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Chronology Of Ltte Terror - Part 41
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 March 4, 1988]
Attackers picked out Sinhalese houses:
Tigers massacre 15 at Morawewa
Tamil terrorists disguised in military fatigues attacked Morawewa in
Trincomalee district on Wednesday night killing fifteen people including
nine children aged between 9 and 14 years and injuring three others.
In a Colombo datelined report, the Reuter news agency quoted
Trincomalee's co-ordinating officer, Brigadier Denzil Kobbekaduwa saying
that the attackers numbered between 15-20.
"They went simultaneously to five Sinhalese houses at about 8.45 p.m.
They just opened the doors, walked in and machine-gunned them,"
Kobbekaduwa said.
"Some of the victims were going to their beds, some were watching
television," he said.
Military officials said they believed the attackers were Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam guerrillas.
"I'm certain it was the LTTE. There's no doubt in my mind that they
carried out this attack," Kobbekaduwa said.
"Unit One of Morawewa had 400 Tamil families and nine Sinhalese
families. The attackers went only to the Sinhalese houses," Kobbekaduwa
said.
One of the dead was a Tamil man who tended cattle for a Sinhalese
family. The rest of the fatalities were Sinhalese.
Three wounded Sinhalese were airlifted to hospital in Anuradhapura.
Other Sinhalese families fled for protection to a nearby Air Force camp.
He said survivors reported seeing at least 15 attackers. "But to
carry out that kind of operation, the group could be about 20, although
some villagers said there were 30 while others said 40," he said.
In Mylambveli, in the Batticaloa district, the IPKF yesterday raided
a terrorist hide out, killed two terrorists and recovered 2,000 rounds
of ammunition, 36 Mills grenades, one self-loading rifle, two shotguns
and six outboard motors.
Lankapuvath said the haul included three tonnes of food supplies
hijacked by the terrorists. A group of Indian Policemen confronted by a
terrorist on the Amparai-Kalpunai road, shot him dead, yesterday
morning. The man pointed a rifle at the Indians, but was shot before he
could fire.
The agency also reported that at Urumpirai, in Jaffna, Indian
soldiers recovered 238 rounds of 50 ammunition, 570 rounds of 7.62
ammunitions used in T56 and AK47 rifles.
At Mahawadipalla, in Batticaloa, on Wednesday, three Tamil youths
said to belong either to the EPRLF or PLOTE were shot dead by the LTTE.
They were Thavarasa Jayaraja, Ramalingam Thangarasa and Aiyadurai
Vivekanandi.
[Wednesday March 2, 1988]
Tigers blast Eelanadu office in Jaffna
The office and press of the Eelanadu the northern province's largest
circulating Tamil newspaper, were blasted by a group of LTTE gunmen on
Monday afternoon.
The Eelanadu, which was the only surviving independent newspaper in
the peninsula, had been openly in support of the Indo-Sri Lanka accord.
Official reports said the invading group of gunmen, identified as
members of the LTTE, moved into its premises on Manipay Road, in close
proximity to the Jaffna Fort, and asked the 44 members of the staff -
editorial and printing - to move out.
The time was 1 pm and although the LTTE were within the building for
nearly forty minutes before the blast, Indian troops stationed in the
fort did not move out.
Officials said no attempt was made by the IPKF to prevent the
explosion or evict the LTTE from the premises, because the entire area
had been strategically occupied by LTTE gunmen. "They wanted a civilian
bloodbath. The IPKF commanders knew of that strategy and chose to keep
away", an official said.
The staff of the newspaper was moved out at gunpoint by the
terrorists, some of whom were already busy mining the press with
explosives and spraying the building with diesel oil and petrol.
"Had the troops intervened, the casualties among civilians would have
been extremely high", an official said, emphasising that the decision of
the IPKF to stay away was for very valid reasons.
The explosions were set off at 1.40 pm, What was left of the premises
was consumed by flames.
The Eelanadu was the last surviving of four Tamil newspapers which
served the district.
The others - the Udayan, Murasoli, and Eela Murasoli suffered serious
damage during the fighting which began in October last year, after the
arrival of Indian troops in the peninsula.
[Saturday March 19, 1988]
Tigers use knife and bludgeon in 'silent' killing a
mile from army post:
Murder spree in border village
By A.S. Fernando and C.W. Ranaweera, our Digamadulla
correspondent
LTTE terrorists killed twelve people and seriously wounded eight
others in a raid on a Sinhala village on the Batticaloa-Ampara district
border, near the historic Digavapi cetiya late on Thursday.
The dead included four children and three women.
