CHARGES THAT LTTE MURDERED A STUDENT CAMPAIGNED FOR RE-OPENING ON THE DAY OF THE OPENING OF JAFFNA UNIVERSITY

By Walter Jayawardhana

After being closed for more than six months due to military clashes between government troops and the insurgents of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) the government funded free university of Jaffna opened its doors for academic studies on January 19 2007 marking the opening with religious ceremonies in a Hindu temple and a Catholic church.

But no sooner it was opened pro-LTTE student activists put up black flags and declared two days mourning alleging a student has been murdered by government troops. The army categorically denied that and the pro-LTTE students did not substantiate the charge.

Mysteriously the 25 year old Krishna kamaladas who had been murdered was no sympathizer of the well known LTTE student activists of the Jaffna university and had been one in fact asking the the authorities to re-open the university since their academic studies were hampered by the prolonged closure.

Then why did some one murder him coinciding with the re-opening of the university? The party who murdered him should be a party who surely wanted to keep the university closed many civilian sources in Jaffna said.

Now , the media Center for National Security has issued a statement saying that the murder of the university student in Jaffna on Sunday the 18th, one day prior to the opening of the university was clearly an LTTE act who wanted the university to be kept closed indefinitely to create agitation among the students.

The University of Jaffna, in the midst of an area that once boasted of producing the country’s topmost intellectuals, has been the target of violence of the LTTE for a long time. The insurgent group wanted to make it a hot bed of violence and hauls of weapons and ammunition were discovered hidden inside its campus. The University’s well qualified Vice Chancellor Ratnajeevan Hoole , told Triangle, the newspaper of the Drexel University at Philaelphia Pennsylvania in the United States how he and his family received death threats from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam under which he had to flee his native country, Sri Lanka and find temporary employment at Drexel.

He said his fourteen year old daughter received threats that his father would be chopped to death and how she started hanging around him without going to school thinking that would give him some kind of protection.

LTTE wanted Hoole to resign from the post of Vice Chancellor of the Jaffna University, a lead story of the Triangle, written by Aditi Dubey said in January. According to Hoole, Tamil Web sites carried stories with headlines such as "Army Spy Appointed VC" when his appointment was announced to the public, the newspaper further reported. Hooles have not been supporters of the army as such but his brother has been connected with the respected human rights group, UTHR(J) which famously exposed the child conscriptions of the LTTE.

The present Vice Chancellor of the University R. kumar Vadivel said the university reopened its doors after considering the plight of the final year undergraduates who wanted to complete their studies as soon as possible.

Sri Lanka is one of the few countries in the world that does not charge any tution fees from students from kindergarten to any level in the university. The government is also anxious to run the universities without any interruption. But hundreds of students have to give up studies when insurgents conscript them for guerilla armies.

The Jaffna university was also anxious to run its courses hurriedly since the times are restricted in Jaffna town because of the curfew imposed due to insurgent activities. The university was planning classes only upto 3 p.m. to accommodate the evening curfew.

The Vice Chancellor expected the university would return to normalcy after the “mourning” period of two days declared by the pro-LTTE students groups.

The Media Center in its statement said, "The ulterior motive behind the killing of this youth is to disturb education of innocent Tamil students in Jaffna and to thwart the attempts by the Security Forces to restore normalcy".

“The undergraduate of the University of Jaffna was shot dead by a group of suspected LTTE assassins at Iyaththalai on Sunday (18th) Morning. The victim identified as Krishna Kamaladasa, aged 25 years was a final year student of the art faculty”, the media center further said.

The Center charged, “LTTE leader V. Prbhakaran himself is a school dropout and his so called political leader P. Thamilselvan had had his school education only up to the third year. It is well understood by the LTTE leadership that he would not be able to convert the Tamil youth to a bunch of suicide losers unless they are uneducated. It is in this backdrop V. Prbhakaran had given orders to launch a massive campaign to force the Jaffna children to boycott schools.”