Wilpattu National Park springs to life

By Dhaneshi YATAWARA

It was May 14, 1985. The day began as usual at Wilpattu. And so did the work for the team of Wildlife Department employees working at the Wilpattu National Park.

Teams of workers, doing routine work in the park, were totally unaware of the massacre at the Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura that had taken place a few hours earlier. They would never have guessed even in their wildest dream that they would be the next target of the LTTE murder team who were fleeing through Wilpattu.

P.M.G. Somapala was one of the labourers working in these teams. Joining the Wildlife Department in 1981. Somapala was then working on a temporary basis. He was a lad born and brought up in Wilpattu. He was the sole survivor of the team of wildlife employees massacred by LTTE on May 14 in Wilpattu at the Maradanmaduwa junction, about 10 kilometres from Hunuwilagama - the park's main entrance. The LTTE killed 24 wildlife employees in Wilpattu on May 14, 1985.

Today 48-year-old Somapala, a father of two children, retold the horrific memories of that fateful day.

"The roads need to be maintained daily and as a routine requirement that day we were working in the Maradanmaduwa area," said Somapala going back 26 years down memory lane.

"It was around 10 in the morning. We were clueless of what happened in Anuradhapura and were loading gravel into a truck in the area close to Kumbukwila," he said.

Under the inspection of a Ranger the team was working hurriedly to complete a considerable part of the task before tea time. The ranger saw a bus driving towards their side that stopped all of a sudden. He walked forward for a better view thinking that people in the bus may be facing some problem. "The LTTE was holding our Park Warden Abraham as hostage.

And it was only then we realised that the fleeing LTTE cadres had attacked our main office in Hunuwilagama, killed several people there and came here with the Park Warden," Somapala said. "I identified the bus. It was a bus operating between Anuradhapura and Colombo," he said.

The LTTE forcibly took the team to Maradanmaduwa junction. "I still remember the leader. He spoke Sinhala very well though they spoke in Tamil. His name was Victor and there were 18 terrorists. The leader had cat's eyes and curly hair, " Somapala said.

"The terrorists ordered us to sit in a ring in the thicket. We heard Air Force helicopters circling in the sky and the terrorists ordered us to remove the white shirts some of us were wearing," he said. When the helicopters moved away the terrorists started firing at the people from three sides. "I knew I was shot in the leg and felt a very painful cramp in the muscle," said Somapala recounting his terrorising memories. That is all Somapala remembers until he gained consciousness hours later.

"I had been unconscious and when I woke up it was afternoon and several dead bodies of my colleagues had fallen on me," he said. Out of shock Somapala did not see his friends' as dead bodies. "I remembered that terrorists attacked us. Yet I thought my friends were just sleeping so I told the one next to me to get up for me to stand up," he said.

"I saw Nawaratne, a Wildlife guide and driver Subasinghe crying in pain. Blood was flowing through their fingers as they tightly pressed the shot wounds against their bellies," he said suffering from shock Somapala had not felt the pain of his wounds. He thought if he could get up he would be able to carry his friends to safety. Trying to get up he realised the gravity of the situation - he couldn't move. "I wanted to move to our communication set and raise an alert but I just couldn't move," he said.

He just lay there; ants were biting his face and he had to keep removing them by hand. Nawratne and Subasinghe died as time passed by. "My vision was blurred with a white veil like thing. My vision was getting hazy," Somapala said.

"By this time I heard the sound of a vehicle. Suddenly it stopped and someone shouted 'down'. Then I realised that it must be the Army," he said. "I faintly saw the communication sets the soldiers were carrying and I waved my hand signalling them to come," Somapala said. "I heard them speaking in Sinhala so I said something in Sinhala, I can't remember clearly," he said.

Then the dead bodies were taken and he was sent to the Anuradhapura Hospital and was immediately given medical treatment.

Lionel Sirimalwatta, who is today the Secretary of the Safari Jeep Owners' Association, was one of the first to see the bus loaded with terrorists entering the park. In 1985 Lionel drove an Isuzu 3055 and was waiting with the drivers of three other jeeps to take a group of tourists to the park. He hid himself in the jungle nearby.

Terrorists started firing at the crowd on entering the Park. A few minutes later, Lionel rushed to the spot to find that two people were still alive. Then he rushed the injured to the Nochchiyagama Hospital, and made a complaint of the attack to the Nochchiyagama police.

Turning to Wilpattu, no one could miss the monument of Adeline Witharana, the young woman brutally murdered in 1959 by her lover on the Anuradhapura-Puttalam Road.

Following the massacre in 1984, terrorists went on the rampage in and around Wilpattu. Poaching and illegal timber felling was carried out by the LTTE on a big scale. Hundreds of families who made a living on the Wilpattu National Park lost their meagre source of income. Robbing of archaeological treasures were also reported. The Government attempted to re-open the National Park twice. First it was re-opened on March 16, 2003. Three years later, on May 26 a group of visitors including the famous novelist Nihal de Sivla were killed in a landmine blast near Kattarambavillu. On March 9, 2007 Park Warden Pushpananda and seven others were killed by terrorists.

The National Park was re-opened for the second time on February 27, 2010. Eradicating brutal terrorism from Sri Lanka, today Wilpattu no more faces threats from LTTE terrorism. Facilities for tourists as well as infrastructure to watch animals are being improved under direct supervision of the Department of Wild Life as directed by Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa.

Completing development work by August 15, the Wilpattu National Park will resume its lost glory with efforts of dedicated employees of the Wild Life Department at Wilpattu. For them this is not just a jungle it is their life. Wilpattu has entered a new era.