The Degradation Of The Tamil Cause And The Indo-Lanka Accord
By Rajan Hoole -December 3, 2013 |
Rajan Hoole
The Rise and Fall of the Tamil Militancy and the International Legal Implications of the Government’s Counter-Insurgency – Part 6
Jockeying for Succession
1984found militarism riding a crest. As a very ambitious national security minister, Athulath mudali’s semantic talents were given a full range of application. For the first time, he was almost hogging the newspaper headlines. The Colombo media evinced nothing but adulation for him. His reasoning was very similar to that behind the PTA and the Emergency Regulations. How much real power he had would be a matter of conjecture. Judging from Gunaratne’s book, Ravi Jayewardene’s group had little enthusiasm for him. In a way he was performing for the Government, the role assigned to the political wing leader Anton Balasingam by the LTTE – viz., to explain the actions of the military wing.
Lalith Athulathmudali’s speech to school-leavers at Sangamitta Girls High School, Galle, in early October 1984 is revealing: “When one is in the thick of a battle, one cannot pause to consider who is responsible for a particular attack. Anyone whose life is threatened and is faced with the prospect of death, has the right to determine how he should act in such circumstances… One politician asked me if innocent people were being killed by the Navy in the surveillance zone. I requested this politician to come aboard one of the naval vessels and try to determine whether a particular boat or vessel detected on the high seas was manned by terrorists or innocent people” (Sun and Island 2.10.84).
It explained also the Army’s practice at that time. Anyone sighted by the Army after a militant attack was a legitimate target. Massacres of Tamil civilians had become the order of the day. April 1984, the month after Athulathmudali was made National Security Minister saw increased confrontations in Jaffna, which left over a hundred Tamil civilians killed in indiscriminate firing by the Army. In mid- August, Valvettithurai was shelled from the sea. In early September 16 civilians were killed in a Police rampage near Point Pedro after 4 policemen were killed in a landmine attack in Thickham. The Hartley College library and science laboratory were burnt. A few days later a Jaffna-bound passenger bus was hijacked by army personnel at Rambewa between Anuradhapura and Vavuniya, taken along the Mannar Road and the passengers were fired at. The 60-year-old driver and 14 passengers were killed. 31 others escaped, some with injuries.
This followed the killing of 8 soldiers in Mullaitivu. During early December 1984, 9 soldiers were injured in a landmine blast in Uyilankulam, and following this, soldiers ran amok killing about 100 civilians between Chemmantivu and Uyilankulam. Read More
To be continued..
*From Rajan Hoole‘s “Sri Lanka: Arrogance of Power - Myth, Decadence and Murder”. Thanks to Rajan for giving us permission to republish. To read earlier parts click here
