War-footing after the aborted peace talks 15 years ago
Repost This ArticleYesterday marked the ending of the fourth round of peace talks endorsed by the late Lakshman Kadirgamar, FM, in the Kumaratunga administration on January 08,1995.
On the night of April 19, 1995, leader of the LTTE Velupillai Piraparkaran informed President Chandrika Kumaratunga that since the points put forward by the LTTE and agreed upon by the government were not fulfilled the ceasefire would be null and void or something to that effect. The Black Sea Tigers in their maiden assault blasted two naval gunships in Trincomalee and ended any talks with the Kumaratunga administration. The war had resumed.
Chandrika was all washed-behind-the-ears enthusiasm when she wrested power from the UNP’s 17 year rule in August 1994. But before her presidential election in October 1994 the LTTE assassinated UNP’s key presidential candidate Gamini Dissanayake and LSSPer Ossie Abeygoonesekera among others in an election rally in Colombo as she prepared for talks with the LTTE in Jaffna on October 20, 2004.
The international media descended on the capital wanting to record this momentous event when finally the war between the Tamil minority and the Sinhala majority power could be brought to a peaceful end. The 30 journalists cooped up in Subash Hotel in Jaffna were in for a rude awakening on the night of October 20, 1994 around 3.00 am when they were informed first by All India Radio that they need not bother to stay in Jaffna and hastily to return to Colombo.
Jaffna then did not have electricity and this reporter was in a darkened room slumbering amidst the buzzing of the mosquitoes and just a candle to write down a report. The AK47 carrying LTTE cadres manned the corridors and grounds of Subash Hotel. In the twilight hours the journalists were dispatched to the Jaffna Stadium grounds outside Veerasingham Hall from where they were bundled into helicopters.
Ms Kumaranatunga held peace talks and was genuinely interested in solving the ethnic issue which had plagued the nation since independence. But her uncle Anuruddha Ratwatte who was Defence Minister had other ideas. While the peace talks were going on both the government and the LTTE were re-grouping and enhancing their war machine. Neither party trusted each other. The demands of the LTTE were to open the Poonahari Causeway, supply electricity to Jaffna, disarm paramilitary groups in the East, repatriation of the displaced to Jaffna and remove the fishing ban.
Verbally these were agreed upon and generators were sent to Jaffna but without the cables to make them function. The LTTE saw this laissez faire attitude as an insult. The LTTE was also confiscating essential goods sent by Colombo for the use civilians and firmly establishing a de facto state in the North and East.
Meanwhile Vasudeva Nanakkara, Y.P De Silva, Balakrishnan from MIRJEÂ (Movement for Inter-racial Justice and Equality), Dr Jayadeva Uyangoda visited the LTTE in Jaffna in February 1995 carrying with them 20,000 signatures across the island and met with the LTTE leadership including late Dr Anton Balasingam.
In December 1995 the government’s all-out offensive to wipe out the LTTE resulted in the whole of Jaffna population fleeing in their tens of thousands through Kilaly lagoon and any mode of transport available. This exodus would be repeated many times over.
On December 05, 1995 General Anuruddha Ratwatte hoisted the national flag in the ghost town of Jaffna only occupied by the armed forces.
The LTTE would bomb Central Bank and caused the slaughter of innocent civilians numbering 800 in Colombo with the explosive laden truck driven into the precincts of Colombo.
The rest is history.
Dear Pearl,
The 1995 exodus was caused by, in large measure, the LTTE ordering the people and intimidating them in many ways into evcauation. Just wanted to add to your phrase, ‘the government’s all out offensive to wipe out the LTTE.’
In 2000, when a few of us, including Sumanasiri Liyanage and the rest of the NIPU crowd, and people like Jayadeva Uyangoda canvassed to have signatures supporting the draft constitution to be tabled at the parliament, a lot of the civil society people opposed our initiative. Some even said that the people had not been consulted enough. If I remember right, somebody filed a case in the supreme court too. This was the same crowd that later supported the Norwegian peace process!!!! talk of consulting the people.
Why do I bring up these bitter memories?
The rest is not just history. we have a lot of soul searching to do, all of us. if we are to have reconciliation at all levels, we must begin with ourselves.
Dear Pearl,
I’m highly taken up with the way you perceive things out of the box. First, I thank God and all others involved in exterminating the LTTE, for the mere reason that it saved the Tamil community in Sri Lanka. While many well-to-do Tamils migrated, a few relocated in Colombo leaving the rest to experience the bitterness of the war in the Northern and Eastern parts. The younger generation of these people did not have good education. If any form of education was made, the LTTE ensured that to be LTTE oriented. Imagine of the danger, when when a community’s future generation has no education, but trained only to fight?
