Massacre and mayhem, Tigers - spawned motto

By Dhaneshi Yatawara

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Little Dinukshi, 1 1/2 years old getting treatment at the Intensive Care Unit of the Kurunegala Teaching Hospital.

Podimenike (49) faced the tragic event while on her way to a religious ceremony in Anuradhapura.

Eight year old Kavindu is being treated at the Dambulla Base Hospital on February 2, 2008

Ward No. 03 of the Dambulla Base Hospital on February 2 2008

Dead bodies ready for post-mortem at the Dambulla Base Hospital.

Pix by: Chinthaka Kumarasinghe

Little Dinukshi barely knows what is right or wrong in her life spent on this earth for the past one and a half years. She was lying at the Intensive Care Unit of the Kurunegala Teaching Hospital where her father was also lying on a bed just across. Her grandmother was standing outside the ICU in tears, unable to believe what had happened to her son and her grand daughter.

Dinukshi's mother, Nadeeka, has been transferred to another hospital and the whole family was in chaos. This was the situation of many families of those who were victims of the Dambulla bus blast on 02nd of February.

At Dambulla 19 innocent civilians died and over 80 were injured. Many of the passengers were elderly women to attend a religious ceremony in Anuradhapura in this bus carrying passengers from Kandy to Anuradhapura.

The day before the National Independence day, a female LTTE suicide attacker blew herself up on Platform No. 3 of the Fort railway station killing fourteen civilians. Among them were eight schoolchildren in their blooming youth. Selvadurai (name anonymous), a middle aged man originally from Kilinochchi had out his eighteen year old son to Colombo to avoid the LTTE. But the boy died in the bomb blast at Fort. LTTE killed his loving son despite his efforts.

On Independence Day LTTE triggered a claymore mine targeting a CTB bus at Ethawetunuwewa in Welioya killing twelve civilians and injuring 17.

Within three days LTTE had massacred over forty civilians and injuring over 150. LTTE used the cheapest and easiest strategies to show their desperate psychology. They had proved once again their title of world's most dangerous and miserable terrorist outfit.

LTTE, fighting for a mono ethnic separate homeland for the Tamils in Sri Lanka since 1983, engulfed with ideologies based on extreme tribalism, carried out many civilian massacres against Sinhala and Muslim people living in the North and Southern parts of the island nation. Since, beginning of its bloody terrorist campaign against Sri Lankan citizens, LTTE has been able to turn the entire Northern Province into a mono ethnic province by killing thousands of people in its ethnic cleansing raids on Sinhala and Muslim villages.

Following are bits and pieces of the brutal past of the LTTE where Mr. Prabhakaran massacred the nation irrespective of ethnicities.

From 1984 Dollar Farm massacre

Year 1984 marked the intensification of the terror activities of the LTTE.

The first civilian massacre by the LTTE was reported in 1984.

On November 30 1984 LTTE cadres shot dead 33 Sinhalese civilians at the Dollar Farm, Mullaithivu and on the same day massacred 29 Sinhalese civilians in Kent Farm in the same area. It was reported that the LTTE used child combatants to attack civilians in order to 'blood' the baby brigade.

In 1985 the LTTE attacked a major Sinhalese majority town, killing 120 unarmed civilians. On May 14th LTTE gunmen shot dead 120 devotees and injured 85 others when they were praying at the Sri Maha Bodhi in the Sacred city of Anuradhapura.

On 07th May 1986, Tiger terrorists detonated a time bomb at the Central Telegraphic Office at Fort, Colombo killing 14 innocent civilians and wounding 39 others.

At Kithuluthuwa on the Habarana-Trincomalee highway, LTTE shot and killed 122 civilians including many children and women on 17th of April 1987. The attack injured 44 others.

The bomb blast at the Pettah bus stand on the 21st of April 1987, killed 110 civilians and injuring 298. Terrorists detonated a car laden with high explosives.

