[ ஞாயிற்றுக்கிழமை, 25 மார்ச் 2012, 10:48 GMT ] [ நித்தியபாரதி ]

முள்ளிவாய்க்கால் கொடூர நிகழ்வின்போது அதில் சிக்கி தப்பித்து வாழ்பவர்களின் உண்மைக் கதைகளை ‘சமூக சிற்பிகள்‘ அமைப்பினர் [The Social Architects -TSA]* கேட்டு தங்கள் வலைப்பதிவில் ஆங்கில மொழியில் பதிவேற்றம் செய்துள்ளனர். March 12 முதல் March 19 வரையில் வெளியான அக்கதைகளின் முக்கியத்துவம் கருதி 'புதினப்பலகை' மொழிமாற்றம் செய்து இங்கே வெளியிடுகின்றது. 'புதினப்பலகை'க்காக மொழியாக்கம் செய்தவர் நித்தியபாரதி.

[சிறிலங்காவில் இடம்பெற்ற யுத்தத்தின் இறுதிக்கட்டத்தில் அறிவிக்கப்பட்டிருந்த 'போர் வலயமற்ற' பகுதியில் தாய் தந்தையரை இழந்த சிறுவர்களைப் பராமரிக்கும் விடுதியைச் சேர்ந்த சில எண்ணிக்கையான சிறார்களை பராமரிக்கும் பணியில் இராசதுரை ஈடுபட்டிருந்தார். ]

அவர் கூறுகிறார்,

நாங்கள் கிளிநொச்சியை விட்டு இடம்பெயர்த்தப்படுவதற்கு முன்னர் தேவாலய வளாகத்தில் நான் ஆறு பதுங்குகுழிகளை அமைத்திருந்தேன். இதேபோல் வன்னி முழுவதிலும் பல பதுங்குகுழிகளை நாங்கள் அமைத்திருந்தோம். ஒவ்வொரு தடவையும் நாங்கள் இடம்பெயர்த்தப்படும் போதும் முதலில் பதுங்குகுழிகளை அமைப்பதே எமது பிரதான பணியாக இருந்தது.

கிளிநொச்சி வைத்தியசாலை மீது தாக்குதல் மேற்கொண்டிருந்த வேளையில், அங்கே நான் நான்கு நாட்களாக சிகிச்சை பெற்று வந்தேன். மருத்துவமனைகளை குறிவைத்து தாக்குதல் நடாத்துவதானது யுத்த தந்திரோபாயமாகும். வன்னியில் யுத்தம் இடம்பெற்ற காலப்பகுதியில், மக்கள் வேறிடங்களுக்கு இடம்பெயர்ந்து சென்றபோதெல்லாம், சிறிலங்கா இராணுவத்தினர் முதலில் வைத்தியசாலைகளைக் குறிவைத்தே தாக்குதல் நடாத்தினர். புதுக்குடியிருப்பு பிரதேசத்தில், பல ஆயிரக்கணக்கானவர்கள் காயமடைந்தனர். ஆனால் அவர்களுக்கு கொடுப்பதற்குத் தேவையான மயக்க மருந்து இல்லாததால் அங்கு கடமையாற்றிய வைத்தியர்கள் மயக்க மருந்து வழங்காமலேயே காயமடைந்தவர்களின் உடல் உறுப்புக்களை வெட்டி அகற்ற வேண்டிய இக்கட்டான நிலைக்குத் தள்ளப்பட்டனர்.

உண்மையில் இங்கு கடமையாற்றிய வைத்தியர்கள் 'இயந்திரங்கள்' போலவே செயற்பட்டனர். காயமடைந்த மக்கள் ஆகக் கூடியது ஒரு சில நிமிடங்களே சத்திரசிகிச்சை அறைக்குள் அனுமதிக்கப்பட்டனர். இதன் பின்னர் காயமடைந்த பிற நோயாளிகளுக்கு தொடர்ந்து சத்திரசிகிச்சை வழங்கப்பட்டது.

உடையார்கட்டு என்ற இடத்தில் தஞ்சம் புகுந்திருந்த மக்கள் மீது 'பொசுபரசுக் குண்டுகள்' வீசப்பட்டன. இந்த வகைக் குண்டுகள் வீசப்பட்டதும் கறுப்பு நிறப் புகை வெளியேறும். அத்துடன் இந்தக் குண்டு எங்கு வீசப்படுகின்றதோ அங்கே உள்ள அனைத்தும் எரிந்து கருகிவிடும். இந்த வகைக் குண்டு வீசப்பட்டவுடன் அதன் சுவாலை 'தறப்பாலில்' பற்றி அதன் பகுதிகள் மக்கள் மீது விழுந்தவுடன் மக்கள் எரிகாயங்களுக்கு உள்ளாகினர்.

பொசுபரசுக் குண்டொன்று வீசப்பட்ட போது அதன் சுவாலைகள் வாழை இலைகள் மீது படர்ந்து பின் அங்கிருந்த மனிதர் ஒருவரின் உடலிலும் பற்றிக் கொண்டது. இதனால் மிக மோசமான முறையில் குறிப்பிட்ட மனிதர் எரிகாயங்களுக்கு உள்ளாகினார். இதனை நான் நேரில் பார்த்தேன். பொசுபரசுக் குண்டுத் தாக்குதலுக்கு உள்ளாகி மிக மோசமான எரிகாயங்களுக்கு உள்ளான பலர் யுத்த வலயத்திலிருந்து அகற்றப்பட்டு, கப்பல் மூலம் மேலதிக மருத்துவத்திற்காக கொண்டு செல்லப்பட்டனர்.

கொத்துக் குண்டுகள் முதலில் பரந்தன் பகுதியிலேயே வீசப்பட்டன. பல வகையான கொத்துக் குண்டுகளை சிறிலங்கா இராணுவத்தினர் பயன்படுத்தினர். கொத்துக் குண்டொன்றின் பிரதான குண்டு வானில் வெடித்துச் சிதறி பல சிறிய துண்டுகளாக உடைகின்றது. இரணைப்பாலை என்ற பிரதேசத்தில் வீசப்பட்ட கொத்துக் குண்டொன்று பல வர்ண நாடாக்களைக் கொண்டிருந்தது. இதனால் இவ்வகைக் குண்டானது சிறுவர்களின் கவனத்தை அதிகம் ஈர்த்துக் கொண்டது. சிறுவர்கள் பல வர்ண நிறங்களால் கவர்ச்சிமிக்க வகையில் உருவாக்கப்பட்டிருந்த இக் கொத்துக் குண்டின் பகுதிகளை தொட்ட போது அவை வெடித்துச் சிதறிய சம்பவங்களும் உண்டு.

ஜனவரி 25, 2009 அன்று ஒரு நிமிடத்தில் வெடித்த எறிகணைகள் எத்தனை என்பதை நாம் எண்ணிக்கொண்டோம். நாங்கள் ஐந்து மதகுருமார்கள், அருட்சகோதரிகளைக் கொண்ட ஒரு குழு, பெற்றோரை இழந்த பிள்ளைகள் ஆகியோர் ஒன்றாக பதுங்குகுழிக்குள் இருந்தோம். அந்த வேளையில் நாம் இருந்த பகுதியை நோக்கி பல் குழல் எறிகணைத் தாக்குதல்கள் மேற்கொள்ளப்பட்டன. அப்போது ஒரு நிமிடத்தில் 60 குண்டுகள் வெடித்ததை நாம் அவதானித்தோம்.

நான் உண்மையில் மிகப் பயங்கரமான, கோரமான நாட்கள் சிலவற்றைப் பற்றி எடுத்துக் கூறவேண்டும். மே 17,2009 அன்று யுத்தம் முடிவுற்றதாக சிறிலங்கா அரசாங்கத் தரப்பினர் வானொலிச் செய்திகள் மூலம் அறிவித்துக் கொண்டிருந்தனர். அத்துடன் சிறிலங்கா இராணுவம் தொடர்ந்தும் எஞ்சியுள்ள புலி உறுப்பினர்களை தேடி அழிக்கும் நடவடிக்கையில் ஈடுபடுவதாகவும் சிறிலங்கா அரசாங்கத் தரப்பு அறிவித்துக் கொண்டிருந்தது.

