A Strange Travelogue

STROLL THROUGH THE KILLING FIELDS IN SRI LANKA

Since time immemorial, the island of erstwhile Ceylon, because of its diverse flora, fauna, rainforest landscapes, scenic highlands and sandy beaches, and above all the overtly friendly peoples, used to be called the ‘island of serendipity’. It was the place that Europeans flocked for rest, recuperate and suntan, and to find their ‘kama or karma’. Then came their independence from the British in 1948 with ethnic ratio of 75% Sinhalese, 20.5% Tamils (plantation labour imported by the British 300 yrs earlier), and rest minority groups. In 1972, the politically shrewd Bandaranayke changed Ceylon to Sri Lanka (SL) and made a new constitution for ‘Democratic Socialist Republic of the Sinhalese’, which turned 25% of the nation into stateless, hope-less refugee class with no citizenship or civil rights.   This was to eventually lead to three and half decades of the bloodiest civil war fought anywhere on earth, displacing over one and half million people, killing more than two   hundred thousand, and maiming more than a million Tamils as well as Sinhalese, ruining the tiny island’s economy to penury and creating indelible racial  hatred within is diaspora.

We (see box), Dec 1969 batch mates from the National Defence Academy, middle ranking officers in our late thirties n 1987 commissioned in 1970-71, all except me are part of the scarred and mauled veterans of the misadventure of GoI which sent a ‘peace keeping force’ to SL during 1987-90, which soon turned to ‘peace enforcement force’ and finally wound up taking the Tamil guerrillas head on, in the bloodiest war ever fought by Indian Army, Navy and AF. We buried or cremated many of our dear dead friends and comrades in the battle fields in SL, about 1500 of them, and brought back around 12,000 maimed and wounded, in a war which had nothing to do with us At that time we did not know, or reason why, we were ordered to go and die in SL. We believed that someone in GoI in Delhi would know why, or care.

Three decades later, on 10 Feb 18, now approaching our 70s, we once again went to SL, not to imbibe suntan, kama or karma as tourists, but as aged veterans, to uphold our dharma and bounden duty, to take a walk through the old killing fields in Northern SL,  to pay respect to  those whom we left behind.

 We flew SL Air and entered through Colombo like all tourists. A 15 seater, very comfortable mini bus with driver, attendant and an English speaking guide (very resourceful and dynamic Mr Lal), collected us at the airport and stayed with us till we returned to India on 19 Feb.

On 10^th Feb we stayed overnight in the excellent Carolina Beach Resort at Chilaw, one hour drive north of Colombo, and drank JWBL on the beach to reminisce our military career, with our wives yodelling like sopranos, because we were behaving like teens !!

Next morning on 11 Feb, the mini bus took us North to Jaffna, a long 7 hrs drive (with lunch stop at Anuradhapura), on the excellent Chinese built double lane Route 28, through Vavunia, Kilinochchi and Elephant Pass to Jaffna, all Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eleam (LTTE)’s strongholds of the past, every inch reminding us of old times in a formidable war that we too fought with LTTE with all out might, and did not win.

The photo alongside is that of a water tank used by LTTE in their stronghold at Kilinochchi, as a strategic observation post and sand bagged machine gun nest at its top. It was toppled by SL army commandos using plastic explosives placed at the base in their last round battle, LTTE vs SL Army after IPKF was kicked out unceremoniously by newly elected SL President Premadasa. 

Next door, besides the highway, is another strange war memorial, a larger than life armour piercing artillery shell embedded in a concrete block. They are symbolic and remain as sentinel of the violence of the bitter, long and hard fought war between LTTE and SL army after IPKF left.

In Jaffna, we stayed three nights at the reasonable ‘Tilco’ hotel situated next to the fort and lagoon within sight of the twinkling lights on the modern Allaippidi and Karaitivu causeways built by the Chinese. Seeing the string of lights across the lagoon, I was reminded of Atanu Guru of 125 Sqn, in a Mi-25 on 27 Oct 87, interdicting five LTTE heavy transports carrying massive quantities of ammunition and explosives on old Karaitivu causeway, creating explosions that killed more than 150 LTTE and could be heard 30 km away.

