Home is where your heart is :

Ex-Tigers yearn for recognition

By Shanika Sriyananda

Paskaran Selvakumari	Kumar

Can you remember the days when you refused to eat food and your mother made you scary saying that devils would come and swallow you?

Looking around with wide open eyes and without troubling your mum anymore, you meekly emptied the dish.

For more than two decades, the children of the North, were made scary when they did not eat food not by calling devils but telling them that Sinhalese soldiers would come and cut them into pieces.

Whenever they committed an innocent naughty act, their parents ‘called’ the soldiers. “We did not utter a word but ate dosai silently when my mother called the Sinhalese soldiers. From our small days, we saw posters where soldiers kill small children,” Kaneshapillai Ranjith Kumar said.

Released from the rehabilitation centre at Vavuniya, Kumar who is disabled is waiting for a sponsorship for an artificial limb.

Northern children who were born two decades ago were continuously exposed to posters and propaganda campaigns by the LTTE to cultivate their animosity towards the Sinhalese and their soldiers.

The LTTE’s long-term plan for the cause - to get the brain washed youth to fight - became successful to a greater extent and they made it easy to motivate the innocent youth die for their useless cause - Eelam.

Today thousands and thousands of Tamils who have seen the Sinhalese and their soldiers after the end of the war know the ‘breed’ that they were taught to be devils are humans that saved them from the real ‘devils’.

Married to escape the forced conscription and hidden in a bunker with his newly married wife, Kumar who escaped terror filled Puthumathalan in 2009, a few days before the battle came to a complete end, is trying to become a popular garage owner in Mullaithivu.

Their hope is for a better future - Pix: Thilak Perera

Despite his disability, he repairs whatever vehicle that comes to his garage. Clad in a sarong and shirt with black grease patches he apologises for coming to meet us in dirty and smelly clothes.

He has put up a temporary garage at Thanniuththu with the material given to build a house in the resettled village.

“I can earn Rs. 1,000 to 1,500 daily”, the 29-year-old, who had run a garage in the Mullaithivu town since 2006 said.

The LTTE police which was hunting civilians to strengthen the outfit ordered hundreds of people to get photos wearing LTTE uniforms and Kumar went to get a photo and never returned home. When he refused to join the LTTE threatened to recruit his brother.

He was trucked with over 250 civilians including underaged children to the Kokuthuduwai training camp for a half a month training and then deployed at the Forward Defence Lines in Tampanai, where he lost his left limb to an AP mine buried by the LTTE itself.

Treated for six months at the Mullaithivu hospital, Kumar was asked to work in a LTTE garage in Pokkanei.

“I could not work in that garage and I escaped. I came home and tried to surrender to the soldiers but the LTTE shot at us. My sister, aunt and her sister were killed by the LTTE while they were running. However we reached the huge earth bund at Ampalanpokkanei.

Over 45 people were shot dead. There were pregnant women, old people and children “, he said.

Kumar, his family and others thought the Army would kill them but tried to escape the LTTE terror. “LTTE sympathisers got the chance of escaping in boats but they herded us towards the fighting areas and asked us not to run. But the soldiers saved our lives”, he recalled.

New life

He is not alone. There are over 4,000 ex-LTTE cadres who have gone back home to start a new life free of violence. Having undergone a successful rehabilitation process where they were taught to brush up their hidden skills and the values of life, they are aspiring to lead a peaceful life to make a brighter future for them.

Talk to them... you will realise they don’t harbour the LTTE’s day dream - Eelam- anymore. They all want to be a part of the efforts to bring a new culture and a brighter future for Sri Lanka.

Exposed to terror since their birth, this segment of youth who were forcibly misled and lived with hatred against the Sinhalese, have learnt that there is no discrimination against them.

The artificially created ‘ruse’ by the LTTE and some interested segments are fading away in the horizon painting a new colourful picture from the far end of the North to the South bridging gaps that distanced historical ties.

