Six years ago this month, the Sri lankan Army eliminated lTTE supremo Prabhakaran. While he and his outfit claimed to be campaigners for the Tamil cause, they had killed several hundreds of fellow Tamils
It was on May 19 six years ago, that the Sri lankan authorities officially announced the death of liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran. The day is remembered with joy and relief by an overwhelming majority of people in the island-nation, and in India too. Prabhakaran and his lTTE had not only terrorised the lankans but also masterminded the assassination of a former Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi. He was our enemy as much as he was of the Sri lankans.
And yet, amazingly, certain prominent politicians from Tamil Nadu continue to consider him a hero and a martyr to the Tamil cause. They observe his death anniversary just as they celebrate his birth anniversary on November 26. Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief Vaiko created an unwanted splash on the latter day last year, by cutting a birthday cake for the slain terrorist.
People like Vaiko never tire of flaunting their secular credentials. So, savour this speech he is supposed to have given, and played on loudspeakers in areas the lTTE then controlled in the north of Sri lanka during its heyday: “They say IPKF (Indian Peace Keeping Force) is killing Tamils and raping Tamil women. There are Maratha, Sikh, Gurkha and Madras regiments and so on. No one from the Madras regiment will commit such atrocity. It is the others who are indulging in such crimes” (The Prabhakaran Saga, S Murari; Sage Publications). Vaiko was then in the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. Journalist and author Murari writes in the book that he was “horrified at the attribution of ethnicity to a professional and apolitical army”.
The MDMK leader forgets the exploits of his hero, who had turned against his community’s members, using them as human shields. He forgets the ruthless elimination at the lTTE’s hands and at his orders, of Tamil leaders, both in the political and the separatist movements. And Vaiko also does not wish to remember that the three-decade long war which the lTTE waged against Colombo consumed an estimated 1,20,000 lives — most of them innocent (Sri lanka: The New Country, Padma Rao Sundarji; HarperCollins).
One of the tallest leaders of Tamil Nadu and former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi of the DMK too had never concealed his fondness for Prabhakaran. He had refused to be present when the last contingent of the Indian Peace Keeping Force arrived in Chennai on March 23, 1990. His explanation for the snub was: “Being a Tamil, I cannot receive an army that has killed and raped thousands of Tamils” (The Prabhakaran Saga, S Murari; Sage Publications).
To all these people, it never mattered that Prabhakaran was ruthless in his bid to establish hegemony over the violent movement. “The lTTE’s aim was to become the sole representative of the Tamils in Sri lanka. The terrorist tactics of the lTTE treated these Tamil political parties as essentially expendable” (Sri lanka and the Defeat of the lTTE, KM de Silva; Penguin Books). The author goes on to write, “TUlF’s (Tamil United liberation Front) founder and leader SJV Chelvanayagam died in 1976 when the lTTE was operating in its earlier phase. All the leaders of the TUlF after Chelvanayagam were killed by the lTTE. This was done over a ten-year stretch from 1989 onwards.”
No dissenting or differing voice was spared. A Amirthalingam, Uma Maheswaran, K Padmanabha, Y Yogeswaran, Sri Sabarathnam and others who belonged to various outfits fighting for the Tamil cause, were murdered. Padmanabha’s killing happened on Indian soil in June 1990, in Tamil Nadu. S Murari writes, in his book quoted earlier, “Pathmanabha (or Padmanabha) made the fatal mistake of holding the central committee meeting of the EPRlF (Eelam People’s Revolutionary liberation Front) in Chennai…With the entire State machinery at its disposal the lTTE had access to State intelligence.”
The result was that a killer squad made it without trouble to the group of EPRlF leaders, and eliminated 13 members, besides Padmanabha. Murari adds, “Karunanidhi not only allowed the killers to make a getaway, but also rubbed salt in the wound by detaining more than a dozen EPRlF members under the NSA (National Security Act).”
Also, Prabhakaran’s brutal treatment of the Tamil-speaking Muslim community of Sri lanka never troubled leaders like Mr Karunanidhi and Mr Vaiko, who, otherwise, are at their shrillest on secular causes in India. In the book mentioned earlier, KM de Silva notes, “…the Muslim minority, especially those in the eastern province, have been deeply concerned about the dangers of their political marginalization in a decentralized political and administrative structure. The mass expulsion of Muslims from the whole of the northern province by the lTTE on October 22, 1990, the sole example of ethnic cleansing in Sri lanka, naturally strengthens these fears.”
This development was the first major sign of things to come. Earlier, the Tigers had sought to enlist the support of the Muslims in their war for a Tamil nation. Perhaps they did not get the desired response, so they retaliated. This is how journalist-author Samanth Subramanian puts it: “In the space of a few hours in October 1990, the Tigers emptied Jaffna of its 24,000 Muslims, suddenly and efficiently, the way a can of peas might be overturned and thumped on its edge to dislodge its contents” (This Divided Island, Samanth Subramanian; Penguin India). The author also describes the loot and larceny the so-called freedom-fighters had indulged in: “Earrings were ripped off the ears of young women, often along with the lobes they decorated. Welfare certificates, especially those that entitled the poor to state benefits, were confiscated.”
In case more evidence of the lTTE’s anti-Muslim carnage is needed, Messrs Vaiko and Karunanidhi may recall the Husseiniya mosque massacre in Batticaloa in 1990. Their favourite superstar’s lTTE killed more than 145 lankan Muslims in cold blood. This Divided Island has a chapter on the chilling incident. (KM de Silva’s book, Reaping the Whirlwind: Ethnic Conflict, Ethnic Politics in Sri lanka; Penguin, gives the figure of dead as 120.) And there is another episode in Murari’s book, where he recounts the massacre of 600 Tamil and Tamil-speaking policemen in mid-1990. It’s no wonder, therefore, that the Tamil-speaking Muslim population did not buy into the lTTE fantasy of a Tamil Eelam.