The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.

htm

The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon

Part 7
Sachi Sri Kantha
[19 June 2001]

Violating the Seventh Commandment

Julian West’s ‘Passage to Jaffna’
I should mention that what motivated me to send my letter of
protest to the Lanka Guardian in March 1991, regarding the
Valveddithurai bombing was a sympathetic travelogue-essay of
Julian West, published in the Asiaweek magazine of March 8, 1991.
It was entitled, ‘Passage to Jaffna’.

Since the then Asiaweek’s correspondent in Colombo had

described how he felt about visiting Jaffna in 1991, after a lapse of
17 years, and how it had been transformed by the war and the rise
of LTTE among Eelam Tamils, I feel that it has to be placed for
record in entirety in the web. I’m pretty sure that many Tamils
would have missed this essay when it first appeared.

For comparative purposes, one should also note that Pirabhakaran

didn’t receive any mention when Robert Holmes chronicled the
Eelam society in his Jaffna 1980 book. [See also, American
Ambassadors in Eelam - part 2, Jan. 3, 2001] When Holmes was
preparing his manuscript in Jaffna, Pirabhakaran was 25 years old.
Writing about the Jaffna scene in 1979, Holmes had stated,
“Support for Eelam in the original sense of an independent
homeland for the Tamils has declined. In early 1979 the head of the
TULF [Amirthalingam] announced the willingness of his party to
consider proposals for regional autonomy.” (p.299). A few
sentences on Tamil Tigers, written by Holmes state,

“...Tigers, of which almost nothing is known for certain but

about which a vast amount has been speculated. Credited with
all sorts of crimes in 1977 and 1978, especially the
assassination of police officers and witnesses who helped the
police, the Tigers in 1979 were blamed for the death of further
policemen and witnesses. The Tigers were credited with
enforcing a belief in the absolute desirability of Tamil Eelam
in 1977 and 1978, but faith in Eelam certainly waned in 1979

1 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM
The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.htm

in favour of local autonomy...” (p.304).

Reporting a little over ten years later, Julian West provided a

well-balanced portrayal of how Pirabhakaran’s influence on Eelam
Tamils had taken root, especially among the younger generation.
His eyewitness report of January 1991 bombing raids in
Valvettithurai and how Eelam Tamils were terrorized by aerial
bombing also provide indirectly the motive for the incorporation of
suicide bombers by Pirabhakaran. It also included thumbnail
sketches of Malini and Nishanti, ‘the Tigresses, [who] represent the
new Jaffna woman.’

Here is Julian West’s essay in entirety.

“I crawl into a sandy hole in the ground, preceded by a small

boy. Hardly able to breathe inside the concrete-walled bunker,
sand trickling through the palm-trunk supports above my
head, I try to imagine what it must have been like - pressed in
here with 30 or 40 frightened people - during the Sri Lankan
Air Force bombing raids three weeks earlier.
People sometimes stuff their ears with cotton wool to deaden
the sounds of bombardment - described as one of the most
frightening aspects of a raid - although the bunkers are almost
sound-proof. Barely a few paces away the turquoise waters of
the Indian Ocean lap noiselessly, sole reminder of the
once-timeless beauty of Valveddithurai on Sri Lanka’s
northern shore.
At mid-day on Jan.20 an airforce helicopter flew over the
town, dropping leaflets warning people to move out within 48
hours. Three hours later, as people cowered in bunkers, the
first bombers arrived. They were accompanied by helicopter
gunships and shelling from Palali military base, 10km away.
That night, flares from naval vessels offshore lit up the town.
Four days of continuous bombardment later, after more than
250 bombs had been dropped, Valveddithurai was virtually
reduced to rubble.
Emerging from the bunker, I am greeted by the same desolate
scene that shocked survivors. Whole streets are destroyed.
Barely a house is left undamaged. Valveddithurai, birthplace
of Tiger guerilla leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and a well
known smuggling area, has been bombed several times during
this seven-year war. In the last attack, 500 houses and two
large schools were demolished and more than 100 other
buildings, including two historic Hindu temples, were
irreparably damaged. A Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

2 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM
The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.htm

(LTTE) camp less than a kilometre away was untouched.

