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| The men we talk of were all lined up, but for a different reason |
There was a farmer who had a
terrible, terrible day twenty one years ago (June 11, 1990). He was not the only farmer and not the only
man either who had to live through terrible days, of course, but this was
‘special’, if indeed that word could be used.
This farmer, from a place called Thambiluvil was forced to ‘volunteer’
(yes, words acquire strange meanings in terrible times) to carry out a
particularly gruesome task. That task,
however, was quite benign compared to the ‘gruesome’ that came before. His was after
all just a mopping up assignment.
He was one among several farmers who
had been ‘volunteered’ to bury some
dead bodies. They were charred bodies.
And there were some 600 of them.
Retired SSP, Tassie Seneviratne, in his recently published book ‘Human
Rights and Policing’, quotes this unhappy farmer. Not that quote was needed of course.
This is what happened. They were blindfolded, hands tied to their
backs, made to lie down, facing the ground in a row that was about 25 meters
long. Then machine gun bullets were sprayed from end to end, all targeting the
backs of their heads. Then the bodies
were dragged into a heap. Oil was poured
over the dead and dying. A single lighted match created a bonfire.
This was part and parcel of the
Tamil Liberation Struggle. It was not
the first ‘massacre’ and it was not the last either. There were, in total, 240
recorded attacks on civilians from November 11, 1984 (Dollar Farm massacre of
33 civilians including a large number of children and women, some pregnant) and
April 12, 2009 (the Mahagodayaya attack where 9 were murdered, including 2
children).Among the dead were people of all communities and belonging to all
religious faiths. This particular act of
terrorism was a landmark, though.
It marked the end of a tenuous
ceasefire arrangement between the LTTE and the then Government, that of
RanasinghePremadasa. The why and how of
ceasefire-breaking ought to have chastened those who believed ‘negotiation’ was
a term the LTTE understood, but mistakes were to be repeated several times
thereafter and at similar or greater cost.
This particular ‘infringement’ ought to have chastened those who
believed the LTTE represented them, but for two more decades, many Tamils ‘went
along’ and indeed did much more than ‘stand by and watch’; they funded, sang
hosannas, represented, grieved at defeat and even now spare no pains to glorify
the butchers, sorry, ‘liberators’.
On that fateful day, long before
this farmer from Thambiluvil was made to dig the earth not to prepare ground
for planting, the LTTE surrounded several police stations in the Eastern
Province and prevailed upon Peace-Partner Premadasa to get the policemen to
surrender. Between 600 and 700
surrendered. I am not saying they all
had stellar and unblemished track records.
Still, they were unarmed. They surrendered. They submitted to the orders of a superior,
the then IGP, Ernest Perera, who had been briefed by the President to ask him
men to surrender.
All in the name of liberation.
I closed my eyes. Forgot Sri
Lanka.Forgot the police.Forgot uniforms and the names of the assassin and the
assassinated.I pictured 600 able-bodied men, all unarmed. Hands tied behind their backs. Pictured them being blindfolded by their
abductors. I tried getting into their
heads.
They’ve just realized that their
superiors were dumb. They’ve just
realized that their President has been hoodwinked by a third rate thug. They’ve
realized that they are going to get killed.
I am trying to think the thoughts they might have thought -- of their
daughters and sons, the parents who gave them life, the lovers and wives who
taught them the meaning of tenderness, the homes they built, were building or
planned to build, and other things that they would not be thinking of a few
minutes later. I can’t think.
I think of the apologists. I thought
of S.J.V. Chelvanayakam, who spoon-fed separatism and gave birth to
VelupillaiPrabhakaran. I thought of the TULF and AppapillaiAmirthalingam and
his political heirs (i.e. those who followed him after Prabhakaran assassinated
him) who called the terrorists ‘boys’. I thought of Father (sic) Emmanuel, whom
the Catholic Church never took issue with and who supported the ‘boys’ and
believes he is Prabhakaran’s successor. I thought of those who said ‘The LTTE
is the sole representatives of the Tamils’.
I thought of those who demanded that the Government come to a negotiated
settlement with the LTTE.
My thoughts return to those 600
police officers. Unarmed.Dead.
I am thinking of myself now and of
the people I love. I am counting my blessings.
I feel so privileged that I am embarrassed.
Twenty one years ago, some 600 plus
unarmed, blindfolded and tied up police officers were butchered in cold blood
by the LTTE. If we are glad that it is
part of ‘past’ then we should ensure that it does not become part of
‘future’. And part of ensuring these
things include the need to remember.
There are other things to remember, I know. This, however, was ‘signature’ about what was
to follow. The signatories are no longer
around. Even as we rejoice, we need to
understand that ‘return’ is never impossible.
This is why we remember.
I wish someone had drawn from the
hearts and minds of those who were about to be gunned down the last thought and
last feeling. I wish it were possible to
string them all together. Life does not
give us such monuments. We need to create our own, each according to his/her
slants and anxieties.
Twenty one years ago, some 600 plus
men were taken away from their loved ones. For those they left behind all that
remains is the fact that they remained, that they like all of us arrived at a
day called June 11, 2011, twenty years later, but that those 600 plus did
not.
Let there be a moment of silence for
all those police officers and for all the unnecessarily killed.
This was first published on June 11, 2011, four years ago in the 'Daily News' for which newspaper I wrote a column called 'The Morning Inspection'.
msenevira@gmail.com
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