Now that the war is over, it’s for us to put the things right back on the track. I believe you could initiate many thing from that end. The war damaged the both communities co-latterally. It led to many ethnic disputes as well. Feelings are sour. We’ve got to educate our people on these lines, but certainly not on politics.
You find many gangsters who are Tamils are the ones, who once worked for the LTTE. Drug smuggling, gun running, human trafficking, money laundering etc were their job to generate money for LTTE. I am sure these disturbed youths you mentioned about are from some similar backgrounds.
Since you interested in educating these stray youths in Canada, you can add these points as well. I like to communicate with you privately (through emails) so that I can give you inputs if you are willing to pursue this further. I gave my email to this blog, but if you are unable to find it, please indicate.
Dear Mr officer in the SLAF,
When was Sri Lanka on the right track.
Was it when Bandranaike introduced the sinhala only act?
When a Buddhist monk killed Bandranaike?
Was it when Pacts with Chelvanygam was torn up by Bandranaike. Was it when Chelvanygam and his supporters were beaten by the sinhala community while protesting in Ghandhian fashion.
Was it after State colonisation of the North East driving the residents tamils from their original villages?
Was it on the right track when a sinhala mob with police assistance burnt tamils alive on the streets of Colombo?
What Mr officer of the SLAF doesn’t remember was that Chelvanygam repeatedly offered acceptable solutions within a united Sri Lanka for 30 years after independence only to face violence by the Sinhala common man and State security forces.
There has been protection of minority identity, culture and history especially after government sponsored burning of Jaffna library twice.
What Mr officer in the SLAF doesn’t remeber is that it is Chelvanygam that the Tamil diaspora follow which happened to be what the LTTE followed. Both of which in essence in the will of the tamil people after the last free and fair election in 1977.
If you were really aiming to save the tamil community in Sri lanka then why did you not stick to the B-C and D-C pact.
It is you who are in need of education considering it is the Sinhala community that prevented devolution to tamil people for 60 years.
If the Sinhala people really cared for the tamil community then why didn’t Rajapaske wait for the APRC proposal before killing 40,000 tamils and imprisoning the 100,000 in camps. What happened to the APRC?
If caring for tamils was your objective then why did Ghotabahya say to an international journalists that hospitals and Schools are legitimate targets during the war.
Let us see if You mr SLAF officer will ask for devolution of power to the North east or will you follow the normal line and say there is no need.
If the LTTE didn’t exist for 30 years the Sinhala state genocide of would have already occurred and now the world recognises this conflict where as they didn’t when Chelvanygam pleaded to the commonwealth during the 1950′s
The JVP even took up arms so since independence Sri Lanka has not been on the right track.
I hope that the Officer in SLAF remembers also the 5,000 bombing missions by the SLAF in the last few weeks of the war which killed many more civilians than LTTE cadres – in addition to the hundreds of shells fired by the SLNavy & the millions of mortar bombs, artillery shells and bullets fired by the SLArmy which too did the same.
Now the past is past. We will await the restoration of law and order, human rights, democratic governance and implementation of the UN Conventions signed by sri lanka, by the newly elected government.
But I have doubts that this will happen. The 17th and 13th Amendmets are buried, and there is talk of achieving 2/3rds majority to rewrite/revamp the constitution, no doubt to entrench the same old regime now reborn, in power.
Dear sumathy,
i cannot refute your statement because when the exodus happened I was not in Jaffna. But this much I know, when I re-visited Jaffna in 1996 the parish priest at Bishop’s House when asked what the people think of the LTTE not in control anymore he replied,”you do not tell a Jaffna man who to support. He makes his own decision.
Sure there was terrible food scarcity. People were living in bunkers anw they had a semblance ofa normal life. In 1994, from the Dsitrict Court to Station Road I was aghast to see apoen space devoid of all the friends i had in the five cross streets.
It was liek I satepped into a desert.
Who caused this wanton destruction I will never know.
As for when I said `rest is history’ I meant the younger generation would remmebr the developments or destruction from then on.
I hope to record the events as it happened in the book I am writing.
I am only a journalist and I write I witness. Nothing more nothing less.
Dear Officer in SLAF,
It’s only when we recognise honest history that we can move forward. I can only vouch for what I have seen, observed and account for the interviews with the cross section of the people in Jaffna.
We have seen destruction and we have seen prejudice all because there was never a meaningful dialogue between the North and the South.
The intelligentsia and the think-tanks who could have intervened were either silenced or chose to remain mute during the crucial times when the people who were pawned in the power-games of those in power, both the politicians and their Tamil sycophants, are still to blame for the recent human misery perpetrated on hapless civilians.
The NGOs were feeding on the misery of the fleeing civilians in Wanni. The politicians and foreign journalists descended on them like vultures to add to their Kudos not to mention freebie holidays in sunny tropical Sr Lanka.