Valveddithurai was one of the most densely populated towns
in Sri Lanka. Ten thousand people lived in a 1.6km coastal
strip. The tightly packed houses collapsed onto each other like
a pack of cards. Miraculously, only ten people were killed and
20 seriously injured. Forewarned by the leaflets and the first
round of attacks, 90% of the population left for neighbouring
villages. The rest hid in bunkers. Almost every house in Jaffna
peninsula has one, which accounts for the relatively low
mortality rate in recent bombings.
‘We have been attacked since 1984, so we’re quite used to it’,
says Dr. K. Shanmugasunderam, head of the Valveddithurai
Citizens Rehabilitation Committee, who recites statistics of
destruction from his ‘mobile office’, a straw shopping bag.
Not much is left of Valveddithurai. A family shifts rubble from
the ruins of their home. Another couple with a small child
attempt to cook a meal on the square-metre patch of floor that
remains of their house. I ask the man what they intend to do.
‘We’re hoping some aid organization will help us rebuild. This
is our land and though it’s small, we don’t want to leave it.’
The destruction of the historic Sivan Kovil and Muttiramman
temples, twin Siva and Shakti temples more than 200 years
old, has offended the residents deeply. ‘How would you feel if
a temple in your area was destroyed?’ asks Dr.
Shanmugasunderam. ‘I cannot express it in words. But I feel it
in my heart’. At his insistence we take our shoes off and tiptoe
among the broken glass and brick shards carpeting the floor.
He informs me that, had a bomb not just desecrated the
temple, non-Hindus like myself would not be allowed in.
Valveddithurai people are intensely proud of their seafaring
history. They are especially proud of having produced Mr.
Prabhakaran, their ‘son’, and are vehemently pro-Tiger. ‘We
have not lost our hearts, despite the massive destruction’, says
Dr. Shanmugasunderam. ‘We feel we can stand again. We’re
fighting for our freedom and we’ll fight till we reach our
objective’. Ironically almost the only intact edifice is the town
fountain - four brightly painted, cartoon-like tigers rampant.
On Jan.30 air force bombers attacked a crowded market in
Pudukudiyiruppu, a village south of Jaffna peninsula with a
90% refugee population, killing 22 people and seriously
wounding thirteen. ‘Three Siai Marchetti bombers swooped
down on the market at 5.30pm - exactly the time most people
are there’, says an observer. ‘A child had to have both legs
amputated. Later we found an arm. Pudukudiyiruppu was a

3 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM
The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.htm

very precise target. There were no LTTE nearby’.

Throughout the night patients were relayed to Jaffna General
Hospital by the Red Cross and the Tigers, a five-hour journey
along cratered dirt roads and by ferry. In the casualty ward, a
man with the saddest eyes I have ever seen tells me he has lost
his wife in the raid, leaving him with their seven-year-old-son.
The same week a refugee camp housing 40 families in a girls’
school, 10km from Jaffna town was also bombed. Two people
were killed and four wounded. A fourteen-year-old girl lost
her leg. On the road south, at an ancient shrine to the Hindu
elephant god, Ganesh, bombs killed a man, his baby daughter
and a ten-year-old boy.
Bombing raids on the north have intensified since Jan.10, the
end of a Tiger-proposed ten-day ceasefire. The LTTE was
beleaguered by bad weather, adverse international opinion and
a crackdown on its activities in India’s Tamil Nadu state. The
army, believing the Tigers were weakening, did not want the
ceasefire. ‘Strategically that was the time to hit them’, says a
colonel in the northern command.
Outside observers believe the intensity of the present campaign
signals two things. ‘Under the cover of the Gulf crisis’, says a
Tamil lawyer, ‘the armed forces are engaging in military
operations of an indiscriminate and reckless nature’. The other
indication is that the army is working to a deadline, which
some observers think may be June this year. North of
Vavuniya, a town 140 km south of Jaffna, Sri Lankan forces
hold only Palali air base, Elephant Pass and Kankesanthurai
naval base. They have therefore resorted to aerial strikes -
most damaging to civilians.
The army claims it only bombs known Tiger targets. But it
admits that its aircraft - single-engine Siai Marchetti training
planes, adapted to carry two bombs; Chinese Y-8s and Y-12s;
and British Avros, small passenger planes from which
homemade bombs are pushed out - do not permit accuracy.
‘We do not have the sort of equipment the Americans have’,
says an army spokesman. ‘Ours is just look and see operation.
However we sometimes wonder if it’s worth killing civilians
just to get 20 terrorists’.
The bombs - oil drums filled with gelignite or sometimes
flammable gas and rubber tubes, which stick to the skin like
napalm - have no ballistic stability. ‘If you look up you can
see them twisting and turning as they fall’, says the colonel.
‘Sometimes we ourselves are mortally afraid of where they’re
going to land’. The forces accidentally bombed two of their

4 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM
The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.htm

own men recently.

Infiltration of the Tigers among civilians also creates inevitable
casualties. ‘The LTTE has taken over so many houses, if the
Sri Lankan government wants to bomb them, it will have to
bomb the whole peninsula’, says an exiled Tamil MP in
Colombo. Deputy Defence Minister Ranjan Wijeratne told a
recent press conference: ‘We don’t want to harm civilians. But
they must understand that it is dangerous to live in those areas
where the LTTE are operating. They must use their common
sense and move out of Jaffna’.
I have come to Jaffna by accident - perhaps the best word to
describe a 280 km journey across battle lines and through a
free-fire zone. I had intended to branch off westward. But
once through the Sri Lankan army checkpoint, I keep going up
the long road north. To deter attacks from helicopter gunships
or stray bombers, I paste a banner reading PRESS in large
letters across the roof of the car. And hope for the best.
Journalists have no permission to visit Jaffna.
Past the Sri Lankan army checkpoint at Vavuniya, I enter a 1.6
km no-man’s land before the Tiger checkpoint. About 3,000
people are waiting in line, bound for Colombo. Many have
waited five or six days. It is mid-day. There is no shade. The
temperature is in the 30s.
Each morning around 8.30 people run from the Tiger
checkpoint to queue at the army checkpoint. Each afternoon
most are sent back. I am told the army is processing an average
of ten people a day. Meanwhile these people, who have
already made an arduous two- or three-day journey to
Vavuniya, have to sleep out or under trucks, sometimes in the
rain. They have no food and are at the mercy of bicycle
vendors selling rice packets at four times the normal price.
There is no water, no lavatory. ‘Now you see what we, as a
minority, have to go through’, says a salesman.
‘Conditions here are inhuman’, says Mr. Kulasekeram, a thin,
middle-aged clerk in the Land Commission Department,
returning home from a visit to his family. He whispers to me:
‘Some ladies have not urinated for two or three days’. A man
with throat cancer is going to hospital in Colombo. Later, I
discover, a heart patient who waited at the checkpoint for five
days has died.
I last visited Jaffna seventeen years ago. Then, as now, it
seemed another country - separated from the rest of Sri Lanka
not only by a causeway across a lagoon, but by language,
culture, religion and vegetation. Jaffna is an arid, hot, sandy

5 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM
The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.htm

spit of land where brittle Palmyra trees stand sentinel against a

burning sky, like huge fans. At night, in the dry atmosphere,
the sky is brilliant with stars.
Jaffna people - Tamil-speaking Hindus - have been
conditioned by their sparse environment. They are
hardworking and thrifty, with a high percentage of doctors,
lawyers and engineers. Geographically and culturally the
people of Jaffna are closer to south India. Valveddithurai is
only 30 km from Tamil Nadu, half the distance to the nearest
Sinhalese town. Their isolation from the mainly Buddhist
south was entrenched by a Sinhala-only language policy,
introduced in the 1950s, designed to favour a Sinhalese
workforce. That confirmed their minority status - they
comprise 18% of the island’s 17-million population - and
germinated the present separatist war.
As a Jaffna religious leader explains: ‘Under the British we
were all equal. They found Tamils hard-working and
dependable, which is why there were so many English schools
in Jaffna - for employment. After the British left, our youth
found no avenue of employment. The only work here is
coastal fishing or farming.’
Then, Jaffna society seemed conservative and strict,
caste-bound and enclosed. Young people were brought up to
study. Girls were kept indoors, in the kitchen, until marriage.
I find Jaffna changed forever. The Palmyra trees and sandy
wastes are still here. But in the last seven months an estimated
20,000 buildings in the peninsula have been wholly or partly
destroyed. The walls of those left standing are cracked,
ceilings have collapsed, barely a window pane remains.
A shortage of petrol and its prohibitive cost - $10 a litre,
thirteen times more than in the south - has grounded the black
Austin A-40s and Morris Minors that once chugged solidly
down the Jaffna lanes. Now a relay of bicycles ferries kerosene
and other essentials the 280 km round trip from Vavuniya.
Women, dressed as if for a wedding in astonishing red and
gold saris, perch on the crossbars of bicycles, like birds of
paradise, bound for destinations kilometers away. Only the
Tigers drive vehicles.
After sunset most houses are in darkness. Kerosene costs ten
times the Colombo price and matches are unavailable. ‘We
have been in the dark for the last ten months’, says Mr.
Kulasekaram. ‘Our children can’t study anymore’. There is no
firewood or gas for cooking. Cash is short: banks receive
insufficient money for their needs. Telephone lines were cut