மிகக் கோரமான அந்த யுத்தத்தின் இறுதி நாட்களில் முள்ளிவாய்க்காலில் அமைக்கப்பட்டிருந்த பதுங்குகுழியில் எம்மில் ஐந்து மதகுருமார்கள், பெற்றோரை இழந்த 40 சிறார்கள் மற்றும் அருட்சகோதரிகள் சிலரும் தஞ்சம் புகுந்திருந்தோம். எம்மிடம் CDMA தொலைபேசி ஒன்றும், சற்றலைற் தொலைபேசி ஒன்றும் இருந்தன.

நாம் முதலில் எமது ஆயர் அவர்களை தொலைபேசி மூலம் தொடர்புகொண்டோம். பின்னர் இறுதி யுத்த நடவடிக்கைக்கு பொறுப்பாக இருந்த பிரிகேடியர் சவீந்திர டீ சில்வாவுடன் தொடர்பை ஏற்படுத்திக் கொண்டோம். சவீந்திர டீ சில்வா தற்போது ஐ.நாவுக்கான சிறிலங்காத் தூதராகக் கடமையாற்றுகிறார். வெள்ளைக் கொடிகளை உயர்த்திப் பிடித்தவாறு பதுங்குகுழிகளை விட்டு வெளியேறுமாறு பிரிகேடியர் எம்மைக் கேட்டுக் கொண்டார். இந்நிலையில் 2009 மே 17 பிற்பகல் வேளையில் வெள்ளைக் கொடிகளை ஏந்தியவாறு நாம் எமது பதுங்குகுழிகளை விட்டு வெளியேற முயற்சித்தோம். ஆனால் இராணுவத்தினர் துப்பாக்கிப் பிரயோகம் மேற்கொண்டனர்.

யுத்த வலயத்தை விட்டு நாம் வெளியேறுவதற்கு முன்னர் இறுதி நான்கு நாட்களாக நாம் எதையும் சாப்பிடவுமில்லை. அத்துடன் நீர் கூட அருந்தவில்லை. யுத்தத்தின் இறுதிக் கட்டத்தில் ஒரு பிஸ்கட்டைப் பெற்றுக் கொள்வதே மிகவும் கடினமாக இருந்தது. கைவிடப்பட்ட பதுங்குகுழி ஒன்றில் விடுதலைப் புலிகளின் மிகவும் சக்தியை வழங்கவல்ல 10 உணவுப் பொதிகளை நாம் பெரும் போராட்டத்தின் பின் பெற்றுக் கொண்டோம். அப் பொதிகளை நாம் அறுபது பேரும் பகிர்ந்து உண்டோம்.

மே 17 இரவு, நான் கிட்டத்தட்ட 50 தடவைகள் வரை ஜெபமாலை செபம் செய்திருப்பேன். நாங்கள் கடற்கரைக்கு மிக அருகில் இருந்ததால் எமது பதுங்குகுழிகள் ஆழமற்றதாக காணப்பட்டன. இந்த இரவு முழுவதும் இராணுவச் சிப்பாய்கள் பதுங்குகுழிகளுக்குள் கைக்குண்டுகளை வீசி மக்களைக் கொலை செய்தனர். அந்த இரவு என்னுடன் இருந்த பெற்றோரை இழந்த சிறார்கள் "பாதிரியாரே, நாம் இங்கே சாகப் போகின்றோம்" எனக் கூறினார்கள்.

அடுத்த நாட் காலை அதாவது மே 18, இராணுவ வீரர்கள் எம்மை நெருங்கி வந்துகொண்டிருந்த போது, நாம் இரண்டாவது தடவையாகவும் வெள்ளைக் கொடிகளை ஏந்தியவாறு பதுங்குகுழிகளை விட்டு வெளியேற முயற்சித்தோம். நாம் எம்மை அருட்சகோதரர்கள் என இனங் காண்பிப்பதற்காக அருட் சகோதர, சகோதரிகளின் அடையாளம் காட்டும் எமது வெள்ளைச் சீருடைகளை அணிந்திருந்தோம். மூன்று தடவைகள் நாம் வெளியேற முயற்சித்தோம். ஆனால் இந்த மூன்று தடவைகளும் சிறிலங்கா இராணுவச் சிப்பாய்கள் துப்பாக்கிப் பிரயோகம் மேற்கொண்டனர். அவர்கள் கிட்டத்தட்ட 115 மீற்றர் தூரத்தில் நின்றவாறு துப்பாக்கிப் பிரயோகம் மேற்கொண்டனர்.

இராணுவச் சிப்பாய்கள் எம்மை நோக்கி பெரிய குரலில் கத்தினார்கள், "நீங்கள் விடுதலைப் புலிகள், நாங்கள் உங்களைச் சுடப்போகிறோம்" என்றார்கள். அதன்பின்னர் அவர்கள் எம்மை வெளியே வருமாறு கட்டளையிட்டார்கள். அதனைத் தொடர்ந்து அருட்சகோதரிகள் மற்றும் பெற்றோரை இழந்த 40 சிறார்கள் ஆகியோருடன் நாம் வெள்ளைக் கொடிகளை ஏந்தியவாறு பதுங்குகுழிகளை விட்டு வெளியேறினோம். வெள்ளைக் கொடிகளை ஏந்தியவாறு முழங்கால்களில் இருக்குமாறு அவர்கள் எமக்கு கட்டளையிட்டனர்.

அதில் நின்ற சிறிலங்கா இராணுவ வீரன் ஒருவன் சிங்கள மொழியில், "ஒவ்வொருவரையும் கொலை செய்யுமாறு எமது கட்டளைத் தளபதி எமக்கு கட்டளையிட்டுள்ளார்" எனக் கூறினான்.

எமது மேலாடைகளைக் களையுமாறு அவர்கள் எமக்கு கட்டளையிட்டனர். அதன் பின்னர் "நாம் அருட்சகோதரர்கள் எனவும் இவர்கள் சிறார்கள்" எனவும் வாதிட்டோம். அத்துடன் நாம் ஏற்கனவே பிரிகேடியருடன் தொலைபேசியில் உரையாடியதாகவும் குறிப்பிட்டோம். அதன் பின்னர் நாம் பிரிகேடியரிடம் தொடர்பு கொண்ட CDMA தொலைபேசி இலக்கத்தை அந்த இராணுவ வீரர்களிடம் கொடுத்தோம். உடனே அவர்கள் தொடர்பு கொண்டு நாம் ஏற்கனவே தொடர்பு கொண்ட விடயத்தை உறுதிப்படுத்திக் கொண்டனர்.

நாம் கிட்டத்தட்ட ஓரிரு மணித்தியாலங்கள் வரை இராணுவத்திடம் வாதாட்டம் மேற்கொண்டோம். எமக்கு முன் நின்ற அந்த இராணுவத்தினர் தமது முகத்தைச் சுற்றி கறுப்பு நிறத் துணியால் இறுகக் கட்டியிருந்தனர். கொலை செய்வதற்கு தருணம் பார்த்துக் காத்திருக்கும் மிருகங்கள் போல அவர்கள் காணப்பட்டனர். CDMA தொலைபேசியில் பிரிகேடியருடன் தொடர்பு கொண்ட பின்னரே எம்முடன் வாதாடிய குறித்த வீரனின் கோபம் தணிந்திருந்தது.

இது ஒருபுறமிருக்க, எம்மிலிருந்து சற்று தூரம் தள்ளி இராணுவ வீரர்களால் சுற்றி வளைக்கப்பட்ட நிலையில் மக்கள் சிலர் நிற்பதை நாம் கண்ணுற்றோம். இவர்கள் எம்மைப் போன்று இறுதி வரை பதுங்குகுழிகளுள் ஒழிந்திருந்தவர்கள் ஆவர். அந்த மக்களில் பலர் காயமடைந்திருந்தனர்.

இறுதியில், எம்மை அவ் இராணுவத்தினர் துருவித் துருவி சோதனை செய்தனர். எங்கள் ஒவ்வொருவரும் ஒரு கைப்பையை மட்டுமே எடுத்துச் செல்வதற்கான அனுமதி வழங்கப்பட்டது. இதில் நின்ற இராணுவ வீரன் ஒருவர் எமது அருட்சகோதரர்களில் ஒருவரை காலால் உதைத்தான். உடனே அவர் கீழே விழுந்துவிட்டார்.

