4  The Indo LTTE War

“Is that noise thunder?” I queried from one of the cadres staying with us in our Valvettiturai house in Jaffna, as I stood at the veranda trying to correlate the cloudless morning sky and the distant rumble reaching my ears. “No Auntie”, he replied with a tone of dismay in his voice, “that’s the Indians. They’re shelling Jaffna town from Pallaly army camp”. And the rumble of artillery shells pounding Jaffna town filled the air for days. How the tables had turned from the days of the Indian Army providing military training to our cadres, to now, when they were deploying their military weaponry and expertise against us. An unexpected twist of events: one of the vicissitudes of the Asian political theatre. An all out war between the LTTE and the Indian ‘Peacekeeping’ Force was the culmination of the often stormy, contradictory and suspicious relationship between LTTE and Delhi since the Chennai days. It was October 1987.

When we reflect on this particular era in the protracted and tumultuous history of the Tamil people’s struggle for freedom, we do so with mixed and indeed, contradictory sentiments. Apart from the divergent and essentially contradictory political interests India, Sri Lanka and the LTTE had in the Tamil homeland during this period, with the benefit of hindsight the cause of the war can be attributed to a catalogue of misunderstandings and apprehensions. Nevertheless, regardless of the assertions and counter assertions apportioning blame, essentially it was the Tamil people who faced the brunt of this ruthless war. Furthermore, while indisputably the human and material losses to the nation were phenomenal and irreplaceable, it is to the enduring credit of the people of Tamil Eelam that they stood firm as a nation under siege, refusing to be cowed, revealing during this crisis period in their history, truly astounding and commendable resilience and ingenuity, a fathomless strength and remarkable courage in the face of a merciless and brutal foe.

A series of tragic events occurred which, on one hand awakened the collective consciousness and mobilised the national sentiments of the people towards political emancipation, but on the other hand generated serious misunderstanding and contradictions between the IPKF and the LTTE leading to a fractious and hostile relationship between them. I shared the collective anger and pain over the unnecessary and avoidable deaths of some of the leading and popular LTTE cadres who were not only war heroes but our closest colleagues also. Nevertheless, despite these profoundly tragic national incidents it remained inconceivable how the relationship between the guerrilla organisation and the regional superpower, commanding one of the largest armies in the world, had deteriorated from a level of irretrievable dialogue into an all out military confrontation. Subsequently the explosion of armed hostilities between the Tamil Tigers and the Indian peace keeping troops on the 10th October 1987 stunned the Tamil nation.

At the initial stages of the outbreak of the war, all we could hear in Valvettiturai, where I was living, was the incessant artillery fire. The intensity and the magnitude of the conflict were not yet visible to us. We were totally ignorant of the Indian army’s abortive attempt to land at the Jaffna University sports grounds in pursuit of Mr. Pirabakaran or their thrusts towards Jaffna town in different directions from the Pallaly army camp. But as the days passed, disturbing news of growing numbers of civilian and LTTE casualties started to filter through. Indeed it was the incessant rumble of artillery fire and the news of growing casualty figures that drove home the point and dispelled any hopes we all had that the situation could be retrieved. Bala was in Jaffna town when the hostilities broke out. I was only able to gain a clear picture of the war situation and the developments before and after its outbreak when he, along with a few cadres, managed to escape from the Indian military encirclement of Jaffna and returned to our residence in Valvettiturai. He was emotionally and intellectually exhausted when he returned home and profoundly dismayed and disappointed over the calamitous developments. Bala had been intensely involved in all engagements between the LTTE, Indian diplomats and military commanders and he was able to gauge that the political situation was fast deteriorating and a military confrontation seemed inevitable. But it was not a war he wanted and he did what he could, utilising his diplomatic skills and powers of persuasion to the maximum, in trying to avoid a war with India. Unfortunately and tragically, the events - and reactions to events - unfolded, inexorably leading to a confrontation between the LTTE and the Indian Peace Keeping Force. We both understood the long-term implications a war would have, not only on future Indo-LTTE relations and the struggle, but more immediately for the war weary Tamil people also. It was yet another devastating setback for them.

Although the Jaffna population’s expectations and image of the IPKF and Delhi had been fractured by events beyond their control, when the armed conflict actually exploded the very fact that the Indian army deploying their lethal weaponry on them was just incredulous. Mentally and emotionally, the people were not prepared to condone such hard-line military action. They were able to comprehend the hatred and racism of their historic enemy, the Sinhalese, but when a loved and culturally and ethnically related neighbour behaved in the manner of a deadly foe, the reaction of the people was one of bitter betrayal and utter disbelief. Faced with the political and military violence of decades of Sinhala state repression and protracted war, the Tamil people were enjoying a brief period of peace under the cease-fire effected by the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. They were shattered by the outbreak of a war with India which, they fully understood, would have far reaching consequences for them and for their struggle. In Valvettiturai, the people gathered quietly and solemnly in small groups on street corners and in homes contemplating the phenomenal tragedy befalling them. LTTE contingents stationed in Vadamarachchi had been mobilised for the battlefronts in Jaffna town and could be seen marching, in single file, their rifles over their shoulders. A few panic-stricken people were running here and there, desperate to find ways of learning what had become of their relatives in Jaffna town. Rumour was rife with stories of heavy fighting between the LTTE cadres and the Indian army; of huge numbers of civilian casualties; of houses and property reduced to rubble and of streets jam-packed with panic stricken people fleeing to safety.

At the end of the day, two and a half years later, when the Indian army was compelled to vacate the Tamil homeland by an extraordinary turn of events, Delhi - to be more precise Rajiv’s administration was guilty of crimes against humanity, of the senseless slaughter of 6,000 Tamil civilians, the inestimable destruction of their hard earned property, the arrest, detention and torture of thousands of people and the gang raping of countless Tamil women. To put it succinctly, the Indian Peacekeeping Force had behaved like yet another ruthless army of occupation in the Tamil homeland. To this day, Delhi has failed to satisfactorily explain to the Tamil people why it was necessary to perpetrate such mass slaughter and wide scale destruction of property. An ironic twist in this tragic saga is that despite this painful historic betrayal made by their powerful neighbour, the Tamil people are conscious that India should remain a friendly ally and a crucial player in the determination of their political future.

The outbreak of the Indo-LTTE War was the outcome of the cumulative effects of the politico-military events of a most momentous year, a year of monumental tragedies in the history of the Tamil struggle. The year was 1987.

Sri Lanka’s Military Onslaught

When Mr. Pirabakaran left the shores of India in January 1987, he did so with a bitter taste in his mouth concerning India’s aggressive diplomacy. Yet he could not possibly have known that the unfriendly scenario he was leaving behind him, would be superseded by even more critical and hostile situations for the struggle and with India in the future. Nor could we. But we were aware that neither India nor Sri Lanka would allow the political and military situation to drift. Attempts at political negotiations had failed and the LTTE had intensified its military campaign. Mr. Pirabakaran also had his own perceptions of how he wished to conduct the struggle after his return to Jaffna. But it was not long before a new and grave scenario began to unfold as a consequence of political developments and military operations. Soon after his arrival in Jaffna, Mr. Pirabakaran informed us that the Sri Lankan army had embarked on a massive mobilisation of troops in preparation for a major military offensive in the Peninsula. We were deeply concerned that such retaliatory military operations by the Sri Lankan forces into the densely populated areas of the Jaffna Peninsula would result in large-scale civilian casualties. Along with the plan of military invasion, the Sinhala government also imposed a ruthless economic embargo on the North that brought untold suffering to the people. In its war with LTTE, the Sri Lanka government had drawn on the counter insurgency expertise of the Israelis. Central to their counter insurgency tactics was the objective of depriving the movement of their popular support by attempting to drive a wedge between the guerrillas and the people. In pursuit of this objective, the Sri Lankan state, on the advice of the Israelis, had over the years adopted the practice of punishing the entire population for guerrilla attacks and anti-state activities; a counter insurgency strategy known as ‘collective punishment’. The objective was to break the will of the people. By clamping an economic embargo on the North, subjecting the Tamil people to immense suffering as an act of ‘collective punishment’ the Jayawardene government wrongly anticipated that the civilian population would turn against the LTTE guerrillas. Contrary to their expectations, the public anger turned against the Sinhala state. During the first half of 1987, the state’s forces continued with their military offensive operations. There was fierce resistance from the LTTE guerrillas. The offensive and defensive war by the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE forces intensified and escalated and the bloody armed conflict became the dominant feature in the Tamil homeland. We watched this mounting violence from Chennai and feared that Jayawardene was embarking on military operations with genocidal intentions. Violence and counter violence in early 1987 peaked on 26th May 1987 when the Sri Lankan government finally embarked on an all out military offensive. The Sinhala state chose the thoroughly inapt title Operation Liberation’ to describe what amounted to a major offensive of an unprecedented scale to invade the Jaffna Peninsula.

