Editorial

Security

Politics

World

Letters

Sports

Obituaries

Archives

by FRANCES BULATHSINGHALA, on a trip to LTTE controlled Vanni

"It is an unwanted war. We share with you the grief, the laments and the tears shed over the years in a protracted war in which both the Sinhala and the Tamil youth have suffered immensely.

A released POW - a civilian of the ‘Mission’ vessel shakes hands with the members of the LTTE police Pix by Frances Bulathsinghala

The general election held last year proved a clear rejection of chauvinistic forces and a genuine call for peace by the Sinhalese people. It is a cordial message we send to the people of the South to perceive things in the correct perspective" - the words of the LTTE Political Wing leader, S. Thamilchelvam to reporters and parents of soldiers missing in action, before releasing the ten prisoners of war last Monday.

However his appeal to the media to convey the 'reality of war' would have remained at the level of eloquent rhetoric, if not for the interaction journalists had last week with those webbed behind the curtain of 'liberation' and 'protecting national integrity'.

Fifty-two-year old Loganathan, born, bred and having lived half his life in the ancient Hill Capital of Kandy is more familiar with the infrastructure of the cemetery that rests the LTTE cadre in Kilinochchi than with the meagre furniture in his one roomed mud thatch home in Apavilandai in the LTTE controlled Vanni.

The cemetery maintained by the LTTE in Malawi

Having worked as caretaker of the burial ground for the past ten years, he explains in lucid Sinhalese, how circumstances forced him to come to the Vanni region during the 1983 Tamil riots, and how he came to witness first hand the wreckage of human lives the war has caused in the 'other' side of the boundary.

"One thousand nine hundred bodies of the LTTE cadre lie here. Most of the casualties were during the escalation of the war in 1997 in Mullaitiv and Pooneryn", says Loganathan adding that his wife, a Sinhala woman lives in Wattala with their child.

To him, having lived with both 'enemies' seeing the grey between the black and the white is easy.

He knows that the Sinhala people are not the cannibals out to annihilate the Tamils as assumed by most of the Tamils living in LTTE controlled areas who have not had any previous contact with any member of the Sinhala race.

He also believes that the LTTE are not terrorists and that there is a 'grey' area which equals a 'cause' between the black of LTTE suicide missions and bomb blasts and the white of 'facts' which had necessitated a banning of the LTTE, both internationally and locally.

However Loganathan is a rare example of a Tamil living in the LTTE controlled region who has been exposed to both sides of the divide.

When twenty-six-year old Sinthamalan, a young LTTE political wing member, met the media people, a majority of them Sinhalese from the South, the identity of the Sinhalese had been blended with that of the Government troops.

Having been in the battlefield for two years after joining the LTTE movement in 1995, he hesitates when asked what his schoolboy ambition was. After a lapse of a few seconds he explains in halting English that he wanted to be a doctor. Destiny not having agreed with him, he is now among the batch of fifteen students studying political science at a 'university' run by the LTTE leaders in the Malawi region.

"I will study medicine later - when the war is over", his face is set in determination.

To Jayawathie Jayasinghe, a mother of a 'missing in action' lieutenant who was among the ten parents of MIA military personnel who met the LTTE leadership at the LTTE headquarters in Kilinochchi, last Monday was a day which will be etched in her mind as the saddest - a day on which a comforting illusion nurtured for five years had to be cast away to be replaced by a fact woven by grief.

Yet, even after being told by the LTTE Political Wing leader that the LTTE had with them only the POWs shown to the ICRC - the total number at present being seven, this mother, her parental instincts not willing to come to terms with the fact that her son was dead was seen handing out photographs and information about her son, written in Tamil to the LTTE youth.

She is not familiar with the political intricacies as to how the war came about and she had known only two labels in which to identify members of the LTTE - 'terrorists' and 'the enemy' but last Monday saw her using the word 'putha' to LTTE youth whom she communicated with, with the help of a bilingual journalist, hoping for a snatch of information about her son.

To Sunil Perera, the ship engineer of the passenger ship 'Mission' which was captured by the LTTE in Pesalai, Mannar in July 1997, 'humane' was a word he never thought he would use on the LTTE widely known as terrorists and condemned for their guerilla attacks. However, after being in the custody of the LTTE for four years he does use this word when asked about the treatment meted out to him and the nine others kept as prisoners of war and released in what the LTTE political wing leader described as purely a 'goodwill gesture'.

"We were prisoners of war. Initially we were treated like prisoners, not cruelly but kept in their jails. Later we were allowed to live in separate huts like the civilians. We were on many occasions invited to their festivals and received grateful words of thanks when we displayed our expertise at making festival decorations", says Perera explaining how the crew members of the 'Princess Cash' and 'Mission' vessels who were caught by the LTTE were treated.

Although the experiences for the two army personnel, W. A. P. Ananda, A. L. Attanayake and the army cook, R. D. Rupasinghe had been different, not been treated with too much leniency unlike the civilians, they too concede that overall the treatment given to them was humane.

"We could complain through the ICRC to the LTTE leaders if we felt that we were being ill treated by those who were in charge of us. We were shown to the ICRC once a month and allowed to receive and send letters through the ICRC", points out W. A. D. Ananda who was taken prisoner when the LTTE attacked the Weli Oya, Janakapura military camps on the 24th of July 1993.

And as the experiences of years webbed in war were put into words by those caught in the war mesh, it was clear that there was a goal they all craved for - 'peace'.

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager