Cainicide: Tamils have been liberated from this mass horror

By Catapult Thangavelu and his team from the Liberation Highway

(May 16, Jafna, Sri Lanka Guardian) We call it “Cainicide” for want of a suitable word in the English Language. Our problem was to describe the dilemma the Tamils in Sri Lanka faced in particular and that is to be killed by one’s own, like how Adam’s son Cain did away with his own brother Abel, a story from the Old Testament of the Bible.

How else can we describe what Prabhakaran the aberrant son of Mr and Mrs Velupillai of Valvettiturai did for his community over a period of thirty years? Unless some historians can correct us, this must be unique in the annals of human history where an entire community was placed at the mercy of a man who wanted to be the sole determiner of their destinies and anyone who came across his path was promptly decimated.

Since he himself is a unique being for the ghastly horrors he heaped on Sri Lanka especially on his own people, the Tamils, we felt the English vocabulary should adopt the word “Cainicide” to be in company with such evils as homicide, patricide, infanticide, suicide etc.

We of the Kappang Highway team have kept watch on his atrocious activities for a period of four years and have often been in a state of utter disbelief for many reasons.

Firstly, the way he took over orphanages in the north and introduced the helpless orphans into accepting him as everything to them, almost godlike, and then nurturing them into a life of vicious violence. Secondly, the creation of suicide bombers training young people from their preteen years, to undertake some horrendous tasks. Our features on this especially directed to the UNICEF fell on deaf years. Those who worked for this UN body were not bothered and we even suspected that along with several INGOS and NGOS, they too looked up to Prabhakaran as a kind of hero.

Yet this was the man who wiped out several of the Tamil liberation groups, killed Tamil moderates, some Sinhalese leaders too and of course the President of Sri Lanka Ranasinghe Premadasa and the former prime minster of India, Rajiv Gandhi. There were many deadly ambushes killing large numbers of men, women and children. It would be right to say that this man’s murderous list was endless.

He called himself a liberation leader and pro-LTTE Tamil protesters in the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany and some other western countries too apart from their nuisance to the public, their demonstrations chants were hoarse and aggressive. One such was “Our Leader Prabhakaran” unconcerned and unashamed that this man has been committing “Cainicide” on their community to win an Eelam State in which no other except him would be the sole voice.

Two years ago Prabhakaran went too far closing the sluice gates of the Mavil Aru which provided water for farms of hundreds of families. It was a crazy thing to do but in the mind of Prabhakaran evil was what he wanted: he evidently was absolutely psychotic and as the saying goes, those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make them mad. Unfortunately for him President Mahinda Rajapaksa is no Ranil Wickremasinghe who incidentally is now in Oslo having discussions with Eric Solheim, his partner in a conspiracy and the root cause of the plight of the people of Wanni today.

Another terrible miscalculation of Prabhakaran was the conviction that in any crisis he will get away with a ceasefire and then live to continue his nightmare activities. When the Sri Lankan Armed Forces which, unlike during the times of previous governments especially that of Junius Jayawardene, had become a highly skilled and disciplined force and began to march confidently forward, this sole-voice only killer, organized his key brutal weapon in his arsenal and through his various agents including the Catholic Church, force-herded the people and marched them towards Puthukudiruppu where the Final Fortress of Resistance was already under construction. In fact, it was a bit too late especially in respect of the highly sophisticated undersea tunnel.

There was also reported seven airstrips as well as all kinds of terrible weapons some smuggled in, some helped in especially when Ranil Wickremasinghe was prime minister and through the Norwegian friends of the Tigers. Prabhakaran was preparing a kind of military as if it was his intention to bring the entire Sri Lanka under his sole-voice only control. How and where did he get all these expertise? One wonders how much of these were made possible because of some foreign elements and personnel stolen into the Wanni under some pretext or other.

In the coming months a great deal of shocking revelations will emerge and in the interests of Sri Lanka and our neighbouring countries, we urge that Sri Lanka. India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Pakistan along with Maldive Islands, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia to make a study of how the LTTE came into being, why and ensure no such plague affects this region anymore.

This must be particularly viewed from the angle how several countries in the west and some of their INGO and NGO organizations leant support to the LTTE in various ways. As time went and the fate of the LTTE was becoming sealed some countries became really hostile towards Sri Lanka and even involved themselves in campaigns based on false contentions and fraudulent information passed on to them by the Tiger Diaspora.

