Visuamadu reflections

Ranil WIJAYAPALA

Their feet are swollen and filled with mud and dust as if their legs were plastered up to their knees. They have crossed waterways and muddy terrains under the cover of darkness after dodging the LTTE cadres manning the ‘hell’ gates of the uncleared areas.

They were all carrying baggage, children their school bags and others their meagre possessions in polythene sacks and suitcases filled with precious belonging they left as they crossed the gates of ‘hell’ in search of freedom.

Escape

Irrespective of age they all have undergone the same agony to escape from the ‘hell’ they were living under the LTTE and enter the safety zone under the Security Forces and experience the brutality of their so-called liberator, the LTTE as they were defying his orders.

Yet they all braved all these obstacles to reach the safe hands of the Security Forces in Visuamadu and flocked together at Security check points at daybreak.

From there onwards they are in safe hands of the Security Forces and waiting till they get the chance of entering transit welfare centres, to register their names with the Security Forces and reaching Vavuniya to lead a peaceful life free of the LTTE terror.

Anthonies Mary was feeding her three-day-old baby girl in a small corner of Piramantharu Maha Vidyalayam where thousands of civilians have flocked. She covered her tiny baby with her best clothes, filled with dust to shade her child from the scorching sun as she feeds her baby to be named Rabel once she get a chance to get the birth certificate.

Mary, along with her husband and three other children had walked all the way from Suthanthirampuram to Visuamadu just one day after delivering her new baby.

She ignored her labour pains as her only hope was to get out of the ‘hell’ they were living along with thousands of other Tamil civilians seeking protection of the Security Forces to have a better future for her children. She laments living in that ‘hell’ under the LTTE for months ignoring her relatives’ appeal to leave the area.

“LTTErs are Tamils like us but they have no sympathy towards Tamils. They kept us as a shield to take cover behind but were ready to kill us at any time to get their things done. They will kill us and tell the world that it was done by the Security Forces,” Mary says in broken Sinhala while feeding her new born.

Emotion

She was choking with emotion as she had learnt the reality just a few hours after reaching the Security Forces controlled areas in Visuamadu.

Her husband Jude Nishanthan says how the LTTE grabbed what has been sent by the Government to feed innocent civilians trapped there in Tiger controlled areas.

“They are fighting against the Government after eating the food sent to civilians. They will commit any brutal act for their existence,” Jude said.

“The LTTE frightens the civilians saying that the Army will separate them and kill them if they go to Security Forces controlled areas. They lied to us but we could learn things secretly listening to the radio paying Rs. 500 for one piece of battery,” Jude says.

One family

Jude and Mary belong to one family among the thousands who had arrived in Government controlled areas last Monday. Each and every civilian escaping the Tiger grip has similar stories to tell. Their swollen and dusty legs clearly depict the severe hardships they had to undergo during their arduous journey.

They were not leaving the Tiger held areas but were fleeing from the Tiger grip. They had to regroup and attack the Tiger cadres to escape from them. Sometimes, they had to kill Tiger cadres in their bid to escape from them. But innocent civilians had fallen victim to the indiscriminate fire of the LTTE on fleeing civilians.

Parents had lost their children and children had lost their parents and others their loved ones in their struggle to flee from the Tiger grip.

The civilians have realized the brutal nature of the LTTE as they made these desperate bids to flee the Tiger grip. They separated the children from their parents and brutally killed children who were in their parents hands and grabbed children from their parents as it was the best way to hurt them and stop them fleeing from the areas.

Brutality

Kathirveli Sivanesan from Puthunerippu, Kilinochchi was one such father who lost his elder son to the brutality of the LTTE.

But LTTE was not there to hear the weeping of the Sivanesan or his wife Udayarani as they fled the Tiger grip holding their child in their arms hoping that they could save his life before he breathed his last.

Time had already caught up once they reached Visuamadu. Their child had breathed his last before they reached Security Forces controlled areas. Sivanesan and Udayarani were only weeping over the dead body of their elder son Koshin and had to burry their son’s body in an unmarked graveyard.

The LTTE had deprived these innocent civilians of a decent burial for those whom they killed in their indiscriminate firing although they spent millions to create massive cemeteries for their own cadres.

Hell gates

But that was not the end of their brutality. They did not let these innocent civilians free, even after their escape from the ‘hell gates’ they lived. Still they sent their cadres among the civilians.

They sent their human bombs mingling with thousands of civilians and turned Piramantharu Maha Vidyalayam where these innocent civilians receive water to quench their thirst and a fresh meal for their stomach from the Sri Lanka Army, into a bloody mayhem.

As Anthony Mary said, though LTTE cadres are from the same Tamil community, they have no sympathy towards the Tamils.

The female suicide bomber, who tried to evade search by the Army personnel, blew herself up among hundreds of Tamil civilians who had lined up there to enter the Piramantharu Vidyalayam to register with the Security Forces.

Innocent children, men and women fell victim to this human bomb along with the Security Forces personnel. Needless to recount the pathetic situation there soon after the incident.

It was an occasion in which humanity shined against inhumanity. The Tamil civilians fell victim to the human bomb of the same community they represent, witnessed the way the troops whom they thought would be their messengers of death, were holding injured Tamil civilians in their hands to rescue their lives before they breathed their last.

Leaving aside the fellow soldiers injured they helped the injured Tamil civilians to get proper treatment whilst Tamil civilians weeping over the death of their loved ones. It must be their first occasion where such a large number of Tamil civilians got killed and injured in a suicide bomb of the LTTE.

“What the LTTE is trying through these human bombings is to stop the Tamil civilians arriving in the Security Forces controlled areas,” Brigadier Shavendra Silva, General Officer Commanding of the 58 Division said hours after the incident.

Transit welfare

“They have shown inhumanity against their own community as they could not tolerate the way civilians are fleeing their areas. That would accelerate their certain defeat,” Brigadier Silva added.

According to the Brigadier he was on his way to Piramantharu Vidya-layam to observe the situation there at transit welfare centre as it was a difficult task for the troops to handle the large number of civilians as he heard the explosion there.

“Our soldiers have shown their humanity towards the civilians who got injured in this brutal attack. We treated them the same way we are treating our injured soldiers,” he says.

“It is sad to observe incidents of this nature at a place where Security Forces look after these innocent civilians,” the Brigadier added.

Decent meal

The 58 Division has made all arrangements to provide a decent meal for all those arriving there from the uncleared areas and to look after the civilians and children in poor health conditions before they were taken to Omanthai, Entry Exit point to register them and send them to welfare centres in Vavuniya.

“Through this type of brutal attacks the LTTE expect to put the Tamil civilians into further hardship as Security Forces have to take additional security measures to prevent such incidents now.” He says.

But these brutal acts of the LTTE cannot stop the civilians fleeing from this hell, as they are certain that the LTTE would bring only disaster to the Tamil community not the freedom they promised. They will continue to flow into cleared areas day by day diminishing all hopes of the LTTE.