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by Hemantha Warnakulasuriya

The LTTE sponsored Tamil propaganda net describes the ethnic war variously as a holocaust, an ethnic cleansing or a Tamil pogrom. The Sri Lankan Government could not match the propaganda machine of the LTTE in any of its aspects. It is said that personnel sympathetic towards the LTTE cause controlled certain Sri Lankan Missions.

These personnel aggravated the issue by even tacitly supporting the LTTE.

Following the 1983 riots our nation with its proud 2500 years of civilisation and culture was reduced to devastation by barbaric hordes. It was a veritable mission impossible to correct the resultant wrong impression in the eyes of the Westerners.

It is possible that most young people may not even remember the Kent and Dollar Farm massacres.

The Government and certain of its agencies prompted Southerners to the Eastern Province and make their living in very hostile conditions in the Eastern Province as a bulwark against the Tamil homeland ideology. It was the custom of fishermen from Tangalle, Devundara, Gandara and Kottegoda to do their seasonal fishing in these areas.

One particular night the LTTE attacked these defenceless fishermen and killed them by having them cut with machetes, swords and knives. Prabhakaran had given orders not to utilise precious bullets to accomplish this horrendous task. Infants being nursed by their mothers were snatched and dashed on the ground. The whole carnage was videographed by the LTTE who were in LTTE guerilla uniform. Western diplomats and other funding agents were shown footage of this carnage as being atrocities committed by the Sri Lanka Army.

Though Sri Lankan foreign missions in important citadels knew about this video footage no one dared contradict it. Similarly the LTTE travelled up to Anuradhapura and shot at pilgrims who were observing Sil at the Sri Maha Bodhi. They were killed like flies. The Tigers who pulled the triggers showed no compassion or feeling. It was just mechanical. The macabre orgy is something that did not affect their raw mentality. When after accomplishing their mission they went to the heart of Anuradhapura and sprayed bullets on the backside of the majestic lion image and proceeded towards Wilpattuwa in the same vehicle.

No one in the Police dared confront the attackers. Some of the police officers got into their vehicles and sped towards Tissawewa and got themselves submerged in the waters of the tank for several hours in fear. The terrorists, then escaped through the jungles of Wilpattuwa without even a scratch. Similarly the merciless killing of Samanera bhikkhus at Arantalawa portrayed in no uncertain manner the bloody orgy and the spectacle of violence that the LTTE had indulged in, in the name of Eelam.

Tamil rivalry

We in the south tend to forget that the LTTE had indulged in similar blood curdling orgies in the North, in their so-called homeland. Prabhakaran and Sri Sabaratnam were then the leaders of the LTTE and TELO respectively. Prabhakaran, on the LTTE cadres disowning him joined up with the TELO and was with them for few months. TELO incidentally was the only other group that could equal the firepower the LTTE enjoyed.

According to Narayan Swamy this was "mainly due to the head start it had enjoyed with New Delhi's generosity". It must also not be forgotten that the TELO was the first group to receive military training in India and participated in few significant guerrilla strikes which had an enormous impact in the South. The Indians, had then readily supported TELO with money and training and large numbers of guerrillas joined the TELO.

TELO gave freedom to its members to act without the orders of their superiors as long as their actions did not impair their image among the Tamil people. Sri Sabaratnam who was also known as Tall Sri was however less recognised and respected as was Prabhakaran, Narayan Swamy in his book 'Inside an Elusive Mind' makes this startling revelation. The reason he gives is that "Sri Sabaratnam did not have the charisma or the killer instinct of Prabhakaran."

It is important for us to understand this aspect of the struggle within the Tamil guerrilla movement. The killer instinct of Prabhakaran is something he had developed over a long period of time.

Men are not born killers. It is the mind-set which goes on with complicated complex signals which make the grey matter in the cranium oblivious to emotion and other mundane feelings that human beings are normally endowed with. Not only was Prabhakaran a killer machine, his killer instinct was instilled in the minds of each guerrilla who trained under his leadership. Killing and being killed for the supreme cause of Eelam was to be brain-washed and instilled sans any obstruction. The massacre of the TELO was a classic case of this methodology and the mind-set of Prabhakaran.

Opportunity

Prabhakaran waits for an opportunity to strike and the opportunity is always invariably provided by his opponents.

Therefore the brutality with which he kills his opponents could be justified once the initial opportunity has been granted by the opponent. Not only racist, and the myopic jingoists of the South who create and carve an opportunity but also those who are in the North opposed to the carnage of fellow Tamils are those who create such opportunities.

Lingam was one of the trusted bodyguards of Prabhakaran sent to TELO camp to settle a dispute but Sri Sabaratnam created the long awaited rare opportunity for Prabhakaran to strike. Sri Sabaratnam killed Lingam that everyone thought was a personal affront to Prabhakaran. He set in motion a wave of brutal violent acts that by far surpassed the brutality that the LTTE displayed in the killing of civilians in the Kent and Dollar Farms and at Anuradhapura and Arantalawa.

