe
even when IPKF is present, what will be the fate of millions
of Tamils when the troops are withdrawn?’
The LTTE political office in London issued a statement: ‘The
LTTE learnt with deep distress the tragic demise of the TULF
leaders, Amirthalingam and Yogeswaran. We suspect that
diabolical forces are at work to discredit the organisation
and to disrupt the current peace talks between the LTTE and
the Government of Sri Lanka.’
According to Rohan Gunaratne, in his book Indian
Intervention in Sri Lanka, one the alleged three-pronged
plan of actions approved by Rajiv Gandhi to bring the
situation under Indian control was to ‘Point out that the
capability of the LTTE of attacking Tamils still remains and
that the Government of Sri Lanka is incapable of controlling
the LTTE.’51
Three days after Amirthalingam’s assassination, Uma
Maheswaran, leader of the PLOTE, was also shot dead in
Colombo. The assassins were not immediately identified,
but it was later attributed to an act of settling old scores by
some dissidents of PLOTE. But it was impossible to view his
murder in isolation, especially considering his interview to
Time magazine two-and-a-half months before, in which he
suggested that the Indian Intelligence agency RAW had
directed Prabhakaran to attack and massacre civilians in
Anuradhapura in May 1985.
On 24th July 1989, The Hindu newspaper carried a news item
with a caption, ‘Prabhakaran reported killed in LTTE
shootout.’ The report went on to describe, ‘The top leader of
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Mr. V.Prabhakaran, was
killed in a shoot-out by the Mahattaya faction of the LTTE a
few days ago, according to political sources in the North-
Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. Mr. Mahattaya was the deputy
leader of the LTTE.’ Varatharaja Perumal, the Chief Minister
of the North-East Provincial Government established and
protected by the IPKF, confirmed that Prabhakaran was
indeed killed.
LTTE’s head of intelligence Pottu Amman started monitoring
Mahattaya after the Amirthalingam murder. At that time,
Mahattaya was in Colombo taking part in LTTE’s
negotiations with Premadasa.
The assassination of the TULF leaders, the PLOTE leader
Uma Maheswaran and the ‘news’ about Prabhakaran’s
killing could not be treated in isolation. These three
incidents had been planned in a short period of time before
the end of July, the deadline Premadasa had issued IPKF to
leave Sri Lanka. Only Prabhakaran had outsmarted the plan
to eliminate him.
Having failed to force India to the July 1989 deadline, Sri
Lanka insisted that IPKF be withdrawn by September 1989.
India, on the other hand, agreed to take back its troops by
February 1990, understandably for a political reason.
In India, the general elections were to be held towards the
end of 1989. If the Indian Army was pulled back before that,
the whole Indo-Sri Lanka agreement would be viewed as a
policy failure on the part of Rajiv Gandhi Government. It
would affect Congress party’s performance in the polls.
During the peace talks with Premadasa, the Tigers sought
administrative powers in the North and the East. As per the
discussion held between A.C.S. Hameed and Anton
Balasingham, the Liberation Tigers formed a political party
named People’s Front of Liberation Tigers (PFLT). Mahattaya,
deputy leader of the LTTE, was made the president of the
party and Yogaratnam Yogi was given the role of secretary
general.
The Chief Election Commissioner in Colombo registered the
party and approved the Tiger emblem as the symbol of PFLT.
On Premedasa’s invitation, Yogaratnam Yogi participated in
the All Party Conference on 12th August 1989 as an observer.
It was a historical event in the turbulent history of post-
independent Sri Lanka. It was an event that transformed the
rebel movement into a political organisation.
Anton Balasingham had placed two vital demands while
agreeing to return to the democratic path. First was the
dissolution of the unpopular North-East Government headed
by Varatharaja Perumal of IPKF, installed by the IPKF and
holding of fresh elections. The second demand was the
repeal of the sixth amendment to the constitution that
proscribed any political organisation that talked of
separation. With this constitutional amendment,
Jayewardene had tamed the TULF and distanced
Amirthalingam from the Tamil speaking public.
Premadasa in principle agreed to repeal this amendment in
return for LTTE’s decision to take up a political path. But the
promise would never be fulfilled.
Though complete withdrawal of IPKF was not till February
1990, de-induction of the IPKF started in October 1989. As
the Indian troops began to pullout, the Tamil National Army
or TNA, a military unit established by EPRLF with the help of
IPKF, occupied their camps. Following this, LTTE launched an
offensive operation in the eastern regions, in November
1989. Within a few weeks, the Tigers overran all the military
bases of the TNA.
Varatharaja Perumal was desperate and asked for help. Rajiv
Gandhi was too busy with the elections in India and did not
heed to Perumal’s plea. Premadasa, on the other hand,
made sure that the Sri Lankan armed forces did not get
involved in the confrontation between LTTE and TNA. He was
more concerned about the delay in IPKF withdrawal process.
With this in the background, Prabhakaran began a historical
exercise of observing ‘Heroes’ Day’ on 27th November 1989.
On this day in 1982, the first death of an LTTE cadre had
taken place, when Shankar died at a Madurai hospital in
Prabhakaran’s laps. The guerrilla leader recalled all those
fighters who lost their lives including Shankar, ‘Today we
have started the Hero’s Day in order to pay homage to the
1,307 fighters who had sacrificed their lives to attain our
sacred objective of Tamil Eelam.’52
In India’s general elections, the Congress Party headed by
Rajiv Gandhi was defeated. On 2nd December 1989, V.P.
Singh was sworn in as the Prime Minister. One of the first
tasks on V.P. Singh’s agenda was to order the withdrawal of
Indian troops before 31st March 1990.
Prabhakaran’s wife Mathivathani flew back to Colombo from
Singapore with her children, accompanied by Anton
Balasingham, Adele Balasingham and Kumaran
Pathmanaban (KP). It is still a mystery how and when
Mathivathani left the island, after she was stranded inside
Nallur Kandaswami temple along with thousands of Tamils,
when the war broke between LTTE and the Indian troops in
October 1987.
Mathivathani had given birth to two children; the first child,
a boy, born in 1985 was named Charles Anthony after
Seelan, a close confidante of Prabhakaran, who sacrificed
himself for the cause. In June 1986, the second child, a girl,
was born and was named Dwaraka after Prabhakaran’s
personal bodyguard who had also died in a battle.
Anita Pratap, in her book Island of Bood, recounts why the
LTTE men are loyal to their leader: ‘I realised then that
loyalty begets loyalty. The reason LTTE cadres are so loyal to
Prabhakaran is because his loyalty to them is legendary.’
The last batch of 2,000 Indian soldiers left Trincomalee on
23rd March 1990, a week ahead of the timeframe committed
by the new Indian Government. At the end of the war, which
did not achieve any of the proclaimed objectives, 1,500
Indian soldiers were dead and many more maimed for life.
Thousands of Tamil civilians in the island, whom IPKF
undertook to protect, were also killed by IPKF.
Three days after this, on 26th March 1990, Prabhakaran gave
an interview to Anita Pratap from a Vanni jungle. Number
twenty six was very special to him. He was born on 26th
November. Prabhakaran is quite superstitious and considers
26 or any other number that adds up to eight unlucky for
him. Anita learnt that he never conducted a military
operation on 26th of any month. That day was reserved for
non-military activities like giving an interview.
With the withdrawal of IPKF, Varatharaja Perumal’s fall was
imminent. He knew that Premadasa will dissolve the North
East provincial administration and hold fresh polls. Any
election would be in favour of the LTTE, which enjoyed
immense popular support. In a bid to elude such an event,
Perumal unilaterally declared independence for Tamil Eelam,
something neither Amirthalingam nor Prabhakaran ever
came close to.
After declaring independence, Perumal left Trincomalee for
Mauritius in an aircraft allegedly arranged by RAW. He has
since then moved to India and is protected by Indian
administration to this day.
Following the dramatic unilateral declaration of
Independence, the Tigers expected Premadasa to dissolve
the North-East Provincial Council and hold fresh elections.
Premadasa, however, feared that LTTE would win the polls if
elections were held. So he delayed the dissolution of the
council and postponed the prospects of fresh election.
Premadasa had two choices in front of him. One was to
bring the Tigers into the democratic path and the second
was to demolish LTTE through a military attack. He put his
faith on the second option. Premadasa believed that the
revitalised Sri Lankan armed forces could easily destroy the
LTTE that was weakened by a prolonged war with IPKF.
Premadasa, through his Minister for National Security
Ranjan Wijeratne, issued a statement that the Government
would annihilate the Tigers. As far as LTTE was concerned,
the last opportunity to experiment a possible co-existence
with the Sinhalese in the form of peace process and
subsequent election to the provincial council within a united
Sri Lanka was deprived of.
While LTTE was fighting the Indian troops in the North,
Minister Ranjan Wijeratne had successfully deployed Sinhala
armed forces in the South to completely wipe out JVP.
According to Rohan Gunaratna, ‘Wijeratne’s intention was to
crush the LTTE in the same manner that he had dealt with
the JVP. This would have assured him honour and even the
subsequent presidency of Sri Lanka.’53
Prabhakaran shifted his base to Jaffna. The last contingent
of the IPKF had left the city by 23rd February 1990. The
Tigers consolidated their position across the Northern and
the Eastern regions, with Jaffna becoming their
headquarters. LTTE established a civil administration in the
areas controlled by it. Law and order was maintained by the
Tiger police force, and a judicial system was set up. In short,
it was de-facto Eelam.
On 1st April 1990, Prabhakaran addressed a press
conference in Jaffna, something he had not done for years
and something he would not repeat in the next 12 years. His
statement read, ‘Our people have learnt a bitter lesson. We
have learnt that we have to be self-dependent and fight our
own struggle to win our rights rather than depending on
foreign powers. I am sure the Tamil groups who supported
the Indian intervention would have realised this political
truth.’
The ‘Voice of Tigers’ radio was setup again to broadcast
programmes in Tamil. LTTE cadres underwent political
trainings. With the achievement of the common interest of
driving out the Indian troops, and with the National Security
Minister Ranjan Wijeratne desperately looking for options to
eliminate LTTE, the inevitable was on the cards.
It all started with a trivial incident on 10th June 1990.
According to one account, apparently, a Tamil woman was
tortured in the Batticaloa police station. According to
another, the Batticaloa police picked up a Muslim youth,
who was having an affair with a married Sinhala woman.
The police had tortured the youth and when LTTE cadres
went to the station to demand his release, the police had
told them that the young man had already been released.
However, he was not found anywhere.
Whatever the version of the story, an enraged LTTE
launched a blistering attack on the Batticaloa police station.
250 armed cadres surrounded the station and brought it
under their control. On the same day, the Tigers ordered
police personnel in the Eastern province to vacate their
police stations.
The police headquarters in Colombo advised the policemen
to surrender to LTTE. Most policemen surrendered without a
fight. But in some cases where there was a skirmish, close
to 135 police personnel were killed. Following the East, LTTE
swiftly brought all police stations in Jaffna district under
their control by ordering the policemen to evacuate their
positions. They also seized a large number of arms and
ammunition from the police stations.
In an attempt to prevent the confrontation between LTTE
and the police forces transforming into a full-fledged war,
A.C.S. Hameed flew to Jaffna on 11th June to negotiate with
LTTE. However, his peace efforts failed, as Ranjan Wijeratne
in particular preferred war over peace. The inevitable war,
to be known as ‘Eelam War II’ broke out.
The Sinhalese politicians were shrewd. They had brought
the Indian army to fight LTTE. Then, they armed LTTE to fight
the Indian army. Now, they looked at the EPRLF to fight
LTTE. The fact that EPRLF declared unilateral independence
for Eelam did not deter the Sinhalese Government in siding
with them. Nor did it deter the EPRLF. Pathmanaba did not
have a problem to team with the Sri Lankan armed forces,
but his problem was in deciding whether his men should
fight LTTE in the Sri Lankan army uniform or not.
At this point, LTTE decided that it should exterminate the
EPRLF leadership. EPRLF leader Pathmanaba and his wife
Ananthi lived in a flat in Chennai. An LTTE intelligence
operative, Santhan, infiltrated into Chennai in the guise of a
Sri Lankan student studying engineering. He soon
befriended Pathmanabah.
Pathmanaba returned from New Delhi after a meeting with
the powers there. He had organised an important meeting
on 19th June 1990 with the EPRLF top leadership in Chennai
to decide on the proposal from the Sri Lankan Government,
conveyed to him via Yogasangari, a Member of Parliament
from EPRLF.
When Pathmanaba and his comrades were discussing this
issue in their flat, a car carrying five men with AK-47
machine guns and hand grenades reached the place. They
stromed into the room and before the EPRLF leaders could
react, opened fire and killed 13 of them, including
Pathmanabah.
Pathmanaba’s wife Ananthi escaped as she had gone to visit
her father that day. Santhan alias Chinna Santhan and other
assailants immediately left the spot in a Maruti car and
reached Thanjavur district. They abandoned the car there
and took a boat feom Vedaranyam to Jaffna.
*
Despite LTTE capturing most of the areas in Jaffna peninsula
and running the civil administration there, the Dutch-built
Jaffna Fort alone was under the control of the Sri Lankan
armed forces. The highly fortified place was secured with
moats which made it nearly impossible to penetrate the
place. However, LTTE was determined to wrest it from the
army. On 18th June, the Tigers laid siege to the Fort.
The Sri Lankan Air Force launched massive air strikes which
caused more damage to the civilians than LTTE. Premadasa
intensified the aerial raids in a desperate bid to save Jaffna
Fort falling. On top of that, indiscriminate rocket attacks
were launched from Palaly army camp.
But the Tigers remained undeterred. Battle for the Jaffna
Fort lasted for 107 days. Finally, the Air forces mounted an
emergency night operation to evacuate all the soldiers. LTTE
got hold of the historic Fort on 26th September, as if to pay
tribute to Thileepan on his death anniversary. Earlier, a large
number of LTTE fighters attacked the Kokkavil army camp on
10th July and overran the camp after three days of fighting,
killing 72 Sinhala soldiers.
President Premadasa and Defence Minister Ranjan Wijeratne
could simply not stomach the fact LTTE had transformed
itself into a conventional army. In retaliation, they unleashed
a massive attack on civilians in the Northern region. The Sri
Lankan Air Force bombed Jaffna with least regard for civilian
life. Premadasa's administration imposed collective
punishment on Tamils by cutting off electricity and
telecommunication, introducing economic blockade on
essential items and isolating Jaffna peninsula from rest of
the world.
The Eastern regions were affected more. Army and Sinhala
home-guards went on a spree of massacring Tamils.
According to international human rights organisations,
almost all the killing took place when there was no threat to
the life of the Government troops. Several Tamil youths
simply vanished, never to come back. The emergency
powers granted to the police and the army powers that
allowed them to arrest anyone and take them anywhere.
The Elavar Democratic Front (EDF), the political arm of the
EROS, had 13 MPs in the Parliament. In protest against the
gross human rights violation committed by the Sri Lankan
troops, the EDF MPs resigned their posts on 25th July. Even
the pro-state, anti-Tiger EPRLF MP K.R. Kuganeswaran
strongly denounced the Government action in the
Parliament.
It should be noted that the military atrocities of the
Premadasa regime took place at a historically fateful period.
During the military operations conducted before the Indo-Sri
Lankan accord, India would always raise a voice of concern
whenever civilians were affected. After the IPKF era, a
humiliated India turned a blind eye to the attacks on the
Tamils. This allowed the Sri Lankan army to act undeterred.
In the Eastern province, the ‘divide and rule policy’
continued, as the army selectively attacked the Tamils while
leaving the Muslims harmless. The Sri Lankan state in fact
supplied arms to Muslim homeguard units and encouraged
them to attack the Tamils. LTTE communication claimed that
almost all Tamil speaking families were chased out of the
belt stretching from Pottuvil in Amparai district to
Thenmaravadi in Trincomalee district by the homeguards by
October 1990.
While the war was getting intensified, on 23rd October, LTTE
ordered around 14,000 Muslim families to evacuate the
Northern districts of Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Mullaithievu and
Vavuniya by 28th October 28. Nearly 20,000 families were
ordered to leave From Mannar district by 1st November.
While Premadasa was trying his best to put an end to LTTE,
Rajiv Gandhi was successful in putting an end to the V.P.
Singh Government in Delhi. A split in the ruling Janata Dal
resulted in a new Government headed by Chandrasekhar
with the support of Rajiv Gandhi’s Congress Party. On 10th
November 1990, Chandrasekhar was worn in as the Prime
Minister of India. Rajiv Gandhi persuaded Chandrasekhar to
dismiss the DMK Government in Tamil Nadu on 30th January
1991. The Central Government cited law and order problems
in Tamil Nadu as the reason.
As 1991 dawned, LTTE announced unilateral ceasefire on 1st
January. The Sri Lankan Government ignored this and
continued to attack LTTE. Vadamarachy region was severely
bombed by the Sri Lankan war planes on 20th January 1991.
‘Four days of continuous bombardment later, after more
than 250 bombs had been dropped, Valvettithurai was
virtually reduced to rubble,’ reported Julian West for
Asiaweek magazine.54
With the entire media world concentrating on the gulf war in
Iraq, not many bothered to pay attention to the ruthless
attacks by the Sri Lankan troops on Tamil civilians in Sri
Lanka. Julian West continued, ‘Valvettithurai was one of the
most densely populated towns in Sri Lanka. Ten thousand
people lived in a 1.6 km coastal strip. The tightly packed
houses collapsed onto each other like a pack of cards.’
The more than two hundred years old Valavai Sivan Temple,
built by the ancestors of Prabhakaran, was ‘irreparably
damaged.’ The attacks, supposedly aimed at LTTE, did not
cause any damage to them. An LTTE camp less than a
kilometre away was untouched.
To the north of Vavuniya, Sri Lankan forces held only Palaly
air base, Elephant Pass and Kankesanthurai naval base
under their control. Since they could not advance any
further on the ground, they resorted to aerial strikes causing
maximum damage to the civilians, hoping that India would
not interfere. The Sri Lankan troops did not drop ordinary