The Sri Lankan state’s total disregard for the Tamil population was reflected when it unleashed the full might of its combined forces in the densely populated Vadamarachchi area. Vadamarachchi was the home of Mr. Pirabakaran and many LTTE leaders. One of the main aims of the operation was to punish the Vadamarachchi population and to break their will to go on supporting the LTTE guerrillas. But the scale of the operation by the Sri Lankan forces was out of all proportion to the LTTE’s military strength in the area at the time. News transmitted to us from the Peninsula indicated that several thousand troops had unleashed ferocious assaults, inflicting heavy civilian casualties and widespread destruction of property. Indiscriminate aerial bombardment with incendiary bombs and sustained artillery shelling on a small geographical area were deliberately intended to cause a heavy toll. The shelling of unprotected coastal villages by offshore naval gunboats was aimed at the civilian population. The searches, round ups and mass arrests of able bodied young Tamil men and their transfer to the various prisons in the Sinhala south after the occupation of Vadamarachchi by the Sri Lankan army, was a frightening development and further indication that the operation had targeted the civilian population. The disappearance of Tamil youth during military swoops and in various detention centres and prisons in the Sinhala south was well-documented by human rights organisations.

Having occupied Vadamarachchi, the Sri Lankan military forces turned towards the more densely populated area of the Jaffna Peninsula, Valigamam. The LTTE, for its part, infiltrated back into Vadamarachchi and stepped up its urban guerrilla tactics of harassing the occupying army, inflicting heavy casualties. In a major counter offensive on the aggressor, the LTTE for the first time inducted its suicide unit, the Black Tigers. In a devastating attack on the army’s headquarters in Vadamarachchi, Captain Miller volunteered his life and became the first Black Tiger of the LTTE. Captain Miller, a resident of Karaveddy in Vadamarachchi, sped a lorry load of explosives into the Central College, Nelliady that housed the new headquarters of the Sri Lankan army. The explosion flattened the building, killing hundreds of troops in an operation that destabilised the army’s military occupation of the area. It was July 5th 1987, a historic date in the LTTE’s diary of combat.

Delhi watched with justifiable concern the unfolding of the Sri Lankan state’s military campaign. The mounting scale of human rights violations against Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan military forces during ‘Operation Liberation’ coupled with the devastating effects of the economic embargo on the population, set off alarm bells in Delhi. The language Delhi used in its condemnation of Colombo’s military operations in the Peninsula contained insinuations of attempted genocide by the Sri Lankan ‘security forces’. Meanwhile, frustrated with Colombo’s reluctance to respond to India’s grave concern for the Tamil civilian casualties and bowing to mounting popular pressure from wide sections of the Indian public to intervene to put a halt to the carnage, Delhi, on June 2nd 1987 dispatched a flotilla of boats carrying humanitarian assistance to the besieged Tamils in Jaffna. The objective was to provide critically needed sustenance and relief to the people’s distress caused by both the economic blockade and the military offensive operations. The Indian flotilla was, however, prevented from entering the territorial waters of Sri Lanka and unceremoniously sent back to India by a hostile and resolute Sri Lankan Navy. Humiliated by the Sri Lankan rebuttal of its humanitarian gesture to the Peninsula Tamils, India raised the diplomatic tension when it responded by deploying Indian Air Force fighter planes to escort an air drop of essential food items to the beleaguered people in Jaffna. The outraged Sinhala government accused India of flagrant violation of Sri Lanka’s air space. This accusation of violation of Sri Lanka’s sovereignty amidst counter allegations of genocide created high and intense politico-diplomatic acrimony between the two neighbouring states.

The Indo-Sri Lanka Accord

Kittu had joined us in Chennai during these turbulent times. After miraculously escaping an assassination attempt, he had come to Chennai for medical treatment for the amputated leg injury sustained during an attack on his life in Jaffna. In the meantime, press reports of an intensification of diplomatic activity between Sri Lanka and India indicated that moves were afoot for formulating a political solution to Sri Lanka’s national conflict. It was obvious too, that the political proposals mooted were essentially between both Delhi and Colombo, with no serious consultation with the LTTE. Bala was not happy about this new political development, and skeptical as to how the two states could contemplate a formula for a political solution if they didn’t carry the LTTE with them. Bypassing the LTTE in any serious discussions indicated that any agreement between Delhi and Colombo was going to be imposed on the LTTE and the Tamil people, transgressing their democratic right to discussion and debate of the issues affecting their nation. While we were concerned with this development, Bala was taken by the state police for consultations with the Chief Minister Tamil Nadu during which time he was informed that Mr. Pirabakaran and his delegation were being flown from Jaffna to India. Bala was asked to join up with them at Chennai airport and accompany them to Delhi for political discussions. Included in Mr. Pirabakaran’s delegation was Yogi and the Jaffna political leader Thileepan. From Delhi, Bala informed me that a new set of proposals, embodied in an agreement called the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, were presented to them for approval. He said that in the LTTE’s view the framework was unacceptable. Bala also told me that they were confined to their hotel room surrounded by ‘Black Cat’ commandos. Yogaratnam Yogi was more blunt. He revealed that the delegation was being intimidated and they were under house arrest. He was quite agitated on the phone and intimated that I might not hear from Bala for some time as they were constrained from making external phone calls from their hotel. When they did return from Delhi a few days later, Bala was deeply reflective on the nature of the political discussions they had in Delhi and expressed his serious reservations on the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord to be signed by Jayawardene and Rajiv Gandhi. Bala admitted to me that the LTTE delegation was under severe strain in Delhi. They were held incommunicado, confined to their hotel rooms under tight security. They were given only a few hours to study the content of the Accord and give their endorsement. Mr. Dixit, the Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and the pivotal figure in the formulation of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, threatened the LTTE delegates with serious action if they refused to endorse the Accord. Mr. Dixit told them bluntly that the Accord would be signed and implemented whether they accepted it or not. Mr. Pirabakaran and Bala were annoyed over this aggressive, brinkmanship diplomacy of Mr. Dixit. The LTTE leader had categorically told the Indian diplomat that neither the LTTE nor the Tamils of Eelam would accept the framework of the Accord, since it fell far short of the Tamils’ political aspirations. The LTTE did not budge from their committed position though subjected to severe pressure, persuasion and intimidation. Finally, the Indian Prime Minister, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, invited Mr. Pirabakaran and Bala to his residence. Bala and Pirabakaran clarified the LTTE’s position on the Accord, explaining the limitations and inadequacies of the Provincial framework envisaged in the Accord. The North and East is a single, integrated, territorial homeland of the Tamil speaking people and to subject the question of territorial unity to a referendum as proposed in the Accord was unfair and unacceptable, they argued. Mr. Gandhi was told that the Tamils did not trust Jayawardene and that the he would never recognise Tamil aspirations. It was also explained to the Indian leader that the demand for the disarmament of the Tamil resistance movement within seventy- two hours of the signing of the document as stipulated in the Accord before the implementation of the envisaged framework was a serious mistake. Though they could not accept its contents, Rajiv Gandhi urged them not to oppose the Accord and promised a predominate role for the LTTE in an interim Northeastern government. Bala told me that Mr. Pirabakaran was skeptical of Rajiv’s pledge but they agreed to his proposals to avoid confronting the Indian government. Mr. Pirabakaran was not happy with the events that had transpired in Delhi. His cadres mobbed him when he came to our house in Chennai, anxious to learn what the contents of the Agreement between Colombo and Delhi meant for the struggle. Both Bala and Pirabakaran were furious with what they considered the bullying tactics and arrogance of the Indian officials. These sentiments dominated relationships with Indian officials during the entire period of the implementation of the Accord. Mr. Dixit, although viewed by many as a clever diplomat, was perceived by the LTTE leadership as arrogant and manipulative and not to be trusted. Indeed, considering the far reaching implications of the Accord for the Tamil people and the pre-eminent position held by the LTTE in the Tamil struggle, it is quite unbelievable just how shabbily the LTTE leaders were treated in Delhi without being offered adequate time and space for a proper discussion of the Accord. Crucial to an understanding of this entire historic event is the fact that the LTTE was never a signatory to the Accord and was more or less excluded from its formulation. Ultimately India was to pay a heavy price both politically and militarily for its arrogant attitude towards the LTTE representatives and their struggle.

