The Jaffna Diary

Rajesh Ramachandran
NDTV Column
Friday, December 8, 2006

JAFFNA: There was no mistaking the boom of artillery guns. But apart from me and my colleague Dhanpal, the cameraperson, nobody seemed worried at the Kopay refugee camp.

According to the displaced victims of this civil war, those were Sri Lankan guns pounding LTTE positions. As evening set in and curfew began at six, the firing intensified.

The only solace was that the LTTE doesn't fire at Jaffna, at the Tamil population. And here, unlike in other parts of the country, Tamil Tigers are not hit-and-run terrorist squads, bombing crowded political rallies or targetting leaders. Instead there is a pitched battle with lines drawn and two armies exchanging fire, as if the land across the line is enemy territory.

Just as distinct as the February 22, 2002 ceasefire line is the divide among the nations --- the Tamil north and the Sinhala south. Jaffna general hospital and medical college offer further proof of this. Here surgical gauze, disposable gloves and other surgical material are, shockingly, recycled.

When we visited the hospital in November, bandages were removed from wounds, washed in boiling water and used again. Also, the lack of centralised piped oxygen supply, forced the hospital's acting director Dr Ravi Raj stop all routine surgeries for two months.

Lack of basics

Life has not been the same here after August 11, when the Tigers attacked the Sri Lankan forward defence line at Muhamalai, 30-odd km south of Jaffna town. Government forces retaliated by closing the A9 highway, the lifeline from the Sinhala south to the Tamil north.

There are long serpentine queues, with some of them waiting after the curfew relaxation at six in the morning for rice, dal, sugar and just about everything. Yet, there is not enough for anyone. There is no baby food, no medicines outside Jaffna general hospital.

It's not just the nameless poor villagers who rue their fate. Dr Ganesh Murthy, a retired consultant of Jaffna medical college, says there is not even paracetamol available in pharmacies. "I never stood in a queue after I was 10. Now, I wait for over two hours for rice and dal. A match box costs Rs 25 outside," says Murthy.

And this is no exaggeration. At Thinakkural, the hotel where we stayed, we were the only guests and had to do with tea without milk and just rice, sambar and sambhol --- coconut gratings with chillies. Where a matchstick costs one Rupee or a kg of garlic over Rs 1,000, there is no point in enumerating the spiralling cost of living.

There is a thriving black market. Though the Jaffna commander major general MA Chandrasiri blames the people of Jaffna for hoarding and selling food at astronomically inflated rates, the people say that whatever little is available at government controlled cooperative stores is not enough so they sell sugar to buy rice or fuel for food.

Expensive ride

It was difficult getting into Jaffna, cut off as it was from the mainland at Muhamalai. In fact, we could not even cross over to the LTTE controlled Killinochi by road despite the Government insisting that the A9 Highway was closed only at Muhamalai. The army had turned us back at Vavuniya while trying to cross over. Our persistent pleas were rebuffed by the army. And this was contrary to the army's stated position.

Even while stopping us at Vavuniya, the army maintained that the road was open for us to travel up to Killinochchi. Had it not been for Dr Palitha TB Kohona, secretary general of the Peace Secretariat in Colombo, we wouldn't have got to travel to Killinochchi or Jaffna.

Ironically, Tamil Members of Sri Lankan Parliament, the Jaffna bishop of Church of South India and other activists favoured our visiting Jaffna, but none of them could book us on a civilian flight. Finally we paid for our tickets on a military flight, a cargo carrier meant for military hardware and personnel, which was doubling up as transportation for civilians.

We were lucky...but our fellow passengers weren't. Firstly, anyone travelling to Jaffna requires clearance from the Ministry of defence. That's just the first hurdle. Apart from the airfare, the rate of excess baggage was Rs 430 per kilo in the military aircraft.

Accompanying us on the flight was a family going to attend a funeral in Jaffna...and in these times of scarcity they were carrying sugar, tea, garlic, vegetable oil, mosquito repellents and other household stuff ...You can imagine the amount they paid in excess baggage.