6 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM
The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.htm

long ago.
Less than a third of the food needed by Jaffna arrives. Lorries
are detained at Vavuniya for months, waiting for transport
permits. An official says only 3% of food intended for the area
has been delivered in the past three months. ‘People are on
the brink of starvation’, he says. ‘They’re dying in silence’.
Food sent by the government from Colombo by ship, under
the Red Cross flag, often returns unloaded because of high
seas or attacks around the military camp at Palali.
Once the ship arrived packed with sanitary towels. ‘There
were thousands of sanitary towels in Jaffna’, confided a nun.
‘We don’t need sanitary towels, we need food. People are
living on one meal a day’.
In the airy, rambling Jaffna General Hospital, a doctor tells me
they lack essential drugs, dressings and surgical instruments.
‘Operations are often delayed because of lack of oxygen’, he
says. ‘Also, we don’t have enough oxygen for follow-ups, so
some people die’. Half the 1,015 beds cannot be used because
of bomb damage.
The face of society, too, has changed. Most of the middle class
and professionals have emigrated to Canada or Australia.
Since last June 125,000 refugees have gone to Tamil Nadu -
swelling the number there to 200,000. More Tamils now live
in Greater London - 60,000 - than in Colombo. In the
peninsula 250,000 are displaced.
Most astonishing of all to some older Tamils is the emergence
of a young guerilla movement - the Tigers. ‘No one was as
shocked as we were when our boys went to war’, says a Tamil
government servant. ‘The traditional set-up of our society has
changed’. Notes a Tamil lawyer in Colombo: ‘The under-35s
now constitute the ruling class’. As Mr.Anton Balasingham,
the LTTE’s amiable political spokesman, says: ‘We are
running the law and order here. We are the civil
administration’.
At the LTTE’s administrative offices, people wait to have
domestic and land disputes settled and to get exit permits to
leave the north. Armed cadres stroll in and out, but the
atmosphere is relaxed. Small uniformed boys run errands,
though the office is also staffed by dedicated civilians. ‘It’s
very difficult for us to live now’, says Sarojini, a 38-year old
woman in a blue sari, who works as a translator and whose
fourteen-year-old son is a cadre. ‘But we don’t care about the
food. We want freedom’.
In a real sense, the LTTE is like a large family. Many Jaffna

7 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM
The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.htm

people have relatives in the Tigers, and call them ‘our boys’.
Their monkish disciplines are admirable, if austere: no
smoking, no drinking, no marriage until a certain age and
number of years of service. They have revolutionized the role
of women in Jaffna, giving them equality, as fighters, and
striving to eliminate dowry and caste systems.
Malini and Nishanti, tiny but stocky Tigresses, represent the
new Jaffna woman. Wearing combat fatigues, their hair tied up
in braids - the regulation Tigress hairstyle - the two area
leaders giggle, hold hands and clasp each other’s knees as we
wheel down the road in a trishaw. They are shy of me -
although they are the ones with the T-81 Chinese assault rifle.
Both have received military training and fought the Sri Lankan
army in several battles. Initially, they explain, girls were
involved in political work, but six years ago they insisted
women be allowed to fight. They were first given AK-47 and
M-16 assault rifles. Later they carried heavy weapons like
rocket-propelled grenade launchers, bazookas and machine
guns.
Malini says she and fourteen other women halted the advance
of Indian Peacekeeping Force troops on Jaffna town in
October 1987. ‘We didn’t have uniforms then, so we were
wearing skirts and blouses. The Indians didn’t notice us,
although we were carrying guns. They thought we were just a
group of young girls. I ordered the girls to lie down and from
there we started firing’.
Malini, 28, is postponing marriage. ‘Getting married and
having children is not a problem. But so many of my sisters
have died so I have a responsibility to continue the struggle’.
So far 106 women Tigers have died in the war.
Nishanti, 22, joined the LTTE in 1987. Like many Tigresses
she ran away from home to join, knowing her parents would
stop her. They had hoped she would go to university. ‘I joined
not to fight against the enemy but to liberate myself’, says
Nishanti. ‘I’m opposed to the dowry system. Now I wouldn’t
accept a man who wanted a dowry. Although Tamil women
can choose to work and be free, all these aspirations come to
nothing in the end. Women are enslaved by traditional systems
and male chauvinism’. As women guerillas, they experience
unheard-of freedom.
Yet the Tiger’s domination of Jaffna society, often through
fear - real or imagined - gives them a sinister complexion.
More than once I’m told I cannot photograph a poster or a
hospital ward without ‘permission’. Jaffna now has no