அவர்கள் எம்மை இரு பிரிவுகளாகப் பிரித்தனர். ஒவ்வொரு குழுவிலும் 30 பேர் இருந்தோம். இதனால் நாம் கொஞ்சம் வேகமாக நகர முடிந்தது. வீதியோரங்களில் எரிந்து கொண்டிருந்த வாகனங்கள் மற்றும் அந்த வாகனங்களின் கீழ் இறந்தபடி கிடந்த மக்களின் உடலங்களைக் கடந்தவாறு நாம் சென்றுகொண்டிருந்தோம். நரகத்தைப் போன்று அந்த இடம் காட்சி தந்தது.

"நாங்கள் பிரபாகரனை, பொட்டு அம்மானை, ஏனைய எல்லாத் தலைவர்களையும் கொலை செய்துவிட்டோம். இப்போது நீங்கள் எமது அடிமைகள்" என சிரித்தவாறு கூறினார்கள்.

காயமடைந்த மக்களுக்கு உதவுமாறு நாம் சிறிலங்கா இராணுவத்திடம் கேட்டுக்கொண்டோம். அத்துடன் காலால் உதைக்கப்பட்ட குறித்த அருட்சகோதரருக்கும் உதவுமாறு கேட்டுக்கொண்டோம். அவர்கள் காயப்பட்ட மக்களை சாலம்பன் என்ற இடத்துக்கு கூட்டிச் சென்றார்கள். ஆனால் அவர்கள் இதய வருத்தமுடைய அந்த அருட்சகோதரனைத் தம்முடன் கூட்டிச் செல்லவில்லை. இதய வருத்தத்தால் அவதிப்பட்ட அந்த அருட்சகோதரனுக்கு எவ்வித மருத்துவ சிகிச்சையும் வழங்கப்படவில்லை. அவருக்கு அப்போது 38 வயதாகவே இருந்தது. அவரை அந்த இடத்திலேயே விட்டு விட்டு இராணுவத்தினர் வெளியேறினர்.

நாம் பின்னர் பேருந்து ஒன்றில் சாலம்பன் என்ற இடத்துக்கு கொண்டு செல்லப்பட்டோம். அவர்கள் எமது ஆடைகளைக் களைந்து எம்மை நிர்வாணப்படுத்திய பின்னரே சோதனைகளை மேற்கொண்டனர்.

இதன் பின்னர் அவர்கள் எம்மை மண்டபம் ஒன்றுக்குள் கொண்டு சென்றனர். அங்கே "நாங்கள் உங்களது தலைவர்களைக் கொன்றுவிட்டோம். ஆனால் அவர்களில் சிலர் தற்போதும் உயிருடன் உள்ளனர். உங்ளுக்குள்ளேயே அவர்கள் இருக்கிறார்கள். ஆகவே விடுதலைப் புலிகள் யாராவது இருந்தால் உடனடியாக எம்மிடம் வந்து உங்களது பெயர்களைப் பதிவு செய்து கொள்ளுங்கள்" என இராணுவத்தினர் அறிவித்தல் விடுத்தனர்.

ஆனால் தமது பெயரைப் பதிவதற்கு எவரும் முன்வரவில்லை. அதன் பின்னர் அருட்சகோதரர்கள் எல்லோரையும் விடுதலைப் புலிகள் என முத்திரை குத்திய அவர்கள் எமது பெயர்களைப் பலாத்காரமாக பதிவு செய்து கொண்டனர். இந்த நேரத்தில், "நாங்கள் மதகுருமார்கள்" என உறுதியாகக் கூறியதுடன் எமது அடையாள அட்டைகளையும் அவர்களிடம் காண்பித்தோம்.

கருணா குழுவைச் சேர்ந்த பலர் யுத்தத்தின் இறுதியில் எமது மக்களுடன் கலந்திருந்தனர். அவ்வாறு அங்கு இருந்தவர்களுள் ஒருவரை நான் முதலில் வன்னியில் சந்தித்திருந்தேன். இவர் என்னை மதகுரு என அடையாளப்படுத்திக் கொண்டார். நாம் நான்கு அருட்சகோதரர்களும் பிரிகேடியரைச் சந்திப்பதற்காக முள்ளிவாய்க்காலுக்கு அழைத்துச் செல்லப்பட்டோம். எம்முடன் சேர்ந்து பயணித்த அந்தச் சிறார்களை அங்கேயே விட்டுவிட்டுச் செல்வதைத் தவிர எமக்கு வேறு வழி தெரியவில்லை.

நாம் அதே இடத்துக்கு திரும்பி வந்தபோது, எம்முடன் வந்த அந்தச் சிறார்கள் மிகக் கொடூரமான முறையில் தாக்கப்பட்டிருந்தனர். அத்துடன் புலிகள் உறுப்பினர்கள் என அவர்களின் பெயர்கள் பலாத்காரமாக பதியப்பட்டன. இதன் பின்னர், நாம் செட்டிக்குளம் என்ற இடத்துக்கு எடுத்துச் செல்லப்பட்டோம். அந்த இடத்தை அடைவதற்காக நாம் இரு நாட்கள் வரை உணவின்றி பேருந்திலேயே தங்கியிருக்க வேண்டியிருந்தது.

நாங்கள் பேருந்தில் புதுக்குடியிருப்பு வீதியால் கூட்டிச் செல்லப்பட்ட போது, மணி பிற்பகல் 6.30 ஆக இருந்தது. புதுக்குடியிருப்புக்கு அருகிலுள்ள மந்துவில் என்ற இடத்தை நாம் கடந்து சென்ற போது மிகப் பயங்கரமான காட்சியைக் காணவேண்டியிருந்தது. கிட்டத்தட்ட 300 வரையான இறந்த நிர்வாணமாக்கப்பட்ட உடலங்களை சிறிலங்கா இராணுவத்தினர் ஒன்றுகுவித்துக் கொண்டிருந்தனர்.

இதனை மக்கள் பார்க்க வேண்டும் என்பதற்காக அந்த உடலங்கள் குவிக்கப்பட்டிருந்த இடத்தில் 'ரியூப் லைற்றுக்கள்' பொருத்தப்பட்டிருந்தன. அத்துடன் இதனைப் பார்த்து சிரித்துக் கொண்டிருந்த இராணுவ வீரர்கள் அந்த உடலங்களை படம் பிடித்தனர். பார்ப்பதற்கு அது ஒரு கொண்டாட்டம் போல் காணப்பட்டது. அங்கே குவிக்கப்பட்ட்டிருந்த அந்த மக்கள் அந்தப் பிரதேசத்தில் கொல்லப்பட்டிருப்பார்கள் என நான் கருதுகிறேன்.

நாம் மெனிக்பாம் முகாமில் குடியேற்றப்பட்டு முதல் ஒரு வாரமும் குடிப்பதற்கான நீரைப் பெற முடியவில்லை. பசி போக்க உணவு கிடைக்கவில்லை. மலசலகூடவசதிகள் செய்து கொடுக்கப்படவில்லை. எமது முகாமுக்குள் வெளி ஆட்கள் வருவதற்கான அனுமதி வழங்கப்படவில்லை. இதனை 'விடுதலைப் புலிகளின் முகாம்' எனவும் 'வலயம் 04' எனவும் அழைத்தனர்.

எமது முகாமிலிருந்த மக்கள் கொலை செய்யப்படுவார்கள் என கருதப்பட்டது. எமது வாழ்வு ஆபத்தில் உள்ளதாக நாம் கருதினோம். எமது முகாமில் கிட்டத்தட்ட 40,000 பேர்வரை தங்கவைக்கப்பட்டனர். 16 பேர் படுத்து உறங்குவதற்காக சீனாத் தயாரிப்பான நீல நிறத் தறப்பாள் ஒன்று வழங்கப்பட்டது. இதனால் பெண்கள் கூடாரத்திற்குள்ளும், ஆண்கள் அதற்கு வெளியேயும் படுத்து உறங்க வேண்டிய நிலைக்குத் தள்ளப்பட்டனர். அவர்கள் எம்மை மிருகங்கள் போல் நடாத்தினர்.

