End of Evil-laam and birth of a new era (Part III)

"Brig. De Silva’s non-stop advance from the Western coast of Mannar to the eastern coast by April 21 was a unique and historic movement. He cleared the Western coast, captured A 9 and cut across to the east and was sitting on the eastern coast by 21st am. Of course, other commanders too were moving in from all points of the compass to fight the last battles in Mullativu."
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By H. L. D. Mahindapala

(July 11, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) Prabhakaran on the run was an incredible sight to the world that was made to believe in his inexhaustible and mystical “military genius”. He, like his followers (one of which is Erik Solheim), believed in this fiction not because he had the capacity to bring down the Sri Lankan government to its knees, but because the successive Sri Lankan government lacked the will to take him on. He appeared to be strong only because the Sri Lankan governments withdrew into a shell, cowering under international pressures and the advice of some bull-headed cowards in uniforms who persuaded President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Ranil Wickremesinghe to virtually surrender.

Looking back it is clear that he was a megalomaniac who was elated at being elevated to be the anointed High Priest of the Tiger cult of death. In turn, the committed Tamils in the diaspora and the young cadres, who knew nothing better, worshipped him for presiding over this cult of death. The assassinations of leaders like Rajiv Gandhi and President Ranasinghe Premadasa made them feel that he was a superior force that can take on the whole world.. They were also swept off their feet by the delusion that they were on the penultimate stage of winning their separate homeland. They were falling over each other to gain Prabhakaran’s Mahamanithar award as a glorious recognition of their contribution to this cult of death which, of course, was advertised under the more anodyne label of a “liberation struggle”.

Some of the Tamil expats were also under the illusion that they could get appointments as ambassadors abroad or commissars in their pseudo-state Eelam. But Prabhakaran, with his extraordinary talent of turning dreams into nightmares, didn’t take long to transfor Eelam into Evil-laam. His regime in the Vanni was the first political experiment of the Tamils to run a state of their own. But from day one he proved that the Tamils were not yet fit for democracy, self-rule, self-respect or good governance that would give them some space free from the age old fascism of the Vellahla casteists. Once he displaced the Vellahla he had no hesitation in substituting his own brand of fascism to that of the Vellahlas. His failed experiment in governance proved that the Tamils always had a better deal under non-Tamils – colonial and non-colonial -- than under the religio-political fascism of the Vellahla Tamils at first, and then under the Pol Potist fascism of low-caste Prabhakaran.

In the end, Prabhakaran died confirming that he could not find a better grave digger to bury him than himself. He lived by the gun and, in Nanthi Kadal, the Biblical bullet went right through his head. Though he personally glorified the cult of death his response, when he was surrounded by the Security Forces, was to run away as fast his legs could carry him. When I met K. Ganesh, the Government Agent of Jaffna, at the Jaffna Kachcheri, in June he was somewhat bitter and disappointed that Prabhakaran didn’t die fighting for his people.

Fair enough. If Prabhakaran was the hero that he claimed to be it was incumbent upon him to take the cyanide pill which was, in his book and in the book of those who deified him, the ultimate and sacred sign of sealing the faith in the cause. But to the shock of all, he didn’t even have the pill round his neck which was mandatory to his cadres. Instead he was ready to run with his tail between his legs.

The fighting he did in his last moments was not for the Tamils but to save his own skin. He would have known that the fight for the Tamils was over in Killinochchi, if not in Pudukuduiruppu, or even in Pudumatalan – the last big stand of the Tigers fighting behind a huge earth bank. Brig. Shavendra de Silva, advancing all the way from the rice bowl of Mannar, was tasked to take the earth bund. The Army Commander, Gen. Sarath Fonseka, was keeping tabs on every move and every inch of the way. Brig. De Silva began his operations at 11.30 p.m. on April 19 and when Gen. Fonseka rang him at 2 a.m. on April 20th to check how far he had advanced he replied: “I am on top of the bund, Sir”. It was in Pudumatalan that practically most of the top commanders of the Tigers were wiped out in one hit.

Brig. De Silva’s non-stop advance from the Western coast of Mannar to the eastern coast by April 21 was a unique and historic movement. He cleared the Western coast, captured A 9 and cut across to the east and was sitting on the eastern coast by 21st am. Of course, other commanders too were moving in from all points of the compass to fight the last battles in Mullativu. At the time, the tensions of rising expectation were too exciting to bear. The eyes of the nation were glued to the TV reports bringing in bulletins of success after success. They were happy and yet not happy because they knew that the war will not come to an end until Prabhakaran was captured or killed. . The waiting was almost unbearable.

However, the Forces were not in a hurry to go after him. Their plan was to wait for him to come to them. They laid the trap and he walked into it.