8 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM
The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.htm

political parties, no trade unions, no non-governmental

organizations. Newspapers are controlled. ‘It has become a
society with no political freedom’, says a Colombo Tamil
professor. ‘The intelligentsia, formerly an important
component of society, has been subjugated.’
Still, support for the Tigers in Jaffna seems genuine, even
fierce. Indiscriminate bombings and an economic blockade on
the north have inevitably driven people into the Tigers’ arms.
‘Young people are still joining the LTTE’, says the exiled
politician. ‘They feel if they are going to die anyway in
bombing raids, they might as well fight for their rights’. Adds
the lawyer: ‘I don’t see how the government can ever win back
the confidence of people who feel so alienated. People from
Jaffna feel the government has crossed a certain moral
threshold which forfeits its right to claim the allegiance of
those citizens’.
Meanwhile combat continues. The week after my visit
Minister Wijeratne declared: ‘We’re fighting a war and we’re
fighting it to a finish’. Mr.Balasingham claims the LTTE
would prefer a ‘political solution to a political problem’. But
with its leader, Mr.Prabhakaran, in the role of jungle fighter
and hero, and with an entire generation of Tamil youth
indoctrinated as guerillas or sympathetic to the Tiger cause,
the leap from warfare to politics looks impossible.
Mr.Balasingham syas there is ‘now no alternative but to fight
for an independent state’.
‘The civilian population is fed up with this war’, says a Tamil
observer. ‘But there is no space for them to speak out. There
are very few rational voices. The situation is so dismal, one
hardly sees any light at the end of the tunnel. It’s like a bad
dream’. Replies the army colonel when I ask him how long
this war might last: ‘I think foreign correspondents can expect
work in Sri Lanka for a long time’.”

Thus ended Julius West’s ‘Passage to Jaffna’. I consider this 3,080 -

word essay of West as one of the revealing documents in the history
of Eelam Tamils. While hundreds of correspondents were covering
the Baghdad bombing of January 1991 coordinated by Goerge
Bush, Tamils had one international report on Valveddithurai
bombing of January 1991, coordinated by Premadasa-Wijeratne
team, due to the efforts of West.
Also, contrary to other reports filed by foreign correspondents, in
the travelogue of West, the named Tamil sources (Dr. K.

9 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM
The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.htm

Shanmugasunderam, Mr. Kulasekeram, Mr. Anton Balasingham,

Malini and Nishanti) were higher in number than the named
Sinhalese source (Minister Ranjan Wijeratne). When it appeared in
print, Wijeratne who had bragged, ‘We’re fighting a war and we’re
fighting it to a finish’ had also gone to meet his Maker. Probably
because of this, there were two critical responses from the Sinhalese
readers of the Asiaweek magazine, complaining about bias. These
were published in the following month, under the caption ‘Sri
Lankan Voices’. I reproduced these two letters.

First Letter:

“Re: Julian West’s ‘Passage to Jaffna’ (March 8): As a Sri

Lankan afraid to visit parts of his own country because of
terrorist activity, I would like to see another article after the
same writer has interviewed government defence authorities,
Sri Lankans of other communities - notably Sinhalese and
Muslims - and Tamils living in Sinhalese majority areas.
Perhaps Julian West could make a contribution to unity in Sri
Lanka by writing a comprehensive and unbiased account of
the war. An important point in such an account would be the
fact that Tamils live without fear in Sinhalese majority areas
while Tamils endure great hardship in areas infested by the
Tamil Tigers and Sinhalese cannot exist at all in the north and
east.
M. E. Mallawaratchie
Colombo, Sri Lanka”
[Asiaweek, April 19, 1991]

Second Letter:

“West’s romantisation savours of a stirring call to the youth of

the region to press on. It is strange that the article makes no
reference to the comfortable living enjoyed by this ‘oppressed’
minority in the city of Colombo, or the positions of authority
they continue to hold in both the public and private sectors, or
the gruesome massacres of innocent Sinhalese villagers from
time to time by the Tigers, or the repeated peace overtures
made to them by President Premadasa, or the continuing
intransigence of the Tiger leadership, or the wider ambitions of
the LTTE, including the destabilization of neighbouring India.
The article would have had more credibility and finesse if it
had alluded to a few of those facts.
Edward Gunawardene

10 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM
The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.htm

Colombo, Sri Lanka”

[Asiaweek, April 19, 1991]

My rebuttal to the two letters:

