Tiger leaders killed while surrendering

(May 26, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) A key intermediary between the Tamil Tigers and the United Nations (UN) has revealed that the Sri Lankan army shot dead top Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leaders while they were holding white flags, indicating their willingness to surrender.

Journalist Marie Colvin wrote a first-person account for Sunday Times in which she quoted a safe-zone escapee as saying that LTTE’s political leader Balasingham Nadesan and peace secretariat head Seevaratnam Puleedevan were killed while they were walking towards Lankan army lines along with women and children holding white flags.

“He said the army started firing machine guns at them,” wrote Colvin.

The source said Nadesan’s wife, a Sinhalese, yelled in Sinhala at the soldiers to tell them that Nadesan was trying to surrender.

“She was also shot down.” Nadesan was trying to negotiate with the US and the UK governments and the UN for a guarantee of security. “He was well aware that surrendering to the Sri Lankan army would be the most dangerous moment in the 26- year civil war,” Colvin wrote.

Colvin said Nadesan had also opened a communication channel with President Mahinda Rajapaksa through Rohan Chandra Nehru, a Tamil MP. Nehru told Colvin that the president had assured him that Nadesan and his family would be given full security. In response to Nehru’s offer to go to the war zone and secure Nadesan’s surrender, Rajapaksa told him: “Our army is very generous and disciplined. You don’t need to put your life at risk.” The reporter added: “Nehru said the president’s brother Basil called him and said, ‘They will be safe. They have to hoist a white flag.’ And he gave me the route they should follow.” At this assurance, the MP called Nadesan to give him the instructions.

Nadesan said he would follow the orders and hold a white flag. The source revealed that after this incident, Nehru fled the country following threats from the president and his brother.

Colvin said though the LTTE was an internationally banned terrorist organisation, Nadesan and Puleedevan favoured a political solution to the ethnic crisis that had gripped Sri Lanka for close to 30 years.

“Had they lived, they would have been credible political leaders for the Tamil minority,” wrote Colvin, who was severely wounded eight years ago after a rocket- propelled grenade hit her while she was being smuggled into the Tamil territory.

She wrote that she got a series of phone calls from Tiger leadership in recent months. Nadesan approached Colvin to negotiate with the UN. “He asked me to relay three points to the UN: they (the Tigers) would lay down their arms, they wanted a guarantee of safety and they wanted an assurance that the government would agree to a political process that would guarantee the rights of the Tamil minority.” Colvin passed on the demands to Vijay Nambiar, UN Secretary General Ban Ki- moon’s chief of staff. Nambiar told her that he would relay these to the Sri Lankan government. “The conflict seemed set for a peaceful outcome,” Colvin wrote. But the army offensive continued. Last Monday morning, Colvin was woken up by a phone call from an LTTE contact who told her that everybody was killed.

Courtesy: Mail Today

-Sri Lanka Guardian