A Visit To Kunakunthammah Francis In Puthukudiyiruppu As The UNHRC Considers Sri Lanka
Prof. S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole
My visit to Puthukudiyiruppu today (11 March 2017) as the UNHRC debates Sri Lanka was coincidental. The Election Commission had received from Australia packages of books, pencils, pens and miscellaneous items for indigent refugee children and I took a boxful to the survivors at Puthukudiyiruppu. Through Rev. Fr. Joseph H. Jeyaceelan of the Jaffna diocese I identified Kunakunthammah, meaning the Virtuous Mother, that is the Virgin Mary. Her son-in-law John Bosco and daughter Dijana were running The John Education Center where about 250 children come after school for coaching in cadjanned classrooms. A good 30 of them were orphans with about 20 on scholarships and the remaining supported by their friends and relations.
What I found was a pious, apolitical family that has suffered immensely and yet remains cheerful, and grateful to God that they survived. The simple homely meal they served us was so tasty that I cannot forget it ever.
That they were apolitical is seen in Kunakunthammah Francis’ birth certificate name – Kunawardene, a name given to her by her father after his friend Kunawardene despite that being a male Sinhalese name. As trouble brewed, saying she needed a Tamil Catholic name, her name was changed to Kunakunthammah after Mary the Mother of Jesus.
It was a time when the army was raining shells on civilians and the desperate LTTE was keeping Tamils as hostages and forcing them to carry arms or serve in labor gangs. John Bosco therefore hid in the CARE office where he worked without going out for almost two years. The Tigers intensified their forced recruitment and press-ganging in Dec. 2007. However on 9 Nov. 2008 as he recalls, the government asked all INGOs to leave and he lost his hiding place. As he tried to move across to the government side, he was press-ganged by the Tigers for their labour force. His mother Ritammah got a nervous breakdown over being unable to get John back and then a heart attack and passed away. While cycling back, an army shell blew out John’s entrails on 27.03.2009. He had the presence of mind to push them back in and tie them in with a sarong. Bicycling away he lost consciousness. When he awoke, he was in a pile of bodies with three on top of him, given up for dead. From there he saw a girl who studied with him and called out to her before fainting again. He was found when he moved, rescued and now survives after four surgeries.
During the army’s wild and arbitrary shelling a shell fell on the shelter they had dug and six people died at once together on 09.02.2009 – John’s father Mathias Alles who had had a heart attack after hearing that john’s body had been taken away for disposal and died without knowing John was alive, John’s brother’s father-in-law Victor Gnanapragasam, and four other relations.
