Investigation documentary on LTTE terror:

Freedom speaks

By Shanika SRIYANANDA

He was deeply conscious that ‘blood is thicker than water’. With nothing to ‘sell’ to stop his baby screaming in hunger and as he was unable to bear and see his son dying, he decided to sell his only precious asset - his blood to purchase a packet of milk powder sold at exorbitant prices. The ‘deal’ succeeded in saving the three-year-old child, in 2009.

Lachchumanan Mohan, the young father did not have any choice other than to pray to God so that soldiers will rescue them from terror. This was two and a half years ago, when ruthless terrorists used them as a human shield to stop soldiers stepping into the shrinking LTTE domination at the far end of the North.

Being a resident of Vishwamadu, his family and thousands of families herded throughout by the LTTE, on their dreadful journey, reached Vellimullivaikkal on April 21 with a strong determination that they would flee LTTE terror, which was becoming harsh with the continuous military push to save hostages.

Knowing the outfit was at a losing end of winning the people’s support they shot and bombed anyone who crossed their path while abducting all whom were fit enough to hold a weapon. They didn’t abandon their hopes to live. They repeatedly tried to flee.

“As we thought of walking into Army control, we in large numbers came on May 15 but the LTTE started shooting us at Patchpulmmoddai and they warned us against trying to cross. They said they would kill us but as there was a massive crowd the LTTE could not control us. We crossed the lagoon with our children and one got wounded while they were shooting us. when we surrendered to the Army through the Nandikadal lagoon they treated us well and sent us to welfare centres”, he says.

Mohan’s voice begins to quiver gets shivering when he recalls how they fled for freedom. On their way to Army control they buried over nine of their relatives, who got killed due to LTTE firing, in abandoned bunkers.

He, is one of the civilians who can testify about how the LTTE’s brutality, broke out when he recalls the way the LTTE bombed cadres who were injured in the battlefront.

Abandoned

“The LTTE brought in injured cadres and dumped them with us and ordered us to look after them. There were no vehicles to transport the injured as the LTTE had blown up all the vehicles. It was at the Vellimullivaikkal junction between a tamarind tree and a house that the LTTE put all the injured cadres into an abandoned lorry and bombed it”, his voice quivers and his tear filled eyes get red.

Mohan says the LTTE which had large stocks of food and medicine stolen from the government which sent quotas to the North, while the end battle was going on, was burned while the displaced were starving.

It is the ‘Freedom Speaks’ documentary, which is the unspoken ground reality of Sri Lanka’s war on terrorism that gave an opportunity to Mohan, ex-combatants - Danapalasingham Sayanthan, Danusiya and Vishwanathan Nirosha, Principal of Dharamapuram College in Kilinochchi S. Pooloherajah and Deputy Principal of Vidyananda College Vellimulli Vaikkal S. Sundaralingam to speak out the truth.

The 45-minute documentary highlights LTTE terror with disturbing images of bomb explosions, which killed 120 civilians at the Sri Maha Bodhi Anuradhapura in 1985, the Dehiwala bomb blast at the Railway Station where over 68 civilians were killed in 1996 and the killing of 60 villagers including children who were hacked to death by the LTTE in 2006.

The documentary unfolds the saga of child soldiers, who lost their childhood and parental love, in thick jungle hideouts, where these fragile humans were given tough military training from dawn to dusk. Sayanthan, is one among the LTTE’s baby brigade, who were conscripted despite his mother’s plea not to drag him. He ended up in a jungle training hideout and had a 45-days weapons training.

“My mother cried and cursed them when they were dragging me from my home. A woman LTTE cadre separated me and my mother and took me away”, the boy who was fortunate to continue his lost formal education at the prestigious Hindu College Colombo under the rehabilitation process upon his surrender, said.

Clad in clean white school uniform, he doesn’t have fond memories of his childhood. Though there is no right for anybody to deny their rights, according to UNICEF statistics, the strength of the LTTE’s baby brigade with over 5,000 soldiers increased with the conscription of underaged children.

