Jaffna Diary - B. Muralidhar Reddy - Frontline
On a guided tour
Jaffna town and peninsula, now home to 608,000 people as per official
figures, was re-captured by the Sri Lankan military from the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 1995.
For an outsider on a military-guided tour - there is no other way to
get there - it looks as if the Tigers, barring an estimated 1,500 of
them clinging on to the thinning forward defence lines (FDLs) along the
neck-shaped link to Kilinochchi, were driven out just a few weeks ago.
The 1,025-square kilometre marshy land pulsates with the frenzied
activity of military tanks, trucks and soldiers day and night. The
40,000-odd security personnel deployed in the peninsula have to counter
potential threats from the Tigers and also cater to every imaginable
need of the large population.
Jaffna peninsula is virtually a cage for both the local population
and the military personnel. After the August 2006 closure of the only
highway (A-9) linking the peninsula to the rest of the island, air and
sea routes have been the only way in and out of the region. The journey
to Jaffna is an ordeal few can endure.
A group of 40 Colombo-based journalists, including this correspondent
and the Press Trust of India staffer, who went on a three-day trip to
the region from April 5 to 7 on a special invitation from the Sri Lankan
Defence Ministry had a first-hand experience of the myriad rules and
mandatory dos and donts.
Travel of foreign journalists to the peninsula requires prior
approval from the Defence Ministry. Advance clearance to all 'media
equipment' (including laptops) is a must. We assembled at the Media
Centre for National Security (MCNS) in the heart of Colombo at 3:45 a.m.
to board a special AN-32 Air Force plane from the Ratmalana airport, on
the outskirts of the national capital, at 7 a.m. We were transported by
bus to the airport.
We passed through five layers of security and thorough frisking
before boarding the plane. Securing a seat on the flight from Ratmalana
or the ship that ferries passengers from Trincomalee in the east to
Jaffna is no easy task.
On record, Expo Airlines operates three flights a day with a capacity
of 120 passengers and the fare one way is Sri Lankan Rs.10,000 (one U.S.
dollar is Sri Lankan Rs.107). In addition, Aero Air flies twice a day to
Jaffna.
Green Ocean, a passenger ship with 400 seats, operates from
Kankesanturai (KKS) to Trincomalee every second day and charges Rs.3,000
per head. While the flying time is about an hour, the ship takes over 12
hours.
It takes about 72 hours for a ship to travel from Colombo to KKS
since it has to take a circuitous route in view of the perceived threats
from the Sea Tigers, the LTTE's naval unit. Needless to say, the
operation of the flights and the ships is subject to the prevailing
security environment on any given day.
Palaly
Our plane touched down at the Palaly airport at 8 a.m. The military
had made arrangements for our stay at two different places - at the
senior officers' quarters at the Air Force base and at the KKS Guest
House, in the High Security Zone (HSZ). We had barely checked into our
modest twin-sharing room when our mobile phones went dead.
Enquiries revealed that the military had switched off all
communication networks in the interest of our safety. The precaution is
the result of an incident about one and a half years ago when a group of
local and foreign journalists on a visit to the peninsula narrowly
escaped a shell fired from across the FDL by the Tigers.
The military reasoned that the Tigers had tracked down the media
party on the basis of the signals emanating from their hand phones.
Putting to rest our fears of being stranded in the peninsula for the
next 56 hours, the conducting officer Maj. Prajat Wijesinghe, informed
us that there was an Internet browsing centre inside the military
complex which we could use to file our reports at the end of the day.
Our first visit was to the Special Forces (Jaffna) Commander Major
General G.A. Chandrasiri. The soft-spoken, 54-year-old general is known
as a stickler for discipline.
As a matter of policy, he has enforced prohibition on his men and
women. "None of my personnel is allowed to touch liquor. I am proud to
tell you all that there has not been a single instance of molestation or
harassment of civilians in the last two and half years," he proclaimed.
He gave a 75-minute Powerpoint presentation to show that the Armed
Forces were doing their best not only in safeguarding the territorial
integrity of the island-nation but also in attending to the needs of the
civilian population. Interaction with the brigade commanders and others
confirmed the assertion. There is no sphere of conceivable activity in
which the military is not associated.
The demographic changes in the peninsula are impossible to miss.
There has been no census in Sri Lanka since 1981. At the time of the
last head count, the peninsula had a population of 830,000. The
projected figures for 2007 then was 1.2 million but as per provisional
estimates, it is just about six lakhs now.
The ethnic cleansing resorted to by the Tigers is largely responsible
for the dramatic demographic shift, mostly through migration.
In 1990, the LTTE expelled nearly 90,000 Muslims from the North,
including the peninsula, and none of them has returned till date despite
a written pact between the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and the LTTE.
In 1981, there were 6,659 Sinhalese in the peninsula, and today their
number is a mere 26. "These 26 men are married to locals. They do not
identify themselves as Sinhalese. Some have even adopted local names,"
quipped the Jaffna Commander.
CFA
According to the commander, the key security challenges include the
LTTE's infiltration into the peninsula via Pooneryn on boats and the
fear psychosis created through claymore mine explosions, suicide attacks
and small-arms attacks. He claims the situation has been brought under
control by the military.
