Chronology Of Ltte Terror - Part 33

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.

-----------------------------------

Tuesday, September 15, 1987

Tigers gun down unarmed rivals in surprise attack:

Sunday bloodbath in Eastern Province

William de Alwis

After a shrotlived spell of peace, the Eastern Province exploded into a nightmarish orgy of killing as gunmen of rival Tamil separatist groups engaged themselves in a no-holds-barred battle for supremacy late on Sunday.

Forty bullet-riddled bodies of young men lay at the mortuary of the Batticaloa hospital awaiting identification by mourning relatives by 4 p.m. yesterday.

A Government spokesman in Batticaloa said over 100 members of the PLOTE and EPRLF had sought police protection, fearing attacks by the LTTE.

A Colombo datelined Reuter report quoted residents saying that the LTTE have massacred at least 66 people in this most recent bout of blood-letting.

AFP said that over 100 people had been killed in two days of fighting.

Most of the men according to police had been killed with no chance of defending themselves, but as the day wore on the fighting was reported to be continuing in the outskirts of Batticaloa and Kalmunai and the groups of rampaging LTTE gunmen were meeting with resistance.

According to evidence available squads of gunmen belonging to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) began the bloodbath on Sunday evening going for members of the rival separatists groups who were unarmed, and shooting them down in cold blood.

Vasudeva, second in command of the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) was reported to have fallen in the first wave of killings. Kannan, an area leader of the same group in Batticaloa, suffered the same fate.

Security sources in Colombo said seven members of the EPRLF, none of whom was armed, died in one of the first attacks as they drove back to Batticaloa after a Sunday picnic. Two women who were in their passenger waggon died with them and six others in their party were seriously injured.

This incident was reported from Kirankulam. A gun-battle at Mandalchenai, near Kalmunai, ended in the death of two men of the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Front (EPRLF). Two others were injured.

All the shoot-outs and massacres took place outside the precincts of the Batticaloa and Kalmunai city limits, in villages where the rival groups had opened their offices and begun canvassing support in preparation for the forthcoming Provincial Council election provided for in the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord.

Officials told the Daily News the sudden appearance of arms in such numbers confirmed earlier suspicions that not all the groups of separatist militants had surrendered their arms as required by the terms of the peace accord.

Time bombs and grenade explosions too, were common throughout the night. One bomb was flung at the residence of Mr. Leslie Kandiah, Attorney-at-Law, opposite the branch office of the LTTE in Batticaloa.

Squads of the Indian peace-keeping forces and local police moved out of Batticaloa in an effort to call a halt to the killings, but results were negative, according to reports. Strong detachments of both forces however maintained control over the two main residential areas of Batticaloa and Kalmunai, and at Valaichenai further north.

Officials said no LTTE men had lost their lives. “As far as we are aware, they had the advantage of the element of surprise and mowed down unarmed men for the most part.”

The LTTE, however lost one of its key men in Kilinochchi, just south of the Jaffna peninsula, last week. The body of Jeganathan Rajendran of Kankesanturai was found with no trace of his killer.

In a retaliatory move the next day - September 11 - the LTTE, led by leaders Alex and Yasanthan, opened fire on an ENDLF office in Kilinochchi, killing two civilians and on ENDLF man. Meanwhile, a Colombo-datelined report from Reuters news agency quoted Bishop Joseph Swamipillai as stating that the confrontation had been building up for several days, between the LTTE and rival Tamil groups.

Commenting on the killings during the last few hours, the Roman Catholic Bishop said: “It is a very sad thing. There has been no fighting. All the dead were ambushed and eliminated”, Reuters quoted.

Months of August and September 1987

Wijitha Nakkawita

The months of August and September 1987 were to become historic in more than one sense both for the people of Sri Lanka as well as for the separatist terrorist groups. During this month New Delhi ushered in the Indo-Sri Lanka accord that was thrust on President J.R.Jayewardene with a ‘solution’ brokered by the South Lobby foreign office of India ably supported by the Indian High Commissioner in Colombo J.N.Dixit who was called Vice Roy of India in Colombo by Anura Bandaranaike.

The Indian brokered peace plan was for the terrorist groups to hand over their weapons to the Indian peace keeping force who by the beginning of August had numbered 3000 The day the arms were handed over to the IPKF there was jubilation in Jaffna and the people cheered the PLOTE, EPRLF or LTTE hading over some weapons. The jubilation was short lived as the terrorist groups did not hand over all their weapons but it was told that they handed over most of the old weapons that were no longer serviceable.

The commander of the IPKF Lt.Gen Harkirat Singh was quoted saying that the terrorist groups India and some Sri Lankan people called militants should hand over their arms by August 7. It was of course wishful thinking and also case of poetic justice as it was India that had trained, armed, fed and nurtured the terrorists who were to become intoxicated with the power of arms they possessed.

When the Indian brokered solution of an interim administration for the North and East merged as one province by the naïve Jayewardene at India’s behest as the “Northeastern Province” terrorists became even more jaunty and soon it was proved they would even kill the rival groups of terrorists to assume sole power in this merged region.

On September 13 an orgy of killings in Batticaloa and Kalmunai areas shook the very foundation of civilization in that locality. The LTTE that still possessed a large stock of firearms and ammunition went on rampage against the rival groups EPRLF and PLOTE.