The Human Rights Watch could not perceive the issue of terrorism within the large scenario and the obligation of the Government of Sri Lanka to wipe it out. Even worse, it could not appreciate that the Armed Forces were more concerned about getting the 250,000 civilians held as human shield freed and by controlled and careful military action keeping the Tigers at away, got about 170,000 freed and kept on pursuing this goal.

If as charged by pro-LTTE protesters in the West and people like Navaneetham Pillai of the Human Rights Watch and her colleague Brad Adams who thinks he is god himself and even the Learjet-setter David Millibank, the British Foreign Minister and his French counterpart, whatever his name is, what is being committed is genocide against the Tamils, then the Armed Forces would have finished the job long ago.

Nowhere in the world there has been such an evacuation of such massive proportion done with clinical precision as our colleagues Mohan Gunaratnam and Roshanti Arasakularatne claimed on the spot from Vavuniya. There were others too who kept us informed of ground realities.

We have suddenly seen how antagonistic the West is towards developing countries. It is extremely regrettable that President Barak Obama’s Secretary of State Madam Hillary Clinton wants reconsideration of the proposed IMF grant to Sri Lanka. And that especially now when thousands are in dire need consequent to the LTTE using them as human shield. The West would rather have Sri Lanka remain a poor country that could be whipped and slammed by the rich countries according to their whims and fancies.

May be the West has been jolted by shock that little Sri Lanka can deal with terrorism, especially of the most brutal kind with minimal collateral damage and the Armed Forces ensuring civilian safety as primary. Just today indiscriminate US air attacks in Afghanistan has sent “hundreds of thousands” fleeing and what has Hillary Clinton got to say about such attacks?

The US has nurtured several tyrants who have been the main destructive forces of many third world countries. May be Prabhakaran expected the US to save him and his cronies the way the US did for the Marcos gang in the Philippines. Some of the protesters talked about Gunboat Diplomacy and there were others who wanted direct intervention. The Cinema lady across the Palk Straits wants the Indian Forces to intervene; of course in her case after the elections she may play another role the way was so used when actively involved in the film industry.

We have been the witnesses of several terrible happenings in the Wanni under the Tigers and we watched how a rich agricultural community was converted into a military enclave and the people, mostly farmers even denied of their products; they took the Tiger share which is considerably more than, as the saying goes, the lion’s share.

We saw the role of the Catholic Church in the Wanni and how much the Bishop of Mannar was involved in being an inspiration to this terror outfit. Father Pathinathar was one of the leaders in the herding of the human shield. There were other priests too. The Catholic Conference in Sri Lanka has a great deal to answer and no wonder countries like Germany, Austria, France and even Mexico showed so much anxiety about Sri Lanka’s fight against terrorism that it gave much comfort to the LTTE and its supporters.

Some of the media organizations in the West like the CNN, Channel 4 and even the BBC’s thirst and hunger for the sensational overlooked the facts; real facts, did not matter to them. If their news reports and comments and even some interviews are carried out, it would be seen that they love sources that are highly potential for the stir and the sensation. If whatever they see needs some shocking inputs, they will go for it without hesitation. Their earnings are dictated by sensation.

Little Sri Lanka has fought a great battle not just against the most brutal and ruthless terrorist organization in the world but also immense pressures from the West and even threats and blackmail. It has shown terrorism could be fought by a disciplined Armed Force led by a leader who has the guts to stand up to these so-called powerful nations in the world.

The world has a lot to learn from Sri Lanka especially in how to deal with global terrorism. May be some countries have foolishly encouraged Tiger terrorism to take roots in their own countries but that is their fate through their foolishness. But whatever we may say, it is evident Sri Lanka has splashed eggs on the faces of countries and leaders who gave comfort to the Tigers in various ways. We hope those eggs were rotten for that is what they fully deserved.

The Kappang Highway team is very proud. We have been the watchdogs representing the Fourth Estate of the Realms and we will continue to work advocating for the Government of Sri Lanka to ensure that the just rights of the Tamils and all other minorities are enshrined and President Rajapaksa will lead the country to a new era of racial and religious unity, warm understanding, peace, harmony and total dedication to progress.

Note: A9 under LTTE control was named Kappang Highway by the Catapult Thangavelu team that operated from there.

-Sri Lanka Guardian