யாழ்ப்பாணத்தைப் பொறுத்தளவில் சிறிலங்கா அரசாங்கமும், இராணுவப் புலனாய்வுத் துறையும் மக்கள் மத்தியில் அச்சத்தை ஏற்படுத்தியுள்ளனர். யாழ்ப்பாண வீதிகளில் உள்ள விளம்பரப் பலகைகளில் 'ஒரு நாடு ஒரு மக்கள்' என்ற வாசகம் பொறிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. இத மக்களைப் பெரிதும் கோபத்துக்கு உள்ளாக்கியுள்ளது.

சிறிலங்கா அரசாங்கப் படையினர் அக்கராயன், முருகண்டி, வற்றாப்பளை ஆகிய மூன்று இடங்களிலும் பல மாற்றங்களை ஏற்படுத்தியுள்ளனர். இவ்விடங்களில் சிங்கள மக்களுக்கான வீடுகள் கட்டப்படுகின்றன. வடக்கு மாகாணத்தின் மையமாக மாங்குளம் அமைக்கப்படவுள்ளது. இங்கு கிட்டத்தட்ட 300,000 மக்களைக் குடியேற்ற சிங்கள அரசாங்கம் திட்டமிடுகிறது.

ஒவ்வொரு பட்டினத்திலும் இன விகிதாசாரத்தை பேண அரசாங்கம் முயற்சிக்கிறது. இதனால் வடக்கில் உள்ள குடிசன பரம்பலில் மாற்றத்தைக் கொண்டு வர அரசாங்கம் திட்டமிடுகிறது. ஏற்கனவே நாவற்குழியில் சிங்களவர்கள் குடியேறுவதற்கான அனுமதிகள் வழங்கப்பட்டுள்ளன.

*The Social Architects -TSA are comprised of a diverse group of writers, intellectuals and working professionals. While most of TSA’s members hail from the country’s North and East, the group also includes other scholars and activists who have been working on issues related to Sri Lanka. TSA seeks to educate, to inform and to provide timely, thoughtful analysis on a range of topics.

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பாகம் 2

சாமந்தியின் அனுபவங்கள்.....ஆங்கில மூலம்.

Shamanthi is a mother of three young children in her thirties and she is a former LTTE cadre. She joined the LTTE in 1990 and left in 2004, after her marriage to an LTTE leader. On May 20, 2010, a local newspaper published a photograph of twelve LTTE cadres that was first made public by Channel 4 Television, UK. The men appear in the photograph crouching close together with their arms bound tightly behind their backs, without clothes, in a shallow bunker. Army soldiers standing closely together surround them in a circle. Shamanthi has identified her husband as one of the LTTE leaders in this photograph taken with a soldier’smobile phone camera. Shamanthi has been living alone in a village in Jaffna with her children since July 16, 2010. She needs assistance with livelihood and she still hopes her husband is alive. The last known contact with any of the men in the photograph occurred on May 17, 2009; since then there has not been any trace of them. Shamanthi’s vibrant and bright personality, community awareness, discerning parenting skills, and intelligence needs to find a place in a constructive social group.

I joined the LTTE in 1990, when I was fifteen years old, of my own volition. I was motivated by Thiyahi Thileepan’s speeches. He was a medical student; he left that position and joined to serve the people. He delivered speeches at our school. Although parents made arrangements for our family to immigrate to Canada, I didn’t want to go into exile. Just before our family traveled abroad, I chose to join the LTTE. I was young and I had a lot of enthusiasm. At a time when many people were displaced from Jaffna to the Vanni in 1995, I went to the Vanni. That was when the Army captured Jaffna.

In 1990, I spoke for the first time with the man who eventually became my husband, ten years before we were married. My husband’s mother was well known to all the LTTE boys. I knew him through his two sisters who were in the movement. His sisters were killed in combat, and I fell in love with him because he had lost his sisters. After five years in the LTTE we could get permission to be married if we were the proper age. He proposed to me in December 1999 by sending one of his friends to speak to me. He didn’t come and talk to me directly at first.

I was responsible for the administrative work for the men and women’s camps in Puthukudiruppu. If someone needed a pen or other supplies, they had to come to meet me in the office. I asked him to come to that office, and when he came, I explained, “I’m okay with what you told your friend. I am in love with you.” He didn’t say very much; he laughed.

We were married on May 18, 2000. According to our rules we had to inform our superiors. The LTTE’s “Wedding Group” was responsible for arranging our wedding. We could only invite our friends in the movement, because there was no travel access between Jaffna and the Vanni.

The ceremony was held in a hall and it only took only one hour. We couldn’t have a Hindu or Christian wedding. We exchanged our bracelets (watches) and he tied the gold wedding tali around my neck with the Tiger design (Tiger’s fangs). The Wedding Group leader took the role of the priest and pronounced an oath mentioning the usual main points about taking care of each other and living together until death.

I was blessed with the birth of a daughter in 2002. I left the movement when I was pregnant. My husband continued with his work in the intelligence unit.

Usually LTTE families lived more happily than others because we had more organizational support.Everything functioned under a structure. There were schedules and holidays. My husband had to work Monday through Saturday and he came home on Friday night. I expected him on Fridays. Schedules depended upon the units’ duties. If the house was close to the unit, you could return home every night. If you were far away, you could spend the whole of Saturday and Sunday with your family. On Sundayswe were very happy and we often went to Mullaitivu beach because it was a favorite place from my childhood. We would visit the Infant Jesus Church in Mullaitivu. Sometimes we spent the whole day in our house, enjoying being together. Up to 2005 we had this sort of normal family life. After the A9 closed, and fighting started, our routine changed and he spent more time in the unit. Then they were always prepared to fight; they had to be on constant alert.

In 2007 I was pregnant, when my husband left to fight. Our daughter was upset and didn’t want him to be away. She was proud of her father’s bravery. In 2007 KFir fighter attacks started; on some days there would be as many as nine bombing runs.

On April 18, 2007, my daughter’s fifth birthday, I was eight months pregnant. My husband was spending less and less time with us. One of our friends arrived at the house and we all went to the temple that day. A KFir attacked us on the way, and even though my daughter was only five years old, she knew how to get off her bicycle and run immediately to a bunker. She learned how to protect herself in her early childhood.

One day in May 2007, I heard a KFir fighter jet approaching, and I realized it was definitely going to attack our house or the house next to us. We didn’t have a bunker at our house. When a KFir bombs the pieces hit as far as five hundred meters from the attack site. My daughter and I were in grave danger. I carried my child and ran to the bunker nearest my house. The bombs dropped by the KFir targeted the house next to ours. When we came out of the bunker, our house was flattened.

KFir attacks often hit civilians. The LTTE intercepted radio conversations between KFirs and headquarters. I overheard radio communications when the KFir received orders from headquarters to target civilians moving in vehicles. LTTE knew when the KFir fighters left the airport, and rang a big bell to protect cadres from imminent attacks. Civilians who lived near LTTE camps were also protected by these KFir alarms. Our two dogs would howl when the KFirs were coming and went to the bunker entrance. Not only our dogs but other dogs also behaved like that.

On September 22, 2007, the dogs started to howl, and we immediately went into the bunker, and the dogs came into the bunker as well. Two KFirs attacked us six times. Every twenty minutes they came.

My husband was injured that day because he was riding a motorcycle and he couldn’t hear the Kfir coming. My neighbours told me my husband sustained a head injury and he was bleeding profusely. It wasn’t a school day so I sent my daughter to the neighbours’ house and clutching our infant son, I ran the whole way to Ponnambalam hospital in Puthukidirupppu.

Ponnambalam hospital was the name of the main hospital in Kilinochchi, but it also had branches in Puthukudiruppu and Moolankavil. Most of the doctors and nurses were LTTE. It was very clean and better organized than the government hospital. Everyone on staff was paid. Dr. Sivapalan was one of the doctors. People preferred this hospital to the government hospitals.

They respectfully called my husband “Annan.” All his comrades were already in the hospital when I reached there. They told me that it was a small injury and not to worry, and that he had been taken to the operating theatre for minor surgery. He was discharged with some bandages on his head and came home. That night he told me, “I’m just going to see what’s happening” – and went to his unit.

Throughout 2008 KFir fighter attacks continued. The schools did not have any facilities to protect the children during KFir attacks. The schools told parents to come and take their children to their homes where they could be protected in bunkers when there was an imminent attack.

