Mullaivaikkal Remembrance Day is it to commemorate the LTTE or Civilians?
Posted on May 12th, 2016
Shenali D Waduge
Ever since May 2009 various events across the world have had candle light vigils and events claiming to be remembering those killed in Mullaivaikkal. The implication given is that the mourning is for civilians. However, the backdrop of all these events you will find an Eelam map, eelam flag, books on Prabakaran sold, the speeches will be about self-determination, Tamil homeland, Tamil nation, self-autonomy, confederation etc. What does all this have to do with remembering civilians who were killed? There are several ways civilians would have got killed. Collateral damage because LTTE were firing from among civilians even inside the safe zone meant for civilians. LTTE were firing at fleeing civilians. LTTE were using civilians as human shields. The UNSG, foreign envoys, foreign governments and even India are on record for appealing to the LTTE to allow the civilians to come to government controlled areas, LTTE were asked not to use children as combatants, LTTE was asked not to fire at civilians. UNSG, foreign envoys, foreign governments never accused the Sri Lankan Army of firing at fleeing civilians. When we are still to be given names and details of the supposed 40,000 dead if remembering dead Tamils is important why does TNA not hold candlelight vigils for the 4000 women raped by Indian Peace Keeping Force some of whom are living dead unable to still face society or the Jaffna hospital massacre another IPKF war crime?
The TNA and other LTTE supporters can fool the world with their tamashas but statistics never lie. More Tamils were killed by the LTTE than the fictitious figures being thrown without evidence. Anyone can mourn the dead but people need to have died. What all the mourners need to remember is that
- NO CIVILIAN WOULD HAVE DIED IF LTTE DID NOT FORCE THOUSANDS OF TAMILS TO JOIN THEM AS THEY RETREATED.
- NO CIVILIAN WOULD HAVE DIED IF LTTE DID NOT USE THEM TO HIDE THEIR WEAPONS AND FIRED FOM AMONG THE CIVILIANS TO THE ARMY.
- NO CIVILIAN WOULD HAVE DIED IF LTTE DID NOT USE THEM AS HUMAN SHIELDS.
- NO CIVILIAN WOULD HAVE DIED IF LTTE HAD NOT FIRED AT THEM WHEN THEY FLED.
Can LTTE admit how many LTTE cadres they killed because they were injured and were a burden to them. How many LTTE cadres were put into buses and had these buses bombed?
MP Vijayakala was bold enough to openly praise the LTTE what is strange is that the present government did nothing against that speech although Ruwan Wijewardena has just announced that anyone can mourn the dead but not LTTE dead. http://www.adaderana.lk/news/35231/commemorating-victims-of-war-allowed-ltte-not-allowed-govt
So we again ask who are the pro-LTTE and Eelam groups mourning – LTTE or civilians?
| Figure Killed | Source |
| 7721 | UN Country Team in Sri Lanka (Ban Ki Moon panel cannot simply brush this figure aside claiming it is ‘too low to accept’! |
| 7400 – including LTTE | Government Survey conducted after the conflict.
2600 missing (1600 with LTTE / 438 disappeared in areas under military control) |
| 7896 – including LTTE | July 2011 survey by Tamil Teachers of the North (2005-2009)
1102 died from natural illness |
| 2564 | UNICEF sponsored Family Tracing & Verification Unit 2011 compilation listed untraceable persons of which 676 were children (64% of these were kidnapped by LTTE |
| 11,111 | Institute of Conflict Management, Delhi |
| 15,000 – 18,000 | Independent Diaspora Analysis Group, Sri Lanka |
| 10,000 (not exceeding 15,000) | Rajasingham Narendra my estimate is that the deaths-cadres, forced labor and civilians were very likely around 10,000 and did not exceed 15,000 at most’ |
| 12,000 | Muttukrishna Sarvananthan of Point Pedro Institute (without LTTE) |
| 16,000 | Dr Noel Nadesan roughly 16,000 including LTTE, natural and civilians’ |
| 10,000 – 18,000 | Prof. Michael Roberts |
| 2972 | Data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal using figures released by pro-LTTE website Tamilnet placed figures at 2972 until 5 April 2009 |
| 2800 | UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay’s press release of 13 March 2009 ‘as many as 2800 civilians’…’may have been killed’. (big difference in may have been & actually killed’. |
| 7398 | Pro-LTTE website Tamilnet reported this figure |
| NOTE | The Presidential Commission to investigate into Missing Persons with a mandate from 1983 to 2009 has received only 16,179 complaints from civilians and 5000 from wives/family of security personnel as of 9 April 2015. The figure as of 1 March 2016 is 19,006 civilians while the security forces number 5000 remains same. |
What is the difference in holding a Victory Day in memory of war heroes and a Remembrance Day for LTTE dead? The answer is simple. The Sri Lankan Army are the nation’s national army. They are the defenders of the nation. They are commanded by the leader of the nation. The LTTE was a movement created by India to destabilize Sri Lanka with time LTTE was handled by numerous sources who were funding and promoting LTTE to advance their agenda. So long as this agenda fitted into LTTE leaders desire to remain supreme among Tamils the marriage was smooth. When the marriage went on the rocks incidents like Rajiv Gandhi, Amirthalingam, Mahaththaya etc occurred and they were eliminated forever – signalling what would happen to all others if they went against LTTE or Prabakaran.