The Asiaweek was kind enough to publish my rebuttal to the above

two letters. This rebuttal appeared under the original caption,
‘Passage to Jaffna’.
“As a Sri Lankan Tamil I appreciate your publishing Julian
West’s well balanced ‘Passage to Jaffna’ (March 8). It
portrayed the war-ravaged Jaffna peninsula warts and all. In
my opinion, readers M.E. Mallawaratchie and Edward
Gunawardene (Letters, April 19) are really agonized by the
popular support LTTE rebels command among the Tamils of
Sri Lanka.
The recurrent attacks on Tamils in 1956, 1958, 1977, 1981
and 1983 prove the falsehood of Mallawaratchie’s claim that
‘Tamils live without fear in Sinhalese majority areas’. This
type of aggression was a major factor in the emergence of the
LTTE. It is an open secret that since 1971 more than 95% of
recruits to the Sri Lankan armed forces have been Sinhalese,
though Sinhalese constitute about 75% of the total
population. Even Tamils living in Sinhalese-majority areas
have little chance of joining the armed forces. So much for the
security Tamils enjoy in the Sinhalese majority areas.
Sachi Sri Kantha
Osaka, Japan”
[Asiaweek, May 17, 1991]

Violating the Seventh Commandment

While Eelam was being subjected to aerial terror by the Sri Lankan
army acting under the orders of the then Commander in Chief -
President Premadasa and his second in command, Ranjan
Wijeratne, the 41st American President George Bush was splitting
hairs on the issue of how to tackle the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Can the US government legally assassinate Saddam Hussein was a
prime issue of discussion in the American media. I think that this
issue is pertinent to the Eelam scene as well, since Pirabhakaran has
been accused by his adversaries for violating the Seventh
Commandment, viz. ‘Thou shall not kill’.

11 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM
The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.htm

I reproduce a one-page commentary [‘Saddam in the Cross Hairs’]

of George J. Church which appeared in the Time magazine, before
the commencement of Gulf War. It deals with how the US policy
makers viewed the situation of ordering a hit on Saddam Hussein.
“ ‘No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United
States government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in,
assassination’. That policy has been affirmed by four
successive Presidents - Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald
Reagan and George Bush - and enshrined in Executive Order
12333, issued in 1981 and still in effect. Within the Executive
Branch, that order has the full force of law. So the US
government could not legally kill Saddam Hussein, even if the
dictator’s death would stave off or shorten a Middle East War.
Or could it? Yes, say some legal experts. In their opinion, a hit
on Saddam could be accomplished in ways that did not violate
the letter of the order (the spirit is another question). Simple
though it seems to be, the order leaves room for argument.
To begin with, what exactly is ‘assassination’? Since the
Executive Order offers no definition, presumably standard
general concepts would apply. The favorite definition of
Russell Bruemmer, former general counsel of the CIA, is ‘the
premeditated killing of a specifically targeted individual for
political purposes’. He and others contend, however, that such
killing is sometimes allowed under international law.
The obvious case is open war, in which anyone exercising
command responsibility becomes a legitimate target. As
unquestioned commander of the Iraqi armed forces, Saddam
Hussein would presumably qualify as much as Admiral
Isoroku Yamamoto did, whose plane was shot down by US
pilots in 1943 in a premeditated, specifically targeted and
quite legal killing.
How about an undeclared war? That raises the problem of the
legitimacy of the war itself. Abraham Sofaer, former legal
counsel to the State Department, and others advance this
argument: Article 51 of the United Nations Charter recognizes
the right of self-defense against armed attack, not only for the
victim nation but also for others coming to its aid. Kuwait has
appealed for help under Article 51, and the UN Security
Council has in effect underwritten that appeal by passing
resolutions condemning Iraq. Thus the US could legitimately
strike Iraq and exercise all the rights of a belligerent, including
the right to kill the enemy commander, Saddam.
When General Michael Dugan boasted that if war came,

12 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM
The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.htm