People took care of each other in the Vanni. As a married couple we received enough pay and we had property, there was equality, and there was no caste difference. All were treated equally.

In 2008 they started to capture the places from Mannar to Kilinochchi. It was difficult for me to go to the medical clinic, because KFir fighters were continuing to attack the movements of any known people. I was pregnant again. We stayed in our home until they captured Tharmapuram. Displaced people were starting to move into Puthukudiruppu, Mullaitivu District, and there were places where as many as seventy makeshift shelters were set up together.

There were so many people on the road with small children. They cooked on the road. When I think about that road I remember a woman with a small child. The child was crying loudly, and they had nothing to feed the child. The child’s mother was also crying loudly. I asked them why they were crying – they said we have no water to make milk to feed the child. I brought them to my house and gave some water and milk powder. At the time we also faced a problem as an LTTE family. When people were displaced the army spread intelligence agents among the displaced people. They threw grenades into

LTTE cadres’ houses so I was scared. My husband often said things in a joking manner, and that was how he said this to me, “Very soon you will be displaced like them, so don’t worry about them finding the house.”

On Jan 17, 2009 we were displaced, and fled to Visvamadu which was announced to be a No Fire Zone by the government security forces. Until Jan 24, 2009 we stayed there. The KFir fighters and multi-barrel rocket launchers attacked, and we saw many who were killed by cluster bombs. The army dropped leaflets from the air that instructed the people that Visvamadu was a protected No Fire Zone. My husband didn’t have enough time to look after us at the end. He didn’t come for fifteen days. I heard the army reached our main road and they were relentlessly shelling, bombing, and attacking with KFirs. I kept my children under the thick cement hearth in the kitchen, the safest part of the house. The army was moving toward us from the jungle, behind our house, not from the roadside. One neighbour came and told me this. Another neighbor came and asked where my husband was, and I said I didn’t know.

Already my husband had instructed me, “When the army comes, don’t wait for me, or for any of us. We can’t bring you to safety. You should be a civilian and you go with civilians.” The same day around 8:00 pm, my husband with two of his comrades came, and he said, “Get everyone ready to go in ten minutes.”

I was seven months pregnant with my third child. I had a basket of things for the delivery. I just took that basket and some clothes for the children. He told me, “Don’t expect me, you stay with this cousin.” He left. We also left Visvamadu on two motorbikes with the children.

Then with my two children, we moved from place to place: Udaiyarkaddu, Suthanthirapuram, Iruththumadu, Thevipuram, Iranaipalai, Valaiyarmadam .…The Army announced some of these places were No Fire Zones, but we would decide where to go according to where we thought we would be safest.

A shell fell on a man about forty-years-old and he was killed. There was no way to bury him, so they brought his body along in an ox cart covered in a cloth as they fled. I saw people carrying injured people.

We couldn’t construct proper bunkers. Although we forgot to bring rice and cooking pots, we didn’t forget our manveddi (hoe) for digging bunkers. We made sandbags with saris, piling them up around us. We stayed in Udaiyarkaddu until Jan 31, 2009, then Suthanthirapuram, and on to Iruttumadu for 13 days until Feb 13, 2009. When we were there, many people were killed and injured by bullets from the Army.

We moved on to Thevipuram, a place that was announced to be No Fire Zone, for seven days until Feb 20, 2009. Then we moved to Iranaipalai, and were 14 days in that place until Feb 30, 2009. On Feb 21, while we were in Iranaipalai in a bunker, shelling came from the Army-controlled area and fell near our bunkers, resulting in many injured people. From there we went to Valaiyarmadam.

We had two motorbikes and my husband’s friend had a tractor. He drove us on the tractor. In Valaiyarmadam, I bought a lemon puff biscuit pack for 800 Rs. We had rice, dahl, and fish every day in Valaiyarmadam. In finding food we were lucky, because we knew a lot of people and they gave me privileges because I was pregnant.

We were in Valaiyarmadam for a month until March 31st. On March 8th, a businessman had a van and he was selling foodstuffs to a long line of waiting people and I was in the line. Right after I left them, a shell exploded and seven people in the line were killed and more were injured. They were dismembered. My daughter’s teacher’s sister was decapitated and her head was stuck in a palmyrah tree. I am still mentally disturbed from that.

Traditionally Tamil women who are pregnant don’t look at corpses or go near cemeteries. But in Valaiyarmadam, we were in a cemetery. There was a body buried next to us. In Matalan I saw sixteen corpses collected in a tractor. A backhoe dug a pit and they dumped the bodies into the hole. In Valaiyarmadam, there was a terrible smell from all the bodies that had been buried and there were so many flies. I vomited. That was the first time I scolded my leader. All the children got sick and had diarrhea there.The LTTE announced one from each family must come to fight. They conscripted by force also. Before we were spread out across the Vanni; now we were in a very small area. ICRC was taking people by ship to the hospitals further down the coast. And from February people were escaping to the Army controlled area without the knowledge of the LTTE. Even LTTE families went like that. We were there until the end because we believed our leader had a plan. The LTTE prevented the people from going into the Army controlled area. In Matalan one LTTE cadre stopped some people and they cut his arm. When people were fleeing into the Army controlled area, the LTTE didn’t shoot at them they shot over their heads. When the Army heard the LTTE shots, the Army shot towards them with the result that people were caught in crossfire.

April 7th was my due date for my delivery. Doctors told me that I may need a cesarean birth. To confirm my baby’s condition, I was told to go to Mullivaikal from Valaiyarmadam, but I couldn’t get to Mullivaikal because of the shelling. My husband came and I told him about this, and he took me to Dr. Shanmugaraja in Mullivaikal hospital.

The leader had informed LTTE cadres to send their families safely out of the area. My husband told me to go to India. I refused to accept his opinion because I wanted to stay with him. Mullivaikal hospital was the last hospital. It was not in a hospital building, it was in a school building. At first they only treated LTTE cadres there, but then when many refugees were injured in the NFZ they treated civilians also. Just before we reached the hospital it was shelled. When I went through the hospital gate, I saw one girl who had just been killed. Patients in the hospital were also killed. So many people with injuries were shouting and crying.

We met Dr. Shanmugaraja, and from the scan he explained the baby’s condition was normal. He recommended that I leave in an ICRC ship. I saw a boy about seven-years-old with his sister who was about a year-and-a-half-old when I went to the bathroom. They were both crying and the boy told me that their father was killed in the Suthanthapuram attack and their mother just died here in this shelling.

When my husband saw these two children, he remarked to me, “If you refuse to go by ship, your children will also be crying like this.” This was on April 11th. Then he arranged the ship pass. He stayed with us on April 12 th in Valaiyarmadam. That night we slept together; my husband, our son, and I slept outside the bunker, and our daughter and my husband’s brother slept inside. Around 1:00 am the Army started attacking with multibarrel rocket launchers. When I woke up in the morning I saw a piece of shell had fallen in between my husband and our son, but it didn’t harm us.

The ship docked two hundred and fifty meters from where we were, however, it took an hour to reach the ship because it was so crowded with vehicles and people. My husband’s brother carried our bag on a motorcycle, and my husband carried us. We weren’t able to make progress, so my husband suggested, “We can’t go through this way, the ship will leave; shall we go another way – the Matalan way? It’s farther, but we can reach the ship before it leaves.” Then he warned, “If the Army sees any people moving they will definitely attack. I will go very fast, so you hold tight to me.” Our seven year-old-daughter was in front of him and I held our one and a half-year-old son in between us. I saw the Army on the way and they fired at us, but we reached the ship.

A small boat ferried people to the ship. Elderly people, mentally affected people, injured people, and critically ill people had already been boarded onto the ship. The injured and the amputees were taken aboard on stretchers or carried in sheets for lack of stretchers.

He said, “I shouldn’t come close to the ship because I will be noted and you will face trouble.” Then he brought us to the boat. He was standing and looking at us, so I sent our daughter to him. I told her, “Father is looking at us, go and say goodbye.” She went and talked to her father. My husband said to her, “You are the one who has to look after Amma, your brother, and the new baby that is coming.” He was standing and looking at us as the small boat carried us to the ship. He didn’t cry. I didn’t cry either.

