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CHRONOLOGY OF LTTE TERROR- Part 70
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.
 Monday May 29, 2006:
LTTE landmines kill civilians in Wilpattu
Ananth PALAKIDNAR
Three LTTE landmines have killed seven people in the Wilpattu
wildlife Park on Saturday.
The victims were local visitors from Colombo. Military sources said
that they suspect that the LTTE had triggered the three landmines
connected together on Friday night and placed them where the blast had
taken place purely to prevent the public crossing the area which the
LTTE was using for their activities.Military sources added that a black
Prado vehicle carrying the victims had got caught in a powerful pressure
mine.
Sources also said the search team had spent almost nine hours to
reach the spot to recover the bodies and that of the seven who were
killed in the blast.
"From the bodies brought only four could be identified and others
were in a mutilated state. The heads of two other bodies were also found
at the site of the explosion", sources said. The bodies of the victims
were brought to the Nochchiyagama hospital last evening.
Assistant Director of the North-Western Wild Life Department Manjula
Amararatne, told the Daily News that a special search team comprising
Army and Police personnel, home guards and Wild Life officials at
Kattaramba Willu located between Manawilla and Kokmatte within the
Wilpattu Sanctuary found the bodies of those killed by the blast.
Amararatne who was monitoring the search operations from Wilpattu
said that the combined search operation had commenced around 6 a.m. on
Sunday and the team had gone 45 km deep into the Sanctuary and to the
spot where the mine explosion had occurred on Saturday. The names of the
seven persons who were killed in Saturday's blast were Chandi
Aseerwatham, Anula Aseerwatham, Darrel Perera, Nihal de Silva, Nanda
Abeysuriya, Henrieta Abeysuriya and Anura Dissanayake (Tracker).
The Prado vehicle which got caught to the pressure mine was shattered
to pieces and some of its parts were hanging on tree tops, military
sources said.
The family members of the victims and some senior government
officials along with the wildlife authorities were at Wilpattu yesterday
to recover the bodies.
Peace talks in the air but terrorists kill more innocent civilians
Wijitha NAKKAWITA
The month of May 2006 some time after President Mahinda Rajapaksa was
elected to power and was aiming at holding talks with the LTTE peace
emissary of Norway Minister had come to Colombo to meet the President
and senior officials.
Some days later it was announced that the peace talks between the
government and the LTTE would take place soon at Oslo. Incidentally this
was the fourth President that had invited the LTTE terrorists for talks
during the past three decades and each time the LTTE representatives
went abroad for talks they had also met the arms smugglers with their
shopping lists as proved time and again.
On the same month the LTTE terrorists laid pressure mines on the
Wilpattu National Wild Life Park where visitors came to see wild
animals.
While proposal for the peace talks were in the air the public
expected the terrorists to behave at least till the talks were
concluded.
However towards the end of May a group of visitors to the Wild Life
Park Wilpattu were killed in a landmine and a number of them were
injured.
When the injured were being taken in a vehicle the vehicle too ran
over another landmine and was torn to pieces killing everyone in it
bringing the total dead on that day to seven.
The LTTE clearly demonstrated that they had not given up terrorism
though their representatives would go to Oslo for talks with the
government representative within a short time.
The next incident was even worse. On May 30 a group of workers were
trying to repair a canal supplying water to the villagers of remote
Odiyamadu near Welikanda in the Trincomalee District when a group of
armed LTTE terrorists shot dead 12 of them.
Two others who also were with the group escaped, One with gunshot
injuries and the other who had fled on seeing the terrorists and running
into the jungle.
The dead were all shot in the head and the LTTE had come from one of
their nearby camps as some of the areas were under the cease fire
agreement or the peace accord signed between the LTTE and the UNP
government led by Ranil Wickremesinghe four years before President
Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected President.
Though there was a truce monitoring mission the LTTE had continued to
flout the CFA so much that it appeared that the terrorist group did not
respect the agreement proving again and again that they did not respect
any agreement with any one at any time and they only spoke with the gun
and violence though some were naïve enough to believe that the
terrorists could be made to behave like civilized human beings.
LTTE massacres 12 civilians
by Our special correspondent
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has brutally shot down 12
civilians working at an irrigation canal construction site in eastern
Welikanda area last night. An eyewitness told police that 15 armed
cadres of LTTE - some in striped uniforms and some in civilian dress
tied the construction workers together and fired at them point blank
range killing 12 instantaneously.
One person who received three bullet wounds managed to escape death
as the LTTE terrorists left the areas soon after believing all of them
had died. Before fleeing, the assassins also set fire to a tractor and a
bicycle. Another person at the construction site managed to escape as
the Tamil Tigers surrounded the place.
One of the two eyewitnesses, Priyadharshana Wijebandara reached
Welikanda Police station early morning and described the gruesome
massacre. He was immediately admitted to Welikanda hospital, but later
transferred to Polonnaruwa hospital for surgery, OIC at Welikanda police
Saman Perera said.
He told the police that attackers spoke to them in Tamil and most of
them were LTTE striped uniforms. He told the police that the victims
were killed in most brutal and inhuman manner.
The workers were engaged in constructing an irrigation canal at
Ransaratenna in Omadianamadu in Welikanda. The construction of a canal
and a tank at Ransaratenna was a part of Mahaweli Scheme and a
subcontractor from the village hired workmen. Subcontractor P. G.
Abeysuriya, popularly known as Mahatun Mudalali and his tractor driver
Kumara, Dharmasiri, a mason and nine other labourers were killed. The
labourers were from nearby village Maithreegama. Two representatives
from Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Tigrie Ktala of Finland and
Paul Erik Lauristen of Denmark arrived at the site by midday.
They admitted that they were shocked by the gruesome scene.
"This is a brutal and senseless violence," Lauritsen said. However he
added that he could not comment as to who was responsible for the
ruthless murders as they had not yet made any queries.
"We are going to interview the eyewitnesses and study all the
information available before making a statement," he added.
The people at Welikanda were shocked and outraged at the killing of
innocent civilian workers. All the shops and business establishments
were closed as a mark of protest.
Lt. Col. Rajapathirana of the Welikanda Camp said that the LTTE had
failed in its earlier attempts to attack villages because of
strengthened security in the area.
Home-guards have been deployed to all the villages to provide
security. "Hence the Tigers have selected an unprotected construction
site on noman's land between the cleared and uncleared areas as their
target," he said.
Wednesday May 31, 2006:
LTTE kills 12 civilians
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A victim
being carried off by villagers |
Manjula Fernando and Trincomalee group correspondent K.D. Jayasekera
Trincomalee: In a brutal attack on ordinary citizens, the LTTE shot
dead 12 civilians in Omadiyamadu, close to the uncleared areas of
Welikanda on Monday night, Welikanda police said yesterday.
Army and police teams escorted by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM)
went to the site of the attack and recovered the bodies of the 12
Sinhalese villagers from Mahasenpura. They had been restoring a
neglected stream to get water for their families.
Welikanda Police said the victims had gunshot wounds on their heads.
"The area is not demarcated so it is hard to say if this happened in
uncleared areas or not", the Army Media unit spokesperson said.
Two workers who survived the LTTE's ambush and the lined-up shooting
had reached Welikanda the next morning and informed Police.
Of the two escapees, one had taken off before the shooting began and
the other who had survived the injuries came to the Welikanda hospital
the next morning.
The injured worker is receiving treatment at the Polonnaruwa
hospital.
Tomorrow: 64 civilians killed in Kebithigollewa
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