Also accompanying us was Jaffna University vice chancellor R Kumaravadivel. Jaffna University is according to the Sri Lankan government, a nursery for tiger cubs. It has been closed for this very reason. While in Colombo, Dr Kohona had told us, "We have credible information that the LTTE is going to recruit 6,000 students from the university. We don't want that to happen." For General Chandrasiri, Jaffna commander of the Lankan government, the university is a dangerous zone. He had raided the campus and seized propaganda material, satellite phones, and even a huge cut-out of Prabhakaran.

The vice chancellor of Jaffna University, naturally has a different story to tell. Prof Kumaravadivel says there aren't 6,000 students in the university, but around 5200, and that there is no point in closing the university to stop students from joining the LTTE, because 1300 of them come from LTTE controlled areas. "They don't have to come to Jaffna to join LTTE", he contends.

Call for help

The VC is not worried about the LTTE sympathisers, but is completely helpless because he cannot feed his students or assure their safety. "The situation is much worse than what it was in 1987, when India airdropped food parcels," he says. The hint is too obvious for explanation.

And the Tamil tragedy is intrinsically linked to this yearning for support from India. They call themselves the forgotten people, with their umbilical cord with Tamil Nadu snapped and being left to fend for themselves. All because of what they call, "the most tragic incident of 1991". Perhaps nowhere else is Rajiv Gandhi and his assassination a real life dilemma than here.

Off camera, they all, young and old, term Rajiv's assassination the Tigers' biggest blunder. But they stop short of attacking the Tigers. "The Tigers are our sole protection in times of ethnic cleansing," they say, pleading anonymity. They want India to intervene, to forget Rajiv's murder and to move forward, but they also admit things can never be the same again. Rajiv's murder has left them friendless in Tamil Nadu. It is almost as if an entire people feel responsible for what the Tigers have done and that obviously answers the big question: Do the Tigers represent the Tamil people?

Students of Jaffna university were not willing to be interviewed on camera...so we had to film them looking away from the camera, so only their voices w ere recorded. Obviously, no names. "Truth is dead here. People are being killed and we are scared to speak out or even show our faces," one of them told us. They were referring to mysterious kidnappings and killings in Jaffna, which they claim are being done by gangs unleashed by security forces to counter the Tigers.

Yet, they don't want to distance themselves from the Tigers. "A separate Tamil homeland is not an LTTE proposal. Ever since the death of Thanthai Selvam in 1977, Tamil Eelam had been our formal demand. LTTE is part of our struggle to achieve Tamil Eelam," is how a student theorised a normal Tamil's support for LTTE. At the end of the interview, he wanted to add an appeal to the people and government of India: "Please forget Rajiv's assassination. Without Indian intervention there could never be a solution."

The only one to openly proclaim his support for the LTTE was a fisherman: probably here discretion was giving way to desperation. His and many of his friends' boats are grounded. And those who go out fishing do it only for a couple of hours because they are restricted to 200 to 300 metres from beaches. "Soon we'll starve. LTTE may have stopped ships from bringing foods, but we want the highway to be opened. We are never troubled by the Tigers, they are fighting for our liberation," said a fisherman.

It was not just these faceless students or nameless fisherfolk who wanted Indian intervention to avert a catastrophe. The catholic bishop of Jaffna, Dr Thomas Sovindranayagam doesn't believe that Norway as a peacemaker would achieve much because Norway is so far away from the island. And the further the negotiator, the more difficult it is to implement peace proposals, he believes.

"We are a very small group of people. Certainly by ourselves we can't achieve peace. In other countries also peace was achieved by the intervention of international community. For us the best country is India, our closest neighbour and culturally we are very much linked and lot of our people have taken refuge there. India must not be simply a spectator, it must play an active role in bringing a lasting peace," says the bishop. But the Tigers are much more subtle when they seek help from India.