But when we were out of sight I cried. Studying the last photograph of her husband that was on the table, Shamanthi spoke softly, “Because the army caught them, they definitely tortured them.”

My husband wanted our children to have a good education, because he lost his own education during the fighting. He also wanted our children to have a sense of Tamil nationalism. I named our children with pure Tamil names. In Vavuniya hospital when my third baby was born, I also named him that way.

Each of the Tamil parties has a different direction now; they should cooperate with each other. I don’t know if there is any leadership to coordinate the people now. As Tamil people we have lost many lives, properties, and livelihoods. If we want to rebuild there must be strong leadership for Tamils.

Most of the women whose husbands disappeared are facing many problems in raising their children and they are facing dire economic difficulty. All the people who were displaced in the Vanni have been forced into poverty. With such problems they can’t raise their children with a positive attitude. I am very careful with my children.

I don’t know if my husband was killed or if he is alive. This is why for two years I have refused to go to Canada where my father is living. Until I know more about my husband, I don’t want to go there. On Maveera Nal (Heroes Day), my daughter wished to light the lamp of her own accord. I didn’t stop her because she is used to this culture as a Tamil. She can follow our traditions. I should raise my children with good education, then they can decide for themselves. We will support the Tamil people.

At first people were very friendly with us when we came back to the village, but once the killings started, people began to avoid us. The killing and abductions create fear. Murders and abductions are happening in the neighborhood where I am living, and most of those killed came from the Vanni, or supported the movement, so my neighbors won’t talk with me now. Sometimes I feel lonely.

—-

The Social Architects (TSA) are comprised of a diverse group of writers, intellectuals and working professionals. While most of TSA’s members hail from the country’s North and East, the group also includes other scholars and activists who have been working on issues related to Sri Lanka. TSA seeks to educate, to inform and to provide timely, thoughtful analysis on a range of topics.

They write under the pseudonym "The Social Architects" because of the risk of retaliation against those that speak out against the government. In addition each author has selected a pseudonym for themselves and the victims and family members who appear in the story. Over the eight days between March 12th and March 19th we will be releasing one TSA story a day. You can read them all here.

Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice

[Full Coverage]

பாகம் 3

சாந்தி எனும் விதவைத் தாயின் அனுபவங்கள்....ஆங்கிலமூலம்

Shanthi is a mother and widow, forty-two years of age, who has been displaced many times in the course of the war. In her early childhood, she lived in a cadjan hut with a palmyrah leaf roof and walls

constructed of a double layer of woven coconut palm leaves. Local red clay was used for the floor and the lower part of the walls, to keep out poisonous snakes. The house had a veranda and two rooms. She was born in this house. Shanthi’s mother taught her how to cook traditional Tamil foods like pittu, iddiyappam, dosai and palappam over a fire in the small low-roofed kitchen that was a separate structure about eight feet from the house. She is the second born of eight children, with six brothers and one older sister. Her father, who worked in Colombo as a bus driver, came home to visit twice a month. When Shanthi was eleven years old, her father died. Then, to help with the household income, Shanthi’s mother taught her how to weave palmyrah leaf mats.

Palmyrah trees grow wild in the Jaffna landscape, and every product of the tree is used by the local people: the flowers for kul (soup), panaiyarum or fried fruit sweets, the whole fruit or panampalam as roasted fruit, pinattu or fruit leather, the young root boiled or panankilungku, the dried young root or pana kalkandu, odiyal, the leaves or pana ole for roofing, fencing, mat and basket weaving, the strong barbed sticks or panaimattai for fencing, and the tree trunk for construction.

Shanthi’s story speaks for the experiences of many ordinary Tamil people who fled across the Vanni as the military forces advanced. Her story is typical among survivors’ stories in many aspects. This is the story Shanthi told:

When I was a little girl, my mother hired men to cut palmyrah leaves and bring them to our house in an ox cart. We bought green, red, and purple dyes at the shop, and soaked the palmyrah leaves in the colors. Then we spread them out to dry on the sand around our house. My mother and I wove them into designs with names, like Iviral (“Five fingers”) and Muviral (“Three fingers). My mother and I still weave mats with these designs. When I was young we also dried chilli peppers. We grew chilies, onions, and long beans in our garden, and we sold them in the market.

In 1990, when I was twenty-three, we were displaced for the first time. A helicoptergunship flew low and strafed the village…everyone ran. The man who would later become my husband carried his sister’s son and waded along the edge of the water where it was waist-deep. When the helicopter came near us, we put palmyrah leaves over our heads for camouflage and waded into deeper water. When his sister died, my family helped with the funeral and the thirty-first-day death ceremony.

This man who became my husband lived near us; he was handsome and intelligent. I worked very hard at gardening and he noticed that. He asked me to marry him when he was twenty-eight. One day, when I was taking care of my blind grandmother, he came and asked, “Are you in love with me? I want to marry you.”

He wanted to marry me without any dowry. My mother, my two uncles, and my cousins arranged the marriage. My mother had already taught me to cook, and for several years before that I cooked as frequently as my mother. All the relations came and we had our wedding in the house. I wore a red saree and he wore a veshti. First we put banana in milk. Then they put a banana leaf on the floor of the prayer room with all the curries. I gave curries to him from the leaf, and then he gave curries to me. We were machchan and machchal.

In 1995, the Army attacked our area during the Suriyakadir operation. They started shelling the village and everyone ran. The Air Force bombed Navatkulipalam (a key bridge in the area), so a huge crowd of people were trapped there. Many elderly people from the village died during the bombing and shelling.

We ended up at an uncle’s place. We constructed a house with palmyrah leaf roof and woven palm walls on his land and stayed for ten years.

In 2004, during the ceasefire agreement, my husband and I went back to the place where we were married after fourteen years of being away. No one else had returned, and the whole village looked like a jungle. We cleared our land. My uncle’s house was partially standing, so we stayed there at first, and then we built a house on our land. That same year, after fourteen years of marriage, I was blessed with a daughter. We were very happy in that period. My husband was always employed as a mason, or as a laborer, loading cement bags and sand into trucks. We grew panankilungku (young palmyrah tree roots) that we boiled and sold. We also dried the roots to make odiyal to sell in the market. We also gathered coconuts from places where people had not returned, and sold them.

On our daughter’s first birthday, we went to the Nagatambiran temple in Poonagiri during the festival. We dressed her in new clothes, and keeping an old vow from the days when we were without children, we took katpurachati (a clay pot of flaming camphor on a bed of neem leaves) and circumambulated the temple.

Two years later fear returned, after executions of some villagers by the Army. We went to Poonagiri for safety and lived there for over a year. In 2006 the Army started shelling Poonagiri from Pallaly, so everyone fled again.

We decided to stay with my younger brother, and after a month we found a place to rent for 170 Rupees a month. When shelling from the Army in Kilinochchi came close to us in January 2009, we fled to Visvamadu. We packed up kitchen utensils; clothes, rice and lentils, and we carried these essentials on a bicycle. My husband put our daughter on the front of the bicycle. I walked next to it. We abandoned our milk cow and chickens. The road was packed with people. I remember a truck carrying injured people was blowing the horn and going fast through the crowded road, heading for Visvamadu hospital.

After four days in Visvamadu, we went on Suthanthirapuram for six days. We made a tent with two sticks and a tarp and we dug a bunker using cups and plates. We bought needle and thread and cut saris and made sand bags. Put the sand bags one on top of the other on all four sides and left a small hole to get inside, and then we hid ourselves in there. The shelling was continuous so we couldn’t cook. When the shelling stopped we immediately cooked some kanji (rice and water). We always had to be alert to the sound of shells and bullets. First we lit the fire, and when the shells came, we ran back into the bunker. Then, when we thought the shelling had stopped, we came out to get the pot and ran with it back into the bunker.

We spent a sleepless night at Senduran Silai junction, under a tree. We went on to Aachchithottam (Vallipuram) and stayed for three days and during those days we were attacked by multi-barrel rocket launchers, KFir fighter jets, artillery, five-inch mortars, tanks, and cluster bombs. Doom! Doom! Doom! Doom! Doom! Each cluster bomb splits into ten upon impact. Most of the people in this place were killed, and we left them and ran.