aerial bombs. They were indigenously improvised barrel
bombs. ‘The bombs - oil drums filled with gelignite or
sometimes flammable gas and rubber tubes, which stick to
the skin like napalm,’ reported Julian West.55
The army had grown dramatically in size, from 12,000 in
1984 to 60,000 in 1991. Ranjan Wijeratne was all set to
raise it to 100,000 by the end of 1991. He was now ahead in
the race to becoming the next President, sidelining stars
such as Gamini Dissanayake and Lalith Athulathmudali. At
the same time, Premadasa was also carefully watching the
growing popularity of Ranjan Wijeratne.
There were two attempts on Ranjan Wijeratne’s life in 1989
and 1990. He survived the first attempt to poison him at a
banquet he was hosting in Colombo in 1989. The second
attempt, in 1990, in which a car laden with explosives tried
to crash into his vehicle, was foiled.
But the third attempt on the Defence Minister did not fail on
2nd March 1991. Ranjan Wijeratne’s white Mercedes with a
convoy of escort vehicles crossed a parked minibus. The
minibus with an estimated 100 kg of explosives exploded
and hurled the Mercedes off the ground. Wijeratne was
instantly killed.
The Sri Lankan constitution requires that all ministers
appraise the president on every activity they carry out. On
the previous day, on 1st March, Wijeratne held an
unscheduled meeting with the Chiefs of the Army, the Navy
and the Air Force. Premadasa barged in, uninformed and
uninvited, only to see the embarrassed men in silence. The
President retreated in silence, and the following morning,
Ranjan Wijeratne was blown into pieces.
Even before the investigation could begin, the Sri Lankan
media pointed their accusing finger towards LTTE. Kittu
issued a statement from the Tigers’ London office denying
any involvement in the killing. The statement, however said,
‘The LTTE acknowledges that he [Wijeratne] symbolised the
Sri Lankan racist and oppressive system and was
instrumental in the murder of thousands of innocent Tamils
and his death would be greeted with a sense of relief by the
Tamil people.’
Even though Premadasa and LTTE were accused for
Wijeratne’s assassination, some rumours suggested that the
real assassin was a Chinese casino owner, who had been
expelled by the minister 10 days earlier because of a tussle
with the minister regarding the control over casinos in
Colombo.
On 5th March, two LTTE emissaries sent by Prabhakaran met
Rajiv Gandhi in New Delhi. The meeting was said to be
cordial and the message conveyed was that if Rajiv Gandhi
came to power he would help LTTE. The next day, Prime
Minister Chandrasekhar announced his resignation following
Rajiv Gandhi’s withdrawal of support. India would very soon
elect its next parliament.
17. A colossal tragedy
It was a hot summer day on 21st May 1991 and the Congress
president Rajiv Gandhi was coming to Tamil Nadu to address
an election campaign meeting. He took his flight from
Vishakapatnam and reached Chennai’s Meenambakam
airport at 8:30 PM.
From the airport, he left in a bulletproof car for
Sriperumpudur, a town on the National Highway from
Chennai to Bangalore. En route, he stopped at Porur and
Poonamallee to address the gathered crowds for a few
minutes.
At around 10:10 pm, he arrived at Sriperumpudur and
stopped next to the statue of Indira Gandhi to garland it.
The stage from where he was supposed to address the
crowd was a mere 500 meters away from the statue. A
cheerful Rajiv Gandhi started to walk towards the stage.
A section of the crowd surged forward to shake hands with
the former Prime Minister. A small group of pre-approved
people stood in a line on the red carpeted path leading to
the stage to offer silk scarves. Receiving them with a smile,
Rajiv Gandhi kept moving. The stage was only five metres
away when he encountered Latha Priyakumar, daughter of
Maragatham Chandrasekhar, the congress candidate for
Sriperumpudur constituency.
Beside Latha Priyakumar was Latha Kannan, a Congress
worker, with her young daughter Kokila who had composed
a Hindi song in praise of Rajiv Gandhi. As the teenager
recited the song, Rajiv listened to it and patted her on the
back.
That was when police sub-inspector Anusuya noticed a
bespectacled woman in her mid twenties. She was
approaching Rajiv Gandhi with a sandalwood garland in her
hand. Anusuya tried to prevent her from advancing further.
Rajiv instructed the police woman not to prevent the woman
with the garland, not knowing that he was inviting a certain
death.
The lady, dressed in an orange salwar kameez, approached
Rajiv and touched his feet as a mark of reverence. Then a
huge explosion followed. Rajiv Gandhi was blown to pieces
instantly. In all, 18 people were killed, including the
bespectacled woman.
A Special Investigating Team (SIT) was setup under D.R.
Karthikeyan, additional director of Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI). Right from the beginning, the
investigation was directed towards LTTE. However, Kittu at
the LTTE’s London office denied LTTE’s involvement in the
assassination.
Investigators obtained a camera, a vital clue, from the
incident spot. The assassins had hired a photographer
named Haribabu to take pictures of the event. Haribabu
himself had not known anything about the assassination
attempt. He was killed on the spot during the explosion, but
his camera survived.
Pictures in the camera revealed that the woman who had
approached Rajiv Gandhi with the sandalwood garland had
triggered a bomb, which exploded killing her, Rajiv Gandhi
and few others. She was later identified as ‘Dhanu’. Photos
also disclosed a man who looked like a journalist. He was
seen wearing a kurta and pajama and carrying a notebook
in his hand and a cloth bag on his shoulder.
The SIT team suspected the man to be the brain behind the
murder. Armed with the pictures recorded in Haribabu’s
camera, CBI director Vijay Karan and SIT chief Karthikeyan
left for Colombo on 30th May. But their five day stay in Sri
Lanka did not produce any positive results.
Vijay Karan recounted later: ‘None of the Sri Lankan
intelligence or investigative agencies could throw any light
on whether the LTTE had actually committed the deed or on
the identity of the two persons in the Haribabu pictures.’
When they returned to Chennai, the man in the picture was
identified as ‘Sivarasan’. He was supposed to have only one
functioning eye, and was subsequently written about in the
media as ‘One-eyed Sivarasan’.
After a few days of hunt, the police forces surrounded a
house in Koramangala in Bangalore. After a shoot-out, the
police went in to find Sivarasan’s dead body, and an
accomplice Subha who died by consuming cyanide.
Reports suggested that the one-eyed man was variously
known as Sivarasan, Packiyanathan, Raghuvaran, and so on.
There were several rumours about him that he was a
member of LTTE’s intelligence wing; that he had served the
Sri Lankan Government before that. Sivarasan seems to
have joined TELO in 1983, when the group came under Sri
Sabaratnam’s control. Later on in 1986, the year when Sri
Sabaratnam was executed by Kittu, Sivarasan joined LTTE.
Apart from the SIT team led by Karthikeyan, an enquiry
commission headed by Justice J.S. Verma was setup on 27th
May 1991. The commission focused on whether there was
any lapse in the security provided to Rajiv Gandhi. Another
independent commission headed by Justice Milap Chand Jain
was setup on 23rd August 1991 to investigate the possible
conspirators behind the assassination.
On 1st September in 1991, Prabhakaran gave an interview to
BBC correspondent Chris Morris (broadcast on 4th
September) in which categorically denied any involvement
in the assassination: ‘Our movement is not in anyway
involved in the killing of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi. So far this
accusation has not been corroborated. It is true that the
Government of India has been engaged in a massive
disinformation campaign against our movement, based on
this false accusation.’
As if to challenge Prabhakaran’s denial, a letter allegedly
written to the LTTE leader by Peria Santhan alias Gundu
Santhan was produced by the investigators. It was dated 7th
September 1991. The letter was reportedly captured from
an LTTE courier named Irumporai on Tamil Nadu coast.
It still remains an incomprehensible fact as to why an LTTE
operative had to write a letter to his leader on 7th
September informing him that he had met Sivarasan in
Bangalore and instructed him and his associates to commit
suicide, when the actual news about Sivarasan’s death on
20th August was broadcast all over Sri Lanka, which
Prabhakaran would not have missed. Yet, the alleged letter
was produced as the prime evidence linking the LTTE leader
with Rajiv’s murder case.
On 20th May 1992, exactly one year after the assassination,
SIT filed a 449 page chargesheet before Poonamallee
Designated Court, in Chennai. It named 41 persons as
accused. The list was headed by Prabhakaran, followed by
LTTE intelligence wing leader Pottu Amman alias
Shanmuganathan Sivasankaran. Akila, the deputy chief of
the LTTE’s women’s intelligence wing, was listed as the third
accused. Interestingly, the number two in LTTE, Mahattaya,
was not included in the list of 41 accused, despite accused
number 8 Athirai’s confession that she worked for
Mahattaya.
Justice Verma commission submitted its findings to the
Government of India on 12th June 1992. P.V. Narasimha Rao’s
Government was not pleased with some of the findings in
the report. Despite meticulous security arrangements made
by the police authorities, the report observed, carelessness
of some Congress party functionaries was also a cause for
the assassination of the former Prime Minister.
Notwithstanding the Verma Commission’s findings, the
special court trial started on 19th January 1994 based on the
investigation results produced by the SIT. The court
examined 288 out of the 1,044 witnesses mentioned. The
hearing ended on 5th November 1997. Justice Navaneetham
read out his judgment that nearly ran into 2,000 pages on
28th January 1988 sentencing 26 accused, who were still
alive.
The case was then taken up in the Supreme Court, which
overruled the special court’s judgment on 11th May 1999.
Out of the 26 persons convicted in the special court, 19
were acquitted. For three persons, death sentence was
commuted to life imprisonment. The court only upheld the
conviction of four accused, including Nalini and Murugan.
Murugan, attributed to be an LTTE intelligence operative,
had stayed with Nalini, her brother Bhagyanathan and their
mother. Murugan and Nalini were charged with plotting and
aiding the killers, and were arrested on 14th June 1991.
Murugan and Nalini had married, and Nalini delivered a
female child while in the jail. Later on, her death sentence
was reduced to one of life imprisonment. Murugan and
Nalini are still in jail. Rajiv’s daughter Priyanka visited Nalini
at the Vellore jail in 2008 and held a lengthy and
undisclosed conversation with her.
According to widely held theories, the reason why
Prabhakaran ordered the elimination of Rajiv Gandhi was
not because of the atrocities committed by the Indian troops
on Tamils in Sri Lanka during his premiership, but to prevent
any further damage to the militant organisation and Tamil
public in general.
However, several controversial conspiracy theories have
also floated around, including possible involvement of CIA,
Mossad, the controversial god-man called Chandraswami
and so on. Several other questions listed by Justice Jain in
his findings still remain unanswered.
Perhaps LTTE was the single biggest loser when it comes to
Rajiv Gandhi’s murder. The group faced more hardships
after Rajiv’s death than if he had been alive. LTTE earned
the wrath of 60 million Tamils in India. The successive Indian
administrations simply stayed away from the humanitarian
disaster unfolding in Sri Lanka. India provided diplomatic
and logistical support to Sri Lankan Government and
thereby helped them capture all the land held by LTTE and
eventually eradicate LTTE in the battle zone.
18. SLFP comes back to power
LTTE launched a massive attack on the Elephant Pass
military complex on 10th July 1991. Elephant Pass is a narrow
strip that connects Jaffna peninsula to the Vanni mainland.
The Sri Lankan army had expanded the camp on a massive
scale with several thousand soldiers amassed there.
The army had cut off the A-9 highway that connected Jaffna
and Kandy as well as the railway link leading to Jaffna
peninsula through the Elephant Pass. This severely
restricted the movement of people and intensified the
economic embargo on the people of Jaffna peninsula.
Realising the importance of re-establishing road connectivity
and civilian mobility, Prabhakaran ordered a ferocious attack
on the Sri Lankan stronghold.
The Tigers struck from all directions. Prabhakaran called it
the ‘Mother of all Battles’. Recounts Sri Lankan army’s Major
General Sarath Munasinghe: ‘He [Prabhakaran] was very
confident of victory. [Sri Lankan] Troops were running short
of ammunition, food and medicine. Many airdrops were
carried out. Fortunately, about 60 percent of the airdrops fell
within the camp premises. Troops managed with at least one
cooked meal a day. This meal, prepared in different
locations, included rice, dhal and either Soya meat or dried
sprats.’56
The Tigers held their upper hand for four days until the
Government brought a further ten thousand strong troops
through the sea to Jaffna. Air force was also inducted to fend
off the attack. Still, it took 18 days for the Sri Lankan troops
to advance 12 km in the open area, to reach the military
complex.
The new troops finally arrived at the garrison on 3rd August.
Even then, some Tiger fighters continued the battle till 9th
August, before retreating. Prabhakaran faced his worst loss
till then, in a battle that lasted for 31 days. Almost 3,000
Tigers, including 500 women fighters, were engaged in the
operation. The organisation lost 573 cadres including 123
women.
It was costly for a group that had only lost around 800
fighters during the entire two-and-a-half year confrontation
with IPKF. Yet, it was a lesson learnt for Prabhakaran. Before
a guerrilla unit transforms into a conventional army, it had
to build the necessary infrastructure. The enemy’s air force
and navy could not be confronted with mere machine guns.
Following LTTE’s humliating defeat at the Elephant Pass, the
Sri Lankan Government further tightened the economic
blockade on Jaffna. All essential commodities became scarce
and food prices also skyrocketed. The price of one litre of
petrol surged to Rs 2,000. Jaffna Tamils had to invent a
mixture of vegetable oil with kerosene as an alternative for
diesel and petrol. They manufactured their own soap with
palm oil.
On 1st October 1992, the Tigers launched a surprise attack
on Sri Lankan army’s Kaddaikadu camp. The guerrilla
fighters passed over a minefield carefully and penetrated
deep into the camp, not before cutting the barbed wired
barricades and eluding sentry points. After reaching the
heart of the camp they opened fire at the Sri Lankan
soldiers. LTTE fighters did not take long to completely
overrun the camp. More than overrunning it, they took away
with them US$ 50 million worth of arms and ammunition.
Prabhakaran turned his eyes at the Palaly military complex
on 23rd November 1992, to mark Heroes’ day week. It was
the largest military establishment in the Jaffna peninsula
accommodating more than 5,000 personnel from army,
navy and air force. In a daring attack at lightening speed,
the Tigers overran 150 sentry points in the eastern sector of
the defence line and captured large quantities of weapons
and escaped before dawn.
Back in 1989, when the LTTE initiated peace talks with
Premadasa administration, Prabhakaran arranged for Kittu
to travel to London for treatment of his amputated leg.
Adele Balasingham remembers the day he left Prabhakaran,
‘I think one of the most pitiful sights I can remember seeing
is this legendary guerrilla fighter crying on Prabhakaran’s
shoulder the day we were to take him out of the Alampil
jungle.’
British authorities issued him a UK visa. Before departing to
London, Kittu’s girlfriend, a medical student, travelled from
Jaffna to Colombo. They were married in Colombo and flew
together to London.
British authorities issued a deportation notice to Kittu on 7th
August 1991, two months after Rajiv Gandhi’s murder,
because of diplomatic pressure from India. Kittu then moved
to Paris, Switzerland, Sweden and Austria. Prabhakaran
instructed him to return to Vanni while he was stationed in
Vienna. So Kittu took a flight to Singapore and from there to
Thailand.
From Thailand, he sailed in a ship, MV Ahat, towards Sri
Lanka. On 13th January 1993, this ship was intercepted by
the Indian navy, when it was reportedly 440 miles from the
Indian coast. It was codenamed ‘Operation Zabardast’. Kittu
and eight other LTTE men instructed the crew to swim away
from the ship, detonated the ship and sank with it, deep into
the Bay of Bengal.
India claimed that the naval boats surrounded the ship
when it was about 12 nautical miles away from Chennai.
The LTTE moved a petition with the United Nations stating
that under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea, India had no right to exercise a police jurisdiction in the
high seas.
The Tigers announced a three-day mourning from 18th
January. Kittu was awarded the rank of a Colonel, the
highest rank in the military hierarchy of LTTE. Interestingly,
Mahattaya did not participate in the function organised in
Jaffna in remembrance of Kittu. ‘Like Thileepan,
Kumarappah, Pulendran and Johnny, now Kittu has been
added to victims’ list of the treachery of the Indian
Government,’ claimed LTTE.
The Indian navy arrested the surviving members of the crew
from the ship and lodged them in Vishakapatnam jail. They
were booked under the Indian law called TADA and produced
before a special designated court.
The Hindu newspaper reported on its 29th June 1996 edition:
‘The Judge said there was no case under the TADA against
the accused, as they were brought forcibly into the Indian
waters and also there was no evidence of any offence. He
agreed with the defence argument that the Coast Guard
ship was not justified in intercepting MV Ahat, when it was in
the International waters and when the accused had revealed
that the ship belonged to Honduras. Dissatisfied with the
judgment of the Trial Court, the Prosecution appealed to the
Indian Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court upheld the
Trial Court's finding and ordered the release of the accused.’
In the LTTE camp, Kittu’s death further confirmed the
suspicion over Mahattaya. Prabhakaran and Pottu Amman
suspected that without receiving information from
Mahattaya, the Indian authorities would not have been
aware of Kittu’s travel plans.
In fact, Pottu Amman was monitoring Mahattaya since
Amirthalingam’s murder in 1989. When the Tigers were
denying their involvement in the killings, Mahattaya went on
to declare, ‘They were not killed because they held views
different from that of the LTTE, but because they were
acting as the agents of India, in short, traitors, collaborators.
In that background, the LTTE kills those who betray the
cause. In a national struggle, the battle is everywhere, the
traitor anywhere.’
Another apparent thing was with the list of accused
prepared by the Indian investigators in the Rajiv Gandhi
murder case. Despite accused number 8 Athirai confessing
that she worked for Mahattaya, his name was not included
in the list of 41 accused.
Right from the beginning, Mahattaya regarded Kittu as a
rival. He made an unsuccessful bid on Kittu’s life, but had to
be content only to have his leg amputated and exiled to
Europe. Now, Mahattaya did not want Kittu retuning back to
Jaffna, alive.
When Prabhakaran had enough evidence of Mahattaya’s