The terrorists responsible for this latest massacre of Sinhalese in
the troubled Eastern Province had descended on the village at about 8
p.m. in two groups of about 25 each. They attacked 10 homes, hacked
eight families to death and escaped into the nearby jungles.
The killers, who were dressed in military style uniforms, had used
swords, sharp knives, rods and clubs for their savage attack on the
villagers, some of whom had already gone to bed. "Obviously the
terrorists had not used firearms to mow them down, as the sound of
gunfire would have alerted the soldiers of the army detachment posted to
Digavapi, about a mile from the village. So the killers had cut, chopped
and bludgeoned their victims to death," police said.
The terrorists had stealthily closed in on the village, and
approaching some homes had first called to the inmates by their names.
The shrieks of the victims thereafter had alerted the other villagers
who had rushed out and sought cover in the jungles. The killers had then
looted some homes and smashed up furniture and other belongings, when
they discovered that the occupants had escaped them. A.G. Seelawathie,
mother of four children, said she feared a terrorist attack when she
heard the commotion outside, punctuated by desperate cries and screams.
"My children and I rushed out and hid ourselves in the illuk. Just as
we settled under the weed cover, we saw the killers approaching the
house. They were merely faint shapes in the dark, but I had no doubt
about their identity.
"We heard them breaking up our furniture when they found the house
was empty. One terrorists said: 'They can't be far away. We can still
catch them.' Presently they filed out of the house and fanned out for a
search.
"Some of them were near a clump of plantain trees just about 10 feet
from our hiding place when they abandoned the search".
W.G. Gnanaratne (35) Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages in the
village said: "When a torchlight was flashed on my home, I thought I was
going to have visitors. I came out and flashed my torch in the direction
of the approaching party. Then I saw some moving figures in military
dress.
"In the meantime, a neighbour crossed the beam of torchlight and what
I then saw stunned me for a minute. I had no more doubt who the visitors
were terrorist. Attacked my neighbour with a sword and he went down with
a groan. I and my family ran for safety."
Almost all residents of this village are Buddhists, the dayakas of
the Deeghavapi Raja Maha Viharaya at the Digavapi cetiya which is
surrounded by Muslim and Tamil settlements.
Gruesome killings continue
Wijitha NAKKAWITA
Nearly five years after the onset of separatist terrorist violence
and after the Indian Peace Keeping Force landed in the country to seek
peace or keep peace the terrorist outfits mainly the LTTE had not
changed their style of killing innocents the most helpless and the
poorest people of the remote villages and hamlets.
As March was beginning the terrorists attacked and destroyed the
newspaper office of the Jaffna based Eelanadu a Tamil newspaper that was
towing a cautious line of supporting the Indian Peace Keeping Force.
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Result of
an LTTE strike in Jafna |
Earlier the same newspaper had supported the cause of carving out a
separate state for Tamils but the Indian presence seemed to have changed
its policy. The newspaper's building, machinery and other assets were
badly destroyed. However though the IPKF was a strong presence they came
under the attack of the terrorists.
For the second time the terrorists attacked the Sinhala village
Morawewa in the Trincomalee District killing 15 men women and children
and injuring 15 more. The village was attacked once before by the
terrorists and in that incident thirty people were mowed down with
gunfire. The second attack also came around 8.45 p.m. - it was pitch
dark in the environs as there was no electricity supply to the village.
This time the terrorists hacked the men women and children to death
as they feared the gunshot reports would attract the IPKF who had now
started going on the offensive against their former terrorist buddies.
It was on March 22 that LTTE attacked two Sinhala villages,
Mundimuruppu and Avusadapitiya in Vavunia killing 15 people including 9
children.
The group of about fifty terrorists came out of the jungle to the two
villages just about three kilometers away from the town of Vavunia using
the jungle tracks. There was a very strong presence of the IPKF in
Vavunia at the time but the terrain was well known to the LTTE cadres
and they used the cloak of darkness to hack to death 12 and seriously
injure another 8.
Another remote village near the historic Digavapiya shrine in the
Eastern Province also had the same night visitors on March 20. They were
the same LTTE terrorists who had come to the village where only eight
families lived in small houses, some were mere mud-walled huts.
Again 12 people were killed by hacking with swords and 8 were
seriously injured. They were LTTE terrorists.
One woman who survived the bloody orgy said the terrorists who were
wearing military type uniforms entered each house and killed people but
when they were coming towards her house she and her child crept out to
the tall illuk grass nearby where they went undetected by the killers.
When they found the house empty they had broken all the furniture and
other household goods in the house before they left finally.
Tomorrow - Tigers kill 15 in swoop on two
villages
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