We fled to Kombavil where we stayed a little more than a week. On the way there was no shelling, but as we neared Kombavil there was evidence that it had already been attacked. It was attacked from five directions: from Kepapilavu, Visvamadu, Killinochci, Suthanthirapuram, and Mullaitivu, and by the Navy Dora craft on the water. Each day forty, fifty, one hundred, were killed. We saw all along our way the bodies in death positions with maggots and there was a terrible smell and we felt like vomiting. In front of us two were going in a motorbike and when the shell fell on them their heads were cut off and the motorbike kept going and fell in a canal.

Around 200,000 people gathered from all across the Vanni in Pokkanai, and built bunkers close to one another. It was a so-called Pathukappu Valaiyam (No Fire Zone). We dug a bunker and put up a tent as we had before, and we were seated there. My mother, my daughter, and my brother were there. It was March 23, 2009. My daughter and I were crying because we were hungry, but shells, multi barrel rocket launchers, tanks, and K-Fir jets relentlessly attacked the place where we were. We couldn’t go out, we had only a little rice and we had no firewood. When the firing stopped for a moment, my husband went out and tried to chop some firewood. While he was chopping, a shell fell a short distance away, so he lay down on the ground. The rest of us hid inside the bunker. Another shell came and fell close to him where he was lying down. As soon as he could, my brother went out of the bunker to find my husband.

He came back crying, and when he was able to speak he said, “Attan died instantly.” We took my husband’s body into the bunker and we put that body on a sheet and mat and covered it.

The people in the next bunker to us had covered his head with a cloth because his brain was severed in half. We carried his body in a tractor and we buried his body in Valaiyarmadam. My mother was feeling very sick that day onwards.

We stayed in Pokkani for twenty-one days longer after he died. In Pokkani I saw women holding their infants that had died. Ammale! I was mentally affected from such terrible things. I didn’t know where I was staying, I would get lost; I couldn’t remember where I was staying because I was in such a state of shock. We had no hope that we would survive. We thought that we would not live and we were going to die.

One of my brothers died twenty-one days after my husband, and on that same day my nephew was badly injured. My brother came out of his family’s bunker to get some water for everyone when his mother-in-law said she thought the shelling had stopped. He had the kettle in his hand when a five-inch shell fell and injured him in the head, legs and hands. His brother-in-law was killed. His mother-in-law was alive, but both of her legs were severed. We took them to the Manjolai hospital near Pokkani, but they died there. We buried their bodies in Valaiyarmadam in between the shelling. A bullet entered my nephew’s chest and exited the middle of his back; he was at that hospital and lived.

Manjolai hospital was in a house adjoining a large hall, and was so crowded we couldn’t put our leg in the place. Every person there was bleeding. Everyone who got injured was screaming and crying. There was no medicine. The doctors admitted a few people – only two people at a time into two rooms. The doctors couldn’t save the lives of the people. They couldn’t do surgery because of the heavy shelling. I saw one lady who had earlier lost her daughter and son; she was carrying her injured granddaughter.

Then a shell came and killed that lady.

They put sand bags surrounding the operating theatre, and also sandbagged the place where the doctors stayed. But there was no protection for the patients lying on the floor. People lay on the floor so close together there was no room to walk, they had no legs or arms. They had injuries on their heads, faces, eyes… some had abdominal injuries and double amputations. I couldn’t bear to look at that scene.

As they lay there they were receiving more injuries from the shelling. The LTTE patients and civilians were lying there together. The hospital was continuously attacked for days. A ship was supposed to come for the severely injured, but it never came.

We buried the bodies of my family members in Manjolai. We buried my husband in Valaiyarmadam. We buried my brother and brother’s mother in law in Manjalai. We had to abandon one relative’s body, a cousin, in Pokkani and flee from the shelling.

I was injured and operated on in April – one month before the end of the war – I don’t remember that very well. I left five days after the operation, walking with a stick for support. I was in a sea of people. I was looking for my relations but I couldn’t find any. I just kept walking. There were abandoned tractors.

Because there were so many bodies, the LTTE gave food rations to people to collect the bodies and put them in tractor carts. The tractor drivers just left them there fully loaded with the bodies, and the carts of bodies were blocking the road.

And we went on under K-Fir attacks and heavy shelling. At the end (the mudivu), for the last fifteen days, there was no food to eat at all. I drank tea only; I was very thin. We dug holes and put sand bags around and slept in the holes we dug. Then my daughter, my mother, one brother, brother’s wife, and I crept under a lorry (a truck). We put sand bags around us and placed some motorbikes around us for more protection. A wandering man joined us under there. We were expecting to die. We never thought we could survive. While we were all under the lorry, the man who joined us was wounded and died. My brother’s wife was injured in her back and my brother lost consciousness when he was hit. We came out from under the lorry because it was falling over onto us. We ran because shelling was continuing.

From Mullivaikal we headed for the Army-controlled area on the road toward Vadduvahal. It was May 17, 2009. In front of me people were shot dead. I saw the Army shoot dead two elderly people and a young woman. They shot at us also, but we lay down and survived. Then I decided the road was not safe so we walked into the scrub jungle. We saw many dead bodies killed by the Army. We neared Vadduvahal, and the Army there waved and called us and they carried some of the injured. They said they would give us food. In Vadduvahal, there were about 300,000 people. We were very thirsty. There was a water hole next to the place where people were urinating and defecating. The Army dug a hole to get drinking water for everyone. There were no toilets, and urine mixed with that drinking water. We drank the polluted water because we were so thirsty, and there was no other water. I heard stories that when young girls went to urinate they didn’t return. I heard that a day later the parents found their daughters’ bodies in the bushes.

They put us in 150 busses and took us to the Zone Four camp first. It was the worst of all the camps and it was full. Zone Four did not have any facilities or food. They shifted us to Anandakumarasamy camp. They gave us food, but we couldn’t eat it because it was terrible, so we bought food from shops. Then some NGOs provided dry rations and clothes. UNHCR gave some cooking pots. One of my brothers was in Zone Four and they didn’t get these things. Once a week they gave us vegetables.

We would like to go Valaiyarmadam to the graves to do funeral rites. We cooked rice and curry for them after seven days, and we went where we buried them and we put the water and food on the ground. We couldn’t do the thirty-first day funeral ritual because we had to run away from there when the Army shelling came too close. We were in Vavuniya on the thirty-first day. We kept the ninety-days-ceremony in Vavuniya in the camp. We cooked several rice and curries and we gave these to the Pillaiyar Kovil. There was a separate Aiyar Division of the camps called the Anandakumarasamy Camp, and no one mixed up with them (because of caste rules). They built a very small Pillaiyar Kovil with a cadjan roof and we went there for funeral rites. We didn’t cook the food, we just gave all the vegetables to that Aiyar group and they cooked it and they did the ceremony. They lived in luxury compared to us with plenty of water and food. We had to wait in long queues to get water, but in the Aiyar camp they didn’t have to go anywhere for water, the bowser came to them. They got privileges, like the government workers.

Normal people were allowed just twenty-thirty liters per day for each family. Government workers received sixty liters per day per family. There was a filthy river in the camp and we went there for bathing. I bathed my child with good bowser water; then I borrowed water from my cousin for cooking.

Now my six-year-old daughter and I are living with my mother and my grandmother, who is blind. My mother’s age is sixty-eight. We don’t know my grandmother’s age.

We must do something for livelihood, so I am selling panaimattai (sharp strong sticks with barbs from palmyrah trees, often used for fencing). I am selling one hundred sticks for four hundred rupees (approximately USD$3.60). It is difficult, but I must do that – we have to eat. I bring my mother, and we bring along our two dogs for safety. If my husband was alive we wouldn’t have to worry about this. My daughter has named the two dogs, Oosibabu (“Sharp-Pin-Boy”) and Pattasu (“Cracker”). My mother makes boxes out of palmyrah leaves. Ever since my husband’s death, she has been severely mentally disturbed. She was hospitalized for four months at Anuradhapura because of her mental state. She was always crying. Now she is recovering, and helps me in my work.

-Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice

குட்டியின் அனுபவங்கள்.......

