{"id":116217,"date":"2021-07-16T17:08:04","date_gmt":"2021-07-17T00:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=116217"},"modified":"2021-07-16T17:08:04","modified_gmt":"2021-07-17T00:08:04","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-21f","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/07\/16\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-21f\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 21F"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

There is firm evidence to show that during the Eelam wars the\nTamil civilians were   anti-government\nand anti-Sinhala. This became clear to the Sri Lanka army when they were in\nJaffna   during Eelam War III. Kamal Gunaratne\nnarrates (Road to Nandikadal\u2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 After the Sri Lanka army\ncaptured Kilaly, (Jaffna) in 1996, tens of thousands of civilians who had left\nValikamam started to return to their original homes. LTTE tried to prevent this\nbut could not. Seeing the civilians return was a happy sight for us, recalled\nKamal Gunaratne. Watching the massive influx we had a sense of great\nsatisfaction. About 200,000 civilians\nwere now under government administration. One\nthe first day, an elderly man had come up, whispered “Congratulations\u201d and\nmoved on. But young children, who had never seen a soldier glanced at us\nfurtively with fearful eyes,  said Kamal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

People went directly to their homes and\nstarted to settle in.  We tried our best\nto support them in their resettlement. We tried to bring back normalcy to their\nlives. We provided them with food,\nwater and medicine.  In Thenmarachi and\nWadamarachchi, we found LTTE stores filled with food items. We distributed these\namong the civilians. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We gave special attention to school children. The\nservice rendered by the army to support and maintain primary and secondary\neducation in the peninsula was immense. Besides supplying children with books,\nbags, uniforms, shoes, we also provided meals, especially during exams. We\nobtained support and sponsor ship from successful business men in Colombo for\nbooks, uniforms, shoes bags etc and encouraged the school children to study. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also focused on elderly and sick. We   provided medical attention. We conducted eye\nclinics with support   of well wishers\nand leading opticians in the country. We donated spectacles. Many patients came\nto the camps and we provided medicine from our own stocks. We sent them to\nhospital in our ambulances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We helped with government matters of the\ncivilians. We conduced shramadana campaigns with joint participation of soldiers\nand civilians to repair and renovate village infrastructure and public\nproperties such as hospitals, temples and schools. At the New Year   festival we gave civilians expensive gifts,\ndonated by civic society group and businesses.\nWe persuaded businesses to sponsor musical shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our priority was to win the hearts and minds\nof the local population . There was a severe shortage of food items and they\ndepended on the army welfare canteens. We tried to bring these items from\nColombo and supplied them through our canteen at reasonable price. We donated\npart of our food quota to the poor villagers. \nWhenever a member of a poor family was sick or had met with an accident\nit was the army medics who attended to them and in an emergency, our ambulances\nwere used to take them to hospital. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kamal Gunaratne said that they also changed\nthe attitude of the soldiers. A new position of Civil Affairs officer was\ncreated and every major camp had such an officer. We organized a Tamil language\ncourse for our officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We built awareness among the soldiers of the\nneed to treat Tamil citizens with respect and care. So much so that that soldiers\nbegan to look forward to supporting the civilians and sought out opportunities\nto be of service. They helped the\ncivilians in many ways to improve their daily lives.Most soldier treated the \ninnocent poor Tamils with sympathy .They always treated the elderly with\ndue respect and care to the extent of donating their own  meal to the hungry and medicine for the sick.\nHowever, despite the all the support we\ngave to the Tamil civilians, it was clear that their sympathies lay with the\nLTTE.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This became evident when the Ceasefire\nAgreement was signed, in 2002 said Kamal. We then saw a rapid deterioration in the\nrelations between the civilians and the army. Hostility and mistrust returned\nand the Tamil civilians pretended not to remember what we had done for them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LTTE started programme called Pongu Tami in\n2002. It was actually Eelam propaganda, sowing seeds of hatred, revenge and\nracism under the guise of promoting Tamil culture.  These programmes were held in government\ncontrolled areas and were calculated to set the Tamil youth against the\ngovernment.  The Army protested but government said do not\ndisturb, it was a cultural programme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In these progammes the LTTE accused the Sri\nLanka army of destroying Tamil private property, raping, robbery and the forcible\noccupation of Tamil homeland.  