treachery, he relieved Mahattaya from the position of
deputy leader in LTTE. Baby Subramaniam was made the
deputy leader. Prabhakaran also dissolved the political
party, People's Front of Liberation Tigers, which was headed
by Mahattaya.
Adele Balasingham provides inside information about the
turn of events that worked against the dissident leader. She
writes:
‘Finally a complete story of a plot emerged. Confessions by
all main actors were tape recorded and video filmed. The
leadership also arranged a series of meetings for all the
LTTE cadres to explain the aims and objectives behind the
plot. Apart from Mahattaya, other senior cadres who were
involved in the conspiracy were allowed to make public
confessions during those meetings confirming their
involvement. It was a complicated and bizarre story of the
Indian intelligence agency establishing secret contacts with
Mahattaya through his close associates, with the promise of
huge funds and political backing from India, if the plot
succeeded and the LTTE leadership was eliminated.
A former bodyguard of Mr Prabhakaran was secretly
released from the Indian jail in Tamil Nadu and trained as
the main assassin. He was sent to Jaffna with an intriguing
story of a successful jailbreak as cover. His assignment was
to plant a time bomb in Prabhakaran's bedroom as a part of
the overall plot planned by Mahattaya. The young man as
soon as he landed in Jaffna was once again included
amongst Mr Prabhakaran's bodyguards. Surprisingly, just a
few days before his arrest, he visited our residence to tell us
fabulous stories about his jail break. The investigation
established without any doubt that Mahattaya was the chief
conspirator. The plot was to assassinate Mr Prabhakaran and
some senior commanders loyal to him and assume the
leadership of the organisation. On 28 December 1994,
Mahattaya and few of his fellow conspirators were executed
on charges of conspiracy to eliminate the leadership.’57
*
Chandrika Kumaratunga, who was on a self imposed exile in
London after losing her husband, returned to Sri Lanka in
1992. She wanted to give a new life to the ailing Sri Lanka
Freedom Party founded by her father. Chandrika decided to
test her strength by contesting in the Western Provincial
Council election.
Lalith Athulathmudali also contested the Provincial Council
elections for the Western Province, due on 17th May 1992.
By then, Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake had
launched a separate political party called the Democratic
United National Front (DUNF). Even though the ruling UNP
had a candidate contesting the elections there, the main
fight was between Chandrika and Athulathmudali.
Senior Superintendent of Police Rukman de Silva instructed
his officers not to provide police protection to the meeting
scheduled on 23rd April 1992, where Athulathmudali was
going to address. However, police officers were sent to the
meeting to record the speech.
Close to a thousand people gathered to listen to
Athulathmudali. It was drizzling but the crowd stayed on.
When Athulathmudali began addressing his crowd, an
unidentified man pulled out a pistol and shot him at a close
range.
As usual the Sinhala media and the Government accused
the LTTE for the killing of Lalith Athulathmudali. But the
subsequent events revealed the real motive behind the
murder – political rivalry amongst the Sinhala politicians.
The next morning, 24th April, the police received a telephone
call informing them that there was a dead body, nearly 200
meters from the stage where Athulathmudali was shot. The
police identified the dead man as an LTTE operative and
found traces of cyanide in his mouth. His real identity came
to light few days later. He was a Tamil youth by name
Ragunathan, who had come to Colombo to go abroad in
search of employment. The Colombo police had arrested
him and he was shot dead in police custody. Then they had
put a cyanide capsule into the dead body’s mouth and
dumped it near the killing spot.
An enquiry commission established later during Chandrika
Kumaratunga’s presidency proved that Ragunathan was
murdered by those who had killed Athulathmudali. The
commission report found that Premadasa himself was
directly involved in using the Government machinery and
underworld gunmen in these killings.
Despite these evidences, some section of Sinhalese owned
press continued to write that ‘Athulathmudali was killed by
an LTTE gunman identified as Ragunathan’.
On 1st May 1993, the UNP had organised a May Day
procession in Colombo. President Ranasinghe Premadasa
himself was controlling the crowd and freely mixed with
them. A suicide bomber pedalled his bicycle through the
parade, and when he was five feet away from the President
at Armors Street junction, he detonated the explosives
wrapped around his body.
The explosion was so powerful that the police were not
aware of Premadasa’s death for several minutes until his
ring and wrist watch were identified on a torso. Everyone
believed that it was the work of LTTE. The killer was
identified as Kulaweerasingham Weerakumar alias Babu had
been running a grocery shop near Premadasa’s residence.
Suicide bombers had become an indispensable weapon for
LTTE. It all began with Captain Miller in early 1987 during
‘Operation Liberation’ when he drove a truck packed with
explosives into an army camp. Black Tigers, as the suicide
bomb squad was referred, was perhaps Prabhakaran’s
biggest strength. The guerrillas treat it as a great honour to
be included in the Black Tiger unit.
Prabhakaran was said to have at least 200 of his guerrillas
trained as Black Tigers at any given point in time. They were
selected from a band of new recruits soon after completing
the training. The fighters underwent further training and
classes for six months, after being identified as a Black
Tiger. Their interaction with the outside world and other
LTTE cadres was kept at a bare minimum while their spirit of
courage and sacrifice is reinforced. They are taught that
their death will take the struggle one step closer to Eelam.
For the ordinary members of LTTE got to see Prabhakaran
rarely, Black Tigers saw him when they go out on a mission.
The day before they are sent out for an operation, they
share a meal with Prabhakaran, followed by a photography
session.
Prabhakaran mentioned, ‘The Black Tigers are different and
are also unique human beings. They possess an iron will, yet
their hearts are so very soft. They have deep human
characteristics of perceiving the advancement of the
interest of the people through their own annihilation. The
Black Tigers have cast aside fear from its very roots.’58
Prabhakaran does not take the loss of his fighters lightly. ‘My
heart shatters whenever my beloved comrades,
commanders who stood with me in the struggle and the
fighters I raised fall in battles. Nonetheless I don’t get tired
in grief. Such losses have further toughened my
commitment towards the goal,’ mentioned Prabhakaran in
one of his Heroes’ Day speeches.
*
Following Premadasa’s death, Dingiri Banda Wijetunga
became the President of Sri Lanka on 7th May. Ranil
Wickremasinghe was sworn in as the Prime Minister. But the
war did not stop. Economic blockade over Tamil-speaking
regions continued to be in full effect. Wijetunga was a
hardcore Sinhala nationalist. He never hid this fact, and
there was no chance now for the war coming to an end.
The nation was ruled by the UNP for 17 continuous years
since Jayewardene won the 1977 general elections. Even
Sinhalese were frustrated. In this background, the
parliamentary elections were held in 1994. The SLFP won
the elections and Chandrika Kumaratunga became the
Prime Minister. In her election campaign, she had promised
peace and salvation to the war-torn Northern Sri Lanka. She
offered unconditional talks with LTTE. Tamil people trusted
her.
She was sworn in as the Prime Minister on 19th of August
1994.
Tamil people looked forward to Chandrika that she would
provide the much-needed relief in their lives. Their
properties had been destroyed by the Sri Lankan army. Their
homes had been demolished. They had been deprived off
food and medicines. The ban on fuel practically paralysed
the industry and transport. There was no electricity as
power generation plants in the North were bombed, pushing
Jaffna peninsula into darkness. Telecommunication was
severed. The embargo on fertiliser crippled cultivation and
there was a ban on fishing too.
Within a fortnight of her coming to power, Chandrika
announced her intention of relaxing the economic embargo
on certain items as a demonstration of goodwill.
Prabhakaran felt it was a political stunt to win public support
in the forthcoming presidential elections. The LTTE leader
was sceptical about Chandrika’s sincerity.
Anton Balasingham suggested to Prabhakaran that it would
be prudent on their part to initiate a dialogue with her
Government to find out whether or not she is genuine in
resolving the problems of the Tamils.
Prabhakaran announced his decision to release ten police
personnel held as prisoners by LTTE as a gesture of goodwill.
He wrote a letter to her on 2nd September 1994 welcoming
her for the decision to partially lift the economic embargo
imposed on his people by the previous regime. He hoped
that the Government would soon lift the economic blockade
totally, paving the way for the restoration of normalcy in the
Tamil areas.
Chandrika responded back after a week, on 9th September.
There was no mention about the total lifting of economic
embargo or ceasefire. She however suggested negotiations
and asked Prabhakaran who their representatives would be.
The Tigers nominated their representatives headed by
Karikalan, Deputy Head of political section, on 12th
September. They decided to raise the issue of economic
embargo and other restrictions as urgent and immediate
problem during the preliminary discussion, and waited for a
response.
The Prime Minister delayed her response to Prabhakaran’s
letter. Simultaneously, the conflict between the LTTE fighters
and Sri Lankan troops was also going on. On the night of
19th September, a serious sea battle took place in the Gulf of
Mannar. A Sri Lankan naval frigate was sunk by the Sea
Tigers, killing 24 sailors. The captain of the warship and
another naval officer were taken as prisoners of war by LTTE
men.
Two days after the incident, Chandrika sent a brief letter to
Prabhakaran nominating the Government representatives
for discussion. Prabhakaran, according to Balasingham, was
deeply disappointed with the composition of the
Government nominees for talks. The team comprised a
lawyer, a civil servant, a banker and an architect.
The LTTE leadership was bewildered as to why some senior
politicians with wider knowledge and history of Tamil ethnic
conflict, like A.C.S. Hameed, were not nominated.
Chandrika Kumaratunga laid out the agenda for the peace
talks as well. Removing economic blockade and restoring
normalcy did not figure in it. The people who were forced to
live in darkness without electricity were now prohibited from
using candles and match boxes. Even goods such as
umbrellas, shirts, trousers, papers, school bags and cycles
were banned, under the cover of ‘security measures’.
The nation was to elect the next president. UNP roped in
Gamini Dissanayake as its candidate, because it felt that an
unpopular politician in D.B. Wijetunga could not win the
polls. Prime Minister Chandrika Kumaratunga contested as
SLFP candidate. The election was scheduled to take place in
November 1994.
On 23rd October 1994, UNP’s presidential candidate Gamini
Dissanayake was killed by a suicide bomber at an election
rally in Colombo. His party men accused LTTE of the
assassination, but Chandrika was in no hurry to jump to any
conclusion. As far as she was concerned, a major political
foe was removed from the scene. She did not blame the
Tigers, but ordered an investigation. LTTE neither claimed
responsibility nor denied it.
UNP nominated Gamini Dissanayake’s widow Srima
Dissanayake as their presidential candidate. In the battle
between the women on 9th November 1994, Chandrika
secured an overwhelming victory. She took the oath as
President three days later.
As a gesture of goodwill, LTTE announced one week
unilateral cessation of hostilities from 12th November to 19th
November. The decision was conveyed to the Government
through the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC).
While the LTTE fighters observed peace for the week, the Sri
Lankan troops were engaged in a series of offensive
operations. Civilian targets were also shelled. One of LTTE’s
senior commanders Amudan alias Malli was killed and
decapitated by the armed forces. The appeal made through
ICRC requesting the return of his severed head was turned
down by the troops.
Prabhakaran took this matter seriously. Chandrika’s uncle
and Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte wrote a letter to
the LTTE chief. He promised, ‘The head, if located early,
could be returned. Otherwise ashes would be returned.’59
In this background, Prabhakaran insisted on a ceasefire or
cessation of hostilities as a precondition for a negotiated
settlement of the ethnic conflict. Ending the war and
removing oppressive constraints would not only bring relief
to the suffering masses but also create a congenial
atmosphere for political dialogue, argued LTTE.
Chandrika Government finally relented from its stand that
‘war and peace’ could go hand in hand. As 1995 dawned,
both sides came to a formal truce. Both sides agreed that,
‘Cessation of hostilities will continue till notice of
termination is given by either party. Such notice should be
given at lest 72 hours before termination.’ It was
simultaneously signed by Chandrika Kumaratunga in
Colombo and Prabhakaran in Jaffna on 5th January 1995 and
the agreement was exchanged by the good offices of ICRC.
It came to effect on 8th January.
Both agreed that monitoring committees will be formed to
ensure effective implementation of the true, and to deal
with any violation. Committees would be setup in Jaffna,
Mannar, Vavuniya, Mullaitivu, Trincomalee and Batticaloa-
Amparai and any other areas as deemed necessary.
According to the agreement, each committee would have
five members. Two each were to represent the Government
and LTTE, while the fifth member would come from a foreign
country and serve as its chairman.
Only four foreign delegates, from Holland, Norway and
Canada, arrived in Colombo to chair the six peace
committees in the north-east. On 10th January, the
Government dispatched two of them to Trincomalee and
Batticaloa-Amparai areas without notifying LTTE.
Tamilselvan, political wing leader of LTTE, registered a
strong protest against this. It would only be prudent that the
foreign delegates invited as neutral observers were allowed
to meet both the parties in conflict before taking up their
assignment as peace monitors.
The Government promised to send the foreign delegates to
Jaffna on 17th January 1995 to facilitate a meeting with the
LTTE leadership. The Tigers were earnestly hoping for it only
to learn that the Government failed to keep its word.
Tamilselvan once again wrote a letter to the Government
about this.
The Sri Lankan Government immediately launched a
propaganda campaign that the Tigers were opposing the
role of the foreign observers in the peace monitoring
committee. Chandrika’s secretary directly accused, ‘It gives
an indication that you are seeking to prevent the committee
functioning under whatever circumstances.’
Tamilselvan had to counter this accusation, register his
protest and clarify LTTE’s commitment towards peace in his
reply on 3rd February. At last, after deliberate delays,
Chandrika permitted the four foreign delegates to visit
Jaffna to meet Prabhakaran and other LTTE leaders. The Sri
Lankan helicopter dropped them at St. John’s college
grounds on 5th February. From there, they were taken to the
political headquarters of LTTE at Chundukuli, where they
called on Prabhakaran, Tamilselvan and Balasingham.
The truce agreement warranted six peace monitoring
committees, but the Government was content with four.
Therefore, Tamilselvan wrote in his 13th February letter, ‘We
insist that there should be six monitoring committees and
suggest that two more delegates each from Canada and
Netherlands could be appointed without further delay.’
President Chandrika Kumaratunga was least bothered about
the peace monitoring committees. She opened her 20th
February letter to LTTE with a command, ‘The time has
come for us to start a dialogue on the elements of a political
solution to the ethnic problem.’ She further proposed that
former French Ambassador to Haiti, Francois Michel be
appointed as a mediatory in the political settlement process.
LTTE responded by saying that it was important to remove
the hardships faced by the people first before proceeding
with the peace dialogue. In particular, LTTE wanted that the
people be permitted to fish in the Tamil areas. Moreover, the
proposal to have an individual as an intermediary was not
acceptable to the Tigers. The former French Ambassador
was considered to be an acquaintance of Chandrika, who
had studied in Paris.
The LTTE chief realised that Chandrika was neither serious
about the peace process nor earnest in her exercise.
Prabhakaran understood that she was dragging him along,
in order to buy time. Also, the Government was unwilling to
deal with immediate and urgent issues of the suffering
Tamils.
On 16th March 1995, Prabhakaran wrote a long letter to the
President:
‘If your Government continues to adopt this hardline
attitude on issues that need urgent resolution and which
could be resolved without difficulty if there is a genuine will,
we have grounds to suspect whether your Government
would be able to resolve the most complex and difficult
issue i.e. the national conflict. Therefore, we urge you once
again to reconsider your decision for the cause of peace. If a
favourable response is not received from you before 28th
March 1995, we will be compelled to make a painful decision
as to whether to continue with the peace process or not.’
In answer to this charge, Chandrika proposed to send a
Government delegation to Jaffna, to sort out the
‘misunderstandings’. Prabhakaran felt that there was
nothing more to discuss, but that action had to be initiated
by the President. He, however, extended his deadline to 19th
April. Prabhakaran wrote his last letter to the Sri Lankan
President on 18th April, and then sprung into action.
Two Sri Lankan warships docked at the Trincomalee harbour
were attacked and sunk. The suicide squad of the Sea Tigers
rammed speed boats fully packed with explosives on to the
Sri Lankan vessels. One of the sunken ships was presented
by the Chinese Government to Sri Lanka. The other had
been bought for 208.5 million rupees.
The event thus marked the beginning Third Eelam War.
For the Government, it was more of a shame than shock.
Government propaganda machinery had already portrayed
LTTE as the villain of peace. Chandrika Kumaratunga, who
was regarded as an angel of peace when she ascended to
power, was incensed with the sudden attack.
The Government brought troops in heavy numbers into the
Palaly military complex through the sea route as well as air
route. On 9th July 1995, the Government troops commenced
their first phase of the battle to capture Jaffna city. Armed
forces named it ‘Operation Forward Leap’. Thousands of
soldiers advanced towards Jaffna supported by aerial
bombing and missile attacks.
The Tigers retaliated on 14th July and Prabhakaran named it
‘Operation Tiger Leap’. A Sri Lankan fighter plane was shot
down. Black Tigers in the Sea Tigers unit sank a naval vessel
near Kankesanthurai. In the end, LTTE successfully repelled
Operation Forward Leap of the armed forces with Operation
Tiger Leap.
The Sri Lankan troops intensified their aerial bombing and
missile attacks towards the end of July 1995. Most of the
Jaffna population took shelter in bunkers. The Sri Lankan