This is the manner in which Narayan Swamy describes the blood curdling massacre of the TELO after Lingam was killed. According to him "even though two Indian Ministers flew into Colombo to negotiate a possible settlement to the ethnic conflict, Prabhakaran reacted with a rampaging ruthlessness that was to have increasingly become his trade mark. Beginning at 11 a.m. hundreds of LTTE cadres launched a massive and meticulous attack on TELO military camps all over Sri Lanka's north, taking its armed and unarmed cadres by total surprise.

In Jaffna alone, a simultaneous attack was launched on 24 TELO camps.

Prabhakaran ordered his men to take on the EPRLF and PLOT as well in case they intervened but they did not do so. The Tigers showed no mercy as they went about mowing down TELO guerrillas across the Jaffna peninsula. The TELO bases were shelled with mortars and rocket propelled grenades.

About 25 TELO members came under fire while having lunch. Twelve others recuperating in a camp were cut down mercilessly in their beds. Four TELO militants were escorting a Swedish and a German journalist in Jaffna when the Tigers ambushed them. Three of them died while the fourth fled for his life.

The journalist had a hairbreadth escape. The brutality of the security forces was something the residents has come to live with but this was entirely new: Tamils slaughtering Tamils. Some people in Jaffna, having borne the brunt of TELO's highhandedness, were seemingly happy that it was being taught a lesson, even by going to the extent of serving soda and drinks to the killers.

The majority of Tamils, though, were shocked and protested against the senseless killings. The Tigers would have none of it, sternly warning people against helping or harbouring TELO escapees.

The most sensational was the killing of Sri Sabaratnam, leader of TELO. Sabaratnam and Prabhakaran were friends and had a close relationship while in Chennai. They even partook of meals together. But yet, Prabhakaran had no feeling for anyone who he thought was a challenge to his leadership. The killing of the TELO was no different to the killing of Jews by the Germans.

There was indeed a holocaust and pogrom of the Tamils by the LTTE leader Prabhakaran. He believed that the best message that could be instilled in the minds of the people of Jaffna who still were essentially conservative, orthodox, caste-conscious and deeply religious and who had, like in any other political set up, different views and different affiliations to that of the LTTE, was by ruthlessly killing them. This forced the conservative Tamils to turn around and fall in line with the thinking of Prabhakaran.

Indisciplined

Sri Sabaratnam's TELO was a terrorist group backed by the Indian Army but was like any other ragtag band of terrorists - an indisciplined lot. They had clearly one major fault. They would indulge in looting and robbing of Tamil civilians thereby earning their wrath.

They often forget the dictum that a guerrilla force cannot exist without the support of the people. But yet the Jaffna Tamils were shocked beyond belief that the LTTE could kill the TELO cadres mercilessly. They virtually mowed them down even causing people of Jaffna to be hospitalized for effects of mental trauma. But that did not prevent the LTTE to win the battle.

It eliminated one of the most powerful groups who would have eventually challenged Prabhakaran's leadership. Sri Sabaratnam was hiding at a base called Kalviyangadu. He begged EPRLF leader Pathmanabha to rescue him.

When he appealed to the EPRLF and through them the RAW officials and the Indian camp, the Indian Government failed to respond. Sri Sabaratnam took shelter in Kondavil. The EPRLF, RAW and TELO finally decided on a grand escape route that would prevent the LTTE from tracking him down.

He was to be transported to India in a motor boat and was to be taken to the boat by a truck laden with tobacco leaves, but the LTTE tracked Sabaratnam. When Sabaratnam prayed, begged and worshipped his captors to rescue him and that he will speak to Prabhakaran to bring together the two guerrilla factions, Kittu had no compunction to shoot him and spray him with bullets and like a proud hunter. Sri Sabaratnam's body with 28 bullet wounds was displayed at the Jaffna bus stand.

Deadly past

The killings in such dastardly, blood-curdling fashion has not prevented other Tamil parties to accept the LTTE as the only spokesman for the Tamils in the North. A killer with an atrocious past would never accept a negotiated settlement. His deadly past will never permit him to come out of hiding.

An Indian court has issued an open warrant for his arrest and send him to jail for the murder of their Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran had a dream of becoming the leader of a unified Tamil nation on the death of Prabhakaran. His protege, Jayalalitha however demanded the arrest of Tamil Nadu politicians who are sympathetic towards Prahbakaran.

The mission of Prabhakaran is to have a fascist state in the name of Eelam under his command and rule like a war-lord without coming out of hiding. But certain unexpected world events made him change his plans. He knows the change as being temporary and that the world may again become sympathetic towards Prabhakaran. The one way of changing world opinion is to have an uncompromising Sinhala state that would usher in Sinhala hegemony over the just demands of the Tamil people.

Already the South is geared to expect a situation where they would again repeat the glorious incidents of the past so that Prabhakaran may retaliate with his killing instincts and the war machine. It is my view that Prabhakaran's demands contained in the counter proposals are unjust and they should be studied in order to seek whether they are acceptable in any settlement.

The proposals for an Interim Administration and the demands contained therein are a sham. It is for the South to totally reject them. The LTTE had finally decided to hand over to the Government its proposals for an Interim Administration. When the discussions begin it is likely unruly elements may scuttle any peaceful negotiated settlement. We will then be playing right into the hands of Prabhakaran to start his war machine!

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