The Indo-Sri Lanka Accord was signed amidst a great deal of controversy on both sides of the ethnic divide. The Sinhala south witnessed an outburst of anti-Indian sentiments with demonstrations and protests at what they considered Indian intervention in the internal affairs of the island. In the beginning the Tamils in the North and East, who had historically viewed India as an ally and potential savior, anticipated a period of security and peace with the presence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force to monitor the ceasefire between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan military forces, and generously garlanded the troops when they entered the Jaffna Peninsula after landing at Pallaly Airport on July 30th 1987. Within three months of the arrival of the Indian Peace Keeping Force, we were to witness a complete about turn in the attitudes of both communities. The Tamils in the Northeast were hostile and resentful of the occupying Indian troops, while some sections of the Sinhalese were happy that the Indian troops were fighting their war with the LTTE. Furthermore, the LTTE was totally unaware that apart from enforcing the cease-fire between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan military forces the Indian Peace Keeping Force had been considered by Delhi as a means to secure the forceful de-commissioning of LTTE arms if it failed to comply with the Accord. The only course for suspicion was the heavy military equipment being unloaded by the Indians at Pallaly airbase. One wondered how tanks and heavy artillery pieces could be compatible with the role of ‘peacekeeping’.

Mr. Pirabakaran followed up the arrival of Indian troops in Jaffna with an address to his people on 4th August. A massive crowd thronged to a public meeting at Suthumalai in Jaffna to hear him deliver his famous ‘I love India’ speech where he set out his position regarding the Accord and the handing over of LTTE weapons to the Indian Peace Keeping Force. Acknowledging that his options were constrained by the political and military might of India, he nevertheless refused to give up his struggle for a separate Tamil state. This carefully crafted historic speech however, had to take into account the aspirations of the Tamil people as well as recognise the delicate balance between India’s strategic influence and the Tamil struggle for self-determination. As events unfolded this proved to be the reality. From the outset the implementation of the Accord was haphazard and reflected the concerns of both Sri Lanka and India more than those of the aggrieved Tamil people. For example, the military commanders of the IPKF and the Sri Lankan officials were swift in ensuring the obligations of the Accord which required the laying down of the LTTE’s weapons, but deliberately delayed the implementation of the interim administration as pledged by Rajiv Gandhi. This generated justifiable suspicion within the LTTE’s ranks and within the Tamil population. Having surrendered a substantial section of their armoury and suspended all armed operations against the Sri Lankan state, the LTTE leaders and cadres looked upon the government of India to institute an interim administrative structure in the Northeast. To their dismay, the Indians kept quiet while the Sri Lankan President Jayawardene intensified Sinhala colonisation schemes in Tamil areas and opened up new police stations in the East.

Thileepan’s Fast-Unto-Death

Thileepan, the young Tiger leader of Jaffna, took the podium on the 14th September at the Nallur Kandasamy temple, to commence his fast- unto-death as a protest against India’s failure to fulfil her pledges, and to mobilise the frustrated sentiments of the Tamils into a national mass upsurgence. Thileepan’s non-violent struggle was unique and extraordinary for its commitment. Although an armed guerrilla fighter, he chose the spiritual mode of ‘ahimsa’ as enunciated by the great Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi to impress upon India the plight and predicament of the people of Tamil Eelam. The levels to which the Tamil people or more specifically, the LTTE cadres, are prepared to go for their freedom mirrors not only a deep passion for their liberation, but indicates the phenomenal degree of oppression they have been subjected to. It is only those who experience intolerable oppression of such a magnitude, of being threatened with extinction, that are capable of supreme forms of self sacrifice as we have seen from Thileepan’s episode.

Thileepan, who had travelled to Delhi as part of Mr. Pirabakaran’s delegation before the signing of the Accord, was informed of the content of the dialogue that had taken place between the Indian Prime Minister and the LTTE leader. With the knowledge that there was an unwritten agreement between Rajiv Gandhi and Pirabakaran and that it had not been implemented, he felt that his people and the struggle had been betrayed and decided on a fast-unto-death demanding the fulfillment of the pledges. When news of Thileepan’s fast-unto-death and the deteriorating political situation between the LTTE and the Indian Peace Keeping Force reached us, we decided to leave India for Jaffna.

Following the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord the Indian authorities ran a few shuttle flights from Chennai to facilitate the return of some exiled Eelam Tamils in India to their homes in the Northeast of Sri Lanka. I had no wish to avail myself of this opportunity. Over the years many of the cadres who had visited us in Chennai had rendered stories of the difficulties and dangers they had overcome when crossing the Palk Strait waters to come and go from Jaffna and I could see no reason why we should be excluded from such risks. To our very good fortune the climate and sea conditions were perfect when we made our journey across the temperamental Palk Strait waters to Jaffna under a star-filled sky on mirror smooth water. The short trip turned out to be more of a pleasure cruise than an encounter with danger. When we landed on the white sand shores of Valvetitturai under the cover of darkness after the brief crossing of the Palk Strait in September 1987, one of my longstanding aspirations had been realised. But my joy at reaching the shores of Tamil Eelam after so many years of support for the struggle was contained by the gloom that hung in the air. Thileepan was a few days into his fast till death and the population of the Peninsula was seriously concerned and wholeheartedly behind the non-violent campaign of a single individual seeking justice from the world’s largest democracy. Subsequently, our first priority after our arrival in the Peninsula was to visit Thileepan encamped at the historic Nallur Kandasamy temple, the cultural and spiritual centre of the Jaffna Tamils.

Thileepan’s decision to single-handedly take on the credibility of the Indian state was not incongruous with his history of resistance to state oppression as a cadre in the LTTE. He had faced battle on several occasions in defence of Jaffna during Kittu’s time and suffered serious abdominal wounds in the process. He was well known for his astute understanding of the politics and mindset of his people and emerged as a radical political leader. The senior LTTE women cadres often speak of his staunch advocacy of inducting women into the national struggle and is remembered as one of the founding fathers in the promotion of women’s issues. With such a history it comes as no surprise that he endeared himself not only to the cadres but the people of Jaffna also. Bala met Thileepan during the pre-Accord talks when he shared a hotel room with him in Delhi and quickly grew very fond of this affable fellow. It was an extremely painful and emotional experience for Bala to meet him again in Jaffna, in totally adverse conditions, with Thileepan’s life slowly ebbing away.