On 12^th at sunrise, we went for a walk like good old soldiers around Jaffna fort and incredibly bumped into a most friendly, well informed cheerful and energetic Lankan on a cycle, the SL Income Tax Commissioner of Jaffna!!  

For next one and half hours, on our persistent urging over 'decoction' coffee in a Tamil tea shop, blaring Tamil devotional songs, he gave us the current socio-economic-polico-demographic brief of Jaffna and SL, and efforts to change the demography, encourage farming and fishing, creation of import substitutions. We couldn’t have asked for a more educated insightful briefing on the past, present and future of SL, especially because Rajapaksa (ex-President) had given a drubbing to Sirisena and Wickremesinghe (current President & PM of SL) in the election on previous day, in which the 21% SL Tamil population, still denied citizenship, had abstained from voting.

We started our adventure from the Jaffna fort (built by the Portuguese in 1618) , where Jose was the BM and Mohan the DAAG & DQ of 41 Brigade under Bde Cdr Manjit Singh during 1987-89. Other than the moat and 25 feet thick indestructible outer walls of the fort made of coral and lime, everything inside has been reduced to rubble by repeated shelling and aerial bombing by SL forces after IPKF left.

 Jose took us around and explained how it used to be in 1987, buzzing with hyperactivity as his headquarters, and even managed to locate the old operations room amongst the rubble!! Jaffna fort is now open to public, a well maintained archaeological edifice, with no sign of the terrible war that was fought by SL armed forces to dislodge LTTE from within its strategic confines after IPKF left.

Our next stop was the burnt out ‘Jaffna Library’, the saddest edifice and sentinel of the civil war. This charred and burnt out complex once housed some of the most ancient written history, art, culture, philosophy, theosophy, perceptions of intellectuals of the entire south Asian region.  Now lost for ever during the military jostling between LTTE and SL army for control of Jaffna. 

Afterwards we went looking for the Jaffna University stadium, where the biggest tragedy of Indian special heli-borne clandestine operations in war had taken place.

On the night of 11/12^th Oct 87, 120 troop of 10 Para Commando (Special Forces) and 360 from 13 Sikh Li Delta Company (who had just arrived by air at Palali from Gwalior), were tasked to storm Jaffna University, then a strong hold of LTTE, where all the leaders of LTTE including Prabhakaran and his deputy Mahattaya were expected to be present for a meeting. The purpose of the operation was to snatch the top leadership and incapacitate LTTE.

Like all audacious quickly made war plans, nothing went right in this one too, because the LTTE had received prior warning of the attack and were well prepared, creating complete blackout of the area surrounding the university, machine gun nests on top of all surrounding buildings and well sited, well-armed, reception parties around the stadium.

  The Jaffna University operation was launched at 0100 hrs on 12^th Oct 87, with half-moon condition, but low clouds that drifted in obscuring the moon.  For one reason or the other, mainly severe battle damage to the four Mi-8s, instead of 120 Commandos from 10 Para and 360 troopers from 13 Sikh Li (total 480), the heli-lift managed to insert only a total of about 148-150 men. Many of them from Sikh Li were butchered by LTTE. There was a huge extrication exercise using tanks and BMPs which followed the un-mined railway line. 10 Para (SF), adept at such clandestine warfare on man-pack basis, went to ground and managed to survive with fewer causalities. Only one or two out of the 60 odd simpler Sikh Li infantry troopers lived to tell his tale. The mission was an ill-conceived disaster by all counts.

After the prolonged battles between the LTTE and SL army after IPKF left, there is now very little left of the old Jaffna University. It is all destroyed and new complex is being rebuilt in fits and starts with foreign aid. The stadium looked the same. An informal cricket match amongst boys was in progress. Life goes on despite cataclysmic predations of man, in his quest for a home land.