At the very first instance people waking up in the morning in those localities were to witness 40 bullet riddled corpses including two area leaders of the EPRLF who were unarmed at the time.They were taken completely by surprise and by the time the attack on the two rival groups was over the death toll had risen to anything between 72 and 100 and dozens were injured.

Thousands of women and children took to the streets to protest in both towns but the LTTE as usual had disappeared after gunning down their rivals. At this time after the so-called surrender of arms and introducing the Indian brokered peace there was anything but peace esepecially in the east.

Meanwhile the South Indian politicians were urging the terrorists to fall in line with the interim civil administration of the northeast but as the days and weeks went by it became clear that the terrorist outfits especially the LTTE was not prepared to make peace but war,

It was gradually becoming clear that the IPKF instead of doing peace keeping would have to go on the offensive as the the terrorists brazenly rejected the advice of their former patron India and were going to fight in our with the IPKF. Gradually LTTE would wipe out the other terrorist outfits and assume the role of sole representative of ruthless terrorism.

Wednesday, September 16, 1987

Mourning women storm LTTE headquarters, crying vengeance:

Tigers still out for the kill in EP

William de Alwis

Batticaloa, Kalmunai and Akkaraipattu went into mourning yesterday for the dead of two nights of horror, inflicted on them by roving bands of LTTE gunmen seeking political supremacy in this multi-ethnic region of the Eastern Province.

At the latest unofficial count, at least 75 unarmed youth who belonged to rival Tamil separatist groups had been gunned down at the makeshift offices they had set up throughout the district.

Over a dozen women besieged the Batticaloa headquarters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam yesterday morning, calling vengeance on its occupants for what had happened to their men in the two preceding nights.

The LTTE’s area leader who goes by the name of Regan, has been positively identified as one of the killers, Superintendent of Police Nimal de Silva told the Daily News. Witnesses of other attacks by men armed with assault rifles, on unarmed militants belonging to rival groups - the EPRLF, PLOTE, TELO, a group which has identified itself as the 3-Stars, and the ENDLF - have also named other members of the LTTE as the killers, police said.

Police and units of the Indian Peace-Keeping Forces stationed in the East intensified patrols of the affected areas, but were unable to apprehend any of the killers up to yesterday afternoon.

According to residents, the night was punctuated by the sound of gunfire in several coastal areas. “We do not believe there was any fighting going on - it was, in our belief, a continuation of the massacre”, a resident of Batticaloa, also a member of its citizens’ committee, told the Daily News by telephone yesterday.

Unconfirmed reports yesterday said that 30 more dead were found in Kalawanchikuddy and its immediate neighbourhood at daybreak yesterday.

Most of the bodies recovered have been mutilated beyond recognition by fire, and it is believed that the bodies of five men of PLOTE, including the second-in-command of the group. Vasudeva - which bodies the killers removed after the first massacre on Sunday - suffered the same fate.

Yesterday, the scene of the massacre - a strip of coastline nearly 40 miles long and ten miles wide, from the immediate north of Batticaloa to Akkaraipattu to the south, was heavily patrolled by members of the Indian Peace-Keeping Forces and the Sri Lanka Police.

Sporadic gunfire was reported in the outskirts of Kiran, Santiaveli and Karadiyanaru, where it was believed resistance was being offered to the roving bands of LTTE gunmen.

The camps of the Special Task Force of the Sri Lanka police at Kalladi and Kalawanchikuddy are today serving as places of refuge for a growing number of young men fleeing the LTTE. At yesterday’s count, 118 had sought refuge with the police, and the number was growing, police said.

Thursday September 17, 1987

Fall in line, Tamil Nadu tells militants

T. Sabaratnam

Tamil Nadu Food Minister, S. Ramachandran, had a series of meetings with the Sri Lankan Tamil groups in Madras and urged them to abandon violence, all India Radio said yesterday.

Mr. Ramachandran, who played a vital role in bringing about the July 29 Indo-Lanka Peace Accord had returned from a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, in New Delhi, on Tuesday.

Reports said he told the LTTE to give up violence and fall in line with the peace accord. He had also urged the LTTE to cooperate and help set up the interim administration quietly.

TULF leader A. Amirthalingam has also urged the militant groups to refrain from resorting to violence.

He said all Tamils should unite to rebuild the damaged North and East.

Meanwhile, a Muslim delegation headed by former Education Minister Badi-ud-din-Mahmud left for Madras on Tuesday, to have talks with the TULF and the militant groups about the place to be given Muslims in the Eastern province.

The delegation will also meet the Tamil Nadu ministers. Special importance is attached to the meeting with Food Minister Ramachandran.

An advance party of three Indian officials arrived in Colombo yesterday, for the third round of Indo-Lanka talks which begins today.

A New Delhi datelined report in the Hindu of Tuesday said the Indian Government did not consider the inter-group fighting a setback to the July 29 agreement.

“Such a turn of events was not considered entirely unexpected in view of the psychological and other difficulties inherent in the process of the fighting forces required to adjust to the norms of political functioning,” the report said.

-------------------

Tomorrow - Tigers still out for the kill in EP

July 01 - Pt. Pedro, Trinco blasts kill 29