As we entered the premises of the Nallur Kandasamy temple we were confronted by a sea of people seated on the white sands under the blazing sun. The air was thick with collective emotion and solemnity. This fading young man on the platform obviously embodied the political sentiments and aspirations of his people. But it was more than that also. Thileepan’s fast had touched the spirit of the Tamil nation and mobilised the popular masses in unprecedented solidarity. One could sense how this extraordinary sacrifice of a fragile young man had suddenly assumed a formidable force as the collective strength of his people. Thileepan’s fast was a supreme act of transcendence of individuality for a collective cause. Literally, it was an act of self-crucifixion, a noble act by which this brave young man condemned himself to death so that others could live in freedom and dignity. With deep humility, Bala and I mounted the platform to speak to the reposed Thileepan. Already several days without food or water and with a dry cracked mouth, Thileepan could only whisper. Bala leaned closer to the weakened Thileepan and exchanged words with him. Naturally enough, Thileepan enquired about the political developments. We left soon afterwards, never to see him alive again.

As Thileepan’s fast moved on in days, he was no longer able to address the public from the podium and spent much of his time lying quietly as his condition steadily deteriorated. As Thileepan grew visibly weaker in front of his people’s eyes, their anger and resentment towards India and the IPKF grew stronger. The sight of this popular young man being allowed to die in such an agonising manner generated disbelief at the depth of callousness of the Indian government and the Indian Peace Keeping Force. All that was required to save Thileepan’s waning life was for the Indian High Commissioner, Mr. Dixit, to humble himself and meet and reassure Thileepan that the Indian government would fulfil its pledges to the Tamils. In fact Delhi ignored Thileepan’s fast in the early stages as an isolated idiosyncrasy of an individual, but later became seriously concerned when the episode gathered momentum and turned into a national uprising with anti-Indian sentiments. Delhi’s concerns compelled Mr. Dixit to pay a visit to Jaffna to ‘study the situation’. On the 22nd September, the eighth day of Thileepan’s fast, Mr. Dixit arrived at the Pallaly airport where Mr. Pirabakaran and Bala met him. Bala told me later that Mr. Dixit was rude and resentful and condemned Thileepan’s fasting campaign as a provocative act by the LTTE aimed at instigating the Tamil masses against the Indian government. Mr. Pirabakaran showed remarkable patience and pleaded with the Indian diplomat to pay a visit to Nallur and talk to the dying young man to give up his fast by assuring him that India would fulfil its pledges. Displaying his typical arrogance and intransigence, Mr. Dixit rejected the LTTE leader’s plea, arguing that it was not within the mandate of his visit. Had Mr. Dixit correctly read the situation and genuinely cared for the sentiments of the Tamil people at this very crucial time, it is highly probable that the entire episode of India’s direct intervention in the ethnic conflict would have taken a different turn. But Thileepan’s willingness to sacrifice his life in such a way touched the spirit of the people and his unnecessary tragic death on 26th September planted deeply the seeds of disenchantment with the Indian Peace Keeping Force. Events to follow only reinforced their shattered confidence in the Indian ‘peacekeepers’ and Delhi.

I remained in Valvettiturai after Thileepan’s death. I felt comfortable and secure in this quiet coastal fishing village. Languishing under the burning tropical heat, Valvettiturai harbours a unique community of proud people with extraordinary courage and a record of militancy and resistance to oppression which would fill the pages of a history book. And it was in this ancient and historical town I paid my final respects to this remarkable freedom fighter, Thileepan. Small candle-lit shrines housing Thileepan’s picture were set-up in front of every house in the village, as they were throughout the Peninsula. Plaited dry coconut leaves the traditional Tamil decoration indicating mourning strung from post to post, fringed roadsides. Funeral music blared from the loudspeakers of temples and schools. Thileepan’s ravaged body was dressed in full military uniform and draped in the insignia of the LTTE. The garland bedecked funeral cortege had moved slowly from village to village throughout the Peninsula where crowds flocked to pay their profound respect to this legendary martyr. The sombre beat of military drums heralded the movement of the cortege from its resting- place in Valvettiturai through the village to its next destination. As Thileepan’s open cortege crept through the main village road for the last time, I stood silently with the crowd lining the street, to pay a final salute to a young man whose fast and sacrifice had surpassed that of the guru of satyagraha, Mahatma Gandhi himself. Thileepan transcended Gandhi in his act of self-denial by refusing not only food but fluids also.

Tragedy Befalls Senior Commanders

One of the famous residents of Valvettiturai was Kumarappa, a senior LTTE cadre and commander of Jaffna. He lived there with his extended family. Kumarappa was an old friend of ours from the late 70s in the Chennai days. In the early 80s he went to Ireland to study marine engineering and he visited us regularly in London. When the 1983 anti-Tamil riots erupted he gave up his studies and followed us to Chennai from where he proceeded onto Jaffna to take up the struggle again. From Jaffna he was sent to Batticaloa. It was there he met and fell in love with his wife, Ranjini. In the more optimistic days following the immediate signing of the Accord, Ranjini came to Valvettiturai for her wedding to Kumarappa. When Bala made a political visit to Jaffna from Chennai, Kumarappa seized the opportunity and requested him to be the chief witness at his wedding. I was in Chennai on the occasion of the wedding and hadn’t met Ranjini. But one of the first things Kumarappa did when I arrived in Valvettiturai was to arrange for me to meet his new wife. I was truly delighted when he brought his bride to our house to meet me. For inexplicable reasons, the simple occasion of meeting Ranjini remains clear and strong in my memory. Perhaps it was the way the silvery moonlight lit up Kumarappa’s face revealing for a fleeting moment the beauty we see in a youthful face when it is filled with happiness, or perhaps it was their affection for each other discernible in Ranjini’s shyness. But the night was full of stars and it was warm and peaceful. Kumarappa and Rajini sat on a two-seater settee. He had his arm around her shoulders and I can still see the bridegroom beaming as looked at his bride. But Kumarappa’s responsibilities as Jaffna commander allowed little time for him to spend with his new wife. Bala regularly travelled with Kumarappa to and from Jaffna city. I often visited Ranjini at the family home during Kumarappa’s absence. Everything seemed so normal and pleasant. Who could have anticipated that a tragedy would befall them and snatch away his life and break Ranjini’s heart?

I went to visit Ranjini around 5.30p.m. We were to go for an idyllic evening stroll on the beach. Kumarappa was at the house and said he had to leave at around 6p.m. On his insistence Ranjini and I went for a short walk while he prepared to depart. We returned quickly from our walk and, since they were a young, newly married couple, I discreetly left. On my way home from visiting Ranjini I saw the Trincomalee commander, Pulendran, speeding down the main street on a big motorbike. He was obviously enjoying the power of his bike and the wind on his face. I had no idea that he was heading in the same direction as Kumarappa and was just a few minutes away from meeting him. As I turned my bicycle into a lane he saw me, and a broad white smile lit up his open face and he waved as rode on down the road. Pulendran had also married just a few weeks before Kumarappa. Once again, Bala had been instrumental in getting the couple married. We attended Pulendran’s marriage to Suba at the Murugan temple, Thiruporur in Tamil Nadu, the same location as Mr. Pirabakaran’s wedding a few years earlier.

