Prabhakaran is our Holy Father!

By Mohan Gunaratnam and Ranjan Jayakody in Vavuniya

(March 19 , Vavuniya, Sri Lanka Guardian) The question that is being asked widely in Sri Lanka is the whereabouts of the Rev Father James Pathinathar. He was one of those along with another priest who herded the advance group of civilians in Wanni especially from the townships along the A9 Highway and persuaded them to march towards Mullaitivu telling them that it was for their safety because of the impending invasion of the Sri Lankan Forces.

They were told that the armed forces were bent on genocide against the Wanni people and young girls would be gang-raped by the Sinhala soldiers and killed. This was exactly what was also told to the people in Jaffna in October 1995 and thousands were made to march all the way to Wanni amidst squally and inclement monsoonal showers. The LTTE has done this quite often and in Vakarai two years ago children from two schools were used as human shields.

Soon after the Jaffna Human Shield March, seven torture camps for women were found by the Armed Forces in and around the Jaffna City where there were several women who were raped, tortured and imprisoned. These camps were managed by Adele Balasingam and some of the prisoners who were rescued by the army may be alive and will be able to relate their horrendous experiences. Adele Balasingam was evil incarnate and was a constant caller at the Catholic Bishop House in Jaffna.

A middle-aged woman who escaped from the clutches of Adele Balasingam and the Tiger guards and reached Vavuniya was so shocked that it took her nearly a year to start talking and slowly relate her ghastly experience. She was from Chavakacheri and her three sons were members of the EPRLF. One of her sons was shot in front of her by the Tiger gang and the other two escaped and are now living in Orissa.

This lady managed to escape when the security became lax in the wake of the armed forces marching into Jaffna. She had extensive injuries while crawling under the barbed wire fence and walked all the way to Pooneriyan and then to Vavuniya.

In her own words in Tamil, “every day young women and girls were systematically raped and tortured and even killed all under the direction of Adele Balasingam.” Surely this Australian wife of Prabhakaran’s counselor Balasingam is a candidate for human rights abuses indictment.

The LTTE went on a murderous campaign against all the other liberation groups and hundreds were killed and most of the women, especially the young girls were taken to Adele Balasingam’s torture camps. Violence was so methodically and determinedly instilled into the Tiger training programme, that whoever went through it became beasts.

Conscience and reasoning were erased off totally and they had developed the mentality they could do anything they wanted and raping was a primary factor to show their newly gotten power over the others. The way the LTTE was orienting the Tamils, even the four-footed feline of the jungles whose identity they took would be ashamed of their behavior.

This Tiger Terror orientation has also infected the Tamil Diaspora to some extent as could be seen in the demonstrations held in certain overseas cities to save this vermin without realizing that it is their own people who are suffering and they are aiding and abetting genocide against them with the LTTE as the perpetrators. If the Government of Sri Lanka was intent on genocide, Wanni would have been laid to waste in a matter of hours. If not for the determination of the government to save those who are being held as human shields by the LTTE, the war would have been over by now.

"We also hear from our Canadian friends that the Catholic Church functioning among the Tamil Diaspora is in no way linked to any diocese in Canada but only with that in Jaffna. May be it is also a loot keeper for the LTTE in Canada to facilitate transfer of funds to the LTTE."

Human shields, conscription of children, forcing young girls to become suicide bombers after they are mercilessly de-virginized by Tiger bulls, attacking civilians and often among, and amidst civilians and provoking the police and armed forces to attack civilians have been the way LTTE has been handling their campaign for what they claim to create a State of Tamil Eelam.

If statements made by people like the Bishop Thomas Savundranayagam are closely examined, they only want to save the Tigers even if it needs to sacrifice thousands of civilians to do so. This is why the Rev James Pathinathar led the advance group of civilians like a herd of goats for sacrifice at the altar of the Holy Father Prabhakaran.

There is also the Catholic Bishop of Mannar Jospeh Rayappu who has been the resident priest in Wanni for Prabhakaran and his gang and the frontier he exploited in the LTTE relations with the Scandinavians especially the Norwegians and more precisely, Eric Solheim. Recently, he has been quiet and is believed to be staying with Prabhakaran in his bunker.

However, he made his presence in Vavuniya a few days ago to meet his Sinhala clergy counterparts but kept his peace without any comments. It was this Bishop Rayappu who gathered the Statue of Mother Mary and ran into the arms of the Tigers. The northern Catholic clergy who claim to be the spokespersons of the Tamil community are known as the Cassocked Tigers. There are questions to ask, indeed demand of the Catholic Church and its clergy.

Do they really look up to the ace killer and murderer Prabhakaran as their leader and saviour of the Tamil people? Where was the Catholic Church when the LTTE was torturing and murdering thousands of Tamils soon after the IPKF left? Why was the Catholic clergy silent on the conscription of children and recruitment of young girls as suicide bombers? And now why do they want to save this murderous gang? And why did Father James Pathinathar and a group of nuns persuade the Wanni people to march to Mullaiutivu?

We will recommend the Human Rights Commissioner Madame Navaneetham Pillay to start doing her homework about human rights abuses with the first chaper being the activities of the Catholic Church in this respect. It is also time the Government of Sri Lanka begins questioning the bona fides of the Catholic Church in the north and East.

We also hear from our Canadian friends that the Catholic Church functioning among the Tamil Diaspora is in no way linked to any diocese in Canada but only with that in Jaffna. May be it is also a loot keeper for the LTTE in Canada to facilitate transfer of funds to the LTTE. In Canada just about every pro-LTTE Tamil Diaspora organization is concentrated heavily on collecting funds.

The whole involvement of the Catholic Church began with the way it aided the developing brat Prabhakaran with his various bank robberies in Jaffna. The church was his keepers of his loot and probably also managed the loot to purchase the initial arms. Did we ever realize at that time that this youngster will become the most monstrous terrorist in the world today and extract a terrible price on the Tamils and cause such devastation on Sri Lanka?

-Sri Lanka Guardian