Chronology of LTTE terror - Part 32

From the Daily News Archives

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.

Friday June 12, 1987:

Victims: Civilians, and freed Tamils on their way home:

Pt. Pedro, Trinco blasts kill 29

The Northern terrorists yesterday killed 29 people, including ten young Tamils being taken to their homes in the peninsula after being flown back North when Boosa investigators cleared them of terrorist involvement.

“They are now killing their own people,” a military spokesman said in Colombo. “The land-mine also killed three of our soldiers. Three more soldiers and five Tamils were seriously hurt.” In a second incident, between Panmedawachchiya and Kituluttuwa, in the Trincomalee district, 16 civilians, all Muslims, were killed when a terrorist land-mine blew up a passenger coach at Veppankulam. The coach was going from Horowpothana to Trincomalee.

“Several others were injured, but we have no details,” the spokesman said.

After the Security Forces regained control of the Vadamarachchi area of the Jaffna peninsula, several hundred young men suspected of terrorist involvement were taken into custody for investigation.

They were shipped to Galle and questioned at the Boosa Detention Centre. In accordance with an undertaking given by both National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali and JOC Chief, General Cyril Ranatunga, the investigations are quickly completed and those found ‘clean’ are flown back to their homes in the peninsula. “We’ve been flying them back to the North and or, Tuesday and Wednesday about 180 were moved by air.

They were being trucked to their homes when the land-mine was set off near Palmyrah Point, about 800 yards from Thikkam Junction,” the spokesman said.

He said that in addition to those killed, 20 young men had been injured, five of them seriously.

Thursday April 30, 1987:

CID names two in Pettah bomb blast

Amal JAYASINGHE

The CID yesterday named two men who they said would be able to help solve the Pettah bomb blast case, as detectives pieced together technical evidence and statements from some 200 witnesses.

A grieving father

A CID spokesman said the two men - one a former student at a Colombo South Technical Training School and the other a former Telecommunications Department inspector could provide vital information.

“We believe that these two men were also linked to the recent attempt to booby trap a petrol bowser and blow up the Kolonnawa oil storage facility,” the spokesman said.

The men were named by the CID as Thurairatnam Manoharan, aged 23, of Puthu Nagar, Batticaloa (National Identity card number 641531375 V) and Sithamparapillai Varatharasa alias IPT Varathan, aged 33, of Vavuniya.

They are wanted in connection with the investigations into bomb explosions that took place in Colombo and its suburbs since January last year, the spokesman said.

Security sources said Manoharan was believed to be a member of the Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students, while Varatharasa was from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

“We have with us a diary of an EROS member which very clearly gives details of the activities in Colombo. This has also helped us to establish the identity of Manoharan,” the sources said.

On January 15, two Tamils carrying a 10-kilo bomb concealed in a rigifoam box, were detected on the railway track in Wellawatte; they were carrying tools to rig a petrol bowser with the bomb.

One suspect escaped while the other, named U. Surendran of Elali South, Chunnakam, described as an EROS member, was arrested. This led to the arrest of another suspect, Saverimuttu Sahayadan.

Manoharan’s lodgings were traced through information from suspects already in custody, sources said. Varatharasa was known to be an explosives expert with considerable experience.

The CID spokesman said information regarding the whereabouts of the two men they are looking for could be telephoned or sent by post to the Director, CID, New Secretariat. His telephone numbers are 22176, 20141-5 and 547319.

Forensic experts said preliminary tests indicated that the Pettah bomb was placed inside a vehicle and investigators said they too were going on the basis that it was a car bomb.

Detectives said they had made considerable progress in the case and described their findings as satisfactory. Police meanwhile interviewed the owner of the suspected car used to plant the bomb. It has been found that he had sold the vehicle five years ago and did not know the new owner, police said.

Terrorist kangaroo court sentences 15-year old girl

She is raped before killing:

Wijitha NAKKAWITA

During the month of June 1987 New Delhi started pressurizing Colombo with various acts of gunboat diplomacy to stop the military operations against the terrorists groups that were killing unarmed Sinhala and Muslim civilians in unprecedented orgies of killing. Several countries including Asian and Western nations protested to India when she attempted to sail in flotilla to Jaffna with food alleging the people of Jaffna were starving. What India really attempted to do was to browbeat Colombo into giving in to the terrorists who had been holding Jaffna for sometime.

A small town of 50,000 Rameswaram South India suddenly became a frenzied hive of activity with the lorry and aircraft loads of food said to be 50,000 packs of dry rations being loaded into the vessels berthed at this outpost’s port.