Government claimed that it was selectively aiming the LTTE
camps, but ended up indiscriminately attacking Jaffna. Most
of the bombs were dropped over residential areas.
International Red Cross confirmed that no LTTE cadre was
killed, and the dead were all civilian. Cruel bombing of a
school in Nagarkovil on 22nd September resulted in 24
students getting killed and a further 35 severely wounded.
Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, an ethnic
Tamil himself, stepped up his war campaign in the
International arena. He justified the ‘war for peace’
proclaiming that the Tigers did not cooperate with
Chandrika’s earnest peace initiatives.
The army stepped up its attacks in a bid to match
Kadirgamar. It launched ‘Operation Thunder’ on 1st October
and ‘Operation Sunshine’ on 17th October. India, right
through this period, did not voice any concern at the
humanitarian disaster unfolding in Jaffna.
Jaffna had to eventually fall into the hands of the Sri Lankan
military. The Chandrika regime celebrated the capture of
Jaffna by conducting a ritual usually performed by ancient
Sinhala rulers when they conquered ‘enemy land’.
19. Unceasing War
The Jaffna peninsula comprises of three regions - Valikamam
that encompasses Jaffna city, the Vadamarachy region that
includes Point Pedro and Valvettithurai, and Thenmarachy
comprising Chavakachcheri and Muhamalai.
When the Sri Lankan army captured Valikamam that
included Jaffna, Prabhakaran understood that the army
would soon launch an offensive operation to wrest
Vadamarachy and Thenmarachy from LTTE. Nearly 5 lakh
Tamils from Valikamam had taken shelter in Thenmarachy,
after fleeing Jaffna. With this in his mind, Prabhakaran
decided that carrying out a defensive battle in
Chavakachcheri would be akin to committing mass suicide.
Therefore, he and his cadres retreated into the Vanni
jungles. Few fighters occasionally infiltrated into Jaffna to
carry out hit and run guerrilla ambushes. The LTTE
headquarters was shifted to Kilinochchi.
On 18th April 1996, the Sri Lankan army captured
Thenmarachy with ‘Operation sunshine 2’ without actually
having to wage any battle with the Tigers. The Sri Lankan
media reported that the army had liberated Jaffna people
from the clutches of the ‘terrorists’. The Tigers alleged that
the Sinhala army was converting the whole of Jaffna
peninsula into an open prison. Thousands of Tamil youth
taken for interrogation never returned back.
During this period, Prabhakaran was reorganising himself
and preparing the fighters at the training camps in the thick
jungles of Vanni. On 18th July 1996, LTTE launched a massive
attack, referred as ‘Operation Unceasing Waves’, on the
Mullaitivu army base. The Tigers approached the camp by
land and sea to launch a surprise attack with sophisticated
weapons. Within 24 hours, LTTE had overrun the military
complex.
The Sri Lankan army fought back. More forces were brought
from the sea and they surrounded the Tigers and started
attacking. The battle lasted till 24th July, when the Tigers
reached a clear upper hand. Around 1,200 Sri Lankan
soldiers were killed. In three days the Sri Lankan army lost
as many troops as IPKF lost in their two and half year
confrontation with LTTE. In this successful operation, the
Tigers captured 122 tanks, numerous missiles and other
arms worth millions of dollars.
The Sri Lankan authorities refused to accept the bodies of
the 1,200 slain soldiers. The Government probably
considered it as an embarrassment to admit the death of
twelve hundred troops. It only accepted 55 bodies and the
rest were cremated by the Red Cross.
Elephant Pass is the narrow strip connecting the Sri Lankan
mainland with the Jaffna peninsula. The LTTE militants who
had retreated from the Jaffna peninsula positioned
themselves in Vanni area, comprising Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu
and Vavuniya districts.
The Sri Lankan army from the Elephant Pass military base
launched an offensive operation, codenamed ‘Operation
Satjaya’, and captured Paranthan town south of Elephant
Pass, to take revenge on the loss of Mullaitivu army base.
Following the victory, Sinhala troops marched ahead with
‘Operation Satjaya 2’ on 4th August 1996, in an attempt to
capture Kilinochchi town. The Tigers put up a tough fight,
because of which the army could only capture a part of the
town.
The rest of 1996 went on with a few skirmishes here and
there but nothing notable.
On 13th May 1997, the Sri Lankan forces launched
‘Operation Jaya Sikuru’ (Victory Assured) with an aim to
capture the A9 highway that runs through LTTE controlled
Vanni region, an ambitious military campaign, aimed at
bringing 80 km stretch of the highway connecting Vavuniya
and Kilinochchi. The strategic objective of the campaign was
to divide the LTTE territory into two halves and destroy the
guerrilla army’s jungle base. The Sri Lankan army estimated
that Prabhakaran’s base was in the middle of the jungle.
Prabhakaran directed his forces to confront the army attack
with the heavy artilleries captured from Mullaitivu military
base. The Tigers lured the Sri Lankan troops into their
familiar jungle territory and launched fierce counter attacks.
It was a big challenge to the 30,000 strong Sinhala troops
deployed in the operation. From the Tigers side, the
contribution of the unit headed by Karuna, the commander
of Batticaloa-Amparai region was remarkable.
The Sri Lanka forces could not bring the highway under their
control in the long-drawn battle spanning 18 months. LTTE
then launched a major counter offensive operation
codenamed ‘Operation Unceasing Waves 2’ to recapture
Kilinochchi and the surrounding areas. The strategic town,
which would become the headquarters and administrative
capital of LTTE for the next few years, was fully captured by
LTTE on 27th September 1997, the tenth death anniversary
of Thileepan.
The Chandrika Kumaratunga administration banned LTTE in
January 1998. It was, however, not the first time the rebel
organisation was being proscribed in Sri Lanka. In 1978, the
UNP Government headed by Jayewardene banned LTTE
under the then Emergency Regulations. The organisation
was banned five years later, in 1983, under the Prevention
of Terrorism Act. Neither of the bans affected the growth and
operations of the LTTE.
In 1992, in the aftermath of Rajiv Gandhi assassination, the
Indian Government banned LTTE in India. Though the Indian
ban did not affect the militant group directly, it constricted
the help LTTE was getting from Tamil Nadu. Even speaking in
support of the organisation was considered illegal.
The Sri Lankan Government abandoned ‘Operation Jaya
Sikuru’ campaign on 4th December 1998 after losing 3,000
troops and a further 7,000 soldiers severely injured.
While the Jaya Sikuru mission failed to achieve the strategic
objective, the army did capture sizable tracks of territory in
the eastern and western sectors of the Vanni region. The
Tigers commenced their ‘Operation Unceasing Waves 3’ on
2nd November 1999 to recapture those areas. They hit with
lightening speed and ferocity to stun the Sri Lankan forces.
Unable to withstand the intensity of the attack, the
Government troops fled in panic. Major military camps fell
one after another.
In July 1999, Chandrika’s good friend and a TULF MP Neelan
Tiruchelvam, was killed in a suicide attack in Colombo. He
was helping Chandrika in her attempts to put together a
package for devolving power to the north and the east.
Chandrika hoped that her package, when implemented, will
weaken LTTE.
The year 1999 was a successful year for the Tigers. It was
rightly pointed out by Prabhakaran in his Heroes’ Day’s
speech in November 1999. He spoke with pride, ‘This is a
unique historical achievement in the art of contemporary
warfare. The dimensions of this military victory have not
only amazed our enemy but also astonished several
countries that have been actively helping the Sri Lanka’s
war effort by providing training, arms and funds.’
He continued: ‘The spectacular military victories have
turned the balance of military power in our favour. The
massive effort made by Chandrika over the years to weaken
LTTE was shattered in a matter of days.”’
In December 1999, Chandrika was elected the President of
Sri Lanka for a second term. She narrowly escaped an
assassination attempt by a suicide bomber at an election
campaign meeting. No one doubted that it was the Tigers.
The President lost her right eye in the attack.
The mew millennium dawned with the news of Kumar
Ponnambalam’s assassination, who was a human rights
lawyer and the General Secretary of All Ceylon Tamil
Congress, and also the son of G.G. Ponnambalam. Unlike
Lakshman Kadigarmar and Neelan Tiruchelvam, Kumar
Ponnambalam had openly supported LTTE on many counts.
The open letter Kumar wrote to the President, titled ‘Your
speech reflects your hatred’, he had said: ‘Your speech is
nauseatingly replete with one word – ‘peace’. But the tenor
of your speech is anything but one that is, in any way,
conciliatory or given to peace. If talking to the LTTE at the
negotiating table is your honest position, then your outburst
about ‘cowards of the LTTE’ and ‘terrorist cowards’ or your
urge to wipe out the LTTE, must surely be counter
productive.’
Kumar Ponnambalam was shot dead on 5th January 2000,
three days after the Sri Lankan President issued a stern
warning against all her critics.
By April 2000, LTTE mounted a spectacular military strike
and truly astonished everyone. Anton Balasingham said of
the victory: ‘The Sri Lankan state’s military offensives
against the Tamil Tiger guerrillas and the ambition of
President Kumaratunga to conquer the Tamil homeland
received another disastrous blow when the Liberation Tigers
took control of the army base at Yakachchi and Elephant
Pass in April 2000. These giant military complexes situated
at the gateway of Jaffna and considered to be impregnable,
were overrun by the combat formation of the LTTE on 22
April, after 48 hours of bloody and fierce fighting. Over one
thousand Sri Lankan troops were killed and the remaining
forces fled in terror and disarray.’
By any standard, the Elephant Pass victory was remarkable
in contemporary military history. A small army of 4,000
fighters conquering a massive military complex spread
across 80 square miles and housing 10,000 troops and
fortified with multi-layer security was nothing short of
astonishing.
Following the victory at Elephant Pass, the Tigers advanced
further into the North and recaptured major territory in
Vadamarachy and Thenmarachy. They also approached
Jaffna, but for reasons unknown, they did not storm into the
historical city. Subsequently, the Tigers targeted the Palaly
military complex, the only air base for the Government
troops in the north.
The balance of military power clearly tilted towards
Prabhakaran. The Chandrika administration feared that
Jaffna, where the Government had posted nearly 30,000
troops to keep a check on a population of nearly 500,000
people, would be attacked. In sheer panic, Chandrika
started seeking military assistance from countries like Israel.
Prabhakaran’s success was not just in conquering the
enemy in the battlefield. It also lied in his ability to turn his
fighters into a committed, brave and fearless force. LTTE
cadres internalized the thought: ‘You can not conquer the
death, but you can conquer the fear of death.’
In LTTE, the graveyard of the heroes is revered. The martyrs
are paid tribute every year during the Heroes’ Day week.
Unlike the dedicated LTTE fighters, the Sri Lankan army
consisted of soldiers who had joined the army merely as an
employment opportunity. Further, the Sri Lankan
Government treated the slain soldiers very badly. During
Operation Unceasing Waves 1, in which the Tigers overran
the massive Mullaitivu military complex, more than 1,200
Sinhala soldiers lost their lives. The Government refused to
accept their bodies and Red Cross was forced to cremate
them.
President Kumaratunga attempted to boost the morale of
the soldiers by starting her own version of Heroes’ Day.
While she was celebrating her first soldiers’ day, Minister
C.V. Gunawarthane was blown into pieces.
On 31st October 2000, Prabhakaran met Norwegian envoys,
including special envoy for Sri Lanka Erik Solheim, at Malavi,
in northern Vanni. From the position of strength, he
expressed his strong desire for peace and negotiated
political settlement. The Norwegian delegation then met
President Chandrika in Colombo where she conveyed her
unwillingness to the idea of de-escalation, prior to
negotiations.
But the Norwegian delegation did not give up. They
prepared a ‘Memorandum of Understanding on
Humanitarian Measures’ and sent copies to both the
Government of Sri Lanka and LTTE. The MOU contained very
basic clauses, namely, ensuring the flow of non-military
goods to Vanni and refraining from attacking civilian targets.
The Tigers informed the Norwegian Government that they
were seriously considering the proposals listed in the MOU.
The Government was however slow in responding. The
President, Defence Minister and Army Chief spoke in
contradicting voices that ranged from the Government
being open to discussion with the Tigers and committed to
peace, to the Government being firm in completely wiping
out LTTE, and to the proclamation that the war would never
stop until LTTE laid down the arms.
Amidst this drama, LTTE announced a sudden one-month-
long unilateral ceasefire from the midnight of 24th December
2000, to impress upon the international community that it
was sincerely committed to the peace and negotiated
settlement. The Presidential Secretariat rejected LTTE’s offer
of ceasefire and remarked that ‘gestures of goodwill were
unnecessary before the negotiation’.
The Government wanted to continue the offensive
operations against LTTE, while engaging them in the peace
process simultaneously. This hard stance created
impediment to the Norwegian initiative. Despite
provocations, the LTTE leadership extended its unilaterally
declared and observed ceasefire for four months, till 23rd
April 2001.
On 24th April 2001, the LTTE statement read: ‘During the last
four months of our self-imposed ceasefire we suffered
serious setbacks militarily losing strategically important
territory in the Jaffna peninsula and suffering substantial
casualties. Over 160 cadres have been killed and 400
injured.’
On the same day, the Sri Lankan armed forces unleashed a
major offensive, codenamed ‘Fire Flame’. The ferocious
attack justified the name in every sense. The operation was
aimed at recapturing Elephant Pass base. It was a well co-
ordinated military campaign with combined armed forces of
12,000 troops. Defence Minister Anurudha Ratwatte was
stationed at the Palaly military base to coordinate and
supervise the operation. The Government sensed a certain
victory and dispatched an array of journalists to Jaffna to
cover the military campaign.
The Tigers anticipated this and withdrew to the second line
of defence. With little resistance, the Sri Lankan troops
captured eight square kilometers within three hours, without
knowing that they were walking into a trap. Then, suddenly
LTTE struck back with artillery, heavy mortars and multi-
barrel rocket launchers. The Armed Forces panicked and ran
into minefields.
In the meantime, the Sea Tigers prevented the docing of Sri
Lankan navy vessels in an intense battle in the Nagarkovil
sea and on the Killali lagoon. The ‘Fire Flame’ was doused
by the Tigers in 72 hours. The Sri Lankan army lost 600
soldiers and over 2,000 were injured in the fighting while
the Tigers lost 141 cadres.
Notwithstanding this military defeat, the Kumaratunga
Government did not accede to Norway’s peace initiative. It
did not even favourably consider the basic Memorandum of
Understanding that allowed movement of non-military good
to the civilians.
In memory of the 1983 Black July communal riots, LTTE
launched a daring assault on 24th July 2001. The target was
the most protescted Sri Lankan Air Force base at
Katunayake, the largest airbase complex in the island,
located on the northern outskirts of capital Colombo. The
airbase is also located next to Sri Lanka’s only International
airport, the Bandaranaike International Airport.
The Tiger assault unit of 14 fighters, in Sri Lankan military
uniform, infiltrated the heavily fortified airbase at 3:30 am.
Before anyone inside the complex could react, two Israeli
Kfir fighter jets, one Russian fighter plane, two helicopter
gunships and three Chinese training planes were destroyed.
After an hour of intense fighting with the security forces, the
LTTE commandos slipped into the adjacent civilian airport.
They destroyed three aircrafts belonging to the State-owned
Sri Lankan airlines. Three more were severely damaged.
At the end of six hours of fierce fighting, 14 Tigers and 6 Sri
Lankan military personnel were killed and planes worth 500
million dollars were destroyed. The remarkable aspect about
the whole episode was that no civilians or passengers were
injured or killed.
The primary foreign exchange earner for Sri Lanka is tea
exports, a produce made by the hardship of upcountry
Tamils of Indian origin. The second largest source of foreign
exchange and national income is the tourism industry. The
news about the airport attack severely reduced the inflow of
foreign tourists and hit the income very badly.
The rebels’ daring attack shook the national economy. Sri
Lanka registered its first economic contraction since its
independence. In 2001, it announced a negative real growth
of -1.4%.
The Chandrika Kumaratunga Government was at the
receiving end of strong criticism from the people. She no
longer could afford to adopt the duel strategy of war and
peace. Parliamentary elections were held on 5th December
2001. Opposition UNP was led by Ranil Wickremasinghe
whose election manifesto read: ‘Our prime objective is
peace. We stand for peace and peace alone.’ On that plank,
Wickremasinghe won.
Ranil Wickremasinghe was sworn in as the Prime Minister in
December 2001. As an expression of goodwill, LTTE
announced a month-long unilateral ceasefire starting from
24th December 2001. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe
held the Defence portfolio himself and therefore he could
reciprocate the gesture by declaring cessation of hostilities
from the midnight of 24th December 2001.
Ironically, though he could announce the ceasefire, he could
not enforce it; the reason being the uniqueness of the Sri
Lankan constitution. Even though Lalith Athulathmudali,
Ranjan Wijeratne and Anurudha Ratwatte were known as
the Defence Ministers or Ministers of National Security, they
were technically junior ministers. The ultimate power rested
with the President, who had the complete control over the
Defence Ministry.
Ranil Wickremasinghe had the majority in the Parliament,
but the President was superior to him. She was the
commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
The Sri Lankan troops did not stop their ‘cordon and search’
operations and arrests. Human rights violations persisted.
Nevertheless, the Norwegian authorities and Prabhakaran
accepted that the Prime Minister was earnest and
committed to peace.
Wickremasinghe vowed to lift economic embargo from 15th
January 2002. Unilateral declaration of ceasefires declared
on both the sides transformed into a mutually agreed one.
Prabhakaran signed it on 22nd February 2002, followed by
the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe.
When the ceasefire agreement was made public in Oslo,
Norway, the entire international community welcomed it
and complemented the peace efforts. There was one
exception, however. Sri Lankan President Chandrika
Kumaratunga expressed ‘shock and dismay’ and described
the ceasefire agreement as an undemocratic act and also
condemned it saying the Prime Minister had not got her
prior approval for signing the truce.
20. Ceasefire at last
 