We then drove to Palali airfield to checkout; after all, that is where the IPKF story began in 1987. Palali then was simply an 1800 mtrs runway with rudiments of a habitat. It is now a full-fledged highly developed fortified cantonment with an impressive barricaded gate, most modern buildings and manicured lawns. Strangely we didn’t see any Air Force, or airplanes in Palali. It is now the headquarters of the SL Army, Northern Command, with three Divisions of Special Operations Commandos, and the naval base SLNS Uttara at Kankasanturai next door.

Within 20 minutes, we were invited to the officer’s mess for high tea, and even a wooden elephant as a parting memento by the General commanding the Northern Command. 

An escort was provided for us to pay our respect at the impressive memorial for the martyrs of 10 Para (SF), built by 10 Para ten years later using their regimental funds, but immaculately maintained by SL army within Palali airbase complex. Strangely intriguing, we also found six unmarked graves of Indian soldiers adjacent to the 10 Para memorial. Perhaps these were graves made by Indian Army during Op Pawan, without names or head stones. The SL General told us that they were not graves of SL personnel and were made by IPKF. We paid obedience at the memorial as well as the unknown graves. 

We also went to take a look at Jaffna hospital, which had seen some fierce fighting between LTTE and Indian Army in 1987, that unfortunately earned us much negative publicity from 'human rights activists’ world-wide. The hospital too has a new look, the depredations of war has been effaced physically, but remains as scars in the minds of the Tamil populace of Jaffna.

The only thing standing untouched in Jaffna by the civil war in Northern SL, is the famous Nallur Kandaswami Temple for the Tamil deity Murugan. We visited the temple, with all sincerity, to pay our humble obeisance, to the Lord and to pray for our dead brothers, adhering to the local customs and traditions.   

 On 13 Feb, early morning, we set out to visit Point Pedro, Valvedditturai and Kankasanturai, the northernmost parts of SL, where the naval wing of LTTE had  once held fort and which IPKF had to wrestle from them, effectively using tanks, APCs, artillery, Mi-25s and the armed ‘Ranjit’ helicopters of 31 Air OP.  Once IPKF left,  LTTE once again occupied these positions and were their main supply bases for war material and other logistics smuggled from abroad.  The SL army had to do a repeat, a series of prolonged bloody battles to drive the LTTE out. 

At Point Pedro, which once was a busy fishing port, there was nothing left standing except a pole installed by LTTE on which there were markers pointing the direction and distance of every littoral nation in the Indian ocean, all except India just 50 km away, in the direction that I am pointing at in the photo !!! 

At Kankasanturai, there was a war memorial proclaiming ‘Unity in diversity, is the strength of SL’, at the site where Tamil ‘Sea Tigers’ were finally decimated by SL army around 2008, much after IPKF was withdrawn. The beaches were empty of all activity, except a few soldiers dismantling a ‘large pandal’, lights, PA system, and stacking plastic chairs used for some VIP visit during the political electioneering few days earlier.

We then travelled East, to the infamous ‘Elephant Pass’, a narrow flat flood plain, a choke point surrounded by the vast Jaffna lagoon, connecting the road and railway line between Jaffna peninsula and rest of SL, which had repeatedly seen some of the bloodiest battles between LTTE vs SL army (1^st round), with IPKF (2^nd round) and finally back with SL army (3^rd and last round).  During the three and half decades of continuous civil war, military control of this narrow stretch of land was of utmost strategic importance for the survival of the populous Jaffna peninsula inhabited by Tamils.