The following day, Bala informed me that the Sri Lanka Navy had intercepted Kumarappa and Pulendran and fifteen other senior LTTE cadres at sea near the coastal waters of Point Pedro. They were being held at the Pallaly military base under the custody of the Sri Lankan and Indian military personnel. I was surprised and disturbed, but not seriously agitated. I thought that it was a minor incident and they would be released. The situation in Jaffna was calm and stable. There was a cease-fire. The IPKF was maintaining peace and the Sri Lankan troops were confined to barracks. Furthermore, the LTTE fighters were granted general amnesty following their surrender of weapons to India as required by the obligations of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. The objective conditions that prevailed at that time were such that no one anticipated any serious turn of events following the arrest. As senior LTTE commanders, Kumarappa and Pulendran were well known to IPKF officials so we were confident that the Indians would ensure that no harm should be done to them. We assumed their release would be just a matter of clarifying with the Indian officials the confusion over their arrest. Indeed, that was the message Bala conveyed through me to Kumarappa’s anxious young bride. But Bala’s mood was tense and grave when he returned home the following day after visiting them in custody at Pallaly base. He was troubled by the manner they were kept in custody as criminals surrounded by grim looking Sinhalese troops with levelled guns. Indian military officers and a small contingent of troops were stationed outside the building. The commander of the IPKF, Major General Harkirat Singh, told Bala that the Sri Lankan government had taken a hard- line position, demanding the LTTE cadres be dispatched to Colombo for interrogation. Bala became alarmed at the new turn of events. He immediately contacted Mr. Dixit, the Indian High Commissioner and urged him to use his diplomatic good offices to secure the release of the LTTE men. He also warned Mr. Dixit of grave consequences if any harm came to our cadres, some of who were senior commanders and war heroes. Mr. Dixit assured Bala he would do his best to secure their release.

The Jayawardene government, or more specifically, the hawkish National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali, demanded the arrested cadres be brought to Colombo for interrogation for alleged ‘crimes’ committed in the past, prior to the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. Kumarappa and Pulendran were senior commanders for Batticaloa and Trincomalee districts and successfully fought many battles and were highly regarded by the Tamils in the Eastern Province as war heroes. Athulathmudali, who had been hunting these famous guerrilla leaders for years without success, struck luck when these commanders were arrested and held in the custody of his soldiers. We were fully conscious of the grave danger posed to their lives should they be sent to Colombo for interrogation by the notorious intelligence agents under Athulathmudali, who was fiercely determined to exact revenge. The word ‘interrogation’ had a different meaning in the lexicon of the Sri Lankan police system - torture, and, in the case of LTTE suspected persons, summary execution. In view of the ugly history of gross violations of human rights of detainees by the Sri Lankan police and military authorities there was little doubt that our cadres in custody would be subjected to torture and extra judicial killing. Bala, with the permission of the IPKF, visited Kumarappa, Pulendran and the other cadres, most of whom were known to us, and conveyed to them the unexpected dramatic turn in their circumstances. They were shocked and agitated. They knew that they had to face a most painful death if they were taken to Colombo for ‘interrogation’. They discussed their fate among themselves and made a unanimous decision. They conveyed their wishes to their leader Mr. Pirabakaran in letters addressed to him. Bala briefed Mr. Pirabakaran of these tragic and critical developments and handed over the letters. The letters informed the LTTE leader of a unanimous and secret decision by the cadres that they would, in LTTE tradition, prefer to take their lives rather than be handed over to the Sinhala state and subjected to barbarous torture and possibly death under the cover of interrogation. They wanted to die a honourable death, their letters insisted, rather than conceding to the demands of the Sinhala racist state that would discredit and undermine their long and determined history of resistance against their enemy. They demanded cyanide capsules.

Mr. Pirabakaran was deeply agitated and profoundly disturbed over the devastating turn of events. He felt the IPKF was in-charge of maintaining peace in the Tamil areas and that it was the duty and responsibility of the Indian military establishment to secure the release of his cadres who were pardoned under general amnesty. He requested Bala to exert maximum pressure on Mr. Dixit to secure their release. The next morning Bala rushed to Pallaly air base to contact Mr. Dixit in Colombo. Confronted with the possibility of another calamity on a worse scale and magnitude than the Thileepan episode, Bala implored, threatened and argued with the Indian diplomat to secure the safe release of the LTTE cadres if another major crisis in Indo-LTTE relations was to be avoided. Bala was able to convince Mr. Dixit that far-reaching consequences might explode and shatter the peace in the Tamil homeland if the Indian government failed to get the release of the LTTE men. Mr. Dixit, Bala told me on his return home in the evening, was tense and anxious and his frantic efforts to persuade Jayawardene not to proceed with this dangerous and drastic step were unsuccessful. Complicating the crisis was the unfriendly and strained relationship between Mr. Dixit and the IPFK commander, who flatly refused to take orders from the Indian diplomat. Time was running out. Mr. Dixit failed to fully appraise the higher authorities in Delhi’s corridors of power of the explosive turn of events and deluded himself that he could influence the cunning ‘old fox’ who was fully supportive of the devious scheme of his war Minister. We were to learn two years later from the Sri Lankan President Mr. Premadasa during the negotiating period with the Colombo government, that Lalith Athulathmudali was primarily responsible for the hard-line attitude of Jayawardene. Mr. Premadasa told us in detail how the Minister of National Security, with single-minded determination, manipulated Jayawardene and even threatened to resign his portfolio if his demand to have the LTTE cadres brought to Colombo was not met. Finally Jayawardene yielded to Lalith’s threat and refused to consider the pleas of the Indian High Commissioner. Mr. Dixit told Bala that his efforts with the Colombo Government to secure the freedom of the LTTE fighters were a fiasco and that they would be flown to Colombo on the 5th October in the evening.

Mr. Pirabakaran was furious when he was informed of the final decision. He felt he was obliged to fulfil the last wishes of his cadres in custody. Mr. Pirabakaran and his commanders each took off his cyanide capsule and hung it around both Bala and Mathaya’s necks with instructions to deliver it to the captured cadres. Garlanded with cyanide capsules Bala and Mathaya reluctantly and hesitantly visited the cadres on the decisive day of their transfer. Kumarappa sent instructions to his wife. Pulendran did the same. Haran, a married man with two small children, expressed his wishes for their future. And so the destiny of the LTTE cadres was sealed. A few minutes before the appointed flight to Colombo, Kumarappa, Pulendran and the other fifteen comrades simultaneously bit into the cyanide capsules. When the Sri Lankan troops surrounding the LTTE prisoners realised the catastrophe that was going on before their eyes, they pounced on them, in a rage, and started beating the LTTE cadres with their rifle butts, in a frantic attempt to obstruct the collective suicide. But it was all over. Twelve cadres, including Kumarappa and Pulendran died on the spot. Five cadres survived the ordeal and recovered in hospital.

It was evening on the 5th October when news of the collective suicide of the LTTE cadres was informed to the public and me. From the LTTE base in Valvettiturai the news was relayed by our walkie talkie set and the names were read out, slowly and deliberately: Kumarappa, gone; Pulendie Amman, gone, and then one name after the other until the list of this tragedy had been well spelled out. I sat there numbed, not believing my ears. How could this happen? It can’t really be true. What has happened? And then from the distance a faint sound of wailing. Kumarappa’s wife, a quarter of a mile from our house, had been informed. And from another direction that distinguishable howl of unbearable emotional pain and grief: another family had been informed, and then another and another, until the village was an open, outdoor funeral parlour.

It is customary in the Tamil community for people to visit the homes and pay their respects to the deceased and offer condolences to the bereaved families, particularly in a small village such as Valvettiturai where most people know each other. In a situation where the martyred cadres had become national heroes, everybody wanted to salute their courage and pay the respects to the families, to share their grief with them. Subsequently, the next evening, together with a Sinhalese lady friend, Vaneetha - wife of a senior LTTE cadre, Mr. Nadesan - living in Valvettiturai, we visited all the families of the martyred cadres. The village people also went from house to house, gathering and discussing this unreal situation. Disbelief and grief were the two dominant emotions. Men huddled together and whispered while the women relatives and friends sat together on the floor, wailing and banging on their chests in demonstrations of collective grief.