'Tiger land encounter'

K ILLINOCHCHI: We were not exactly welcome here in Tiger territory. Luckily there were no humiliating body searches or frisking as we had undergone at the gates of Jaffna security forces headquarters where we had gone to meet General Chandrasiri. But the rest was heartstoppingly tense. At the Omanthai check point on A9, almost 20 km north of Vavuniya, nobody stopped us, so we raced past the shacks that were Tigers' customs checkpoints. A further 10-15 km and a youngster waved us down at a barricade. "Go back," was the terse order. At the Omanthari checkpoint, young Tigers with walkie-talkies as small as mobile phones opened our bags and took their time giving us travel documents.

At Killinochchi, the LTTE spokesperson, Daya Master was tentative. When the army initially refused us permission to travel to Killinochchi, the LTTE didn't want to help either. LTTE leaders told an intermediary that, a journalist lost her eyes last time when they tried to smuggle her in during war. But it seemed to be much more than mere reluctance to take risks. The Tigers are generally suspicious of the Indian media, they don't want to respond to repeated queries about the Rajiv Gandhi assassination and they don't want to be perceived as weak, bending over backwards to accommodate Indians to win a propaganda war.

Daya Master took us to Killinochchi hospital where the false ceiling was broken at many places when the Sri Lankan air force bombed what it claimed an LTTE safe house in the vicinity. It was a doctor's house, the LTTE maintains. The LTTE is anticipating more attacks and has dug up bunkers all over the place. Even at One2Nine, our hotel, there are LTTE bunkers. And contrary to hearsay, there was alcohol and cigarettes on offer at the hotel, both taboo for the LTTE cadre. One thing that struck me most was the casual business -as -usual approach of the people of Killinochchi. There was scarcity but nothing compared to Jaffna. For a slightly higher price everything was available. Bombed out buildings are the only common denominator between Jaffna and Killinochchi. And unlike Jaffna, there was no presence of armed men or women on the streets. The only time I saw a few of the cadre, women in fact, was when we went asking for Daya Master's office. Life in Killinochchi is controlled totally by the LTTE, even the local FM station is that of Voice of Tigers, Pulikalinkural, broadcasting songs in praise of Prabhakaran and the war against the Sri Lankan forces.

Changing stand?

The next day, SP Thamilselvan gave us an interview, where he wanted India to acknowledge and support the Tamil cause and stop aiding the Sri Lankan army. But how could India support LTTE, a banned organisation? His answer was rather simple, the Tamils and the LTTE are inseparable. And anybody who cares for the Tamils would have to support the LTTE.

This led to the obvious questions of how he expects India to support LTTE, when it is considered to be the killers of Rajiv. Thamilselvan's reply was interesting: "We have never admitted to the killing of Rajiv Gandhi. We have no links whatsoever with the incident. Just as India has forgotten the murder of Indira Gandhi, it should move ahead and forget Rajiv's murder."

I jumped in: "If you didn't then who killed Rajiv?" As Dhanpal changed the tape, Thamilselvan replied, "We will give more details of the murder at an appropriate time." But he refused to repeat it on camera. As I persisted with my questions, Thamilselvan became increasingly irritated and the interview was soon over.

We wanted to shoot the LTTE cadre, training, marching or just hanging around but we were not allowed to do so. Daya Master for the umpteenth time cycled off to the political office to seek permission. After what seemed like eternity, he came back with a DVD. "Sorry, this is all I can give you," he said. Thus, without those dramatic pieces to camera or any romantic notions of LTTE, we returned to Colombo and then to Delhi.

Post Script: We aired out stories during Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse visit to India in the last week of November. And in an interview to The Times of India, he said our stories were only the LTTE's version of the Jaffna situation. I hope Daya Master would make a clipping of the President's interview and send it across to Velupillai Prabhakaran through Thamilselvan. Then at least I would be assured of a better reception at the Omanthai Tiger checkpoint next time, if not an interview with Prabhakaran !