Torn apart by unrest, Tamil family longs for freedom
by Stephanie Nolen
Vavuniya, Sri Lanka: When he saw the pair of young women walking up to his front door, Anthony T knew his family had not escaped.
Months before, he had at last succeeded in scraping together loans for $50,000 (U.S.) and paid a smuggler to get his son to Canada as a refugee claimant. He got his oldest daughter into pre-college bioscience studies. He thought, then, that his children might be spared.
But 18 months ago, recruiters for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam came to the home of Mr. T, 57, a coconut and rice farmer whose identity has been confirmed by The Globe and Mail but will not be published due to concerns for the safety of his family.
The young women spoke at length to Mr. T and his family about the Vietnam war. "They told us it was a long war that no one thought the Vietnamese could win, but that they endured and it was a people's war and they won in the end," Mr. T recalled a few days ago with a small, painful smile.
He had managed to send his son out beyond their reach but now the Tigers wanted one of his daughters. "I never thought they would come for her."
During the past 18 months, the government has used a massive military offensive to squeeze the LTTE in all directions, and yesterday announced that the army had seized the northern town of Mullaitivu, the rebels' last stronghold - although no journalists are allowed in the area to try to confirm this.
"The Sri Lankan army captured the Mullaittivu bastion completely today," Lieutenant-General Sarath Fonseka, the army commander, said last night in a speech after LTTE fighters had been driven out of the town earlier in the day.
The guerrillas have come back from near-obliteration before, but this time it seems likely that their control over the north is ended.
The end didn't come soon enough for Mr. T's daughter. The recruiters came back to their home, in a village 12 kilometres from Mullaitivu, three more times. His daughters were terrified, he said, and didn't want to go; their parents were equally afraid. So the Tigers turned up the pressure, taking Mr. T himself away for "questioning." They only held him for a day, he said, but their message had been effectively delivered: when he arrived back home, it was to find his three daughters arguing over whom should go, so that their father would not face incarceration or worse. They decided in the end to send the eldest, who was then nearly 18, because her educational background might get her a job as a medic, and perhaps some security away from the front lines.
So she went, just as the Sri Lankan government intensified ground and air attacks on the area where the LTTE had long run a sort of autonomous semi-state. And so began Mr. T's days of worry, an anxiety that has sharpened to corrosive fear as the Tigers lost their capital, Kilinochchi, three weeks ago, and then, day by day, were pushed back up against the sea. "It's all I think about, all I can ever think about," he said.
Mr. T, a quiet, grey-haired man wearing a pale blue sarong, relayed all this in Vavuniya, the "exchange point" where some civilians are allowed to pass between army and Tiger territory. He came down a few days before, bringing a nephew in urgent need of medical treatment; as the oldest family member, he was the least likely to incur the suspicion, and possible detention, by the Sri Lankan government when he crossed out of rebel territory.
Since he arrived, he has learned his family has been almost constantly on the run, driven from one area to another by aerial bombing and by the Tigers.
The practice has been condemned by the United Nations, which estimates that as many as 300,000 civilians have been trapped now between the opposing forces. "Pretty soon there will be nowhere to go but into the sea," Mr. T said quietly.
The LTTE has been fighting since the mid-1970s for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority, which continues to be oppressed by the Sinhalese majority that dominates the national government.
The Tigers have been listed as a terrorist organization by countries, including Canada, because of their use of suicide attacks on civilians, and have long been condemned by human-rights organizations for their forcible recruitment of soldiers, including a great many children.
He has lost all hope that the LTTE will maintain their "independent homeland" in the north, and in some ways, he won't miss them, dragging off people's children and constantly demanding "donations" for the cause, as soon as he had saved a few rupees.
Yet at the same time he fears the repression that will come with living in a militarized north under government control. "Intelligence has a list of whose family is in the LTTE," he said. "If we cross over here, we will be under surveillance and persecuted."
All the options are bad, he said simply. "There is no saviour, neither the LTTE nor the government." But neither side cares how he and people in his village feel, he added.
"It doesn't matter who we are living under, it has to be without violence. We are not troublemakers. We want to live in peace, independence and dignity. We want the same facilities and rights that people enjoy in the rest of the country: education, jobs and access to land. If we have this, then there won't be any problem."