I waited till Bala returned home before I went to see Ranjini, Kumarappa’s young bride, the next morning. I dreaded it. How were we going to face this young woman. What could we say? My stomach churned as we dressed and readied to leave for her house. My light coloured sari signified I was in mourning.

Bala and I walked the short distance through the grief stricken and shaken village to Kumarappa’s home where Ranjini was living with his family. As we came closer to the house we became part of a big crowd heading in the same direction. The sound of wailing grew louder as we neared the residence. When we entered the jam- packed lane leading to the front gate of Kumarappa’s house, the crowd separated allowing us to pass unobstructed. Ranjini was distraught, delirious with grief not knowing where or how to contain her agonising distress. A few yards from the gate she caught sight of us and lunged at me, embracing me and pushing me back against the fence and wailing in utter agony. “Auntie, Auntie”, she screamed, “My husband, my husband,” she sobbed uncontrollably on my shoulder. I took her inside where the house was packed with countless women relatives sitting on the floor, there to provide support and share in Ranjini and Kumarappa’s family’s grief.

Ranjini’s emotional torment continued throughout the night. As I tried to sleep, my emotions were kept awake by the pleading sound of Ranjini calling “Aththan, Aththan, Aththan” drifting through the silence of the night. (In Tamil culture a woman does not use the familiar first name to address her husband but adopts the respectable term ‘Aththan’ to address him.)

But the sharing of grief at Ranjini’s house was not the end of the funeral process. The main funeral service was to take place the following evening. It was to be a mass, public funeral at the village sports ground. How was I going to cope with the emotion of such an event? But I, like everyone else, had to. In the meantime, as arrangements were being made for a national farewell to the martyred LTTE cadres, the recovered bodies were sent home for the last night.

Crowds thronged to the Valvettiturai grounds for a final homage to the twelve fallen heroes. The atmosphere was sombre as people filed past the lined up open coffins, many halting to weep at the foot of a cadre particularly known to them. Ranjini and Suba (Palendran’s wife) were hysterical and constrained by their relatives. Kuha, wife of Haran, and her two children were also in the crowd of bereaved relatives supported by family and friends. Sobbing and wailing came from every direction. Eulogies in the form of poems, songs and speeches blared out over the loudspeaker. Ironically, one of the main LTTE speakers delivering a eulogy, Santhosam, was to die a few weeks later in battle with the Indian army. A downhearted and dispirited Mr. Pirabakaran and the LTTE leadership filed past slowly, occasionally pausing for reflection at the foot of the coffins of some of the most loyal, trustworthy and senior LTTE cadres who had followed him over the years.

Soon after Mr Pirabakaran’s departure, Ranjini, Suba and Kuha, in Tamil tradition, were taken away from the funeral scene prior to the cremation. Ranjini had to be held and guided away as she struggled to cling to the coffin that was moving in the opposite direction to her. “Aththan, Aththan,” she screamed to ears that could not longer hear her desperation. Suba had to be constrained as she struggled to rush to hold on to Pulendran’s coffin as it was taken away out of her sight forever. The coffins were carried, in single, dignified file, to the waiting funeral pyres. Dressed in the Tamil tradition of white verti and bare-chested, ageing fathers stood silently and bewildered at the head of the coffins of their sons. Burning torches were handed to them, and, as the military salute rang out through the air, they stepped forward, in unison, and plunged the fire into the pyre, setting in motion the final extinction of their progeny. A swell of thick grey smoke billowing into the sky prompted the people to spontaneously stand and a groan emanated from the large, grief stricken crowd. It all seemed like a nightmare. How did it come to this? Why were so many people being emotionally tortured in this way? What had the people done to deserve such a loss and pain? Indeed, it was a major paradox that the people had been exposed to such emotional stress and the struggle had been subjected to such strain when a cease-fire was supposed to be in effect. That this calamity could follow so soon after the sacrifice of Thileepan added to the people’s bewilderment. The Indian Peace Keeping Force and Delhi were totally discredited in the eyes of the public. The distrust of Colombo only deepened. Wounds were inflicted which, I believe, will never fully heal.

I left the scene of the funeral emotionally drained. I was unable to relate the happy bridegrooms I had known just a few days earlier and the huge, fresh smile from Pulendran and Kumarappa with the lifeless bodies in the coffins and the scene I had just witnessed. I also knew the other cadres from Chennai and Valvettiturai and I felt a huge sense of loss and sorrow. I learnt a sad and bitter lesson on the vicissitudes and fragility of life.

The events over the past few days had more or less set the political situation on an irreversible downward spiral. The relationship between the LTTE and the IPKF was never the same again, and never would be. The communal clashes and the reprisal killings of innocent Sinhalese were unfortunate outbursts of national grief. The climate was extremely explosive. There was mounting tension between the LTTE and the IPKF. There were several instances of violence in Jaffna. The population, angered by the tragic event, openly defied the Indian troops. In the meantime, the Jayawardene Government blamed the LTTE for the killing of Sinhalese civilians and demanded India to take military action against the Tamil Tigers. The Indian Chief of the Army Staff, General Sundaraji and the Indian Defence Minister Mr. K.C. Pant flew to Colombo and held secret meetings with President Jayawardene. Colombo was told of the Indian decision to launch military offensive operations and disarm the LTTE. Jayawardene was delighted that his strategy had finally worked. i.e. to turn the guns of the Indian army against the Tamil Tiger guerrillas, whom the former had trained, armed and sustained. It was a diplomatic victory for Jayawardene but it spelled doom for the Tamils. 10th October was the date set for the Indian military invasion of Jaffna to disarm the LTTE by force. To keep the Tamil public in the dark concerning their military manoeuvres and to suppress local and international criticism of possible military excesses and atrocities of war, the Indian army launched a sudden and swift operation against the free media in Jaffna in the early hours of the morning on the 10th October, just a few hours before the major military onslaught. The printing presses of ‘Elamurasu’ and ‘Murasoli’ were blasted with explosives and the journalists arrested. Radio and television stations were attacked and all transmission facilities rendered ineffective. The world’s largest democracy carried out the heinous crime of striking down the very instrument of democracy, the media of the people of Jaffna, to stifle their freedom of opinion and expression. Armed LTTE units fiercely resisted the Indian troops on the morning of the 10th October when they tried to march into the city from the famous Dutch Fort in Jaffna. The Indo-LTTE war broke out in full swing plunging the Tamil nation into a new and unprecedented cycle of violence, death and destruction.

‘Operation Pawan’

In its considerations prior to the deployment of Indian troops as a Peace Keeping Force in the Northeast of Sri Lanka under the terms of the Indo Sri Lanka Accord, the Indian military hierar chy’s assessment of seventy-two hours as the time frame required to forcefully disarm the LTTE if conditions demanded, proved to be a gross military miscalculation and underestimation of the LTTE’s fire power, tactics and determination. Subsequently, when the hostilities exploded on Jaffna soil on 10th October 1987, the Indian army assumed their task would be confined to a quick mop up of a small guerrilla outfit. Code-named ‘Operation Pawan’, the initial thrust of the forceful disarming of LTTE cadres by the Indian troops was aimed at cutting off the head of the organisation by capturing the LTTE leadership. With the head gone, the Indians felt, the LTTE cadres would be disorganised, de-moralised and would eventually surrender without resistance. But from the outset of their campaign the Indian military was confronted with an unexpected ferocity of LTTE resistance. With the objective of capturing Mr. Pirabakaran and his senior commanders, the Indians launched an airborne commando raid at Jaffna University on 12th October. They soon realised the disarming process was not going to be an easy task as they had expected. The operation turned out to be one of the major military debacles in the history of the Indian army.