With the ceasefire in place, the Norwegians suggested an
early commencement of talks between LTTE and the Sri
Lankan Government. Before that, Prabhakaran needed to
meet his political advisor Anton Balasingham, who would be
the chief negotiator for the Tigers. Erik Solheim saw
Balasingham off at the Heathrow airport in London. The
flight headed to Male, the capital of Maldives on 24th March
2002. From there, a special plane took Balasingham to the
Vanni heartland.
 
On 10th April 2002, Prabhakaran addressed an international
press conference held at Thooyavan Science College in
Kilinochchi. He was meeting the press after nearly 12 years.
Though he had given exclusive interviews to Anita Pratap,
the last time he formally met the journalists was in April
1990, after the withdrawal of IPKF.
 
More than four hundred media personnel attended the
event in Kilinochchi. Every journalist was photographed, and
permitted after thorough security screening. In the hall,
Balasingham introduced Prabhakaran as the President and
Prime Minister of Tamil Eelam.
 
Journalists bombarded the LTTE leader with questions, which
he handled well, with Balasingham lending a helping hand
when required. Prabhakaran was confronted with the issue
of Rajiv Gandhi’s murder. He neither denied nor accepted
LTTE’s involvement. ‘It was a tragic event,’ replied
Prabhakaran.
 
A reporter queried if LTTE was forced to take up the peace
route because it couldn’t procure arms from the
international market following the ban imposed on the
organisation by the western countries. Prabhakaran replied:
‘We get more weapons in the war field’, a reference to the
Tigers capturing more weapons from the Sri Lankan army
than they procured from the market.
 
Despite Ranil Wickremasinghe furthering the peace
initiatives, the executive powers of the Government were
vested with the President, who controlled the army
commanders. For this reason, the ceasefire could not be
fully implemented by the Government. The Sri Lankan army
troops were defiant and hostile. The Tigers complained that
the military offensive and provocation did not stop.
 
On 15th June 2002, the Norwegian representatives met
Balasingham in London where he emphasized that the
peace talks could not be held without an effective
implementation of the truce. On 27th July, the Norwegian
authorities brought with them a Sri Lankan Minister from
Wickremasinghe’s cabinet, Milinda Morogoda, to
Balasingham’s residence in London. They once again met in
Oslo in the middle of August.
 
Two weeks after the Oslo meeting, on 6th September 2002,
the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry announced its decision to
lift the ban on LTTE. On 16th September, the first two rounds
of talks commenced between LTTE and the Sri Lankan
Government in Bangkok, Thailand.
 
The Norwegian Government impressed both the parties to
seek international aid to form a ‘Northeast Reconstruction
Fund’ and organised an international conference in Oslo.
The event, held on 25th November 2002, raised 70 million
dollars to alleviate the suffering of the Tamil people affected
by the war.
 
The third round of talks was held in Oslo during 2–5
December 2002. The Government exhibited a paradigm
shift in its approach. The joint declaration at the end of the
session, popularly known as ‘Oslo Declaration’ read: ‘[T]he
parties agreed to explore a solution founded on the principle
of internal self determination in areas of historical habitation
of Tamil speaking peoples, based on a federal structure
within a united Sri Lanka.’
 
The fourth round of talks was held in Thailand and the fifth
in Berlin, Germany. Japan hosted the sixth round in March
2003.
 
In the meantime, the Tigers lodged a complaint against the
Sri Lankan army for violating the ceasefire. The naval forces
had mounted major offensive strikes on the Sea Tigers.
Furthermore, the fund collected for the ‘North-East
Reconstruction’ was not directed towards those regions.
 
In this background, another donor meet was held in the USA
where the LTTE was not invited. This exclusion was despite
the commitment between the parties to seek international
assistance as joint partners in peace. Notwithstanding the
protest from the Tigers, the US donor conference held on 4th
April 2003 generated 3.5 billion dollars. The US also
declared: ‘The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam must
unequivocally renounce terrorism, in word and deed.’
 
Prabhakaran sensed the seriousness of the situation. Firstly,
rehabilitation work for war-ridden people had not
commenced at all. Secondly, Chandrika Kumaratunga – who
was encouraging the armed forces to put road blocks on
restoration of normalcy – would not let any form of political
settlement even if Ranil Wickremasinghe wanted it. Thirdly,
the money raised from the international community was
being used to strengthen the military instead of spending it
on reconstruction of the north and the east. Finally, by
allowing countries like the US to stamp the LTTE as
‘terrorists’, the Sri Lankan Government was working towards
discrediting the role of the LTTE as the representatives of
the Tamil speaking community in Sri Lanka, and an equal
partner in the peace process.
 
LTTE decided to suspend its participation in the pace talks
and to boycott the upcoming Tokyo donor conference. The
Sri Lankan Government, however, did not want to miss the
opportunity; the conference generated around 4.5 billion
dollars.
 
The Norwegian authorities requested LTTE not to withdraw
from the peace process. The Tigers agreed to it on the
condition that the Sri Lankan Government set up an interim
administrative structure in the Tamil homeland. When the
Government responded with a structure, it was not
acceptable to LTTE, as there was not enough devolution of
powers to this body.
 
It was not acceptable to Prabhakaran, because he was
already in control of large parts in the North and East, a de
facto Tamil Eelam. Yet, he initiated the peace process in
order to arrive at a meaningful political solution. He agreed
to federalism from his earlier stance of separatism. He
simply was not willing to accept an interim administrative
setup with not enough powers.
 
The Tigers proposed an alternative administrative structure.
Prabhakaran appointed a Constitutional Affairs Committee,
comprising an expert panel of expatriate Tamils. The
proposals were submitted to the Ranil Wickremasinghe
Government on 1st November 2003.
 
On 4th November, President Chandrika Kumaratunga
dismissed the Ministers of Defence, Internal Affairs and
Media. On 7th February 2004, she dissolved the Sri Lankan
Parliament to put an end to the Ranil Wickremasinghe
Government and his peace initiatives.
 
In the subsequent general elections held in April 2004,
Chandrika teamed up with the Sinhala extremist JVP and
narrowly won the elections on the propaganda that Ranil
Wickremasinghe was dividing the island into two and
handing over one to LTTE.
 
In the meantime, the LTTE camp faced an internal crisis. The
eastern commander of the Tigers, Karuna alias
Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, turned against Prabhakaran.
Like many Tamil youth, he joined the Tigers movement after
the 1983 ethnic riots against the Tamils. In 1984, he
received military training in the Salem camp in Tamil Nadu.
For some time, Karuna worked in the intelligence division of
LTTE. He had also served as Prabhakaran’s personal
bodyguard. His role as a commander in defeating the Sri
Lankan army’s most ambitious military campaign ‘Operation
Jaya Sikuru’, aimed at capturing the highway between
Vavuniya and Kilinochchi, was commendable.
 
However, in 2004, he was revolting against the LTTE
leadership and accused that the leadership of the
organisation exclusively came from the North, and that they
behaved autocratically. Karuna charged that the fighters
from the east were not treated on par with their northern
counterparts. Moreover, he blamed the northern leadership
for not providing sufficient funds to maintain the military
units in the east.
 
He later told a reporter, ‘[There is] discrimination within the
organisation. I don’t feel our leader has shown regards for
the lives of our (eastern) fighters. For several years our
fighters were martyred in the Vanni battlefields.’
 
Those were serious allegations in the guerrilla movement
that was completely intolerant towards dissidence.
Prabhakaran summoned Karuna to Vanni for enquiry. Karuna
knew that he wouldn’t come back alive if he went there. On
3rd March 2004, Karuna announced that he no longer
belonged to LTTE and would operate independently.
 
Initially, LTTE announced that it was not weakened by the
exit of Karuna. The LTTE’s political wing leader S.P.
Tamilselvan said, ‘We have faced several betrayals. Karuna
violated our principles and code of discipline. As a result we
have taken disciplinary action.’
 
With Karuna falling apart with the top leadership, LTTE
effectively lost the eastern region. Nonetheless, the Tigers
launched offensive operation directed at the Karuna faction
to capture the eastern regions in April 2004, and in the fight
hundreds of fighters from both the sides were killed.
 
Karuna was not insane to blindly revolt against the powerful
LTTE and Prabhakaran. It was strongly believed that the Sri
Lankan and the Indian intelligence agencies were behind
this move. The split irreparably weakened Prabhakaran and
he gradually lost his grip over the eastern region.
 
