Heaving a sigh of relief before God!

Shanika SRIYANANDA

My dearest Kani,

I still remember how happy we were when we were together. Can you remember we worshipped the God together praying for our safety. I have now become a stray dog here without you.

I cannot come out and I am in their custody. Please pray for my safety. I am helpless and do not know how to escape. I spend my days crying and I do not think that they will ever allow me to come out. Like me, they are keeping lots of young girls and boys here without allowing them to go out.

Kani, please pray the God to invoke blessings on us and make a vow for all re-union.

Yours
Nadiya

“Oh Jesus”,

I love you God. Look at me. Hope you can see that I suffer every day. Open your eyes and look at me, of Jesus, I am your child. I love you so much and I know how much you love your children.

Please... take me out of this hell ah Jesus! I have been made to live at this place which I do not like. They try to send me to places which I do not like. Time is running out fast and please take me out of this place oh, God.

Oh Jesus I pray and hope that you will take me out of this place in the next three days or so. I appeal to you with tears in my eyes if you really love this child please take me out of this place. I hope you will look at me kindly.

Yours
Nadiya.

Who will believe that a person who is ‘willing’ to die, loves to live ? Throughout the Eelam history the LTTE boasts about its elite cadres, the Black Tigers - who have dearly chosen death to make their leader happy.

The small note book hidden inside a travelling bag belonged to a ‘Black Tigress’ unearths the sad saga of yet another youth whose life was caged in another mysterious hideout - a Black Tiger training camp in Vishuwamadu.

“Open this book with care” is written on the first page. The neatly written Tamil letters symbolise her agony.

The camp, with all modern facilities for physical training, is situated in a ghostly terrain of Vishuwamadu. The gravel road snail through evergreen canopies. For a moment, I had forgotten that I had stepped into a devil’s haunt where human beings were ‘produced’ to blow their bodies.

The gentle unpolluted wind coiling around and the serene silence of the vicinity of this highly fertile land, reminded me of the ‘Robinhood of Serwood’.

Heavily guarded

The heavily guarded camp to train LTTE’s human bombs was shut to the public and escaping from the camp was a real nightmare! The rolls of barbed wires were put around the camp with ‘sky rising’ guard houses.

The buildings - with underground cement bunkers - and huts, where the trainee human bombs were sheltered, were covered with dried banana leaves to hide them in canopies to cover them from detection.

While the valuable human bombs were sheltered in huts, the dead - from Capt. Miller who was first to blow his body at the Nelliady army camp to the last Black Tiger died in mid 2008, were venerated. Their photos were illuminated day and night in the shrines built for them.

A.K. Narayan’s book, ‘An elusive mind’ cites one of Prabhakaran’s quotation’s: “I have groomed my weak brethren into a strong weapon called Black Tigers”.

“The Black Tigers have cast aside fear from its very roots. Death has surrendered before them. They keep eagerly waiting for the day they would die. They just do not bother about death”.

This is how the LTTE leader had exploited the courage of thousands of youth whose commitment and dedication should easily be used to develop the country.

The sheer dedication of all such youths, who sacrificed their precious lives for the megalomaniacal urge to realise a day dream of a single man, should not forget easily. They, who were born with lots of hopes and dreams were made human bombs exploiting their poverty or sickness or innocence.

Not a single young man or a woman in the photos glued to the diaries was smiling except the S.P. Thamilselvam. Their faces symbolised the agony and anger they were fretting with. The vow that they made had suppressed their true feelings as they were made to understand that they were to be die soon. The death notices had ‘inscribed’ the date of birth ... ‘on the lap of amma’ and death... on the lap of the motherland.

As there is no space to room once consented to die, the youths who were brainwashed have no alternative but just to explode their explosive strapped jackets when time rises to make the leader happy.

Though Prabhakaran secures the single minded dedication of his elite commandos to die any moment, they are afraid of death and want love and affection.

In an interview with Anita Pratab, a Black Tiger had said “ For us, he is mother, father and God all rolled into one”. This is the chilling picture the LTTE gave to the world. But will these helpless Black Tigers pray for God for life and will wait until they were rescued if they are so dedicated to sacrifice their lives.

Allowed only to watch films which display blood, violence or how to cause mayhem and disaster successfully to make the maximum damage, the chosen girls and boys are treated differently from other Tiger ranks.

“I cannot forget the day I met you first and the first words that you uttered. I cannot forget the day we departed”, Nadiya had written on a page.

“Before I met you the sky was black but now I see rainbow colurs in it”, dreamt Nadiya who saw no space for an escape.

Dreams

She had written about her dreams too. Once she had dreamt that she had gone to a new house but it turned to be a place full of evils. She may have struggled to get out of the hell or she may be chosen to blow herself- by Prabhakaran.

On the last page, she had written about her dream “ Now I do not know in what birth I am going to meet you. I do not know wether we could be united. But I pray for that”.

On the last page she had quoted a saying of Prabhakaran: “ As long as the cyanide capsule is on our necks we do not have fear for any force”.

Next is the diary of Mathymakkal attached to the Sodiya Padeiyani regiment which was full of photos of the dead. “Don’t think that there will be relief” is another exhortation in her dairy.

A statement with a picture of Prabhakaran said “ Whether we like or not we place our foot to fight. Similarly we had to obey the orders and carry them out. Whatever the tasks we were charged with we are always committed to fulfil them.

Who can say those in the `LTTE’s death row’ are volunteers themselves?

Several arguments persist. According to Scott Atran of CNRS-Institute Jean Nicod in Paris, France and the University of Michigan, suicide bombers are made but not born. “ Suicide bombers were not born to kill and die for their causes, instead manipulated by trainers who knew how to trigger their basic drives and emotions. They have no suicidal tendencies, no split families. They were not “crazed,” but had been indoctrinated”, he said.

Photos of dead cadres were pasted in all other books - diaries and exercise books - strewn all over the huts, with half covered walls with zinc plates. It seemed that these youth were not allowed to record their personal thoughts in these books but the books were full of verses to boost the image of the LTTE and its heroism.

When scanning through the pages full of LTTE’s slogans and verses showing the bravery of the death and quotations of Prabhakaran to brainwash the cadres, two pages were glued together revealed the secret about her ‘willingness’ to die.

“Earlier, I was so afraid of darkness. Now I am accustomed to darkness. Just like the candle, my fears are melting down but anyhow I will come back to you, my mother!

I recall the days I used to play with ‘thangachchi’. When I recall them it gives me happiness. I do not know when I could come to you all”, she had scribbled on the paper.

One of Mathymakkal’s friends before she was set on her journey - may be a suicide mission - had noted in English :

“Dear Mathymakkal Akka,
Don’t worry, still worry... worry ...worry.
Love is long, but life is short....
Your loving sister Niraimathy.

The glossy photos of Black Tiger groups who had last supper with Prabhakaran before they set off for their missions were also strewn all over the ground.

It is disheartening to see, their personal ablums with photos of their beloved and some of whom with infants. Each hut had a space for God! The human bombs `had run’ away leaving all their weapons and explosives when the troops of 58 division entered the camp.

The LTTE itself announced that over 300 Black Tigers have already sacrificed their lives and unfortunately one third of them are women.

It may be true that, as Anita Pratap wrote in her book - Island of Blood- that some cadres before their last breath called not their parents or God but `Annai...Annai... (Prabhakaran)!