CHRONOLOGY OF LTTE TERROR - Part 18

From the Daily News Archives:

More civilians in Eastern Province killed by LTTE

Wijitha NAKKAWITA

When the euphoria of victory dies down, and together with it the media hype ceases, when the guns do not rattle and boom anymore, and the sky, the land and the sea become calm and serene, when tranquillity reigns through it is natural to live in the present moment and forget the past. But one cannot live in the present without a past. Nor can one envision the future discarding the experience of the preceding events.

Hence the Daily News is serialising the Chronicle of LTTE Terror taken from our own archives which would remind our readers how it all began. An awareness of the chronology of terror would help us prevent the recurrence of such terror and frustrate any attempts by misguided elements to repeat history to suit their evil designs.

It was not simple terror. Nor was terror sporadic. It was all pre-planned, pre-determined, well-calculated terror. The victims were innocent people. Though it is too many innumerate we would like to recall the major episodes in the Chronology of Terror.

The month of July 1986 is now more than two decades back in time. Yet the anguish caused by the separatist groups still linger in the minds of the families, kinsfolk and neighbours even today.

The tragedy of the people was that the politicians including those of the then government the political parties responsible for creating the terrorists were shuttling up and down attending talks and talks on proposals for devolution of power and the Tamil United Liberation Front was in India talking to the Indian political leaders and their counterparts in South India.

Attempts

The return of all these politicians from various tables of talks and attempts to convince the terrorists to agree to act as reasonable human beings kept ending in failure but the agenda of the terrorists was monolithic with little signs of responsive reaction.

On July 7 while some civilians from Dehiatta in the Trincomalee district were passing a neighbourhood where the residents were almost all Tamil terrorists taking cover behind the civilians shot and killed a woman and her infant and four others were injured. The army cordoned the neighbourhood and did a search operation but the terrorists had disappeared without trace.

The next day in Mannar terrorists entered the bazaar of the town and torched seven shops, five of the shops belonged to Tamil traders while 2 shops were owned by local Muslims. All the shops were completely gutted in the fire and the traders, small time people were not compensated.

The Muslims of Mannar were of course forced to quit their homes much later by the LTTE terrorists but setting fire to homes or shops of helpless people was a method of terrorizing them when the LTTE was beginning to become the leading separatists terrorists.

On the same day in Bakmitiyawa in the Ampara District terrorists abducted six Sinhala villagers and brought them to the town where the villagers were forced to rob some shops in the area and take cash and valuable goods from the shops. Later the abducted villagers disappeared. The armed terrorists who had supervised the robbery of the shops got away with the cash and loot.

On the same day a Sinhalese woman R. M. Chandrawathie married to a Tamil in Batticaloa was shot dead in her home by the terrorists.

Two days later people travelling in a convoy of three fish lorries on the Trincomalee-Kantale road were attacked by the terrorists and twelve men, two children below the age of five years and a woman were killed by the terrorists. The same day a Tamil civilian identified as Eliyathamby Nagarajah was killed on the Batticaloa-Trincomalee Road and a note was left near his body that the LTTE killed him for being an “Undesirable Person”.

Lakshman Kadirgamar, a distinguished Tamil leader on international repute who too became a victim of the LTTE terrorists later told an international forum, “There is something else about terrorism that caused so much of shock and revulsion. It is this. A terrorist attack is seen as an attack on society as a whole, on democratic institutions, one the democratic way of life. A terrorist attack is an act of war on society.

Time

“Much time has been spent in recent years in national legislatures and in international for working out a definition of terrorism. The definition of terrorism is something that is beset with many difficulties, indeed it is a veritable semantic minefield. But I think now we are approaching the stage in the evolution of an international response to terrorism...”

Kadirgamar of course made this reference after the September 11 terrorist attack on the US world trade centre but in 1986 when we, a small state in South Asia came under attack of at least four terrorist groups the international focus on terrorism was absent and the friends of the UNP Government of J.R. Jayewardene - if it had any - were looking the other way.

Therefore the growth of the separatist terrorists took place between a Government that did not know it was groping in the dark and certain political elements that believed they could placate the terrorists - both parties were of course in for surprise shocks.

Mediation threatened, says Delhi

India’s unhappiness about Colombo standing up militarily to the terrorist threat was reflected in the latest diplomatic exchanges between the two countries, authoritative sources said.

Colombo - based diplomats said that the latest message from Delhi appeared to imply that Indian mediation in search for a political solution many be hindered by the military action against the terrorists. Tuesday’s ‘Hindu’ reflecting a hardliner Madras perspective gave frontage lead play to what a headline writer called “Rajiv’s plain words to Jayewardene”. The report said that Prime Minister Gandhi’s latest message to President Jayewardene said that security forces action against “innocent people” have had an adverse effect on India’s mediatory role.

The report said that the resumption of talks with the Tamil groups could be “indefinitely delayed” if there was no change in “the present Sri Lankan approach of solving the problem through military means”.

BBC reported yesterday that the substance of the message delivered by Delhi was that unless a quick solution was sought, Indian mediation my not continue to be available.

Colombo has consistently made clear that a political solution was greatly desired but India seems to be closing its eye to the military option the terrorists appeared to be pursuing. It was not possible for Colombo to ignore unbridled terrorist violence.

Tomorrow - Sporadic terror continues

Saturday - LTTE terrorist killing spree continues despite talks [LINK]