KAMALIKA PIERIS

Senior nurse Somawathi recalled that as the morning progressed the crowd was swelling to uncontrollable levels at Ampara   Base hospital, a large crowd had gathered in the public areas of the hospital .people were visibly upset

Bhikkhus from Sri Vidyananda Pirivena, Mahawapi Vihare and from all around Ampara began arriving at the hospital along with neighboring dayakayas who had heard the news.  Some monks were openly weeping at the sight of the carnage. Some were angry, wondering if Ven. Indasara’s outspoken and strong stance against LTTE intimidation had got them killed. Some were quiet, in shock.

Ampara resident, W. G Sirisena, a dayakaya remembers the moment when he learned that Ven. Indasara and the samanera had been massacred. He rushed to the Ampara Base Hospital to see for himself. When he saw the bodies of all the monks laid out at the hospital I started shivering and shaking,” he recalled. 

The villagers who milled about the temple struggled to grasp the magnitude of their loss. Their beloved Head priest and leader, Ven. Indasara, several members of their community including a driver, conductor, a school-aged youth and all the child monks whose wellbeing and progress they had attended to with personal interest and care were gone.

By late afternoon parents of the victims began to arrive from all parts of the island frantic for news about their children. The villagers helped the family members locate their loved ones. After an emotional reunion, Wawinne Sirinanda’s mother took him back home to Wavinna that same evening.

The state-run newspapers carried a short, sanitized account of the Arantalawa massacre. However, despite the JR Jayewardene government’s effort to downplay the event, the news of the massacre spread across the island. Throughout the nation people reacted to the news with shock and disgust.  Buddhists across the island raised yellow flags. It was a restrained reaction to a horrific crime against humanity, observed analysts.

The mood in Ampara however was grim. However the anticipated riot never happened due to the intervention of President J.R. Jayewardene. JR was not interested in the murdered bhikkhus, not at all, his concern was only for the safety of the 144 Tamil families living in Ampara.

He sent  Austin  Fernando,Secretary to the Ministry of Rehabilitation, to Ampara with the instruction, there are 144 Tamil families living inside the Ampara Town. Ensure that these people are safe, until we sort out this situation.”

Austin Fernando went to Ampara and   found that   a  troubling emotion” was brewing, fury. While the 144 Tamil families he was assigned to protect were of immediate concern, Fernando also worried about  that  this may lead to a full-blown riot in the country.

 At that time, with the  relentless barrage of LTTE attacks taking place, a spark of civil unrest in Ampara had the potential to spread through the country like wildfire. While this particular massacre was by no means the biggest in terms of the number of casualties or economic impact, it had a devastating effect on the nation’s morale. Even by LTTE standards, it was a dastardly, dirty thing” that had been done.

Without revealing his mission, Fernando identified a government stenographer  he knew,  who had his ear to the ground and used him as  an informant. The steno told him  people are furious and fed up and openly discussing what has taken place,”  Fernando asked if there could be retaliation against any Tamil families and  the steno replied, I am sure that there will be retaliation” .

Through the stenographer, Fernando learned that a group of thugs and mudalalis” had already gathered at the back of a shop and were discussing angrily,  what to do next. The steno knew where the meeting was taking place, but was reluctant to take a government official there, fearing  reprisal  later.

Fernando went to the location .In the smoke filled back room of a shop,  our hero, Fernando  faced the group of incensed, sarong-clad men who had been working each other up for some time. The men vowed to take  revenge on them”, by which they meant any Tamil, whom they equated with the LTTE, related analysts. 

Fernando saw an opportunity to enter the conversation when someone started to talk about funeral expenses. He deftly turned the whole discussion towards the funeral,  on which he then talked about at length, until it sobered the men. What do you want me to do regarding the funeral?” He asked them. As he was also the Commissioner General of Essential Services, he stated that he had no problem with bearing the victims’ funeral expenses. He would ask the GA to bear all funeral expenses.

When this was announced, the men settled down. Most of them felt that they had won a battle. Fernando obtained assurances from them that there would be no trouble that night. Once the group had sufficiently calmed down, and he was satisfied with the men’s assurances that there would be no violence against any Tamils in the area, Fernando returned to Colombo via helicopter. 

A  curfew was imposed in Ampara that night. Due in large part to Fernando’s diplomacy, and the president’s decision to send a civilian administrator to calm tensions rather than the military to quell them, that night was a peaceful one. There was no civil unrest and no innocent Tamil people were harmed in retaliation by vigilantes, observed  admiring analysts.  By all accounts, it was a quiet night.

Due to the tremendous outpouring of grief from the community, the funeral was held at the Ampara municipal grounds on June 05, 1987 with more than a thousand senior monks from temples all over Sri Lanka and several thousand members of the public in attendance.

The STF responded swiftly to the massacre. They moved into the jungle to gather evidence of LTTE activities in the area.  They discovered campsites that had been used by the LTTE cadres and some discarded uniforms that resembled those of the Air Force.

They monitored LTTE communications from the STF base in Kalawanchikudi. From this, they learned  that the LTTE team that had carried out the attack  was led by Regan,  who was also chief participant. He was part of a seasoned team of eight LTTE leaders in the East that operated out of Batticaloa  They were responsible for many of the attacks on civilians in the Eastern Province such as the Kituluttuwa massacre of 126 civilians and most of the village massacres. Karuna Amman, LTTE commander of the Eastern Province, would have been aware of the attack the STF said.STF added that  it was very difficult to prevent such attacks as these were not discussed over the LTTE communications prior to the events.

The STF were also unable to gain intelligence from the Tamil villagers in those areas, as many of the LTTE members were integrated into these villages. In this area, the LTTE lived in the Tamil)villages as ordinary citizens during the day, and would join the (TTE’s)clandestine operations at night. It was difficult to identify the perpetrators before this event because we could not get good information from the villagers.

The STF made an effort to be friendly in these villages during foot patrols, but the villagers were too scared to speak with us, because the LTTE  were among them and watching them and would retaliate against them if they were thought to be friendly with the Security Forces.” He recalled an incident where the STF members found someone in a Tamil village killed and strung up on a light pole because (she) smiled with us” on the previous day when the officers were on foot patrol.

A week after the attack the STF responded militarily, targeting the LTTE’s Eastern leaders. Using the communications monitoring from Kalawanchikudi, a small STF team of five led by SI Faizal Hadji carried out a targeted operation in the Unnichchai forest. The team ambushed an LTTE campsite and killed three of the eight LTTE leaders who had carried out the Aranthalawa Massacre. Two other LTTE leaders were killed in a subsequent targeted STF operation.

However, Regan, remained elusive. LTTE leadership went to great lengths to keep Regan alive sending him to South India for medical treatment  in 1987 in 1990 after he was injured in another military operation. In addition to the Aranthalawa Massacre, Regan was believed to have participated in many of the gruesome attacks on civilians in the Eastern Province by ambushing buses along eastern roads and killing its passengers by day  and  by massacring sleeping villagers by night. 

Regan later sought and received political asylum in France where he lived in Paris under the name Nadarajah Matheenthiran, while maintaining a low profile. He was eventually granted French citizenship for having a blemishless” record there. After a while, he became active again in the LTTE under the name Parithy and in 2002 took over LTTE’s leadership in France which was operating under the front organization Tamil Coordinating Committee (TCC) which was responsible for extorting money from Tamils living in France as taxes” for the LTTE. On November 08, 2012, Regan was shot and killed next to a bus stand in Paris by two unknown assailants on a motorcycle. French authorities believe that he was killed by members of a rival faction within the LTTE.   ( Continued)