My visits and experiences in Jaffna - Part I:

Jaffna regaining past grandeur

Lt Col (Retd) Anil AMARASEKERA

My first ever visit to Jaffna when I was just a child was way back in the early fifties. My uncle Tissa Ratnatunga was an important government official in Jaffna. He had a large bungalow within the Jaffna Fort and our family spent a holiday with my uncle and his family in this bungalow. The only memories I have of that visit over five and a half decades ago was this majestic Old Dutch Bungalow and the small but beautiful Jaffna Fort with its impressive entrance across an equally enchanting moat and the herds of wild ponies that we saw running freely in great numbers all over the Delft island.

In 1973 as a Lieutenant of the Second Volunteer Battalion of the Gemunu Watch, I was sent to Jaffna to perform duties with the Task Force for Illicit Immigrants (TAFFII), I was initially the Officer Commanding the Mathakal Army Detachment and after promotion to the rank of Captain I served as the Officer Commanding the Valveddittuari (VVT) Army Detachment in 1977 and 1978. Though there was a lot of turmoil and unrest in the South due to the JVP insurrection during the early seventies, the Jaffna peninsula had a calm and tranquil environment at that point of time and the people of Jaffna were not hostile towards the Army on TAFFII duty.

However the demand for a separate state put forward by Tamil chauvinists such as S J V Chelvanayakam was seen to gain ground by 1978, during the latter stages of my service period in Jaffna. This was partly due to the mistakes made by power hungry politicians from both the Sinhala and Tamil communities and partly due to the inability of the Police and the Security Forces to win over the hearts and minds of the Tamil population in Jaffna.

Tamil population

One good example with regard to the inability of the Army to win the hearts and minds of the Tamil population will be illustrated by one of my own personal experiences when I was the Detachment Commander of Mathakal. I had dispatched a section of soldiers under a Sergeant with specific instructions to establish a roadblock to apprehend a vehicle transporting smuggled items. On my way to the roadblock to check if it had been established at the correct road junction, I encountered some Tamil civilians carrying bicycles on their shoulders. When questioned as to why they were doing so, I was informed by them that the Army soldiers at the road junction had ordered them to carry the bicycles home on their shoulders for cycling in the night without lights. I instructed them to remount their bicycles and to ride back home. When the Sergeant was questioned by me in this regard, he informed me that he had given those civilians the same punishment that the Police usually give them. I had to warn him never to repeat that kind of action, as TAFFII duty was very different from Traffic Police duty, which we had no mandate to perform.

A bicycle after all is a way of life in the Jaffna peninsula. In the early seventies hub dynamos for bicycles were not freely available. Therefore the dynamo for the bicycle headlight had to be powered by attaching it to the side of the bicycle tyre. As a result the side of the tyre wore out fast. The thrifty Jaffna man used his dynamo very sparingly to get the maximum mileage from his bicycle tyre. Knowing this mentality of the Jaffna man the Police and the Army should have taken a more understanding attitude without giving harsh punishment for such trivial offences. If the Police and the Army had been friendlier towards the people of Jaffna and had they been able to win their hearts and minds, it would have been difficult if not impossible for separatist and terrorist organisations to win support and acceptance from the Tamil people in the Jaffna peninsula.

Power hungry politicians

Power hungry Tamil politicians who propagated separatist ideology misled the Tamil people to a false belief that they would be better off if a separate Tamil state of Eelam could be established by amalgamating the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka. The insurrection staged by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in the South showed how a few thousand armed and motivated youth were capable of terrorizing and bringing a government to its knees. The militant Tamil youth who realized that the passive resistance of their power hungry senior Tamil politicians would never be able to achieve their proposed state of Tamil Eelam, decided to emulate the insurrection staged by JVP youth in the South and to bring the government in Colombo to its knees through acts of terrorism.

The mishandling of the foreign policy with India by the J R Jayewardene Government resulted in India providing military training to militant Tamil youth organisations. Therefore terrorist and sabotage activities staged by militant youth organisations began to increase rapidly in the Northern parts of Sri Lanka.

Yal Devi the train that linked Jaffna with Colombo was dynamited and the Northern rail track was damaged beyond repair by terrorists. It was by train that most people travelled to and from Jaffna. I have myself travelled in this train on numerous occasions. When travelling from Jaffna to Colombo I used to often see Tamil gentlemen changing from their vetties to trousers when Anuradhapura was approaching and when travelling to Jaffna from Colombo it was a common sight to see Tamil gentlemen changing from trousers to their vetties no sooner the train leaves Anuradhapura.

Normal traffic flow along the A9 highway too came to a standstill as the government lost control in much of the Northern Province. While links between Colombo and Jaffna were deteriorating, links between Jaffna and Tamil Nadu began to flourish due to support from Tamil Nadu for the separatist cause in Sri Lanka.

Illicit immigration

All the effort the Sri Lanka Army took through TAFFII to prevent smuggling and illicit immigration from India to Sri Lanka came to a grinding halt as the government lost control in most of the Northern coastal areas. On a recent visit to Kanagarayankulam, I met a member of a Maha Weera family. He informed me that he was an Indian Tamil who was to be repatriated to India under the Sirima-Shastri Pact. However having avoided repatriation, he and his family had settled in Kilinochchi.

His children joined the LTTE and one of his sons was killed in action. As a result he was given Maha Weera family status and provided with a house and a large extent of land in Kanagarayankulam by Prabhakaran. He had been requested to contact his relations in Tamil Nadu and to persuade them to come and settle in the land so provided to him. He said that all other Maha Weera families too were given large extent of land by Prabhakaran and they too had been requested to invite their relations in Tamil Nadu to come and settle in these lands. There had been many families who had accepted this invitation and come from India to settle in these Maha Weera family lands. Some of these families have obtained affidavits after bribing the Grama Niladharies to prove that they were long time residents in Kanagarayankulam. These families are now being resettled by the government in these very same properties.

To be continued