American planes would probably target Saddam, his family

and mistress, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney fired him as
Air Force Chief of Staff. Cheney told reporters that Dugan’s
strategy was ‘potentially a violation’ of the Executive Order.
But a senior official in the Pentagon argues that if General
Dugan had left Saddam’s family and mistress out of it - better
yet, if he had simply said the target was Iraqi command and
control - his statements ‘would have been OK’.
Some experts further argue that an indirect hit on Saddam
could be justified in situations short of general war. They
contend that terrorism can be viewed as a species of armed
attack, legitimizing self-defense in the form of military action
against terrorists and their sponsors. That was the justification
for the 1986 US air raid against Libya, during which planes hit
several places where Muammar Gaddafi was known to have
lived. Planners insisted that they wee not targeting Gaddafi -
that might have been a bit too close to assassination - but
aiming at terrorist command-and-control centers. If Gaddafi
had happened to be in one - well, too bad.
Late last year the Justice Department reviewed how the
Executive Order might apply to US-supported coups. Its
conclusions are secret. But former CIA counsel Bruemmer has
publicly voiced an opinion that the order ‘does not prohibit
US officials from encouraging and supporting a coup, even
when there is a likelihood of violence and a high probability
that there will be casualties among opponents of the coup’. So
long as the US does not approve specific plans for the killing
of individuals, he says, ‘the prohibition against assassination
has not been violated’.
Again if the government should determine that these
arguments are invalid? Simple: just change the order. That can
be done ‘at the whim of the President’, says Michael Glennon,
professor of law at the University of California, Davis. Capitol
Hill sources assert that President Bush could issue a rewritten
order, or, more likely, an ‘exception’ to the standing one, and
legally keep it secret. The only way to prevent that would be
to write a prohibition against assassinations into law. After
Congressional investigations in the 1970s turned up evidence
of CIA-sponsored assassination plots, attempts were made to
enact such a law. But they failed, says one legislator, because
‘nobody was prepared to say right out that assassination could
never be US policy...”
[Time magazine, October 8, 1990, p.29]

From the January 1991 showering of bombs and missiles targeted to

13 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM
The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.htm

Baghdad during the Gulf War, one cannot infer that the American
policy makers made valiant efforts to avoid a hit on Saddam
Hussein. On the contrary, the wily Iraqi leader escaped death
largely due to his protective barriers. Similarly, the physical survival
of Pirabhakaran into the 21st century should be attributed to his
well-conceived protection protocols. Available records show [see
for instance, The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon - part 1] that the
Indian army and Sri Lankan army had plotted to hit him fatally.
Thus, if Pirabhakaran is accused of violating the Seventh
Commandment, one can opine that being a leader of an army trying
to protect the Tamils, what he had done with his suicide bombers
was to neutralize the command-and control centers of aerial terror.

Suicide bombers: a counter-terrorist weapon

The critics of Pirabhakaran, due to their ignorance on military
knowledge, have failed to study why the use of suicide bombers
became an important weapon for Pirabhakaran’s army. Apart from
boosting the sagging morale of Tamils suffering from aerial terror,
an intelligent military leader would have to interdict the supply
routes servicing the adversary’s army. Blocking the land route to
Jaffna served this purpose, effectively, but partially. The sea route
to Jaffna was available to the Sri Lankan army, in addition to the
costlier aerial route. The Eelam leader specifically targeted the
sea-route, supplying the armed forces stationed in the Northern
region with the suicide bombers.

Until now, I have not cited any LTTE sources, but for confirming
this conjecture, I provide details on suicide bombers which
appeared in the LTTE publication, Kalhaththil (In the Battle Front)
of July 29, 1999, who engaged the Sri Lankan forces between 1987
and 1995. In this eulogy to the LTTE martyrs, it was reported that
from July 5, 1987 to May 29, 1999, the number of Black Tigers
who had achieved martyrdom stood at 147. Among these 147
individuals, men accounted for 110 and women made up the
balance 37. Ninety two of the Black Tigers belonged to the ‘Sea
Black Tigers’ and 55 were categorized as ‘Land Black Tigers’.

The dates of military operations as well as the locations and the

names of Black Tigers who took part were reported as follows:

1. 1987 July 5: Nelliaddy - Capt.Miller

2. 1990 July 10: Sea Tigers in Valvettithurai - Major

14 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM
The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.htm

Kantharupan, Capt.Colin, Capt.Vinoth

23. 1990 November 23: Mankulam - Lt.Col.Borg
24. 1991 March 19: Silavaththai - Dumbo
25. 1991 May 4: Sea Tigers in Point Pedro -
Capt.Jayanthan, Capt.Sithambaram
26. 1993 August 26: Kilali - [cadre not identified]
27. 1993 August 29: Sea Tigers in Point Pedro -
Kadalarasan, Pugalarasan
28. 1993 November 11: Poonagari - Major Ganes,
Capt.Gobi
29. 1993 November 11: Palali airbase - Kalai Alagan,
Mathinilavan, Senkannan, Karikalan, Sivayogan,
Nallathambi, Seeralan, Kannan, Senthamil Nambi,
Iyannar, Veeramani, Sivaranjan
30. 1994 August 2: Palai airbase - Major Jayanthan,
Thilagan, Seran, Capt.Navaratnam, Lt.Reagan
31. 1994 August 10: Sea Tiger operation -
Capt.Angaiyarkanni [first woman Black Sea Tiger]
32. 1994 October 19: attack on Sagaravardhana ship -
Lt.Col. Nalayini, Major Nangai, Capt.Vaaman,
Capt.Lakshman
33. 1994 November 8: Vettrilaikerni - [cadre not identified]
34. 1995 April 18: Trincomalee harbor, attack on
Ranasuru and Sooraiya ships - Kathiravan,
Thanigaimaran, Mathusha, Santha
35. 1995 July 16: Kankesanthurai harbor - Major Thangan,
Major Senthaalan, Capt.Thamilini
36. 1995 September 3: Pulmoddai beach - Nagulan,
Kannalan
37. 1995 September 10: Kankesanthurai harbor - Aruljothi,
Mohan, Kumar
38. 1995 September 20: Kankesanthurai harbor, attack on
Lanka Mudhitha ship - four cadres including
Kannalan Siva
39. 1995 October 2: Battle at Mullaitivu sea - Major
Arumai, Capt.Thanigai
40. 1995 October 17: Trincomalee harbor - Ruban,
Sivakami, Sivasunthar