Indian intelligence had acquired information that Mr. Pirabakaran’s headquarters were situated in Pirambady Lane in Kokkuvil, a Jaffna suburb, and a short distance from the Jaffna University and the Faculty of Medicine. An open space between this complex of structures provided an ideal landing zone for an airborne operation and tempted the Indians into embarking on a rash and risky military venture. Mr Pirabakaran, with his keen instinct for military strategy and tactics, had already identified the field as the likely location for a major commando raid on his headquarters. In anticipation, he deployed his select group of cadres in the university buildings surrounding the field, and waited. As helicopters disgorged troops from the 13th Sikh Light Infantry and para commandos on the designated open ground in the early hours of the morning on the 12th October, they were met with ferocious and pitiless fire from waiting LTTE machine guns. As serious for the troops was the damage to Indian helicopters by the machine guns, which effectively ruled out further landings of troops to strengthen and support their colleagues, caught in the LTTE’s fusillade. The Indian jawans, surrounded and isolated, fought for their lives till midmorning on 12th October when their last bullet had been fired. In a final bid for survival, the troops launched a desperate bayonet charge. Only one Indian soldier survived to tell the story of this abortive operation. Twenty-nine specially trained Sikh commandos perished in this battle. In the meantime, the para commandos, in single-minded pursuit of their military objective of eliminating Mr. Pirabakaran, had separated from the Sikh platoon and pressed on in the direction of their target. They discovered on their arrival at his headquarters, that Mr. Pirabakaran had slipped out just a few hours before the Indian operation had got underway. But this overconfident, ill-judged military venture set the scene for one of the worst records of atrocities against Tamil civilians by the Indian army during its disarming campaign of the LTTE. Beleaguered and jumpy Indian para commandos stumbling around in unfamiliar territory in the dark for a target they had never seen, mercilessly shot and killed any Tamil civilian in the vicinity of this futile military operation. Mortar and artillery support for the stranded paras added to the civilian toll. A contingent of tanks deployed from the nearby Jaffna Dutch Fort to rescue and back up the desperate and isolated para commandos, mowed people down like blades of grass further adding to the list of civilian casualties. Crushed and mangled bodies and bullet riddled corpses littered the area after the Indian troops had moved on from the carnage they had unnecessarily caused. In total, forty Tamil civilians lay dead and dozens were injured as a result of this military misadventure.

As ‘Operation Pawan’ proceeded and intensified, artillery shells continued to rain down on densely populated areas in the Valigamam sector of the Peninsula, blasting property to rubble, blowing people apart and permanently maiming others. The wanton butchery of Tamil civilians by Indian troops went hand in hand with their multi-pronged advance along the main arteries of the Peninsula towards the Jaffna town. In their advance towards the Jaffna town, the jawans left a trail of grisly deaths and random killings of Tamil civilians by trigger-happy troops. Behaving like a foreign army of occupation the Indian troops exacted their booty. Countless numbers of Tamil women screamed in terror and disgust as the gangs of jawans from the invading Indian columns subjected them to brutal sexual violence; their cries of anguish echoed repeatedly in the air when the ‘peacekeepers’ violated what Tamil women consider most sacred their modesty, dignity and pride. Every house along the route of the invading hordes was pillaged and plundered. Every household was robbed of cash, jewellery and other valuables. The invasion of Jaffna was a big booty for the Indian army but for the civilians of Jaffna, it was a shock, terror and humiliation. The mass disillusionment and resentment against the Indian ‘peacekeeping’ troops turned into a popular sympathy and support for the LTTE freedom fighters. Confronted with a major conventional military assault with the Indians deploying helicopter gunships, artillery and mortar fire, and tanks, the LTTE cadres drew on their territorial advantage and classic urban guerrilla tactics. Ultimately they were successful in slowing down the planned three day operation, to a two-week campaign. The war weary Tamil civilians, having suffered high casualties and massive destruction of their property at the hands of the Sri Lankan military forces, now found themselves in the midst of another military occupation of their land with an enemy of unsurpassed ferocity, the Trojan horse of ‘peacekeeping’.

‘Operation Pawan’, ostensibly launched to disarm the LTTE, not only murdered and maimed inexcusable numbers of civilians during its intensity in the early days, but plunged large sections of the population into either temporary or permanent displacement. Jaffna residents fled to designated refugee camps while others sought refuge outside the main theatre of war. Those who stayed behind risked death and injury at the hands of the unpredictable and aggressive Indian troops. In this hostile situation it became imperative to evacuate wounded LTTE cadres from the Jaffna General Hospital to local hospitals in the Vadamarachchi and Chavakachcheri districts of the Peninsula. Small and poorly equipped, local hospitals struggled to cope with LTTE casualties and a rising toll of critically injured civilians. Many of the displaced people came to stay with relatives and friends in Valvettiturai in the Vadamarachchi sector. Some LTTE cadres returned home to Valvettiturai bringing their colleagues with them. And the Valvettiturai people responded to this national crisis, revealing their deep patriotism and great courage as many families secretly provided accommodation and refuge to wounded LTTE cadres. One of these people, Kittu’s mother, affectionately known as ‘Kittu Amma’, a staunch and unbending advocate of Tamil Eelam and a trusted and reliable supporter of the LTTE, willingly opened her house and heart to the needs of the struggle. This remarkable matriarch, who had a long history of providing sustenance and support to LTTE cadres, was viewed as the safest house to accommodate the senior veteran Pottu Amman, critically injured in the LTTE ambush of Indian jawans at the Jaffna Medical Faculty. Pottu Amman was the first LTTE cadre to be injured in this campaign and was rushed to the Jaffna General Hospital where he was given emergency life saving surgery for a serious abdominal injury. Following his initial recovery from the surgery, he was moved to the safer quarters of Kittu Amma’s house in Valvetitturai. Two other senior cadres joined Pottu Amman at Kittu Amma’s house. But Pottu Amman had further injuries. Automatic rifle rounds had torn open the tricep muscles and the huge injury required constant care and thorough cleaning. He had a smaller injury to his leg and foot. He was, in other words, critically injured.

Notorious Massacres

When we came to know that Pottu Amman and other LTTE cadres were being accommodated at Kittu’s house, just a few hundred yards from ours, we went to see how they were faring. We found the house converted into a makeshift hospital and the injured cadres resting on their beds. Kittu’s mother was in charge. A woman in her sixties, Kittu Amma, with warm motherly affection, fussed and attended to these cadres, brightening their mood with her colourful language, vibrant sense of humour and wonderfully mischievous laugh, for twenty four hours of the day. Nearby relatives and neighbours backed her up, providing food and attending to shopping etc. My nursing skills meant that I was able to assist her and take some pressure of the LTTE medics team by taking on some responsibility for Pottu Amman’s and the remaining cadres’ medical care. Pottu Amman’s abdominal wound healed well. But his arm wound was nasty. The dressing was huge and it oozed. Indeed, so extensive and painful was Pottu Amman’s arm injury he required regular anaesthesia at the local hospital for thorough examination and cleaning of the wound. I accompanied the seriously injured, including Pottu Amman, to the Point Pedro Base Hospital (otherwise known as Manthikai hospital) for treatment.