Maj. Gen. Chandrasiri and all his officers are bitter about the
Norwegian-facilitated 2002 Cease Fire Agreement (CFA).
They believe the pact nullified all the gains made by the military
from 1995 to February 2002. "During the period of the CFA from February
2002 to August 2005, there were about 2,032 LTTE cadre moving freely in
the Jaffna peninsula.
This led to disruption in the civil administration," he bemoaned. He
and his officers are certain that the Tigers took full advantage of the
CFA and built up a network throughout the peninsula. Almost eight months
before undeclared hostilities commenced in July 2006, the Tigers moved
out of the "government-controlled areas".
Maj. Gen. Chandrasiri believes that the Mahinda Rajapaksa
Government's strategy of taking the Tigers head-on has aided the
military a great deal. He claimed that abductions in Jaffna had
plummeted from 43 cases recorded in 2007 to seven in the first three
months of 2008. No cases of extortion were reported in the last two
months.
In contrast, 45 political activists from Tamil parties other than the
LTTE were reportedly killed between January 1, 2006, and March 31, 2008.
Army's role
Members of the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), led by Social
Welfare Minister Douglas Devananda, were the main targets. "We see a
declining trend in the killing of civilians and the targeting of
political party members," Chandrasiri said.
Like Maj. Gen. Chandrasiri, most of the officers have a grouse
against the media. They feel the media never highlighted the positive
developments. For instance, the effective de-mining and mine-risk
education programmes, a high-risk and expensive exercise, have helped
bring down the number of mine and unexploded ordnance (UXO) casualties
to zero in 2007 and 2008, from an all-time high of 69 in 2002.
Of course, they cannot be expected to answer political questions such
as how and why successive governments in Colombo failed to establish a
civilian set-up in the peninsula, which was wrested from the Tigers way
back in 1995.
The General and his officers vehemently defend the Government's
decision to seal off the A-9 highway, termed by them as a "sluice gate
of terrorism and a cash cow for the Tigers". At the same time there is
no satisfactory answer as to how the Tigers could infiltrate through the
highway since one end of it was under the control of the military.
The General and his officers believe that it would not be prudent to
open A-9 until the Tigers were dealt with in a "decisive way". They
concede that the closure of the highway has resulted in great
inconvenience and it was certainly not the way for `winning the hearts
and minds' of the people but argue that it was a "necessary evil in the
overall interests of security".
On the travails of citizens in obtaining clearances to travel out of
the peninsula, Maj. Gen. Chandrisiri said the military was in the
process of issuing special identity cards to citizens of the peninsula.
"The first phase of the project has been completed at an estimated
cost of Rs.21 million. We are waiting for funds to complete the next
stage. We hope to have it fully functional within three to four months,"
he said.
Jaffna town
Our next hop was to the Brigade Headquarters in Jaffna town. A convoy
of armoured vehicles escorted by a military truck acting as the pilot
transported us. The Chinese-made vehicles, which can travel up to 80 km
an hour on relatively good roads, were introduced into the island's war
theatre in early 2007 to transport troops.
We travelled in these vehicles throughout the length and breadth of
the peninsula for the next 48 hours. The distance from Palaly to Jaffna
town is about 15 km. Most of the structures in the HSZ bear testimony to
high-intensity conflict. It is rare to come across a structure that is
intact. "Intruders would be dealt with with minimum force" is a
signboard seen in every compound from where the military operates.
From the headquarters of the Jaffna Brigade Commander, we were taken
to Gurunagar, one of the fishing ports in Jaffna. There are about 200
fishing families that use the port.
However, they are allowed to venture only 2.5 km towards Pooneryn,
that too guided by military boats from 4 a.m. to 4 p.m., as the port is
only 4.5 km away from LTTE-held Pooneryn. The fishing activity, it
appears, is mostly in the early hours of the day and the fisherfolk
prefer to stay indoors thereafter. Fishing activity has been adversely
affected since the ethnic conflict began three decades ago.
People in Jaffna
At the office of the Government Agent of Jaffna, we learn that in
1983 the peninsula accounted for 48,677 tonnes of fish production. It
went down to an average of 1,514 tonnes a year when the Tigers were in
control of Jaffna in the early 1990s; in 2007, it stood at 2,963 tonnes.
As of 2007, an estimated 15,840 fishing families are actively pursuing
their livelihood.
We were then taken to the heart of the Jaffna town, the main shopping
centre. We were told we could step out of the vehicles but not to stray
too far. Soldiers kept a close watch on each of us. At least one
shopkeeper told this correspondent that there was little he could talk
about in the presence of military personnel.
It is true that the Government and the military have attempted to
ensure adequate supply of essential goods in the peninsula after March
2007. However, the sheer logistics of pumping goods into the region
means an escalation in costs. A cap costs Rs.250 as against Rs.100 in
Colombo. The shipping charges also mean additional costs. Out of the
seven ships transporting goods to Jaffna, only two are
Government-operated.