In a fierce push between LTTE and  SL army on 13 Jul 91, LTTE  used four ingeniously modified bulldozers, with one inch armour plating, fitted with heavy machine guns and filled with explosives to overrun the SL army garrison and road blocks. The last of these monstrous contraptions reached Jaffna garrison around the railway station. Had it been detonated, it may have wiped out half the SL army. There arose an extraordinary 26 years old soldier of SL army, Cpl Gamini Kularatna, from 6^th Bn of Sinha Rgt, who managed to climb up the monstrous contraption from the back and lob a grenade, killing all the four man LTTE crew inside, as well as Gamini.  In recognition of his extraordinary bravery, and supreme sacrifice, Gamini was awarded ‘Param Weera Vibhushana’ (posthumous) like Indian Param Vir Chakra, the highest military award.  A memorial next to Jaffna railway station stands testimony.  In a hut nearby, on the press of a button, a large video screen comes alive to show live footages of the war and the action involving the monstrous armour plated bulldozer and how it was neutralised.

 Further down the road, is a massive, strange looking war memorial, encapsulating the final victory of SL army over LTTE at Elephant Pass, a bronze tear drop bubble representing SL, encased and protected within two military hands, symbolises territorial integrity of SL. a rather morbid symbol of Tamil oppression. 

We then went further east to Mullaittivu, where Special Forces of the SL army cornered and decimated LTTE. In the middle of a pond, with white lotus and strange water lilies, stood a huge grotesque memorial that leaves an ever lasting impression on all. The memorial emboldens all, with a huge bronze stature of a SL soldier with an AK-57 in one hand and the SL flag in the other, promising that ethnic strife and civil war will not ever happen in SL, as long as SL Army is in charge. The army plays a significant role in SL politics now.

 There were no sign of policemen in Northern SL, just the army. Silent, unarmed, but watchful, at every memorial, every street corner, even on the highways. The discipline amongst the Tamil populace in Northern SL is visibly discernable. No honking of horns, very orderly traffic that stops automatically if there are pedestrians crossing, no jay walking, no cattle on the roads, no argumentative people now. We saw a silent Tamil funeral procession, on the sidewalk and not in the middle of the road. Once in a while, they let off fire crackers, perhaps to help liberate the soul and accelerate its progress to eternity. Perhaps the fire crackers were to simulate the gun fire of three decades of civil war, to imply martyrdom in war. It was symbolic of a demoralised society, reeling from the aftermath of prolonged civil war, which failed to improve their stateless destitution.

Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the revolutionary LTTE, his wife and three children, were hunted down and killed on 18 May 2009, at or around Nandikadal lagoon, near Vellamullivaikkal in Puthumatalan (near Mullaittivu), by a select group led by Sgt Wijesinghe from Commando (Special Forces) unit 4VIR, then under the command of Lt Col Aluvihare. That ended the civil war in SL. There was nothing on ground to indicate the end of that terrible saga. 

However, we got to meet ‘Anbu’ and his wife ‘Laxmi’, two LTTE cadre who surrendered to SLA, few of the survivors of that war. LTTE were so motivated for Eelam that they fought till the last man was killed.  Anbu was an exception. He was a weapon instructor and expert in making improvised explosives. His wife was from the infamous suicide bomb squad when they met and fell in love. Fearing retribution from LTTE supremo, they ran away and lived under the protection of SL army till the end of the war. 

Anbu and his wife now eke a living  fishing, living in part of a building, a Tamil resettlement project by Govt of  SL. He offered us a glass of ‘Toddy’, a peace offering, which we gladly accepted. Like all soldiers, we had no personal quarrel with Anbu, his wife or toddler who were enemies of IPKF and had killed or maimed Indian soldiers.

A surprising find, mainly because of our resourceful guide Pal, was a secluded spot off the highway, covered from all sides by impregnable thickly grown palm forest, about a km from the beachfront at Mullaittivu. It was the deserted naval R&D centre of LTTE where an incredible array of ingenious engineering of military hardware was crudely exhibited. 