At Manthikai Hospital in Vadamarachchi, the full scale of the war was apparent. Civilians with shrapnel wounds and injured cadres filled the wards. The resources of this local hospital were stretched to capacity. Assisting the local staff to cope with the medical and staff shortages at the hospital was a team of dedicated doctors and nurses from the Nobel Peace Laureates the international medical organisation Medicins Sans Frontieres. During a routine clinic visit with Pottu Amman, I observed a continuous flow of casualties, covered in blood, bleeding, and moaning in agony from horrendous wounds, arriving at the hospital. They had travelled ten miles from Chavakachcheri district to reach the Manthikai Hospital for emergency medical care. The distressed and shocked patients and their relatives told us there had been a major attack on civilians by the Indian ‘peace keepers’ at Chavakachcheri. It was the 27th October 1987, a day of shame in the history of the Indian army and a day of horror in the agonising history of the Tamil people. Indian helicopter gunships had flown to Chavakachcheri town and proceeded to continuously circle the local market. The market was filled with people leisurely shopping for their family’s supplies. Chaos broke out when the helicopter gunships suddenly opened fire on the unsuspecting shoppers. Rockets spewed from the helicopters, exploding amongst the crowd, causing panic and chaos in the market. The terror stricken and horrified crowd scattered and took cover. Once these hovering death machines had left the scene, the breadth of the carnage was obvious. Dismembered bodies littered the area; the injured writhed in pain and shock, bleeding from their grievous and often fatal injuries. The people scrambled to find vehicles to transport the injured to hospital. Subsequently, the hospital was inundated with critically injured patients. I offered to help in this crisis at the hospital. The injured civilians had refused to go to the Jaffna General Hospital in the centre of the town, despite the availability of better medical care facilities. Fresh in the memories of the people was the knowledge of another brutal massacre at the Jaffna hospital just one week earlier on the 21st October. In this outburst of military barbarity, twenty-one serving doctors, nurses, and labourers, and patients lying sick in their beds were massacred when Indian troops stormed into the hospital. All hell had broken loose when troops entered the hospital, spraying automatic gunfire and tossing grenades at patients and staff. Back up mortar fire shattered the wards, and choked the air with smoke and dust. Point blank gunfire and grenade explosions were how the Indian ‘peacekeepers’ responded to staff with raised hands as a gesture of peace and surrender. A further fifty-five hospital staff and patients were severely injured during this gross act of unprovoked barbarity by the Indian troops. It was not difficult therefore, to understand the apprehensions of the people about attending the Jaffna General Hospital.

Before we had time to prepare for a major medical emergency, the admitting centre and single operating theatre were full of injured civilians all requiring urgent surgery. Injured patients of all ages with their distressed relatives struggling for the medical care which might save the life of their loved ones, were packed into the operating area. A young woman with severe abdominal wounds was on the operating table having her torn bowel picked clean of shrapnel pieces and the multiple tears re-stitched. A relative pressed on the bleeding artery point in the leg of another patient while he waited for the doctors to attend to the injury. The thirty-year-old male patient I was caring for had a single hole in the chest and gashes in the abdomen. Fears that he had already developed peritonitis worried the doctors. The bleeding from his left thigh indicated serious injury below the gashes we could only slightly see. A blood stained bandage applied around his head as a first aid measure at the time of the injury hid the seriousness of a laceration to the skull. As I stood there wondering which direction running water was coming from, I felt something warm spilling onto my foot. I looked down to see blood running from the patient’s head. Removal of the bandage revealed a long, inoperable head laceration. There was nothing anyone could do for this unfortunate man: the end was very near for him. His relatives, foreheads wrinkled with anxiety, peering through the window of the operating room, cried out in grief when they saw he was dead. In another corner of the waiting room, a group of anxious Muslim men hovered over the ripped apart body of a close relative hoping the doctors would be able to work the miracle of reattaching the torn away parts. To no avail. Death had won the day. In desperation, relatives brought the half torso of one of the members of their family. Limbs were amputated and filling the rubbish bins. The floor was sticky with spilled blood. And the air was thick with urgency and horror. Thirty Tamil civilians were murdered in Chavakachcheri by the Indian ‘peacekeepers’ that day and another seventy-five received devastating and maiming injuries.

Several hours and dozens of casualties later, when the repairing of broken and mangled bodies was over for the day and the patients returned to the ward to continue their struggle to survive, all that remained was the cleaning up of this surgical battle ground. I stood and looked at the over-used room. The white mosaic floor was streaked with rivulets of blood meandering through it. Over filled rubbish bags with dispossessed limbs poking out from them sent shivers down one’s spine. Blood drenched swabs lying loosely in buckets told the story of desperate surgical intervention. Bowls of hand washing water were now a dusty pink. Used surgical gloves as lifeless as the limbs they helped to remove hung lamely on racks waiting to be revived for further use after cleaning. One could only be angry at the events of the evening. That the human mind could find the rational to justify such abominable atrocities on innocent people seemed unconscionable. The indiscriminate nature of the victims compelled me to reflect on my own good fortune and fragile mortality. There was no reason for me to believe that I was in any way different from the casualties I had seen that day and would be shielded from such devastating events. Why should I be? On this occasion I was fortunate enough not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But as I watched the agony and suffering of these people I was compelled to reflect on the logic behind the nature of the forces at work which had singled out this particular community of people to face this tyrannical persecution and terror from foreign occupation. For me, the savage nature of oppression and the carnage the Tamil people were being subjected to had earned them the political right to determine their own destiny.

With Valigamam as its military epicentre, the Indian troops looked northwards towards Vadamarachchi and southwards in the direction of Chavakachcheri in Thenmarachchi region as the next theatre of the military campaign to disarm the LTTE. Chavakachcheri was the first to fall to the Indian troops. The indiscriminate murder of civilians, rape of Tamil women and the plunder of the Tamil people’s property during search and destroy operations in that area were well documented.

The people of Chavakachcheri have a long and unique history of extraordinary courage and commitment during the years of the national struggle. It has been home to a large number of LTTE cadres and many martyrs. Subsequently, LTTE resistance, sustained and supported by the Chavakachcheri people, posed a threat to the Indian troops. Constantly re-grouping and organising, LTTE cadres launched sporadic urban guerrilla attacks. Indeed the success of the LTTE cadres in surviving the saturated Indian army occupation of Chavakachcheri demonstrated their courage and determination. The commander of the LTTE guerrillas in Chavakachcheri during this period of Indian military occupation. was Tamil Chelvan, the present head of the LTTE Political Section.

The increased aerial activity over the Vadamarachchi district, and the odd sighting of Indian foot patrols on reconnaissance exercises on the fringes of Vadamarachchi, were indications that the Indian military hierarchy had turned its focus onto this LTTE heartland. We could expect an intensification of its presence and operations in the area in the near future. So, when our recce cadres informed us that an Indian patrol could be seen moving slowly along the main Jaffna -Udupitty road, we knew our time had come: we would have to vacate our house and move further into the heartland of Vadamarachchi. This was the only option open to us. To the north of our land mass was a vast sea, the Palk Strait, a stretch of the Indian Ocean separating Southern India and Sri Lanka. The naval patrol of the northern seawaters by Sri Lankan and Indian warships effectively blocked deep-sea excursions for the time being. Besides, waiting at the end of the northern horizon was India, which was at war with us. A permanent guerrilla life deep in the Vanni jungles was also not a realistic choice for us. The first thing we had to consider was Bala’s health. Had he been younger and in better health it would of course have been a possibility. And secondly, since we were both more on the political side of the organisation than the military, we could be more useful to the struggle either by working with the people in the society or with the international community rather than tucked away underground amid jungle guerrilla warfare. And of course, a major concern was access to a regular insulin supply. There was no guarantee that we could secure a steady flow of insulin for Bala in the jungle areas. But those considerations apart, our overriding concern and aspiration was to live amongst the people, and we thought we could survive an underground existence in Vadamarachchi. Furthermore, in the early stages of the conflict, Bala harboured a hope that he would be called upon by Mr. Pirabakaran to negotiate a cease-fire with the Indian army, but the Indians were not interested in halting their military campaign. At this stage of the Indian military offensive, Mr. Pirabakaran, who was the main target of Operation Pawan, had evacuated the Peninsula and was deep in the jungles of the Vanni organising and executing both urban and jungle guerrilla warfare against the Indian occupation army.