Our next halt was at the office of the Government Agent, Ganesh. The
top bureaucrat made it known at the very outset of his briefing that he
would not be dragged into "political questions". On availability of
goods and services in the peninsula, he said, "We have sufficient food
for the next three months.
However, the shipping charges are very high. There are seven
government-owned ships and five private-owned ships. They use the KKS
and Myleddy ports, both of which are controlled by the Navy." According
to him, the health sector appears to have been the worst hit. Out of the
total sanctioned posts of 2,264 health personnel, 1,362 are lying
vacant. These include 22 specialists, 17 consultants and 219 medical
officers.
Although Maj. Gen. Chandrasiri claimed that there were no Internally
Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Jaffna, the statistics presented by Ganesh
showed that there were 103,000 IDPs. "Owing to the confrontation at
Muhamalai in August 2007, as many as 2,732 families were vacated.
Muhamalai
There are 85 camps managed by the Government at the moment," he
said.Also, there are 26,791 families displaced owing to the setting up
of HSZs. These IDPs refuse to be resettled in alternative locations as
they do not want to give up their original places of residence.
The next day we were off to the FDL in the Muhamalai. The commanding
officers of Division 55 and the First Light Infantry Regiment in
Eluthumadduval claimed that although the 400-metre no-man's land had
been captured by the Security Forces, the area was heavily mined.
"We don't want to approach the area with a large battalion, because
our aim is not to capture land. We want to use small specialised groups
to destroy as many Tiger cadres as possible.
My personal estimate is that there are close to 1,500 cadres behind
the Tiger frontline," Brigadier Kamal Gunerathne, Commander of Division
51, said.
The brigadier believes that the Tigers are running short of
ammunition. He talked about the difficulties in battling the Tigers.
"The terrain that we fight in is varied.
"From Nagar Kovil to Muhamalai to Kilali, there are coastal areas,
semi-deserts, mangrove forests, plain land, marshy land, scrubs and
lagoons," he said.
The area where the confrontation is taking place is the neck of
Jaffna peninsula with a width of only 8 km; Nagar Kovil is 3 km in
width.
One other problem the military faces is booby-traps connecting
several anti-personnel mines, to inflict large-scale damage.
"Hence we have to conduct a thorough de-mining operation before
venturing towards the captured no-man's land," he said.
While we were there, the Tigers fired twice and the security forces
retaliated. The soldiers on duty along the Muhamalai FDL appear to be in
good spirits in spite of their harsh job.
A soldier's duty time is 12 hours. But, according to a major, they
sometimes have to spend four or five days at the FDL, depending on the
need of the hour.
Surrendered Tigers
On the last day of our sojourn, we were taken to a camp where 54
surrendered Tigers were kept. They are believed to have given themselves
up to the military through the Human Rights Commission.
Forty-seven of them surrendered on February 28, while on March 8 and
9 the numbers of those who surrendered were three and four respectively.
Among them were two minors, one aged 16 and the other 17.
Seventeen-year-old Suwaaji Sandur is from Valvettithurai. He studied at
Silembara School, but only up to Grade 10. "We had problems at home.
My father used to be a fisherman. But since there were restrictions
on going out to sea, we were finding it difficult to afford food. I have
a younger sister and a brother," Sandur said.
It was during that time, in 2005, the LTTE approached Sandur, giving
his family food and other assistance.
The LTTE used Sandur mostly for intelligence work, especially to spy
on the Army.
"They taught me how to use the grenade and to attack the Army in
small ways," he said.
One of the many tasks entrusted to him was helping out the LTTE in
its propaganda work and initiating small-scale agitation tactics against
the military, especially provoking Army personnel.
However by 2006, when the war started, the LTTE cadres who recruited
Sandur had started fleeing to the Wanni.
When the Army started its combing operations for LTTE cadre and
supporters, Sandur surrendered to the Human Rights Commission fearing
for his life. Now that he has surrendered, Sandur fears that the LTTE
might take revenge.
"I want to go abroad. If I stay here, I will not be alive for long,"
he said. The last item on our itinerary was a visit to the Northern
Naval Command Headquarters led by Commander Rear Admiral Thisara
Samarasinghe. The commander is seriously concerned about what he
describes as 'indiscriminate' poaching into Sri Lankan waters by Indian
trawlers and fisherfolk.
"On any given day, there are 300 to 400 trawlers in our waters and
the Tigers are taking advantage of the situation. We have taken up the
matter with our counterparts in India and I must say the cooperation
from the other side is good," he said.
"Both India and Sri Lanka are committed to the task but still the
problem remains," he complained.
The Sri Lankan military is battling on too many fronts in the
peninsula. It is in dire need of a buffer in the form of a robust
civilian administration and, if possible, a semblance of a political
set-up to act as an intermediary between it and the local population.
The All Parties Representative Committee (APRC), set up by the
President to help him in resolving the ethnic question, in its interim
report of January 23, has recommended a temporary northern provisional
council consisting of political representatives, pending restoration of
conditions conducive to elections to a regular council, to redress the
grievances of ordinary people.
Such a set-up brooks no further delay if the Government wants to
strengthen the hands of the military and begin the process of
consolidating the gains of the project to "win the hearts and minds of
the people".
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