They were building\nup a case against the army to rally Tamil youth so that they would help create Eelam. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hate programme of Pongu Tamil continued. There\nwas a programme in June 2003 at University of Jaffna attended by a large gathering\nwhich included school children. Programmes were also held in Vavuniya and\nMannar. 1300 children attended the Mannar programme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The centre for all this activity was the\nUniversity of Jaffna. That was the hub of all this activity, where all the\nplanning and coordinating was taking place. The army did not dare enter the\npremises. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of its University\u2019s main objectives,\nobserved Kamal, was to   turn school\nchildren against the army. These children, whose education we have helped, now\nstood on road holding anti government and anti army placards. They had\nforgotten what we had done for them, said Kamal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LTTE also entered schools when in session and\ndelivered lectures poisoning and radicalizing these young minds. LTTE were successful in brainwashing the\nyouth with their anti government, anti Sinhalese, anti-army rhetoric. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Ceasefire LTTE had trained\ncivilians to handle a weapon. They conducted lectures on rising against the oppression\nby government and Sinhalese.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tamil civilians then became openly hostile\nto the Sri Lanka army.They turned against the army. Villagers who used to work\nclosely with us in musical shows or New Year celebrations became hostile.    Public servants were arrogant when dealing\nwith the army.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soldiers who ventured into town were abused. Some would purposely bang against these\nsoldiers and turn around and shout in filth. Even a simple exchange of word could\ncrescendo into a major row with abuse and anti \u2013Sinahla sentiments being flung\nwith abandon. When soldiers went into\nshops, they were served last.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Army   \ndrivers underwent severe hardship and even the smallest of accidents\nturned into chaos abuse pelting of stones and death threats. Three wheeler drivers drove in the middle of\nthe road and blocked army vehicles form overtaking and loudly spewing filth at\nus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LTTE was able\nto gather thousands of civilians in a short\ntime to demonstrate against the security forces. The\nLTTE organized protests using villagers. They stood in front of army camps and\nverbally abused the soldiers in filth. They   gathered  around camps shouting, pelting stones and\ndemanding the removal of the camps.       \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We started to\nreceived demands to remove road blocks and check points too. When we refused,\nLTTE would organize an entire village to rise up against the army. Long\nprocessions of civilians screaming anti- army slogans would come up to the\ncheckpoint with LTTE pushing them from the rear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When their\ndemand for removing checkpoints was not met they would destroy everything and\nset fire to the bunkers and the check point while soldier watched helplessly.\nThen they would cheer, lift their sarongs, show their nudity, loudly abuse\nsoldiers   and depart. Soldiers would   reassemble the  check point.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The village of Kudaththane in Nagar Kovil had\nenjoyed a high level of cooperation between army and villagers for many years but\nafter the Ceasefire and LTTE takeover, the villagers turned against the army. Two\nsoldiers of the 7th<\/sup> Gemunu Regiment, (Volunteer) were tied to trees\nover a dispute. The army was shocked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The STF camp in Kachchankuda in Ampara\nwas       surrounded by LTTE and hundreds\nof civilians who tried to enter the camp by force. STF opened fire, killing 7\nand wounding another 12 but the situation was contained thereafter, reported\nKamal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A civilian in a barber shop in Palavodai area\nin Jaffna was accidently shot dead in August 2005, when the weapon of a soldier\non duty outside the barber shop accidentally went off. Thousands of civilians\nprotested. Superintendent of Police,   SP\nWijewardana went   alone to settle the\nmatter. LTTE removed his uniform, dressed him in sarong, killed him and dumped\nhis body by the wayside, having previously attacked him with sharp objects. (Continued)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS There is firm evidence to show that during the Eelam wars the Tamil civilians were   anti-government and anti-Sinhala. This became clear to the Sri Lanka army when they were in Jaffna   during Eelam War III. Kamal Gunaratne narrates (Road to Nandikadal\u2019).  After the Sri Lanka army captured Kilaly, (Jaffna) in 1996, tens of […]<\/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-116217","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\/116217","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=116217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}