{"id":115774,"date":"2021-07-04T17:16:35","date_gmt":"2021-07-05T00:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=115774"},"modified":"2021-07-06T16:15:37","modified_gmt":"2021-07-06T23:15:37","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-16-a1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/07\/04\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-16-a1\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 16 A1"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>LTTE was not just anti-Sinhala, it is also\nanti-Buddhist. This aspect of LTTE rule has not received the attention it\ndeserves .The LTTE had a deep hatred of Buddhism and\nshowed it by repeated attacks on temples, bhikkhus and&nbsp;&nbsp; worshippers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nLTTE leaders starting with Prabhakaran were Christian, some Roman Catholic ,\nsome &nbsp;Protestant. Tamil Selvam, Balraj,\nPottu Amman, Soosai and Anton Balasingham <em>were\n<\/em>Christian. Prabhakaran was\na lapsed Methodist, said one writer.\nBut Valvettiturai, where Prabhakaran comes\nfrom is mainly Catholic so I do not think that can be correct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>LTTE\nattacked the two most revered symbols of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Sri Maha Bodhi\nin Anuradhapura and the Dalada Maligawa in Kandy. These were carefully planned\nattacks, intended primarily, to show their contempt towards Buddhism and the\nSinhala Buddhist community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>LTTE ATTACK ON SRI MAHA BODHI<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"LTTE ATTACK ON SRI MAHA BODIYA Sri Lanka 1985 Recorded by the LTTE\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/e6GRkoSG7Fk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"> ltte attack on Sri Maha bodiya Sri Lanka 1985 <em>recorded by the ltte\u201d<\/em><br>(<em>This video focused on violent part of a film, To see it press watch on you Tube\u201d<\/em>)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The LTTE\ngroup which planned to attack Sri Maha Bodhi, had come into Wilpattu from Mannar\nby boat during the night&nbsp; The group was led\nby their Mannar leader Victor Fulgencius&nbsp;&nbsp;\nDouglas B. Ranasinghe in his biography of Thilo Hoffman said that&nbsp;&nbsp; Hoffman had seen at Wilpattu a madela laid\nout on the beach. Hoffman knew at once that it was not the work of regular\nfishermen. it was a cover up by the LTTE who attacked Anuradhapura the next\nday.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From Wilpattu, LTTE moved through Kala oya to Elvankulam\nwhere they hijacked the early morning &nbsp;Anuradhapura bus, and reached Anuradhapura at 6 am on May\n14, 1985. The bus entered the main city and at the main Anuradhapura bus\nstation, they opened fire indiscriminately with automatic weapons, killing and wounding&nbsp; civilians who were waiting for buses. LTTE\nthen drove to the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sri_Maha_Bodhi\">Sri Maha Bodhi<\/a>&nbsp; and\ngunned down the worshipper there. The final casualty figure given by the\nGovernment was 146 killed and\n85 wounded. Anuradhapura residents say, is in fact closer\nto 200. The LTTE &nbsp;then sped back to Nochchiyagama and Pukulam where\nboats were waiting to take them back to Mannar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mervyn de Silva, forme Editor in Chief of Lake House described\nthe event. It was all over in less than half-an-hour, a blood-splattered scene\nstraight out of a movie by Sam Peckinpah, of pure, unbridled terror, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A Ceylon Transport Board bus pulled up at the\nbus station and four young men in military-style uniforms and carrying AK-47s\nalighted and walked towards the police station some 300 yards away. Then the\nrest (more than 20, said an eyewitness later) got down and in a perfectly\nrehearsed drill, formed two rows along the sides of the street. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Suddenly a command, a few words shouted, they\nopened up with their automatic weapons, mowing down every person in sight.With\nwell over 200 persons dead or bleeding to death in the street, the attackers\ngot back into the bus and drove to the Siri maha Bodhi and killed worhippers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The attakc has all the hallmarks of a LTTE\noperation, especially the cold-blooded attack and its ferocity, Lalith Athulathmudali, National\nSecurity Minister told India Today. The massacre did not provoke a massive\nSinhalese backlash in the south. The community remained calm, concluded Mervy\nde Silva.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>LTTE\nATTACK ON DALADA MALIGAWA.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"LTTE Bomb Attack - Sri Dalada Maligawa\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/c10n-WultaM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>On 25 January\n1998, three suicide LTTE <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Black_Tigers\">Black Tigers<\/a> drove an explosive laden truck along the\nKing&#8217;s street (<em>Raja Veediya<\/em>), Kandy, firing at soldiers manning road blocks\nand exploded a massive truck bomb in front of the Dalada Maligawa. The truck\ncontained 300\u2013400 kilograms (660\u2013880&nbsp;lb) of high explosives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The entrance and\nthe roof of Dalada Maligawa were damage, but the inner chamber was intact. 10\ncivilians, including a two-year-old girl and her seven-year-old brother, were\nkilled. Over 25 people, including 4 women, a monk and a police officer were\ninjured.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In October 2003,\nthree LTTE cadres involved in the attack were convicted by the Kandy High court\nand sentenced to death. Two others were sentenced to 680 years of rigorous\nimprisonment and third to 490 years ( CONTINUED)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KAMALIKA PIERIS LTTE was not just anti-Sinhala, it is also anti-Buddhist. This aspect of LTTE rule has not received the attention it deserves .The LTTE had a deep hatred of Buddhism and showed it by repeated attacks on temples, bhikkhus and&nbsp;&nbsp; worshippers. The LTTE leaders starting with Prabhakaran were Christian, some Roman Catholic , some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}