The Armed Forces lost 30,000 lives sacrificed to defend the nation. LTTE were funded to create a separate state using bogus history and distorted facts. Moreover its modus operandi was to kill anyone against them. Even the Tamils lived in fear. Not one Tamil had the freedom to openly criticize the LTTE.
- Who killed Lakshman Kadiragamar? The LTTE,
- Who killed TULF leader Amirthalingam? The LTTE.
- Who killed Mayor Alfred Duraiappah? The LTTE
- Who killed Mr & Mrs. Sam Tambimuttu? The LTTE
- Who killed Mahaththaya LTTE deputy leader? The LTTE
- The list of Tamils killed by LTTE is too long to feature.
- The list of LTTE cadres killed by LTTE for disobeying orders is unknown & never likely to be even investigated! It is a topic out of scope even with the UNHRC!
As you will notice all of the organizations that emerged as spokespersons for the Tamils were formed AFTER the LTTE was defeated and LTTE leader was dead this is because they were all well aware that LTTE killed off all other leaders of Tamil militant groups that India helped create and Prabakaran did not want any other Tamil to be more ‘popular’ than him.
The TNA was created in 2001 immediately after the War on Terror was announced and LTTE strategists were quick to create a political arm. Look at the photos of how timidly the TNA leaders including the present Opposition Leader is pictured in the presence of LTTE leaders – meek and subservient.
Presently they are acting like king makers because our leaders have stupidly given into their demands and fallen for the little now more later trap. The speeches of the TNA give themselves away. The statement issued by the NPC Chief Minister for Tamil Genocide Day was ‘today is the day of remembrance of those relatives of ours who died during the last stages of the war”. Why only the last stages of the war why didn’t he name all others killed all through the decades of terror – we know that during the last stages of the war it was the LTTE or the soldiers who died, the civilians were all rescued by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces. NPC Chief Minister is CM not only of Tamils but Sinhalese and Muslims too irrespective of whether they voted for him or not. The CM is also cunning enough to evade using ‘civilians’, instead he uses ‘innocents’ – those innocents who passed away during the last stages of the war”.
True enough even a mother of a terrorist has a right to mourn her child. That terrorists was at one time the baby she carried for 9 months. But she does not need open tamashas, the media or even the CM to elevate her grievance. LTTE cadres mothers can privately mourn their own but it cannot be made into a public event. LTTE is proscribed and the LTTE dead are no war heroes. Their wives are no war widows that exclusive status and name goes to the wives of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces only. LTTE does not even have prisoner of war status and there are no international legal conventions that give LTTE legal footage.
If 40,000 have died the families should have lodged their names claiming them to be dead. So far there are just 19,006 names from 1983 to 2009. We are now into the 7th year and even the UNHRC is slowly trying to brush itself away from the figure because they have been exposed for playing a role in the lies.
Listen to TNA’s Sivajilingam a relation of Prabakaran to get the gist of what these memorials are really all about.
May 12-18 remembrance for war dead was held in 2015 by the TNA. Sivajilingam speaks in Sinhalese. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1kjA0p90Nw
TNA Northern Provincial Council member MK Sivajilingam commemorates Great Heroes’ Day also known as Mahaveer Naal in Jaffna in November 2015 despite Justice Minister Wijayadasa Rajapakse claiming that LTTE was banned and such commemoration was against the Constitution.
Sivajilingam however went ahead with the commemoration citing that over 50,000 sacrificed their lives for the Tamil cause and that they sacrificed their lives for the Tamil Homeland. (please listen to the video Sivajilingam speaks in Sinhalese and makes his point very clear)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkcqmobce74
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy2QgPVVbQM taken from a UNSC Resolution 1373 proscribed organization but deproscribed in 2015.
Where do we draw the line? TNA keeps asking for the same things that LTTE demanded, LTTE fronts are promoting the same, civilian events are using the same terminologies, Tamil politicians echoes the same terms and demands…. What do we make out of all these and where does reconciliation and living together happily ever after fit in with all of this?
Shenali D Waduge