In the meantime, the Tamil civilians had started to run away from Prabhakaran. At least when the Tamils started running away it should have dawned on Prabhakaran him that his cause had lost its defenders. Voting with their feet they were signaling that they had no faith in Prabhakaran or his elusive and deceptive Eelam. Like the rest of the nation the war-weary Tamils wanted peace and lead normal lives without fear of their children being dragged into futile wars.

As for Prabhakaran there was nothing he could give the Tamils. He could neither sustain a durable peace nor carry on a successful war to achieve his Eelam. The Tamil people had made colossal sacrifices in his name. But after waging a war for thirty-three years he had nothing to give them. He was a miserable failure -- a leader who went down like a lead balloon in the murky waters of Nanthi Kadal.

Throughout his career he rejected peace talks, negotiations, international agreements and had offered only violence as a solution to the problems of the Tamil people. He was as brutal as the symbols of his flag – a snarling tiger, 33 bullets and two crossed guns with fixed bayonets. There isn’t a single redeeming feature in the flag that embraced or enhanced humane values and added dignity and grace to honour the glorious culture of the ancient civilization of the proud Tamils. He was as cheap as the street artist in Chennai who designed it for a handful of rupees. Tamils deserved more than a petty Prabhakaran who could not give protection to their children. Even the sick and the old were forcibly dragged from their beds to man military posts. He left them with nothing except hatred, bitterness, death and destruction. He was a disgrace to their culture, their way of life and their future . In the end he left legacy in which the Tamils were equated with terrorists – a banned community wallowing in inhuman politics.

Like most terrorist leaders he was drunk with the power of his initial gains. Like other leaders of his ilk he failed to recognize that retaining power, particularly through brutal force, is not going to be easy as winning a few battles in the beginning. All wars are a big gamble which could go either way. So far, as stated by Bertrand Russell, democracies have consistently triumphed over fascist tyranny. Sri Lankan democracy, with all its defects, triumphed over Prabhakaran’s fascism. Perhaps, it could be argued that this was inevitable given the nature of his arrogant and intransigent character and his politics of violence. At the end of the day, it is the Tamil people who had to pay for his sins and the sins of his fathers who bred him in the womb of mono-ethnic extremism in Jaffna.

The irony is that the Tamils who were quick to pick holes in the Sri Lankan democracy – and there are many corrigible defects, no doubt, -- were readily accepting the humiliations and the agonies of living under the incorrigible fascism of Prabhakaran. At best it could be said he was a political Rambo who knew how to kill and destroy but not to build or rise above vindictive politics to embrace higher humane values that elevated, for instance, Elara to a dignified place in Sri Lankan history. This is primarily because he never understood the limitations of power. He believed that his power had the unlimited potential to beat the world and his own people into total submission.

His vision was narrow. His ambitions were to force his own people into submission and fight his wars until the last Tamil died or migrated to Canada. His strategies were brutal. His politics were neither flexible nor broad enough to meet the challenges of the complexities of national and international politics. The only two forces that held him together and drove him frenetically were: 1) his hatred and 2) his ego.

By the time he waded into Nanthi Kadal on May 17th he has outlived his usefulness to the Tamils. His death, it is sad to say, is the best thing that happened to the Tamils and the nation at large. It has given the Tamils in particular the space they need to breathe the air that once permitted them to demonstrate against Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike when she came to open the Jaffna University. It has reinstated the space that was taken away from V. Anandasanagaree, the leader of the TULF, to visit Jaffna and his electorate in Vavuniya. It has restored the political space for Douglas Devananda to campaign in the peninsula without fear of the 14th. , 15th and any other impending threats to his life.

The final battle began on the May 17th evening. In the morning of17th the forces had cleared the last of the Tamil civilians from Prabhakaran’s grip. They had no inhibitions now of unleashing the fire power they had in reserve in any confrontation with Prabhakaran and his cadres. But they didn’t go after him though they knew where he was located. Only Pottu Amman, his wife Mathivathani, his son Charles Anthony and Reagan, head of the Tiger Medical Unit, knew the location of his hideout. Reagan was taken in earlier and he revealed, under interrogation, Prabhakaran’s location. By the dawn of 17th Military Intelligence had located his lair.

MI also learnt that the plan was to cross the lagoon by going west into the Mullativu-Weli Oya jungles and cut across to the Eastern Province via Trincomalee and join “Col” Ram’s team in Batticoloa/Ampara area, At this stage the Tiger leadership had given up two of the three options available to them: 1) surrender; 2) take the cyanide pill and 3) escape via the lagoon.