*
 
The day after Christmas, 26th December 2004, dawned as a
dreadful day for Sri Lanka that was already devastated due
to the prolonged civil war for more than two decades. A
powerful earthquake in the Indian Ocean resulted in a
massive Tsunami, something that South East Asia had not
witnessed in the last 100 years or more, struck on that day.
Sri Lanka was the second most affected country in the
natural disaster, next to Indonesia. Nearly 5,000 Sinhalese
died, but that was a lesser calamity compared to the loss of
close to 20,000 deaths in the Tamil regions.
Prabhakaran painfully recounted the Tsunami damage in his
next Heroes’ Day speech:
‘The tsunami waves struck at the villages and settlements
along the eastern coastal belt of our homeland causing an
unprecedented catastrophe. In this cataclysmic disaster
unleashed by nature, twenty thousand Tamil and Muslim
people perished and about three hundred thousand people
lost their homes, properties and were reduced to conditions
of refugees.
As nature inflicted further calamity on the Tamil nation,
which had already suffered monumental destruction by war,
our people were burdened with unbearable suffering.’
The traditional homeland of Tamils in Sri Lanka comprises a
third of the territory. However, the belt along North and the
East covers up two-thirds of the costal line in the island. The
Sinhalese shared the southern and western costal areas.
In this kind of geographical setup, the monstrous waves that
traversed westwards from east naturally hit the northern
and eastern sea in Sri Lanka. But the Chandrika
Kumaratunga regime failed to provide remedy to the
situation.
The Tigers, on the other hand, wasted no time and exhibited
the same effectiveness and briskness in the recovery
activities that they normally exhibit at the war front. They
swiftly set up relief camps, and food and medicine were
arranged for.
Prabhakaran said, ‘In these circumstances, our liberation
movement was geared to confront the crisis. Our fighting
formations, as well as our cadres belonging to various social
and administrative services, were immediately engaged in
the tasks of relief and rehabilitation.’
The world community came forward to provide aid to the
suffering people. The Italian Embassy handed over a cheque
to the LTTE. This infuriated Chandrika Kumaratunga. She
demanded that all the international aid be handed over to
the Government directly.
Soon, she realised that such a hard stance would do her no
good. Prabhakaran narrated the situation: ‘The international
Governments volunteered to provide huge sums of money
in aid for relief and rehabilitation of the affected people. In
the meantime President Kumaratunga expressed her
willingness to form a joint administrative mechanism in
cooperation with the LTTE to implement the tasks of relief,
rehabilitation and reconstruction for the affected Tamil
speaking people.’
Aid was pouring in from all over the world. The President
was taking them in with the assurance that most of it would
be used for relief work in the Tamil areas.
More than 500,000 Tamils were rendered homeless in the
Tsunami attack. The Portugal Government dispatched tons
of medicines for these people, but not even a bit of it
reached the victims. The entire shipment was directed to
Sinhala villages and Buddhist shrines. The Indian
Government sent power generators towards relief work and
speedy restoration of normalcy. The generators meant for
Trincomalee Tamils were hidden beneath a massive heap of
firewood behind the district collector office in Trincomalee.
From India alone, one billion rupees worth of goods were
shipped to Tsunami hit areas, but most of it stayed in
southern Sri Lanka.
Rumours and predictions were spread far and wide in the
name of ‘news’ claiming that Prabhakaran was killed during
the tsunami waves, along with Pottu Amman. The Sri Lanka
Broadcasting Corporation announced that the bodies of
Prabhakaran and Pottu Amman were missing.
The Hindu newspaper in Chennai, which issued a news
report back in 1989 claiming that the LTTE leader was killed
in a shootout with Mahattaya, once again issued a
premature obituary to Prabhakaran. The Newspaper that
wrote, ‘Is Prabhakaran dead or alive?’ on its 9th January
2005, had to publish on 23rd January, the picture of
Prabhakaran with a Norwegian Minister.
Lakshman Kadigarmar was an atypical Tamil. He was, he
proclaimed, a citizen of Sri Lanka first. His identity as a Tamil
came later, if at all. He was an uncompromising supporter of
Chandrika Kumaratunga. In 1994, Kadigarmar was her
political advisor. Soon, he was promoted as the Foreign
Minister.
The position of Foreign Minister attracts lot of international
attention, and to have a Tamil in that post would project
Chandrika as a saviour of Tamils. Kadigarmar covered up all
military atrocities the Tamils were subjected to, and justified
the war on many counts. In 1995, when the UN Secretary
General expressed concern over the safety of 500,000
people internally displaced in the Jaffna peninsula, Minister
Kadigarmar advised him to confine his focus to building
public toilets and controlling mosquitoes in third world
countries.
The Sinhala Governments have always attempted to
‘manufacture and install’ an alternate Tamil leadership, at
least to project to the world that they are doing justice to
the Tamils. Lakshman Kadigarmar was one such man and he
paid back his gratitude like no one did before. His role in
anti-LTTE propaganda in the western countries and
convincing them into banning the organisation was
undeniable. A Tamil Minister denouncing the Tamil Tigers -
what else does the world require?
When he got out of the swimming pool in his well-guarded
house on 12th August 2005, Lakshman Kadigarmar was
pierced by the bullets of a few sharp shooters, stationed in a
nearby building.
*
Chandrika Kumaratunga’s second term as the President of
Sri Lanka was drawing to an end in 2005. The constitution
does not permit anyone to occupy the office more than
twice. However, she wanted to keep her influence over SLFP
as her family property.
Mahinda Rajapakse was a hard nut to crack. He is the son of
D.A. Rajapakse who stood by Solomon Bandaranaike when
he defected from UNP to start SLFP. When Chandrika led
SLFP back to power in 1994 after a gap of 17 years,
Mahinda Rajapakse was offered Workers Welfare Ministry.
Then, in 1997 when the ministries were reshuffled, he got
the Fisheries department.
Following the dismissal of Ranil Wickremasinghe and
subsequent general elections, he had risen to the position of
Prime Minister. His popularity in the party was also gaining
strength. Chandrika, nevertheless, did not prefer him as the
Presidential candidate. If the power goes out of her family, it
would be hard to wrench it back. Therefore, she preferred
her brother Anura Bandaranaike as SLFP’s presidential
candidate. However, Mahinda Rajapakse had built a
powerful support base for himself in the party and he easily
foiled Chandrika’s plans.
When Chandrika tried to work with LTTE for providing relief
to Tsunami victims in the Tamil areas, two extreme Sinhala
political groups, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and
the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), had withdrawn their
support to the Chandrika Government.
Mahinda Rajapakse decided to renew the relationship with
these two parties for the upcoming Presidential polls. He
agreed with their irrational demands: Ceasefire agreement
would be reconsidered; the Norwegian peace initiative
would be disregarded; the joint administrative structure for
Tsunami relief will be abandoned; Sri Lanka shall always be
a unitary state and no form of power sharing would be
entertained.
Though Chandrika had dismissed Ranil Wickremasinghe’s
Government, the ceasefire signed by Wickremasinghe and
Prabhakaran was still on, at least in paper. Now, this three
years old ceasefire agreement was in great danger.
Ranil Wickremasinghe contested as the UNP candidate in
the presidential elections, opposing Mahinda Rajapakse. The
Sinhala population was divided. One section believed that
Ranil Wickremasinghe would provide a permanent solution
to the ethnic conflict. Others believed that Rajapakse was
the man to wipe out LTTE.
The Tigers issued a call to boycott the election. The Tamils
did not vote. ‘The non-participation of the Tamils should not
be construed as a judgment of the personalities or policies
of the presidential candidates. Rather, this political boycott
was an expression of deep distrust and disillusionment of
the Tamil people with the Sinhala political system,’
remarked Prabhakaran in his annual Heroes’ Day speech.
In the end, Mahinda Rajapakse defeated Ranil
Wickremasinghe with a narrow margin. Had the Tamils
exercised their votes in favour of Ranil Wickremasinghe, the
result would have been otherwise. On 19th November 2005,
Rajapakse was sworn in as the President of Sri Lanka. For
the first time in the history of the island nation, he formed a
jumbo ministry of 35 ministers.
A week after the new administration assuming power,
Prabhakaran declared, ‘He has assumed power as a
president to protect and promote the interests of the
Sinhala-Buddhist community. We are all aware of Mahinda
Rajapakse’s thoughts and policies. We are also aware of the
incompatible gaps and the irreconcilable contradictions that
exist between Mr Rajapakse’s political vision and the Tamils’
struggle for self-determination.’
The Sri Lankan army and Karuna faction joined hands and
mounted fresh military attacks on the Tigers. LTTE’s lost
Mavilaru and Sampur in the East to sustained army attacks.
Technically, the ceasefire was still in force, and the Tigers
also retaliated. In a massive counter-offensive on the Sri
Lankan army that attempted to move from Kilali and
Muhamalai, the military sustained heavy losses.
As this went on, the Norwegian convoys dragged both the
parties to Geneva for talks, in February 2006. Both the
rounds of talks ended in failure.
During Ranil-LTTE peace initiative, Sri Lankan army Chief
Sarath Fonseka hardly honoured the ceasefire. He took a
hard stance on matters related to de-escalation and
resettlement of internally displaced people (IDP).
‘Resettling of civilians in the ‘High security zones’ can bring
about big political success to the LTTE,’ recommended
Fonseka to the Government in December 2002.
To this, Balasingham wrote back, ‘You are aware that the
LTTE is not calling for the withdrawal of troops from Jaffna or
total dismantling of camps. Rather we suggest the
relocation of military positions in built-up civilian areas and
settlements to facilitate resettlement of IDP.’
President Kumaratunga, instead of appreciating the ground
realities, congratulated Fonseka for his ‘brave’ stand.
The Tigers targeted the Army Chief on 24th April 2006, when
his car was travelling near the hospital situated inside
military headquarters. A woman suicide bomber, pretending
as a pregnant woman, threw herself on the vehicle. Sarath
Fonseka survived with serious injuries, while nine others
were killed in the attack.
On 16th August 2006, four fighter jet planes belonging to the
Sri Lankan Air Force targeted the Sencholai centre in
Mullaithivu. Sencholai was aimed at providing shelter to
those Tamil children who lost both their parents in war. Sixty
one girls were massacred in the air strike, and over 150 girls
were injured.
Similar to the Sencholai rehabilitation centre for the
orphaned girls, the Tigers also administered ‘Kantharoopan
Arivucholai’ for orphaned boys. On its way back after
bombing the Sencholai camp, the Sri Lankan Air Force
dropped the remaining bombs on Katharoopan Arivucholai
too.
Colombo asserted that the Government only attacked the
‘Baby Brigades’ of LTTE. Following the aerial strike at
Sencholai, UNICEF and the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission for
Peace visited the scene of action and strongly condemned
the attacks carried out by the Government forces.
In the second half of 2006, the Tigers lost Sampur and
Vaharai to the Sri Lankan army. LTTE simply withdrew from
these places, without offering any resistance. However, they
defeated the Sri Lankan troops in the battle for Muhamalai.
The Tiger fighters also survived the military operation that
aimed at capturing the Elephant Pass base back.
The year 2006 produced a big loss to LTTE that was
impossible to replace. Anton Balasingham, the man who
drafted and shaped the political ideology of the rebel
movement and served as its political advisor, chief
negotiator and authenticated spokesperson, passed away
on 14th December 2006 in London.
In an interview he gave eight months before his death60,
Balasingham referred to a quote from Prabhakaran: ‘Rest
might be possible for us after our deaths.’ The man, who
endlessly articulated the plight of the Tamils and the
political ideologies of LTTE, finally rested. His death was
widely viewed as the death of possibilities for a peacefully
negotiated political settlement in the troubled island.
Prabhakaran honoured Balasingham with the title ‘Voice of
the Nation’.
On 9th July 2007, the Sri Lankan armed forces proclaimed
their complete control over the entire eastern region.
Karuna left Sri Lanka and took shelter in Britain. It later
came to light that the Sri Lankan Government had issued
him a forged passport in the name of Kokila Gunawardena
and sent him to London.
When the peace talks commenced between the Government
of Ranil Wickremasinghe and LTTE, the Tigers had the upper
hand. That was when the Government infiltrated the Tiger
camp and pulled Karuna out. Most parts of the eastern
sector went along with Karuna. After a while, when the Sri
Lankan Government took control of the Eastern Province,
Karuna was no longer needed and was hence sent to
London on 18th September 2007.
Karuna was arrested on 3rd November 2007 by the British
authorities for illegally entering the country on a forged
passport. He was an unwanted man until the second half of
2008, when the Rajapakse administration was in desperate
need for a Tamil speaking specialist to discredit Prabhakaran
and the authenticity of LTTE. So, Rajapakse appointed
Karuna as a Member of Parliament.
21. The end game
LTTE is the only armed revolution movement in the world
other than the PLO and the IRA, known to own and operate
legitimate cargo ships across the globe. However, LTTE went
one step further, when it shocked the world by unleashing
its own Air Force. The organisation took the distinction in
2007 by becoming the only armed rebel movement to own
all three forces: the Army, the Navy and the Air Force.
Colonel Shankar of LTTE is credited with building the Air
Force. He completed a diploma in aeronautical engineering
in 1975, from Chennai. He was one of the earliest members
to join the LTTE, when Prabhakaran was still building his
group. Later, Shankar went to Canada for higher studies in
aeronautical engineering. In 1985, he came back to join the
Tigers again.
It was Shankar who initially gave shape to the naval wing,
‘Sea Tigers.’ While travelling in the Oddusuddan area in
2001, Shankar was killed in a landmine attack carried out by
the Sri Lankan army, but not before he completed the
groundwork for the Air Force.
The Tigers seem to have bought aircraft from the Czech
Republic, dismantled them and transported components
thorough the sea route. They re-assembled the components
in the Vanni jungles. The Tigers reportedly used their aircraft
to sprinkle flowers over the cemeteries of LTTE fighters in
1998, when Shankar was still alive.
26th March 2007 was earmarked for the first air strike of the
Tigers. The Kattunayake Air Force base was fixed as the
target. The Tigers’ fighter plane flew over the heavily-
secured base, bombed it and returned safely without any
damage.
Air Tigers launched another air raid on 22nd October 2007.
The attack was codenamed ‘Operation Ellalan.’ Ellalan was a
Tamil king who ruled the entire island for 44 continuous
years during 205 BC - 161 BC. The Sinhala race that was
founded by an exiled prince, who arrived in the island in the
6th century BC, was at a nascent stage then.
On 22nd October 2007, the Air Tigers and the Black Tigers
initiated a coordinated attack on the Sri Lankan airbase in
Anuradhapura, a one-time capital of King Ellalan’s empire.
The Black Tigers stormed into the camp on the ground,
while the sky was taken care of by the Sea Tigers. The
Telegraph, published from Britain, reported that 18 aircrafts
that belonged to the Sri Lankan Air Force were destroyed.
The damage was estimated to be of around 7 billion rupees.
In this daring attack, 35 Sri Lankan soldiers were also killed.
The Black Tiger suicide squad members were killed in this
attack. Angry Sri Lankan troops undressed their dead
bodies, mutilated them further and took them in a
procession along the streets of Anuradhapura.
In between these two air attacks of Air Tigers, the Sri
Lankan Government accelerated the ethnic cleansing
process in Colombo by forcibly evacuating Tamil speaking
people from the capital. They were put into buses heading
to the north and the east. Even the Unites States,
historically known for its unconditional support to the
Sinhala Governments, did not fail to condemn this forced
eviction. Norway dubbed it condemnable.
LTTE that had lost Anton Balasingham earlier and had been
struggling to fill the vacuum created by his demise faced
another political setback in 2007. The Sri Lankan Air Force
bombed Thiruvaiyaru near Kilinochchi and killed S.P.
Thamilselvan and five others.
Thamilselvan joined LTTE in 1984 at the age of sixteen. His
nom de guerre was Dinesh. He was Prabhakaran’s personal
bodyguard for several years. During the conflict with IPKF,
he was the commander of Thenmarachy regions.
In 1991, after the withdrawal of IPKF, he rose to become the
overall commander of Jaffna district, a position earlier held
by Kittu. Thamilselvan was also awarded the title ‘Brigadier’
in the LTTE military and became the first LTTE man to
receive the honour.
SPT, as he was known, lost a leg during the conflict. In 1993,
when the political party headed by Mahattaya was dissolved
and a political wing was formed instead, Thamilselvan was
made in-charge of that division. After the death of
Balasingham, Thamilselvan was functioning as the face of
the Tigers to the International media.
With the targeted killing of Thamilselvan, who was heading
the LTTE delegation in the peace talks, the Sri Lankan
Government shut the final door for exploring a negotiated
political settlement for the ethnic conflict. His death came
as a severe blow to Prabhakaran, who was already missing
Balasingham to represent his movement in International
arena. The LTTE leader honoured Thamilselvan with the title,
‘the smile of the nation’.
After 25 years of struggle, endless loss of life, killings,
bombings - how do we evaluate LTTE and Prabhakaran?
Some people in India compare the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict
to the Kashmir problem in India. The comparision in flawed.
The Indian constitution has created a secular, nearly-federal
setup with clearly marked powers for the Central and State
governments. Kashmiri people can conduct their own affairs
within their state. Jammu and Kashmir has been granted
more rights than any other state in India. Kashmir is
governed by a State Government elected by the Kashmiri
people.
In Sri Lanka, it is entirely different. The constitution accords
superior status to Buddhism over other religious beliefs. The
constitution prevents non-Sinhalese, non-Buddhists from
becoming the President of the country. It is a unitary state
where the Sinhala majority suppress the Tamils.
The Tamils of Sri Lanka were not granted a regional
autonomy or any form federal structure with which they
could protect their land from forcible Sinhala colonisation.
The Tamils, after being repeatedly denied their basic rights
and demand for a federal system within a united country,
were finally forced to opt for separation.
Many armed groups sprung up with the objective of creating
an independent Tamil Eelam. Unfortunately, these groups
allowed the Indian and the Sri Lankan intelligence agencies
to manipulate them, and succumbed to various temptations.
Subsequently, they lost sight of Eelam, diluted their
objectives and pursued their personal interests. Such groups
either withered away themselves or were wiped out by LTTE.
Unlike other groups, LTTE and Prabhakaran did not deter
from the objective of an independent Tamil Eelam. The
Sinhalese never possessed the political maturity to concede
reasonable power and create an environment for peaceful
co-existence.
India has had a long history of standing by the oppressed
people. However, it is unwilling to support the legitimate
aspirations of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. India has consistently
suggested that a solution must be found within a united Sri
Lanka, and has vehemently opposed the formation of a new
nation.
An illogical augment is put forward that if Tamil Eelam is
created in Sri Lanka then the Indian state of Tamil Nadu will
also opt for separation. This argument is untenable. The
whole of India supported Indira Gandhi, when East Bengal
was separated from Pakistan and Bangladesh, a new nation
was created. No one argued then that the people in the
state of West Bengal will break away to form a separate
country or that they would merge with Bangladesh to form
‘Greater Bengal’.
Since 1983, the Sri Lankan navy has shot at Tamil Nadu
fishermen on nearly 250 occasions. Ironically, the Indian
media projects it as an attack on ‘Tamil Nadu’ fishermen
instead of looking at it as an attack on ‘Indian’ fishermen. It
appears that India is prepared to compromise on the
security of its own countrymen, in order to please the Sri
Lankan Government.
It is one thing for India to not support the cause of Eelam. It
is another thing that India has actively supplied arms and
other logistical assistance to the Sri Lankan army in its fight
against LTTE. Several political leaders from Tamil Nadu have
strongly condemned this. The Indian Government has never
answered these accusations honestly. Sri Lanka is treated as
a friend by India. But at the same time, Sri Lanka gets
military assistance from anti-Indian forces like Pakistan and
China. Indian geo-political interests will not suffer any
setback if a Tamil nation is created in Sri Lanka.
Some Indians ask another question. Let us assume that the
demand for a separate state and self determination by the
Tamils is legitimate. Why can’t they win independence by
peaceful means, as Mahatma Gandhi did for India? Why opt
for violence and killings?
The supporters of armed struggle have their answers. The
non-violent Satyagraha carried out by the Tamils under the
Gandhian leader Chelvanayagam was crushed by the
Sinhalese politicians. The agreements he made with the
Sinhalese leaders were never honoured. It was the military
power of LTTE, not their justifiable cause, which brought the
Sri Lankan Government to the negotiating table.
The self determination struggle of Tamils has been shifting
hands, from Chelvanayagam to Amirthalingam and then
from Amirthalingam to Prabhakaran. We may not like it, but
that is the fact. With the shifting of hands, the mode of
struggle also changed.
People say that Prabhakaran is not the only leader of the
Tamils. The Tamil National Alliance supported by
Prabhakaran won 22 seats in the parliamentary elections
held in 2004. That was more than the number of seats the
TULF won in 1978, but the opponents of the LTTE fail to
recognise that.
It was Jayewardene’s Government that sidelined the
moderate political force TULF and its leader Amirthalingam
to give legitimacy to the armed struggle. At a time when
LTTE was already proscribed, the Jayewardene regime
introduced the sixth amendment to the constitution that
debarred anyone demanding separatism.
Thus, democratic or non-violent means of fighting for
freedom from the Sinhalese was just not possible. The only
choice left to the Tamils at that time was an armed struggle.
In his Harijan magazine, Gandhi wrote on 2nd March 1940: ‘If
the capacity for non-violent self-defence is lacking, there
need be no hesitation in using violent means.’61
Whether a man is portrayed as a freedom fighter or a
terrorist purely depends on when, how and by whom he is
portrayed thus. It also depends on whether he wins or loses
at the end of his struggle. The United States that portrays
the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) as a terrorist
organisation, does not apply the same yardstick to the Irish
Republic Army (IRA). Considerable numbers of Irish votes in
the US determine this policy. Bagat Singh was a terrorist in
the eyes of the British Government. But to the Indians he
was a freedom fighter.
Till 1990, the US regarded Nelson Mandela – the legendary
leader of the African National Congress who fought for the
right of the Black people in South Africa – as a terrorist. He
was later awarded the Nobel Prize for peace.
While receiving the honorary citizenship in Canada, Nelson
Mandela said: ‘If the oppressor believes in negotiations, in
discussions, then the oppressed people will never take up
arms. But when the oppressor tightens the screws of
oppression and uses force to suppress the legitimate
aspirations of the oppressed, the lesson of history,
