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| Sri Lanka |
| Tamil civilians relate their tales of life under the LTTE |
| 2009-05-20 |
| Heavily edited for length, very long (2300 words). A story mostly untold until now, what it was like to be an ordinary Tamil who supported the LTTE. The people in the internment camps want to talk and be heard. Everyone of the over 190,000 men, women and children want to tell their stories. They are fed up with the grand narratives in which they have been used as vulnerable victims by the LTTE and its sympathisers, by the Sri Lankan Government and its embedded spin doctors (and a swindler?) and now increasingly by the UN, the NGOs and the humanitarian industry. You said it, brother. Many of whom I spoke to were very bitter about and angry with the LTTE. They felt they had been lied to and had lost confidence in them. Everyone of them confirmed that the army had shelled indiscriminately causing heavy civilian casualties and that the air force had repeatedly aerial-bombed civilian locations. All of them were relieved to have escaped the conflict zone and from LTTE control and to be in the IDP camps. Most of the initial movements seem to have been voluntary – as the fighting arrived nearer, people moved interior to places they perceived as safe. There were some instances of LTTE cadres ‘guiding’ them to ‘safer’ locations. Though some people reluctantly moved there wasn’t an indication of systematic coercion. Many still had confidence in the LTTE to fight back and fearing worse things on the government controlled side, preferred to move en-masse to places they considered safe. But when the fighting intensified and the towns fell one after the other, and particularly after Killinochchi (rebel capital) was captured, the people realised it was a lost cause. They wanted to escape. Until then there weren’t many deaths due to shelling by the army and the LTTE did not apparently have to nor use much coercion to move civilians around. Around the time Killinochchi fell people were given strict orders by the LTTE as to where they should be moving. The violators were dealt with severely – initially shot and injured and later shot and killed. In the backdrop of intensive shelling by the army, the herding of civilians by the LTTE and the big plan to create a human shield had begun. So did the attempts by the people to escape. But the escape became more difficult as the days progressed. The punishment for trying to flee was getting more severe. One middle-aged man, Shivakumar, said, ‘they (LTTE) started keeping sentries. These sentries and the intelligence department people were the most problematic. If you get caught you were put for ‘pani’ (meaning deployment in the frontlines to dig trenches at gun point). By this time, ‘the sentries and the fear of failure were the only two things that prevented us from attempting to escape,’ said Shivakumar. There were also instances of the LTTE selling food items that came as aid and using food as a tool to control people. Naturally the lack of food created agitations. There was an instance reported when the civilians overpowered a LTTE group and broke open a consignment meant for 600 LTTE cadres in the front line — fully recognising the brutal consequences. The shooting by the LTTE increased. When they shot and injured fleeing civilians, Maaran said, ‘they brought and dumped them in the hospital.’ ‘There were many innocent people particularly those who have family members in the LTTE who are too scared to come to this side, so they were planning to escape to India.’ But of course this became more dangerous after the navy tightened their cordon. ‘If their fears are allayed, they too will come,’ he said. ‘There were people who paid the LTTE sentries to allow them to go. Some got caught paying and were punished. Cadres from the LTTE intelligence wing and the ‘police’ kept a close watch on all of us. If families were conversing together they suspected that we were plotting to escape and would beat us up,’ said Maaran. ‘Any signs of us preparing to leave was detected and dealt with. The conscription by the LTTE became severe. What we hear from people are heart-rending stories, but we also occasionally hear of a compassionate LTTE cadre who shot in the air and let the civilians escape or the story about a brave soldier who jumped into the lagoon risking his life to save an injured woman. Sure. There are some humans among the rank and file. Some of those who escaped also expressed a sense of dejection. They feel cheated by the LTTE. ‘Those in the movement said that they will protect us, that they will block the army’s progress and retaliate. They were telling stories,’ said Parameshwary. While the government is to be blamed for conducting a brutal military campaign with scant regard for civilians, the LTTE is to be blamed for the way they had used the civilians, causing great loss. The people are so crushed and dispirited that it might have dried up their support for the LTTE or for a separate Eelam. Unless the government swamps them with their high-handedness, brutality and insensitivity when dealing with the displacement and resettlement situation these people are ready to try out alternatives. They have been and are ready to try out alternatives. They are willing to do that partly because of the LTTE’s brutal mis-adventure of an endgame. Hopefully this means they've been defeated enough, and can make a clean break with the past. Stop for negotiations, then what happens? |
| Posted by:gromky |