Paskaran Selvakumari, another young female, is grateful to the Sinhalese soldiers who helped her to build the tiny house in her village. After return from the rehabilitation centre at Pompemadu, she has been reunited with her family of two daughters - Pathmakumari (7) and Banusha (6) and is trying hard to meet the day’s expenses with the meagre earnings of her deaf husband who is doing odd jobs in the Mullaithivu town.

Unable to find a job with her poor educational qualifications, the young mother who studied only upto grade five, dreams of giving her two daughters a good education.

“The LTTE did not want us to study. I had to stop schooling due to LTTE threats. My poor parents did not have an option other than to give me to the LTTE to save the lives of my younger brother and sister. I was taken to Mullankavil training centre while my parents came behind the white van full of people who were dragged in”, she recalled while taking a deep breath.

After a two-month training in Pooneryn with over 150 girls, she was recruited to the Malathi regiment and sent to Jaffna FDLs. She had to fight in Nagar Kovil, Palei FDLs but in 2000 she got injured at a clearing operation where over 30 terrorists died.

The bullet that ripped through her right ear came out from the right eye.

Admitted to the Kilinochchi Hospital she came home partially blind.

When they were planning to flee from Pokkanei, the military announced that LTTE cadres who were with the LTTE even for a day could surrender. As she wanted to save her children’s lives she surrendered to the military with the family.

Suffering from frequent headaches, Selvakumari feared to undergo an eye operation. “ I am scared that I will die and there would be no one for my two children”, she said.

These youth, who were born and bred under LTTE terror, had been denied their rights as children and youth. Their parents had to pay taxes from each cent they earned.

When they defied LTTE orders they were harassed or killed. Though the LTTE boasted that the dead LTTE cadres were venerated and their families known as Mahaweera families looked after well, these ex-LTTE cadres claim those were only propaganda slogans to get more innocent victims to the outfit.

“When a boy or a girl died in battle, the LTTE gave a few thousands of rupees as compensation and the stay about looking after the family was a lie. The families of the senior LTTE cadres were looked after well and they had luxurious lives”, they complained.

Slowly threading their lives with the new found peace, every ex-LTTE cadre who came back home after rehabilitation wants a better future.

Harbouring new hopes, they yearn for equal recognition from society to forget the bitter past.“But still some of our own people look at us differently. They still see us as terrorists. We never wanted to fight but we were helpless.

We joined the LTTE as we wanted our families to survive”, Thambiraja (21) said.

At the moment over 4,000 ex-LTTE cadres are back in society and also another 4,000 are waiting to come back. The need of the hour is to change the mindset of society to welcome them warmly.

If we cast doubts on them, they would naturally be cornered with the same hatred nulifying all fruitful efforts to rehabilitate them.

Back home

The Commissioner General of Rehabilitation, Brigadier Sudantha Ranasinghe said society had a great responsibility to welcome them as normal youth.

“After rehabilitation, they go back to their homes as normal youth.The Government Agent, Grama sevaka and the Army Civil Affairs officers in each district are aware of the number of rehabilitated ex-cadres are in their respective areas. They monitor their movements in a way not disturbing their freedom”, he said adding that the system was initiated to facilitate them in their day-to-day activities.

He said so far not a single incident of violence created by the rehabilitated ex-LTTE cadres has been reported from the North.

“Instead, they coordinate with government officers now. They have been issued ‘Released Certificates’ which will facilitate them in travelling, banking and finding jobs”, he said.

Brigadier Ranasinghe said there were no child soldiers under rehabilitation and they, who had gone home, were now continuing their education with the help of the UNICEF.

Meanwhile, religious dignitaries in the North got together last week to discuss the rehabilitation process of the ex-LTTE cadres.

Over 150 Buddhist, Hindu and Christian religious dignitaries took part in the discussions with government officials involved in the rehabilitation of these youth.

“The clergy in each religion can make a huge impact on the lives of these youth. Once they are released and go back to their villages they should be welcomed and given recognition as they have come back to society as new souls. This situation can be created through the clergy. They can contribute to a greater extent to make these youth feel comfortable in their own societies. They also can make a huge impact on these lives through getting them involved in their religious activities”, he said.