throughout the world, right down through the ages, is that
the oppressed will take up arms.’
The political advisor of the LTTE Balasingham, in his
interview to The Wall Street Journal in 1984 admitted, ‘Our
basic alliance is still with the PLO, we maintain active
contact with the other groups like the Zimbabwe African
People’s Union…and the African National Congress.’
LTTE is a proscribed organisation in India and in many
western countries. Earlier, even talking about LTTE in India
was considered a criminal offense. However, Nedumaran
successfully countered this when he was produced in the
special court under POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act), for
supporting the Tigers. He argued:
‘Everyone in India has the right to condemn the banning
and debate why the ban needs to be revoked. The RSS was
banned three times in India, first in 1948 after Mahatma
Gandhi’s assassination and finally in 1992 after the Babri
Masjid demolition. Leaders like former Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee and the BJP leader L.K. Advani mobilized
massive protests against the ban. But the same democratic
right is denied to us. The Government of India still holds
talks with militant groups from the Northeastern states,
such as Nagaland, Mizoram and Tripura, that are proscribed
by India.’
California lawmaker Karen Parker, a strong proponent
against banning LTTE, observed: ‘It is improper and
unwarranted to include the LTTE in the list of terrorist
organisations, because the terrorist groups do not wear
military uniform and fight their battles like a conventional
army. The Terrorist groups function secretively. More over
they don’t function as an organised military unit, but only
indulge in criminal activities.’
One of the criticisms leveled against Prabhakaran was that
he behaved like a dictator; he did not entertain alternate
points of view and that there was no internal democracy in
LTTE. Nor did he permit alternate political forces that
espouse the cause of the Tamils. Prabhakaran did not
entertain criticisms against his organisation and those who
have criticised him had been killed.
Prabhakaran was not running a political party. He could not
afford to sit around and arrive at a common consensus
before taking disciplinary actions. He was a military leader
and the organisation he commanded imposed a strong code
of conduct and punishment for non-compliance, just like a
traditional army. In fact, he has not done anything different
from what George Washington did to his dissidents and
traitors in the 18th century.
In fact, George Washington was criticized for being
autocratic like Prabhakaran in today’s age. Washington, who
won the freedom for the US from the British by means of an
armed struggle, was rebuked by Philadelphia Aurora: ‘If ever
a nation was debauched by a man, the American nation has
been debauched by Washington. If ever a nation was
deceived by a man, the American nation has been deceived
by Washington. Let it serve to be a warning that no man
may be an idol.’
Without such disciplinary codes and action, it would not
have been possible for Prabhakaran to convert LTTE into a
well-knit unit of highly motivated fighters and inculcate the
qualities of dedication, involvement and sacrifice for the
cause of Tamil Eelam.
Most importantly, Prabhakaran followed the same
disciplinary codes that were meant for other cadres.
Therefore, he could ably command others to be as
disciplined and involved in the struggle as he was. While
inducting a person into LTTE, he or she was made aware of
the strict rules they would be required to adhere to. They
knew what punishment awaited them if they breached the
norms. Men and women fought the Sinhalese soldiers
jointly, which would not have been possible without the
code of conduct and strict adherence to them.
It is not unusual for the dislocated communities from any
nation to support the armed revolution in their motherland.
Mohammad Younis, a Bangladeshi national who was
awarded the Nobel Prize for peace, worked for overthrowing
the West Pakistanis from his land, while he was living in the
US.
Financial contribution from the Sri Lankan Tamils living in
the western nations had been the backbone and primary
strength of LTTE. Journalists have observed that Tamil youth
in the Europe, Canada and the US wear T-shits printed with
Prabhakaran’s image. The man, despite being designated as
a terrorist, enjoys the image of a folk hero.
As a result of the exodus of Sri Lankan Tamils across the
globe, the fight for Tamil Eelam has spread across the world.
Some 700,000 Sri Lankan Tamils are estimated to be living
across 47 countries in Europe. One in every thousand
European is a Sri Lankan Tamil. The Canadian city of Toronto
can be called as ‘little Jaffna’.
Right after the departure of the IPKF from Sri Lankan, Jaffna
city had been the headquarters and the administrative
centre of LTTE from 1990 to 1995. In 1995, after Chandrika
Kumaratunga became the President, Jaffna was brought
under the control of the Sri Lankan army. At that time, close
to 500,000 civilians were displaced from the Vadamarachy
region, and the Tigers retreated to the Vanni jungles.
In April 2000, LTTE carried out an attack on the Elephant
Pass military complex and conquered it. The Tigers also
captured many areas in Thenmarachy and Vadamarachy.
Despite their cordoning off Jaffna city, Prabhakaran did not
order his forces to capture the city. LTTE had the upper hand
at that time. Barring Jaffna, most of the Tamil homeland
comprising the northern and the eastern regions were under
LTTE’s control.
From this position of strength, Prabhakaran extended a hand
of friendship by declaring unilateral ceasefire and positively
responding to the peace process initiated by Norway. Even
then, the Sri Lankan Government did not come forward to
consider a federal setup similar to that of India. It was
strongly inclined towards the military approach.
The Government adamantly refused to come to the
negotiating table until the Kattunayake airbase was
damaged by the Tigers in July 2001. Only then did the
Colombo administration consider participating in peace
talks, and also it was initiated by the newly elected Prime
Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe.
In February 2002, Prabhakaran had complete control over
‘Tamil Eelam’. He could have simply issued a ‘Declaration of
Independence’ at that time, but he did not do it. Instead, he
preferred a negotiated settlement. As a prelude to the final
political solution, LTTE proposed an interim administrative
structure in the north and the east with reasonable
devolution of power, and submitted the proposal to the Sri
Lankan Government in November 2002.
President Kumaratunga, who was against any form of
decentralisation of power, dismissed Ranil
Wickremasinghe’s UNP Government and dissolved the
Parliament in February 2003.
From 2000 to 2004, the military balance in Sri Lanka was in
favour of LTTE. At that time, the Tigers were running a de
facto Government. It was well governed and protected by
ground forces, Sea Tigers and at times Air Tigers. A judicial
system was put in place with a well dfarted set of laws. They
had a strong and working educational system. Baby
Subramaniam was in charge of the education in the Vanni
regions. They even had law colleges and medical colleges
functioning.
Unfortunately, that was also the period when the western
world in general and the United States in particular became
victims of terrorist attacks. The US and the world at large
categorised simple terror and ideologically motivated armed
revolutions under a flat connotation of ‘terrorism’.
This resulted in various western countries cracking down on
LTTE’s fund raising as well as procurement of arms. In
addition, the Sri Lankan Government started receiving
massive aid, meant primarily for the development of the
country. But the money was always pumped into
strengthening the military.
Also, during this period the eastern commander of LTTE,
Karuna, revolted against the northern leadership. This led to
the Tigers losing almost the entire eastern region. The
Tsunami too impacted LTTE immeasurably, while at the
same time, it helped the Sri Lankan administration with aid
that poured in from across the world. This money was also
diverted to strengthen the army.
During this period, the Sri Lankan army purchased
sophisticated weapons, radars and missiles from China,
Pakistan, Israel and India. In addition, it also received
logistical support and training from Indian and Pakistani. The
Indian Intelligence agency played its own role to weaken
LTTE.
The death of Anton Balasingham in 2006 and killing of S.P.
Thamilselvan in 2007 isolated the Tigers on the diplomatic
front. With them died the voices of Tamils in the media and
so did the hope of a political solution.
The war between LTTE and the Sri Lankan army escalated in
2008. LTTE’s administrative capital Kilinochchi fell into the
hands of Sri Lankan army. When 2009 started, the Tigers
and the people who lived with them from Vanni region were
confined to a tiny area of a few square likometres. Some
300,000 Tamil civilians faced extinction in the all-out war
aimed at eliminating LTTE. The Sri Lankan Government
proclaimed that the remaining population of Vanni would be
put into concentration camps once the war got over.
Will an independend for Tamil Eelam ever be achieved?
Unfortunately, the foreign policies of various countries in the
world are not anymore based on justice and impartiality
anymore. Every decision depends on their economic
interests. The international community is not well informed
about the self determination struggle of the Tamils in Sri
Lanka or the role played by LTTE in safeguarding the
interests of the Tamils in this island nation. The Sri Lankan
ethnic problem is not as near to the western countries as
that of Kosovo or Serbia.
It is highly unlikely that we will see a repetition of Kosovo in
Sri Lanka. The United Nations security forces carved out
Kosovo from Serbia. Kosovo at least was a self-governing
regional territory within Serbia, whereas in Sri Lanka the
Tamils have been denied the very basic demand for federal
structure that would have assured regional autonomy.
In the absence of strong international pressure, the
Sinhalese will not grant equal rights to the Tamils in Sri
Lanka. The international community will not recognise the
self determination struggle of Sri Lankan Tamil as long as
India remains unprepared to recognise it. In India, there is
no political unity amongst the Tamil political parties, and the
pro-Eelam parties have not succeeded in convincing the rest
of the country on the need to support the Eelam struggle.
When 2009 dawned, it appeared that there was very little
chance for LTTE to win freedom for the Tamils through an
armed revolution. Many military observers foresaw an end
to LTTE and Prabhakaran in the near future. The
organisation, without any international voice or support and
with a stiff opposition from several powerful people in India,
was at a historical juncture. Never before in the past 25
years had the Tigers been so weak and the Government
troops been so strong and brutal.
Rajapakse firmly believed that he could completely
eradicate the Tigers on the war front. The Sri Lankan armed
forces waged a brutal and inhuman war in which innocent
civilians were summarily killed. The Sri Lankan propaganda
machinery portrayed the war as if it was only directed
towards LTTE.
22. Silencing the guns
LTTE was squeezed to a narrow strip in Mullaitivu district.
With the Tigers, nearly 250,000 civilians had taken shelter.
They were unwilling to come out to the Government
controlled areas. As a result, hundreds of people are killed
everyday in aerial bombing.
I met a young man, a formed journalist from Vanni at a
Bloggers meet in Chennai, in February 2009. His family was
scattered across various continents. His sister lived in
Europe; he lived in Chennai, while his brother and mother
were in the war zone.
He opined, ‘Unless some thing magical happened within a
few days and the war was stopped, all the 250,000 -
300,000 people would die, not only because it was raining
shells but also due to panic and starvation.’
Due to international pressure, the Sri Lankan Government
announced a ceasefire for 48 hours during the Tamil and
Sinhala New Year’s Day on 14th April 2009. Immediately
after, the shelling and the killings continued.
According to the young man I was talking to, the people
were unwilling to come out of the LTTE-controlled area as
they feared torture, rape and death in the hands of the
Government forces. He also stated that Vanni people in the
refugee camps of the ‘liberated’ territory are subject to
unimaginable torture.
The pro-Government media speculated that Prabhakaran
had fled to some South East Asian country. But his
supporters claimed that he was very much in Vanni, Tamil
Eelam.
Sri Lanka impressed upon India that if Prabhakaran was
caught alive, he would be sent to India to stand trial in Rajiv
Gandhi murder case. Prabhakaran’s supporters, however,
said that Prabhakaran would never be caught alive. Even
during the war with IPKF, he was said to have carried a can
of kerosene with him and had instructed his aides to kill and
consign his body to flames if the enemy came anywhere
close to him.
The raging Sri Lankan war disturbed several young men in
Tamil Nadu. 16 young men killed themselves by self-
immolation, urging the Indian Government to intervene and
stop the war and the genocide in Sri Lanka. It all started
with Muthukumar, a journalist in a Tamil monthly magazine.
He was keenly observing the political games being played in
Tamil Nadu by various political parties on the Sri Lankan
issue. On 29th January 2009, he went to Sastri Bhavan, a
building that houses various Central Government offices in
Chennai and distributed copies of a long statement he had
typed and photocopied. Then he doused himself with
kerosene and set himself a fire. Within minutes, he was
charred to dead. His letter was extremely critical of the New
Delhi administration and the Tamil Nadu chief minister M.
Karunanithi.
An estimated 50,000 people participated in Muthukumar’s
funeral procession. Students from school and college
spontaneously reacted by refusing to go to schools and
colleges. Lawyers in Tamil Nadu boycotted the courts for
days. Fearing a major fall out, the Tamil Nadu Government
ordered all closure of the colleges indefinitely, something
that Tamil Nadu had not witnessed for decades.
However, the exams intervened, lawyers turned unruly,
police attacked lawyers and the lawyers’ struggle took a
different direction, and the whole movement dissipated
without a coordinated action.
The purpose of Muthukumar’s self immolation was not
accomplished, and the war went on unabated in Sri Lanka.
No one is immortal and Prabhakaran is not an exception. As
a man who took up a gun to fight the oppressive Sinhalese
Government, he was not averse to death. In the past he had
been ‘killed’ by the media more than once. But when he was
reported dead by the Sri Lankan Government in late May
2009, it seemed too real to ignore.
Notwithstanding severe international condemnation out
civilian casualties, cry for a ceasefire and numerous
demonstrations by the Tamil community in the western
countries and India, President Rajapakse was obstinate. It
was obvious that the Government of India provided military,
logistical and intelligence assistance to the Sri Lankan
troops in the war supposedly aimed at LTTE.
While every voice in the world right from the White House in
Washington to the African National Congress called for a
ceasefire, India did not. It was widely believed that India
was blessing the war to get rid of Prabhakaran at any cost.
After all, Sonia Gandhi has reasons to avenge Prabhakaran.
85-year old Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi had to
make several volte-face statements during the run up to the
parliamentary elections in India held in April-May 2009. His
State Government depended on the support provided by 34
Congress MLAs. So he did everything in his powers to divert
‘Stop the War’ agitations.
Yet, mounting public opinion made him change his stance
briefly. In an interview to an English News channel, he said,
‘I don’t see him [Prabhakaran] that way [as a terrorist].
Prabhakaran is my friend and I am not a terrorist.’ The
remark caused a flutter. The very next day Karunanidhi
denied what he said the previous day.
On 27th April 2009, he made a dramatic political stunt when
he announced an indefinite hunger strike till the war and
killing of Tamils was stopped. He asserted, ‘Let me be one of
his [Rajapakse’s] victims.’ His highly calculated indefinite
fasting lasted between breakfast and lunch.
He called off the fast around noon claiming that he received
information from the Government of India that Sri Lanka had
agreed to stop the hostilities. It was proven wrong within no
time when Sri Lankan denied any such announcement.
Unabated war, in the name of ‘War against Terrorism’ and
‘Liberating’ northern region from th clutches of terrorism,
went on.
Nonetheless, his fasting stunt helped him and his ally
Congress party in the polls. Both the parties assured that
the Sri Lankan army would no longer deploy heavy weapons
against the Tamil civilians. But the Sri Lankan army
continued to kill the hapless Tamil civilians.
Keeping polls in mind, the intensity of the Sri Lanka armed
troops’ attack was allegedly reduced till 13th May, the day
Tamil Nadu went to polls. After all Rajapakse could not afford
to see the defeat of Congress in the polls.
Given this background, total annihilation of the people
inside the LTTE cotrolled area, which had reduced to a
narrow strip of area in Mullaithivu district, was imminent
after 13th May. The Government troops stepped up the
offensive when polling was completed in Tamil Nadu.
With no international or independent media allowed at the
war zone, Sri Lanka staged what could have easily been the
most barbaric attack in the comtemporary times. It is
alleged that the Sri Lankan army was even using bombs
made of white phosphorus, a banned weapon.
Not less than 25,000 innocent civilians were believed to be
killed by the Sri Lankan troops within a span of 4-5 days.
Double the numbers were wounded without any medical
facility. It later came to light that more than 150,000 people
were permanently missing after the final phase of war.
People died for want of medicine and food. Even the
temporary hospitals were not spared from the indiscriminate
shelling.
On 17th May 2009, Kumaran (‘Selvarasa’) Pathmanathan, the
head of LTTE’s International Diplomatic Relations had issued
a statement: ‘Dispite our plea to the world to save
thousands of people in Vanni from the clutches of death, the
silence of the international community has only encouraged
the Sri Lankan military to execute the war to its bitter end.
In the past 24 hours, over 3,000 civilians lie dead on the
streets while another 25,000 are critically injured with no
medical attention. To save the lives of our people is the
need of the hour. Miful of this, we have already announced
to the world our position to silence our guns to save our
people.’
The game was nearly over for Prabhakaran. Yet, he and his
senior commanders were believed to be in the war field.
Speculations and predictions about his possible death did
rounds in both print and electronic media.
On 18th May 2009, military sources claimed to have killed
Prabhakaran while he was fleeing the war zone in an
ambulance with his trusted aides. The version put out by
the Sri Lankan Government goes like this: ‘Armed forces
surrounded Prabhakaran and 300 other Tigers in an area
called Mullivaykkal. An intense fighting erupted during
which around 100 Black Tigers infiltrated into the armed
forces. During this interval, Prabhakaran attempted to
escape in an ambulance, but was gunned down.’ Military
spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara narrated this
version of the story.
Prabhakaran’s death was reported immediately after the
soldiers finding his son’s corpse. Television channels began
beaming the images of Charles Athony’s body in military
uniform.
LTTE sources refuted the claim on their leader’s life. In
Chennai, Nedumaran issued a statement that Prabhakaran
was safe and healthy. As if to counter these assertions and
present significant evidence, Sri Lanka brought up
something dramatic the next day.
President Rajapakse boasted that every inch of the island
was under government control and the Tamil people had
been liberated from the clutches of the terrorists. ‘What we
need from the international community is not advice, but
material help to crry out our reconstruction effort,’ the
President said.
A second version of the story started when the President
had finished his speech. Sri Lanka state-owned TV beamed
the pictures of the dead body of Prabhakaran on 19 May
afternoon. According to the Government sources, the troops
found his bullet-ridden corpse on the bank of Nanthikadal
lagoon. He was wearing his combate fatigues and his
laminated Tamil Tiger ID card was also on display.
There was no logic why the most hunted man in Sri Lanka
would dress in army camouflage and carry his ID card with
him. This announcement also contradicted the previous
official claim that Prabhakaran;s badly burnt body had been
discovered the previous day.
The face of Prabhakaran’s body displayed on the state-
owned television looked much younger. There were no
wrinkles on his face. It also did not look like a bloated body.
However, the Government had it identified by Karuna, who
was now a Minister in Mahinda Rajapakse’s cabinet.
What was proclaimed as Prabhakaran’s dead body was not
displayed to independent media or even the local Sinhala
media. Rebels’ international spokesperson Kumaran
Pathmanathan continued to maintain, ‘Our beloved leader
Velupillai Prabhakaran is alive and safe. He will continue to
lead the quest for dignity and freedom for the Tamil people.’
A Tamil website (www.tamilwin.com) quoting LTTE sources
offered an alternative point of view. As per this account, the
Tigers had planned a fierce ambush on the Sinhala military
and make way for an escape on 16th May, the day when
votes were counted in India. Fearing that the election results
would go the Congress way, they were preparing to escape.
In the ambush more than 100 Sinhala troops were killed. On
the Tigers’ side, senior commander Col. Sornam was killed
and the effort to breach the security forces was given up.
The next day, 17th May 2009, senior commenders of LTTE
requested Prabhakaran to escape from the war zone. Unless
he escaped, it would not be possible to take their struggle to
the next stage.
Prabhakaran, however, did not buy this suggestion. He
disputed that the struggle was for the Eelam soil and he
could not leave his people. He would fight till his death.
After a prolonged persuasion, commanders succeeded in
convincing him. Prabhakaran’s son Charles Anthony was
assigned to lead the Tigers in the war field and continue the
military operations.
Subsequently, they put their plan into action. More than 60
Black Tigers, carrying explosives to the tune of 3,000 kgs
around their bodies, in terms of two or three carried out
swift suicide attacks on the advancing armed troops. Other
LTTE fighters opened fire at the government troops, which
retreated due to the sudden and unexpected attack.
Armed troops’ security was thus breached. Prabhakaran and
his top commanders capitalised on this to make a gateway.
The Tigers took them to a fort built during the Portuguse
rule. A safe underground route led to seashore, where a
speedboat awaited Prabhakaran.
In subsequent operations, intelligence wing chief Pottu
Amman and see Tigers commender Soosai alias
Thillaiyampalam Sivanesan escaped. Charles Anthony led
the brave operation to free Pottu Amman, but was killed
subsequently.
Prabhakaran, Pottu Amman, Soosai fled Sri Lankan waters in
separate speedboats one after the other, eastwards. These
successful operations, according to LTTE sources, were
carried out on 17th May 2009.
Sri Lankan troops, probably not aware of these escapes,
launched a huge attack the next day and reported that
Prabhakaran was killed while fleeing the combat zone in an
ambulance.
Interesting and conflicting versions indeed!
If Prabhakaran was not killed, why would the Government
propagate misinformation?
Barbaric atrocities during the war and appalling conditions
of civilians in the rehabilitation centres surrounded by
electrified fences could be diverted with the news about
Prabhakaran’s death. All of a sudden, the focus shifted to
Prabhakaran’s demise from humanitarian needs.
With the news about the killing of the LTTE leader, the Sri
Lankan Government could also demoralise Sri Lankan Tamils
across the globe.
Moreover the government could do away with the ‘myth’
that Prabhakaran could neither be caught alive or dead. The
rebel leader had earlier vowed that not even the ashes of
his remains would be availale if he died.
On 19th May 2009, the Sri Lankan government proved the
‘myth’ wrong. It will remain that way unless Prabhakaran
mysteriously reappears before the world again.
Otherwise, Prabhakaran will remain dead.
After all, he, like any other man, is not immortal – but his
legacy will be.
Chronology
 