The footages recovered from the LTTE bases show how childhood innocence was moulded into deadly terrorism, by brain washing their minds. No one can deny the fact that the LTTE had not used children in their combat operations as these video footages clearly show how the LTTE was abusing children by giving them a tough training and decorating their necks with the deadly cyanide capsules once they completed their training.

Danushiya is a charming Tamil youth, whose picture is difficult to erase and remains in one’s memory.

She was also another victim of LTTE’s forced recruitment drive and today the 21-year-old beauty is one of the happiest among thousands of LTTE’s ex-cadres, who have completed their formal education. “ I did my AL examination in 2010 and I am happy as I can continue my higher education”, she says.

Though Vishwanathan Nirosha, yet another typical Tamil beauty, is lucky to survive, still suffers from injury to her jaws. She was forcibly dragged from home while her parents strongly opposed the LTTE ‘police’ cadres. “ I was dumped in an LTTE training camp but I always wanted to go to my parents. I tried several times but failed. But one day I thought I would escape and ran away. They chased me and shot at me to kill me”, she recalls.

Cheeks

The bullet that ripped through her right jaw made her suffer a lot. Her father accompanies her to the hospital in Colombo for medical treatment. Although the scars are gradually disappearing from her cheeks.

Freedom Speaks, an investigative documentary Suneth Malinga Lokuhewa is about a startling revelation made by a group of young film makers, during an entourage made to the once most fortified hunting grounds of LTTE at Kilinochchi, Puthukudiyirippu and Mullaitivu.

Freedom Speaks is for the ignorant world that unknowingly supported terrorism in Sri Lanka. It is against the malicious lies spread around the world about our country by vicious individuals and organisations wanting us back in a war situation. It is to ease the agitated minds of all Sri Lankans watching this unholy campaign against them helplessly”, Editor Jeevan Chandimal says.

On behalf of the production team of Freedom Speaks Lokuhewa says that the production makes a different from the rest of similar videos as it is the first ever documentary on the same issue made purely by a group of ordinary citizens of this country.

”This documentary is produced by the children of war, it features children of war and it talks about the aspirations they have. All the members of our production team were born with the war. Our first memory of violence starts with the 1983 riots. Since then, we grew up with violence in an atmosphere filled with grief and fear.

Forbidden

We saw villagers being massacred, bomb blasts, and our relatives, friends getting killed in terrorist attacks. We did not know what peace would feel like until recently. We never thought it was possible at all. Here in the South, we had many Tamil friends, we never hated each other”, he says.

”So, we had no idea why this war continued for 30 years; what made our brothers and sisters in the North into suicide bombers, and what made them butcher innocent civilians. Not until we met them when we travelled to this once forbidden part of our own motherland. So, in our journey, we met, Nirosha, Shayanthan, Mohan and many others who had no future than to be a terrorist just three years ago.

We met our soldiers who fought against this ruthless terrorist group and freed our country. Together we shared our harrowing experience about terrorism, and discovered a shocking truth behind the misery that ripped our lives apart.” Lokuhewa says.

”It is about us, the people in Sri Lanka who incredibly endured more than two decades of horror and hardships and emerged with hope and dignity. It speaks about the fears we have for our future knowing that the forces profited from our sufferings still striving to recreate what they hate most”, he says.

As Dushan Vass, the narrator in the documentary explains new hopes are brewing among all-victims of the war against terrorism . It also opens more avenues for citizens to pen their horrific experiences as well as success stories to tell the truth of the struggle to defeat terror.It is just the beginning of a mission and there will be hidden and unspoken realities of the three decade long war against terrorism. In the presence of peace, youth such as Sathyan and Dinusha will come forward to recount the truth about their lives in a terror-filled land.It is their era to bloom and turn into good citizens realising their dreams.

They who were left to die helplessly and have escaped to recount their fate will speak the truth. Isn’t that what Freedom Speaks is all about.