Reports said eight members of the Red Cross and 20 journalists were also to be aboard the vessels and the flotilla sailed to Kachchativu within the territorial waters of Sri Lanka but were not given clearance to sail further in our waters.

It was one of India’s darkest hours of diplomatic history after Independence demonstrating that here foreign and defence offices were attempting to plot the course of a terrorist group that she had nurtured and bred.

After the mass scale genocide committed in Kithulothuwa and Pettah, Colombo, LTTE boss Prabharkaran was reported to have gone to India and pow wowed with chief minister and collaborator of terrorists M.G.Ramachandran and a few days later he was reported back in Jaffna.

On June, 11 terrorist killed 29 civilians at Point Pedro including 11 terrorists suspects who had been released from the Boossa detention camp after being released from custody.

The bomb that was intended perhaps for only the released detainees who may have become targets for being members of a rival terrorist group like PLOTE also killed others.

The most tragic of the incidents reported in the month of June was from Batticaloa where a terrorist kangaroo court had ‘sentenced’ three civilians to death for ‘betraying’ the terrorists.

The fifteen year old girl was raped several times by the terrorists before all three civilians were killed with a bomb set off to kill them.

This time round the terrorists were killing their own people. In yet another incident 16 Muslims travelling in a passenger van were killed when the van ran over a pressure minie set on the road at Panmedawachchiya in the north and several others mainly Muslims and some Sinhalese were injured in the mine explosion.

Thursday April 30, 1987:

Blunt words from President to foreign journalists:

Terrorists must lay down arms for peace talks

Arthur HETTIGODA in London

The principal Tamil rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is the private army of Mr. Ramachandran, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, President Jayewardene of Sri Lanka has told a group of foreign journalists who met him at the Presidential residence in Colombo.

A grief stricken mother

The President absolved Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, the Indian Prime Minister of involvement, but he insisted that Mr. Ramachandran had given arms and telecommunication equipments to the rebels.

Most quality British newspapers carried lengthy reports of this interview and the Times said “President Jayewardene announced yesterday that he would continue in office when his term expired at the end next year, if the terrorists campaign of the Tamil separatists continued. He indicated that he could use a referendum to extend his term. That way he has only suggested continuing the life of the present parliament.

He also declared that he would not talk to the Tamil insurgents who are fighting for a separate sate in the north and east of Sri Lanka until they lay down their arms.

Asked if he was constitutionally debarred from seeking another presidential term, he remarked: “I do not want to continue.” But he served warning that the referendum was something that would have to be considered closer to the time.

Insisting on the pursuit of a military victory over the separatists, despite the civilian casualties, the President asked for help from western countries. He was also anxious to tell them of his beliefs that Sri Lanka was suffering as a result of murky politics of Tamil Nadu, India’s southernmost state which is just a few miles away across the Palk Strait.

Sitting in front of a map which showed the incidents of ethnic violence occurring on the island in July 1983 President described the principal Tamil group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as Mr. Ramachandran’s private army and Vellupillai Prabhakaran, its leader as his (MGR’s) friend.

The Indian Prime Minister was not involved in trying to destabilise Sri Lanka. Mr. Jayewardene said, but added to an American corespondent: “you have in your CIA people who do not follow Reagan. The same maybe is happening in India. They did the same in bangladesh.

The President repeated that in any peace talks the agreements arrived in the course of negotiations with Tamil political leaders and Indian government could not be renegotiated, but he was not hopeful that any peace talks could take place.

In the meantime it is clear that the Sri Lankan armed forces are being given the go ahead for a big campaign against the rebels in the North and East of the country. The President, who is Commander-in-Chief said that no decision has yet been made but that the whole of the northern peninsula which is still under the control of the LTTE is being considered for occupation.

“We are trying our best to avoid civilian casualties,” he said. “But it happened in Punjab (referring to Mrs. Gandhi’s army capture of the Golden Temple of Amritzar), it happened in Vietnam, it happened in London, Hamburg and Berlin, it happened in the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima.”

Asked whether India would not protest at the civilian casualties that would be involved President Jayewardene waived such protests away.

“I am not interested”, he said. “That statement will be returned with thanks.”

If India would only help by stoping the revel supplies, if India would simply co-operate in patrolling the surveillance zone in the waters between the two countries, he said “this war would be over in days.”

YESTERDAY - Pettah bomb evidence points to EROS