Kutty, a young man in his early twenties, sustained multiple injuries during the war. While he was a patient in hospitals atKilinochchi, Tharmapuram, Mungilaru, Puthukudiruppu, and Matalan, each of these hospitals came under attack, resulting in injuries and deaths of patients, medical staff, and assisting family members. During the war he sustained injuries to his head, shoulders, abdomen, kidneys, and left leg; his right leg required amputation high above the knee. Kutty is temporarily living in Vavuniya with younger sisters, where he is frequently visited and interrogated by Army intelligence personnel.

I was born in the Vanni in 1987, and spent my early childhood in Thirunagar, Kilinochchi. When the army moved into the area surrounding Kilinochchi in 1996, we were displaced to Mannar and lived there in a temporary shelter for the next four years. We abandoned our property, house, bicycles and all of our belongings. Our family of ten was divided in 2000, when four of my sisters went with our mother and father to Mannar, and four of us went to live with our maternal grandmother near Kilinochchi. After grade eight, I left school and began working to contribute to household income.

The first time I was injured was on March 5, 2008, when I was struck in the back by a fragment of a shell; subsequently I receivedmedical treatment for a month in Muhamallai. Shelling by the Army on that day killed forty-eight people, and injured many more people. They used phosphorous bombs on that day; I saw them exploding. If it gets on you it burns your skin and keeps burning.

The next injury was in late May 2008, when I was injured in my right leg and hospitalized for about three weeks at Kilinochchi hospital. A month later, I began work as a mason where we lived, outside Kilinochchi town. Then the Army began the attack toward Kilinochchi, so we had to run from there. My grandmother and I were quickly loading our belongings into a tractor cart when that shell came. I believe that shell came from the direction of Mallavi. I was injured severely in my right thigh and leg. Many people were injured and there was no one to help us. I fell unconscious when the shell hit my leg. A day later my friends took me to Kilinochchi hospital with my leg bleeding.

The K-Fir (fighter jet) came and attacked the Kilinochchi hospital on September 17, 2008, killing four female patients in the attack. At the same time, the Army was shelling from Murakandy, about twenty kilometers south of Kilinochchi. The K-Fir attack and Army shelling injured patients in the hospital, their family members who had come to help them and others who were inside the hospital. The force of the K-Fir’s exploding bomb threw me, and as a consequence, my thigh that was already wounded by a shell explosion was injured more severely. Because of the K-Fir attack that threw me from the hospital bed, my right leg had to be amputated.

There was no medicine in the hospital so we were transferred to Tharmapuram Hospital by ambulance. The Army was advancing into the Kilinochchi area. Next, the Army moved toward the Tharmapuram Hospital, where two people in the hospital were killed and 12 were injured while that hospital was under attack. Shells came from the Kilinochchi area and definitely from the Army position. When the shells were falling on the hospital I was moved to a makeshift hospital in Mungilaru. There was no medicine for injuries but a friend brought some medicine that helped reduce the pain and helped me sleep. My leg had been amputated on October 15, 2008; after the amputation I experienced severe pain.

Then the army started to shell at Mungilaru hospital. Twenty-five people were killed and around fifty were injured. This shelling originated in Kalmadu Army position. The Army had already captured Kalmadu. When the army was continuously shelling the Mungilaru makeshift hospital, forty multi-barrel rocket launcher shells were being fired in rapid sequence and the next forty started within five minutes.

When they stopped shelling the hospital, they next targeted an area where forty to fifty families were camped together nearby. The K-Fir jets came on bombing runs and the shelling was continuous. It was November 15, 2008. I was moved to Tevipuram.

I saw so many people who had died on my way. There was a big crowd of people moving on the road, pressing toward Tevipuram. The Army was shelling upon densely packed crowds of people moving on the road. The road was jammed with fleeing people so there was no escape. A friend of mine was driving a tractor on the road and a shell fell on him. I have seen so many people who were hit by shells and killed.

Next, I was treated at the Puthukudiruppu hospital. On February 16, 2009, the Army shelled Puthukudiruppu Hospital from positions at Mullaitivu and Oddusuddan. Forty-six patients admitted to the hospital were killed. It was the only hospital so injured people were brought there from a wide area.

People put up shelters close to the hospital for safety because they believed the Army wouldn’t attack the hospital.

The Army announced that Matalan was a No Fire Zone. After they made the announcement, I went there with my friends and put up a tent. Then the Army started to shell the Matalan hospital and people who had constructed shelters around it. The Army used phosphorous bombs and cluster bombs. I was there when the bombs fell and I saw them. Phosphorous bombs produced smoke that would make breathing very difficult. Some bombs burned human bodies. We were surrounded by empty land so we could see what was happening around us. People were crying with the bodies of their relations because there was no place to take them. My uncle and his son died from this phosphorous. They were in a tent over a shallow bunker; the phosphorous split bodies into pieces.

I saw many people injured and killed in Matalan. I saw people in a queue waiting to get kanji (rice and water) - children and women - wounded and killed when shells fell on them.

On March 10, 2009, the Army moved into Matalan, so we were forced toward Mullivaikal. I saw a lot of bodies on my way. There was no water or food, and it was difficult to bathe my wound. A house there served as the makeshift Matalan hospital. I didn’t go inside that hospital because there was no medicine and they couldn’t help with my injury. I had a bath at a well three houses away from the hospital. I had to wash my wound so it wouldn’t get infected, and as I was returning, I saw shells coming from Mullaitivu, Tevipuram, and Puthukuddiruppu, where the Army now had control, and they fell on the hospital. I left that place as quickly as I could. A friend who brought me on a bicycle was injured and he died. In that attack more than a thousand people were killed including nurses, doctors, patients, and others around the makeshift hospital. The Army stopped the ship that was bringing food and rescuing the injured people.

I couldn’t sleep because I was suffering from the pain of my wound, and I was always expecting shell attacks. I moved near Vadduvahal on May 13, 2009, and I hid myself under a lorry with a friend around 4:30 in the morning. At the time the makeshift Nedunkandal hospital was set up in a tent; it was the last hospital. There was heavy shelling from Mulliyavalai, Puthukudiruppu, Mullaitivu positions when around 9:00 in the morning a shell fell next to us and split into pieces. Shrapnel hit my stomach, my left leg, shoulder, and head. A few minutes before I was injured, I was watching an ambulance that was helping injured people when a shell fell on that ambulance, and I watched it burn. I was unconscious off and on for the next six days, and I didn’t have anything to eat or drink.

I managed to crawl little by little into a grassy place and lay there. I could hear people saying that the Army was shooting and shelling people when they tried to go to the other side. My lips had wounds on them.

On May 15, I was in the same place and I couldn’t get up while the Army was continuously shelling the people. On May 16 a friend lifted me and carried me, and put me on the side of the road. From May 17 –18, many people were injured and killed as a result of shelling by the Army. On May 19, at around 3:00 in the morning, I could hear women’s voices a hundred meters away. The Army was in the place where there were injured LTTE women in tents. I heard the women screaming, “Leave me alone Sir! Let go of me Sir!” (“Vidungo Sir!”). Then I heard gunshots and after that I didn’t hear any sound coming from there.

Around 8:00 am on May 19, the Army rounded up the area. I saw about seventy five meters away there were two men in LTTE uniforms with the Army. They made them take off their clothes and they shot them in their heads.

I couldn’t move but I could hear and I could see. The Army found me and brought me to Manjolai hospital almost immediately from there to Kurunagala hospital. When the Army was moving me I saw a woman surrounded by six Army soldiers, but I don’t know what happened.

The government fought with LTTE - that’s over – Kilinochchi belongs to Tamil people but the government is building Buddhist temples and settling Sinhalese people there. It is not fair. We have nothing to lose anymore. We have lost everything.

Now there is no freedom for Tamil people, and everything has become only loss.

----

The Social Architects (TSA) are comprised of a diverse group of writers, intellectuals and working professionals. While most of TSA’s members hail from the country’s North and East, the group also includes other scholars and activists who have been working on issues related to Sri Lanka. TSA seeks to educate, to inform and to provide timely, thoughtful analysis on a range of topics.

They write under the pseudonym "The Social Architects" because of the risk of retaliation against those that speak out against the government. In addition each author has selected a pseudonym for themselves and the victims and family members who appear in the story. Over the eight days between March 12th and March 19th we will be releasing one TSA story a day. You can read them all here.

Labels: TSA

Edited March 26, 201213 yr by ragunathan