On June 2nd in 1987, LTTE cadres massacred and brutally mutilated 33 samanera bhikkus (young monks) along with their chief priest, Ven Hegoda Indrasara Thera at Aranthalawa, Ampara.

In 1990 03rd August, a Friday, LTTE opened fire and killed 103 Muslim people while they were praying at the Meera Jumma Mosque in Kattankudy. 70 other devotees were injured.

And in late October in the same year the Tigers evicted 90,000 Muslims from their home town, Jaffna.

Six years after, in July, the LTTE terrorists detonated multiple bombs on several carriages of the Colombo - Aluthgama train in Dehiwala, killing 56 commuters and injuring 366. All were, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, returning home after work.

In 2006 May, marked another brutal massacre of the LTTE at Welikanda. LTTE terrorist attacked and killed twelve workers and injured two others at Welikanda on 29th May 2006.

Another brutality took place in Kebithigollewa on 15th of June where the LTTE detonated a claymore mine targeting a bus transporting innocent civilians. This killed 64 people including children, Buddhist monks and women and injured another 39. The dead from the bus attack included atleast 15 children, The bus was blown up with a pair of land mines hung from a tree detonated by remote control, Military said.

Again, LTTE terrorists triggered a claymore bomb on a bus in the town of Kebithigollewa, 125 miles north of Colombo in the Anuradhapura District on 15th June 2006.

The blast killed at least 64 civilians and severely injured at least 80 others. Many of the dead were found to be children.

Year 2007 started with another bomb attack in bus in Nittambuwa on 05th January 2007. This bomb killed six passengers and injured 63 people.

The next day LTTE blasted a bomb in another passenger bus in Seenigama, down South, killing fifteen civilians and injuring 40 others.

LTTE triggered the bomb inside this Matara bound private bus from Colombo bearing no - HZ 1709, at Seenigama, near the Kahawa junction ,16 miles North West of Galle.

Six women and two men were killed as a LTTE triggered a bomb exploded near the Kondavattavana Army security point, along the Badulla-Ampara main road, on Monday, 02nd of April 2007, around noon. Security sources in the Ampara area said that the explosion was triggered inside the civilian transportation bus, bound to Bibile and Badulla.

Hospital sources added that 20 odd civilians were believed to have sustained severe injuries.

On the 08th of April 2007, eight people including a soldier were killed and 25 people were injured when the LTTE triggered a claymore mine targeting a public transport bus at Piramanalankulam, Vavuniya.

On 23rd April 2007, LTTE terrorists detonated a claymore mine on the Mannar-Medawachchiya road, killing seven civilians and injuring 37 others.

And in May the same year, Tiger terrorists killed eight civilians and injured another 36 by the bomb detonated in Ratmalana on the Galle road.

In November 28th 2007, LTTE triggered another bomb in the heart of Nugegoda during the busy evening killing 19 innocent civilians and injuring over 38.

According to records of the Teaching Hospital, Kalubowila and National Hospital, Colombo, three out of the 19 victims killed were children while 10 out of 38 wounded were between 5-18 years, and 2 of them were in critical condition. LTTE terrorists carried out another cowardly attack on civilians by targeting a civilian bus plying from Anuradhapura to Janakapura on December 5th 2007. According to the available information the terrorists have detonated a roadside bomb around 8.15 p.m at Abhimanpura, on the Kebithigollawa-Padaviya road, Defence Sources said. According to the hospital sources 16 civilians were killed and 23 others sustained injuries due to this claymore explosion.

At the beginning of the year 2008, LTTE terrorists have carried out a cowardly bomb attack targeting civilians and an Army bus carrying sick personnel at Slave Island in Colombo on January 2nd. The bomb has been exploded around 9.30 a.m. right in front of the Nippon Hotel. Four people including one soldier and three civilians have been killed and 28 others injured in the explosion. There are 17 civilians and 11 soldiers among the injured.

We all are aware of what happened after these.

Parents of these innocent children killed at these blasts, appeal to the Government and the whole nation to eradicate terrorism and let all the communities live in peace and harmony like the good old glorious days, three decades ago.