Please note the INGOs only come to Sri Lanka during winter.
So, it is incumbent on us Sri Lankans to get wiser and unite to keep vultures at bay.
My email is pearltheva@hotmail.com
Dear Pearl,
The act of witnessing itself is not impartial. Witnessing is selective like remembering. On another tack, I can only laugh in sadness, a hollow laugh, at the Parish Priest’s words, “the Jaffna man makes his own decisions’ . Maybe that’s why Jaffna women have been suffering all these days!!!! And the rest of his words are vague and could be taken to mean anything, which the ‘Jaffna man’ in his leadership role has perfected over the years to the point of absurdity.
Isn’t it also laughable that people are still talking about this non existent species called the jaffna man?
About the exodus itself, you could look up the UTHR report on it.
Sharika Thiranagama’s forthcoming book ‘In my Mother’s House: the Intimacy of War in Sri Lanka’ carries ‘eye witness’ accounts of the exodus.
A wonderful undergraduate dissertation by M. Thiruvarangan at the University of Peradeniya on ‘Home and Homeland’ is entirely on his and other people’s accounts of the exodus. Interestingly, Thiruvarangan translates sections of Sengai Aliyan’s novel, which is partially on the exodus, where a character says
“This jaffna man is mad. even in the midst of his misery he’s thinking of where I am from, what caste I belong to.’ (Something to that effect. I am just paraphrasing.) So, there are jaffna men and jaffna men.
There could be other accounts. These might be in Tamil. I dont know whether you read Tamil. But unlike in English, there is a lot of critical literature in Tamil, which has been completely overlooked by the academic and NGO sectors working in English.
Those who write vigorously about caste in their dissertations are the very people who would not give their sons or daughters to those outside their caste. This caste curse of the people of Jaffna has not left them even after entering Harvard and Yale.
But I am straying. I studied in the Tamil medium although under Irish nuns and English speaking teachers. My Tamil is on par with a Tamil graduate.
My point here is that Tamils cannot live in peace and harmony among themselves. How would one expect the m to re-concile with Sinhalese? Sinhalese too have castes but they have shed this narrow-mindedness a long time ago.
“Sinhalese too have castes but they have shed this narrow-mindedness a long time ago.”
Eh?
[...] of Govi Buddhist parents living in [...] of the same caste and creed for their 24 years old Canadian born pretty [...]
Source: http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2010/04/18/c_brides.asp
Dear Pearl,
Now you are getting unnecessarily personal. What are you saying? that people should not write about caste? or that people should not write dissertations?
And if people can write about ethnicity and the ethnic conflict, why should caste be taboo?
Maybe I misunderstood you. Maybe you are bemoaning the fact that there is caste in Jaffna. I too bemoan that and am sure glad somebody is writing about it, and not brushing it all under the carpet,. And also let me tell you, you do not have to go to harvard to write about caste. Some of the foremost writers in Tamil, like K. Daniel, Sengai Aliyaan, Ragunathan and plenty others have been writing about caste for a long time now. Mallikai too, the long standing journal coming out of Jaffna, and the publications of Mallaikia Panthal and their pioneering editor and publisher Dominic Jeewa took up caste in a big way. I doubt that any of these people even have degrees let alone going to Harvard.
Also, interestingly, why do you think people would automatically shed their caste prejudices once they entered Harvard and Yale? these universities are caste ridden ones of a different kind. They would only reinforce caste rigidities among its populace rather than help them to break free. on the other hand, a university like Peradeniya, where Thiruvarangan wrote his dissertation and where ordinary people go to in this country, is a good place to start thinking about caste, in my view.
Anyway, Thiruvarangan’s dissertation was not on caste. It was on the exodus, which was our initial starting point for discussion. He was just quoting Sengai Aaliyaan who had called the Jaffna man, crazy. Isn’t that nice? I kinda liked that.
I dont expect the tamil people to be reconciled in any thorough going fashion, though I hope they don’t kill each other or any one else, for that matter and we could nurture a culture of open discussion and action among the people. There are political and social differences among Tamils like in any other community and those have to be written about as much the ethnic conflict and the issues concerning Tamils vis a viz the state need to be written about.
BTW: Is it okay to write about caste on groundviews?
It is time we all got together, integrated and married into each other, as we are all Sri Lankans, but
(01) Sinhalese speaking
(02) Tamil speaking
(03) English speaking
(04)Malay speaking
(05)Arabic speaking
(06) Rodi speaking
(07) Veddha speaking
This way there will be peace and harmony in our beautiful Island Paradise of Sri Lanka. I have done it and have produced two beautiful children(boy & Girl). Why not we all do it?
Ananthan