15 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM
The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.htm

43. 1995 October 29: accident at Alaveddi, on their way to

Palali - Govindan, Venudas, Agathi, Bradman,
Nilavan, Sasikumar, Kesivan
44. 1995 December 5: Batticaloa, Puthukudiyirupu camp -
Major Rangan

The eulogy of Kalhaththil which I studied had listed the Black

Tiger operations only upto the end of 1995. It also noted the 1999
May 29 assassination of Razeek (an accomplice of the Sri Lankan
army in Batticaloa) by a Black Tiger, Arasappan.

Compliments from Critics

It tickles my funny bone when, even Pirabhakaran’s virulent critics
pay him compliments occasionally in a masked manner. I provide
just two recent examples, which have appeared in the Island
(Colombo) newspaper. In an opinion-piece with the title, ‘Why
can’t LTTE be defeated?’, Mr. N.B. Kiriella from Colombo had
observed,
“...Our armed forces have been provided with good amount of
modern equipment such as guns, high speed gun boats,
fighter/unmanned spy planes, trucks, bulldozers, body armour,
heavy duty trucks for movement of artillery etc. as opposed to
the LTTE who lack most of the terms mentioned above. I have
on more than one occasion witnessed on TV news LTTE
cadres clad in slippers firing their guns with one hand whilst
holding the sarong with the other. I shudder to think what
havoc LTTE would have caused if they were in possession of
just one fighter plane...” [Island, May 18, 2001]

One can only pity Mr. Kiriella. If what he has seen on the Sri
Lankan TV makes him ‘shudder’ [viz. the cavalier fashion in which
‘LTTE cadres clad in slippers firing their guns with one hand whilst
holding the sarong with the other’], he should not be dumb to
comprehend the martial acumen of Pirabhakaran, who leads these
cadres, is of a caliber which is tough to match.

Here is a portion of a recent editorial which appeared in the Island

newspaper of June 13, entitled, ‘Bread or Palaces?’ The focus of
this editorial was the flawed policies of Chandrika Kumaratunga,
the current President.
“...Flogging the UNP for her failure to end the ‘War’ during
the last seven years is unlikely to convince even the staunchest

16 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM
The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon Part 7 http://www.sangam.org/PIRABAKARAN/Part7.htm

of PA supporter. She tried to end it by negotiations and by

war but failed in both attempts.
Colossal defence expenditure was incurred, much more than
what the UNP spent, during the seven PA years. The military
strategies adopted were clearly wrong. The resources available
to hold Jaffna-Vavuniya road were not sufficient and military
commanders who said so were sidelined and sent into
retirement. The policy of holding ‘real estate’ rejected by
astute commanders like General Kobbekaduwe was ignored.
Deputy Minister General Ratwatte and some of his top
commanders who were in command while our forces suffered
the greatest defeats are still in key posts.
The negotiated settlement held out by the PA - the draft
constitutional amendment - has been a non-starter from the
very beginning. Prabhakaran having rejected it outright...”
[Island editorial, June 13, 2001]

The only sound inference one can draw from these observations is
that if Chandrika’s policies have recorded repeated failures,
Pirabhakaran must be doing something flawless with his army.

The much quoted euphemistic comment about ‘holding real estate’

which has been circulating in the Sri Lankan media for the past
decade also need some explanation. The Sri Lankan army, with all
its resources, has ceded a sizeable portion of land in the Tamil
territory of the island beyond its retrieval capacity. Pirabhakaran’s
army has captured it outrightly. This development would have
surprised the Jaffna chronicler Robert Holmes very much. The
moribund Sri Lankan state will never be the same again, as it was
20 years ago. [Continued.]

17 of 17 12/12/2008 5:35 PM