Working on the lines of something akin to a surrender (they called it the “silencing of the guns”) K. Pathmanathan, the newly appointed international representative of Prabhakaran, was frantically acting as the go-between to the cornered Tiger leadership and Erik Solheim and other journalists and negotiators in the Western capitals. But the negotiations failed. Pathmanathan explained to the Indian new media that he was in touch with Soosai till the last minute and they agreed to “silence the guns” because they had run out of medicine and also because of their inability to face the fierce fire power.

Explaining why the talks failed Pathmanathan told India news media: “The international community continued to insist on the LTTE laying down arms before they took any meaningful steps to stop the war. Our leadership held the view that any process of laying down arms should be linked to an acceptable political solution. Instead of laying down arms, we were seeking a ceasefire and a political negotiation for a political solution.

“Unfortunately, our position was not acceptable to the international community on the grounds that our position was not acceptable to the Sri Lankan government. So no effective measures were taken to stop the war. “

Next option was to take the cyanide pill but, as explained by Karuna Amman, former right hand man of Prabhakaran, he would never take his life. So Prabhakaran went for the third option of moving across the Nanthi Kadal. And the Forces were waiting for him.

The military commanders knew that this was the only route available to Prabhakaran and they were waiting for him. Some forces had taken up their positions in the islands dotting the neck-deep waters of Nanthi Kadal. Some forces were waiting on land for any Tigers cadres seeking to escape by breaching the defence lines.

As the options available to Prabhakaran had narrowed down to a single passage across Nanthi Kadal it was easy to anticipate his moves. The forces were poised to get him from whichever direction he chose to escape. He had lost the surprise element with which he succeeded in previous operations. At this stage reading him was as easy as reading the alphabet. General Sarath Fonseka, succinctly summarized the position when he said that at the beginning his table was littered with hundreds of maps. In the last days he needed only one map. And all eyes were focused on the map of Nanthi Kadal – the last battleground of Prabhakaran.

Fierce fighting broke out on the evening of May 17th. According to Army sources, Prabhakaran, surrounded by his bodyguards, was moving across the waters, shifting among the mangroves. The fighting went on till 3.30 a.m. on May 18th. Sgt. Banda, who was in one of the islets, encountered fierce attacks. He called for reinforcements. They suspected that Prabhakaran must be among the Tiger cadres moving across. With the arrival of new reinforcements fighting went on till 5.30 am.

Col. G. V. Ravipriya told me that nearly 100 terrorists had surrounded them. He added: “I sent another team to assist them.”. The Tigers then escaped to a mangrove in the left of the island.”

Col. Ravipriya then planned to clear the mangrove at dawn. Before that he brought down artillery, armoured tanks, infantry mortars and RPGS. From this base he kept firing till 11 a.m. of May 18th. Col Ravipriya then sent commandos to clear the mangroves. Over 100 bodies were found there. Clearing was over by 6.30 p.m. It was getting dark. Clearing began next morning at 7.30 a.m. Suddenly they were confronted by a group of Tigers. The Forces asked for help and more troops were sent by Col. Ravipriya.

Clearing began again on the 19th. Firing had stopped. The Forces started collecting bodies again around 9.30 a.m.. Sgt. Muthu Banda then cried that he found a body similar to that of Prabhakaran. He was asked to bring the body out of the mangrove bushes. Brig. Commander Col Gamage was the first to identify the body. He found the identity tag :001.

Nobody knows who fired the fatal bullet. It seems to be a gun shot fired within a range of about 10 metres. Later around 2 – 3 p.m Daya Master and Minister Muralitharan visited Nanthi Kadal. Karuna Amman wanted to make sure by checking the birth mark on the thigh. The rest, of course, is history.

When I left Colombo the city was still under surveillance. The policemen were still keeping their vigil as before. The authorities had not relaxed the rules. But the anxiety was more about swine flu than threats from the extinct Tigers. I felt a sense of relief. Even Jaffna was quite normal as if noting had happened earlier to disturb their way of life or the landscape..

Whatever problems there may be in the new order to come, it was obvious that politics without Prabhakaran has to be the only way out to the war-torn nation. Any peaceful alternative is better than the apocalyptic fears that haunted the nation before Nanthi Kadal. It must be said, quite bluntly, that Prabhakaran’s death gives birth to new hopes. Of course, it is tautological to say that all of Prabhakaran’s hopes sank in Nanthi Kadal. Moving from his luxury-style swimming pool in Killinochchi to the brackish waters of Nanthi Kadal must have been galling to him. It was a miserable end to a man who caused so much misery to his own people. No one is to be blamed for Prabhakaran’s failure and miserable ending except Prabhakaran.

(Concluded)

-Sri Lanka Guardian