Year/Date Event
1505 Portuguese enter southern Sri Lanka
1619 Jaffna Kingdom falls to Portuguese
1656 Dutch rule begins
1796 British rule
04 Feb 1948 Ceylone granted Independence from
British rule
15 Nov 1948 Hill country Tamils deprived of citizenship
18 Dec 1949 Federal Party founded by Chelvanayagam
02 Sep 1951 Sri Lanka Freedom Party founded by
Solomon Bandaranaike
26 Nov 1954 Prabhakaran’s birth
26 Jul 1957 Chelvanayagam – Bandaranaike pact
26 May 1958 Riots against Tamils begin
25 Sep 1959 Solomon Bandaranaike killed by a Buddist
monk
01 Jan 1961 Sinhala Only Act enforced by Srimavo
Bandaranaike
14 Apr 1961 Chelvanayagam launches Tamil Postal
Service
24 Mar 1965 Chelvanayagam – Dudley Senanayake
pact
13 Jun 1970 Sivakumaran bombs Somaweera
Chandrasiri’s car
11 Mar 1971 Sivakumaran throws a hand grenade on
Alfred Duraiappah’s car
13 Mar 1971 JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera arrested
04 Apr 1971 JVP’s unsuccessful armed revolt
16 Decr 1971 Creation of Bangladesh
14 May 1972 Tamil United Front (TUF) formed
22 May 1972 New constitution comes into effect
05 Jun 1974 Sivakumaran swallows cyanide
27 Jul 1975 Jaffna mayor Alfred Duraiappah killed by
Prabhakaran
05 May 1976 TNT renamed as LTTE
27 Apr 1977 Chelvanayagam passes away
14 Aug 1977 Police violence in Jaffna begins
27 Jan 1978 Canagaratnam shot by Prabhakaran &
Uma Maheswaran in Colombo
04 Feb 1978 Jeyewadene becomes first executive
president of Sri Lanka
07 Sep 1978 AVRO aircraft blast by LTTE
01 Jun 1981 Burning of Jaffna library
20 Oct 1982 Jeyewadene re-elected as President
24 Jul 1983 Black July riots against Tamils in Colombo
04 Aug 1984 The First Eelam War begins
01 Oct 1984 Prabhakaran marries Mathivathani
31 Oct 1984 Indira Gandhi assassinated by her Sikh
bodyguards
08 Jul 1985 Thimpu peace talks begin
06 May 1986 Sri Sabaratnam killed and TELO wiped out
31 May 1987 Bomb attack on Kittu. He loses a leg
29 Jul 1987 Indo - Sri Lankan Agreement signed by
Rajiv Gandhi and Jeyewardene
26 Sep 1987 Thileepan dies after 11 day log fast
02 Oct 1987 Sri Lankan Navy captures LTTE cadres,
violating Indo - Sri Lankan Agreement
10 Oct 1987 IPKF dragged into
25 Oct 1987 Jaffna brought under IPKF control
16 Feb 1988 Vijaya Kumaratunga killed
02 Jan 1989 Ranasinghe Premadasa becomes the
President of Sri Lanka
12 Apr 1989 Premadasa announces unilateral ceasefire
between the Sri Lankan armed forces and
LTTE
13 Jul 1989 Amirthalingam and Yogeswaran of TULF
killed
16 Jul 1989 Uma Maheswaran killed in Colombo
27 Nov 1989 First Heroes’ day observed
02 Dec 1989 VP Singh becomes Indian Prime Minister
23 Mar 1990 IPKF fully withdrawn
19 Jun 1990 Pathmanabah and other EPRLF leaders
murdered in Chennai
10 Nov 1990 Chandrasekhar becomes Indian Prime
Minister
30 Jan 1991 DMK government was dismissed in Tamil
Nadu
2 Mar 1991 Ranjan Wijeratne killed in Colombo
21 May 1991 Rajiv Gandhi assassinated
13 Jan 1993 Kittu kills himself in the ship MV Ahat,
when surrounded by Indian Navy in
international waters
23 Apr 1993 Lalith Athulathmuthali shot dead at an
election meeting
01 May 1993 Ranasinghe Premadasa killed by a human
bomb
19 Aug 1994 Chandrika Kumaratunga becomes the
Prime Minister
23 Oct 1994 Gamini Dissanayake killed by a suicide
bomber
12 Nov 1994 Chandrika Kumaratunga becomes the
President
28 Decr 1994 Mahattaya executed
05 Jan 1995 Peace accord signed by Prabhakaran and
Chandrika Kumaratunga
18 Dec 1999 Assassination attempt on Chandrika
Kumaratunga
21 Dec 1999 Chandrika Kumaratunga wins a second
term in the presidential election
24 Jul 2001 LTTE attacks Katunayake airbase and
Bandaranaike International Airport
09 Dec 2001 Ranil Wickremasinghe becomes the Prime
Minister
22 Feb 2002 Prabhakaran signs ceasefire agreement
with Ranil Wickremasinghe
07 Feb 2004 Chandrika Kumaratunga dissolves the
Parliament
03 Mar 2004 Karuna revolts against LTTE leadership
06 Mar 2004 Karuna expelled from LTTE
26 Dec 2004 Tsunami devastates Sri Lanka, killing
20,000 Tamils and 5,000 Sinhalese
12 Aug 2005 Lakshman Kadirgamar murdered
19 Nov 2005 Mahinda Rajapakse becomes the
President
24 Apr 20006 Failed assassination attempt on Sri Lankan
army Chief Sarath Fonseka
16 Aug 2006 Sencholai aerial bombing
14 Dec 2006 Anton Balasingham passes away in
London
26 Mar 2007 LTTE’s first ever air strike on Kattunayake
Air Force base
09 Jul 2007 Sri Lankan armed forces claim complete
control over the eastern region
02 Nov 20007 SP Tamilselvan killed by Sri Lankan
airforce bombing
02 Jan 2009 LTTE administrative capital Kilinochchi
 captured by Sri Lankan armed forces
29 Jan 2009 Muthukumar’s self immolation at Sastri
Bhavan, Chennai
16 or 17 May Reported killing of Prabhakaran and
2009 complete defeat of LTTE
 
End Notes
 
1 N.Ram, The Hindu, Chennai, 4 September, 5 September
1986
2 Anita Pratap, Sunday nagazine, 11-17 March 1984
3 V Navaratnam, The Fall and Rise of the Tamil Nation 4-5
T.Sabaratnam, Velupillai Pirabaharan 6-7 K.T.Rajasingham,
Sri Lanka: The Untold Story 8 ‘How I Becamse a Freedom
Fighter’, Velicham
(http://www.tamilnation.org/ltte/vp/interviews/94celicham.ht
m) 9 T.Sabaratnam, Velupillai Pirabaharan 10 Sachi Sri
Kantha, Venugopal Master: 60th Birthday Tribute, 29 March
2004 (http://www.tamilnation.org/ltte/04venugopal.htm) 11-
12 T.Sabaratnam, Velupillai Pirabaharan 13 N.Ram, The
Hindu, Chennai, 4 September, 5 September 1986
14 T.Sabaratnam, Velupillai Pirabaharan 15 N.Ram, The
Hindu, Chennai, 4 September, 5 September 1986
16 T.Sabaratnam, Velupillai Pirabaharan 17 Anita Pratap,
Sunday nagazine, 11-17 March 1984
18 Adele Balasingham, Will to Freedom 19 ‘Colombo’s
Crisis’, The Times, 29 July 1983
20 Anita Pratap, Island of Blood 21 T.Sabaratnam, Velupillai
Pirabaharan 22 Adele Balasingham, Will to Freedom 23
S.Pushparajah, Eela Porattaththil Enathu Saatchiyam 24
Anita Pratap, Island of Blood 25 Time, Asian Edition, 3 April
1989
26 JN Dixit, Assignment Colombo 27 Anton Balasingham,
War and Peace 28 Adele Balasingham, Will to Freedom 29 JN
Dixit, Assignment Colombo 30-33 Anton Balasingham, War
and Peace 34-35 JN Dixit, Assignment Colombo 36-37
Harikirat Singh, Intervention in Sri Lanka – the IPKF
Experience Retold 38 Anton Balasingham, War and Peace
39-40 Harikirat Singh, Intervention in Sri Lanka – the IPKF
Experience Retold 41 Ross H. Munro, ‘India Steps into a
Quagmire’, Time, 9 November 1987
42 Lalith Athulathmudali, 87th Mahapola held at the Sinhala
Vidyalaya, Kahatagasdigliya on 27 May 1984
43 President Jayawardene, Interview with Mervyn de Silva,
Lanka Gaurdian, 15 July 1990
44 Nedumaran’s interview in Dinamani dated 26 August
2007
45 Interview to IndiaToday.com, May 2000
46-49 Anton Balasingham, War and Peace 50 Marguerite
Johnson, Time, 16 January 1989
51 Rohan Gunaratna, Indian Intervention in Sri Lanka & the
Role of Indian Intelligence Agencies 52 1989 Heroes’ day
speech by Prabhakaran 53 Rohan Gunaratna, Indian
Intervention in Sri Lanka & the Role of Indian Intelligence
Agencies 54-55 Julius West, ‘Passage to Jaffna’, Asiaweek, 8
March 1991
56 Sarath Munasinghe, A Soldier’s Version 57 Adele
Balasingham, Will to Freedom 58 Quoted by Diego
Gambetta, Making Sense of Suicide Missions 59 Anton
Balasingham, War and Peace 60 Anton Balasingham’s
interview in Ananda Vikatan, April 2006
61 Mhatma Gandhi, ‘Suggestion to Manoranjan Babu and
other friends from Noakali, regarding the difficult situation
faced there by the Hindus’, Harijan, 2 March 1940
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