Now he waits in Vavuniya, desperate to go home, or as close to it as he can manage, in case his daughter is either released by the Tigers, or manages to slip away.
"Maybe, maybe, I will be able to get to her and somehow I can get her away. We can all get away." [courtesy: The Globe and Mail]
5 Comments
Both are fighting to save the tamil people but by fighting they are killing the same people trying to save. LTTE and GOSL egos are so high that they would sacrifice N number of life to proof their might.
They always quote this "Tamil people are all around the world but no country for them" but the real truth is
"Tamil people are all around the world but no one is their to save from these 2 barbarians".
Dear Stephanie Nolen
I appriciate your courage to tell the story of an avarage Tamil. This is a collective punishment by the GOSL for more than 60 years to Tamils in Sri Lanka. When the rights of Tamils are given, the secondary effect of recruitment of LTTE will cease. There is no case for LTTE to recurit the Tamils for war against GOSL. Firstly,UN and IC have to uphold the humanity and basic rights for minorities living in Sri Lanka rather try to tackle the Terrorism which is a method used by a section of people to demonstrate their grievances.
I noticed that the media and the IC are afraid of the bullying tactics of GOSL thereby accusing the Tamils and Government equally every instances. There are no hard evidence to support that the IC ever try to stop the massacre or genocide at an early stage. This is also applicable to the Isreal and Palestine conflict.
A distinguished Professor in Jaffna - later on to hold many senior
positions in Colombo with great acceptance to all communities - in a discussion with me on the Tamil issue a decade ago observed "whatever methods we adopt in the interest of the Tamil community and their future, no harm should come to Tamils in their livelihood, their daily living etc. The human factor here is the central focus" said the learned man who is still with us in his
80s. Today, Tamils are reduced to sub-human conditions. Their villages-farms-fishing gone, homes gone, schools gone, places of worship gone. I am reminded of an old statement attributed to Benjamil Disraeli "No cause is worth its name even if a limb of a child is lost in its pursuit" (or something very similar) Many Tamils today lament their quest via the Parliamentary path (1952 - 1976) would have brought less pain, less misery and very likely better results to all Lankan Tamils.
ISS
Undoubtedly, far too many Tamils in Mr T and his family's require urgent reprieve. This war has gone on for far too long. The international community should stop funding the Sri Lankan terrorist regime and end the war. Sinhala fascist regimes have inflicted untold misery on Tamils in their own homeland. What business does the Sinhala terrorist regime have in Tamil homeland? Why is the international community shamelessly supporting state terrorism in Sri Lanka? When are they going to help end this relentless exercise of State terrorism against Tamils?
One hope and prays Mr. T would be reunited with his daughter sooner!
"The LTTE has been fighting since the mid-1970s for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority, which continues to be oppressed by the Sinhalese majority that dominates the national government."
You mention this as if it were fact. The facts are
1) There are more Tamils outside the North than in it, Tamils who are working, running large companies and working for the government of Sri Lanka.
2) Tamils, including Karuna and Pillayan (formerly of the eastern LTTE wing) are Members of Parliament and Cabinet Ministers (Pillayan is Chief Minister of the East, Devandanda, Thondaman and Chandrasekeran are Cabinet Ministers)
3) The searches that do take place are not oriented towards Tamils but to the LTTE. The government doesn't search people to see whether they're Tamils but to see whether they're LTTErs.
I agree that at times the government has gone overboard (ie eviction of lodgers) and but has apologised for it after and there have always been Sinhalese voices raised against these wrongs, too.
Remember, LTTErs, like Al Qaeda and the Mumbai Muhajadeen, tend to blow up things and kill people, including buses, trains and moderate Tamil politicians (The Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka was Tamil and a close friend of the current President: he was killed by the LTTE. Fernandopulle, the highest ranking Tamil in the Government since, was also killed by them in 2009. The Tamil deputy secretary of the Government's Peace Secretariat, was also killed in 2008.)
If these moderate Tamil voices were around now, the search for solutions would be much further along than it is now. But the solution is to have Tamils (along with Sinhalese and Muslims) in Parliament and that, regardless of everything wrong they may have done in the past, the government is doing now and doing well.