To begin with, was a dry dock / water tank which could be flooded through a sluice leading to backwaters of the Nanthi Kadal lagoon. A huge wave generator (inclined circular plates on a huge shaft)  was lying aside. This tank was used to test the stability and control of extremely agile, highly hydrodynamic low silhouette fibre glass high speed motor torpedo boats and midget submarines (photos above). Also on display were torpedo tubes, rocket launcher on articulated hinge, powerful marine engines, rockets, bombs, aircraft engines and props etc indicators of LTTE’s incredible indigenous engineering ability to do research and development to produce their own home grown weapon systems and continue the war indefinitely.

 On 14^th, we relocated to Rajarata Hotel in Anuradhapura. We stopped at Vanunia air base, Since the base commander was not available, we could not gain entry into the airfield complex to relive incredible memories of our experiences during IPKF days when Vavunia was a most active base for air and ground operations.

During the closing phase of IPKF in SL, when a newly elected President Premadasa found it expedient to make truce with LTTE, and to provide it arms to fight IPKF, then Lt Col Ramkumar, a missile man, was suddenly mobilised from India to go and set up a training camp in Paranthan to arm and train Eelam Revolutionary Organisation of Students (EROS), a similar bunch as LTTE, to fight LTTE when IPKF withdrew.  Ram does not know whose idea it was. Ram armed and trained 3 batches, with 250-275 EROS cadre in each batch, at a large hastily put together camp at Paranthan, constantly sniped at and harassed by LTTE. He lost his 2^nd in command and many trainees in fire fights with LTTE, but did what he was asked to do, till he withdrew from SL with IPKF in 1990. We went looking for his training camp in Paranthan, a few km east of the highway. All makeshift buildings were destroyed in war and the jungles had obliterated all traces of his large old training camp. Ram believes that many EROS trainees of his, who were not killed by LTTE, joined up with them after he left, to fight the SL Army!

Puliyankulam, north of Vavunia astride the road and railway line, was a strategic defensive point, a line of control between North and South; controlled by LTTE, IPKF and SL army, turn by turn. Baljit as a Lt Col was in command of 12 Jat of Indian Army at Puliyankulam in 89-90. He was under constant attack by LTTE, since his job was to keep the strategic south to north road / rail lines open. Ambushes of road opening parties by LTTE had claimed many lives of his men, including his favourite subordinate, Maj Michael Lewis.

Baljit couldn’t rest content till we went to   Puliyankulam. Like a man possessed, he got off the bus and ran into the jungles, in what once used to be his camp, surrounded by barbed wire and anti-personnel mines. We followed him. Baljit took us unerringly through shrub and jungles, old barbed wire fencings, barking dogs, mine field, to a spot where he had buried Michael and cremated large number of his men. I could feel their presence, lined up in a squad with Michael leading. And when Baljit saluted them, I could hear the silent whispers of the dead Jats, ‘CO Sahib did not abandon us, he has come to bid us farewell’. It was indeed the most emotional and poignant moment of our life as old soldiers, raison d’etre of our visit.

Afterwards we went to central Colombo, to visit the well maintained IPKF war memorial alongside a similar memorial for Lankans, to lay wreaths for 1500 odd old colleagues from Army & Navy in whose memory this monument was built by GoI, and pay for its upkeep. Despite the herculean air support for IPKF, the IAF fortunately had no causalities in SL (perhaps it was because LTTE had not yet acquired shoulder fired missiles). Many of the helicopters were shot at, suffered mechanical damages and forced landings, but all air crew survived)

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 We then travelled, like all tourists  southwards,  to Hikkaduwa, to the Lavanga resort near Galle, to imbibe a bit of the sun, sand and limitless eternity of the Indian Ocean, to forget war and be like all ordinary senior citizens seeking global peace and prosperity for mankind.  Perhaps the trip helped exorcise the ghosts of comrades and enemy from our minds. In the end, we were, and still are, pawns of political ambitions of individuals everywhere. Ours is not to reason why, but to do and die.

To our slain comrades in SL, we raised a toast, ‘Cheers, we may not come back, but will meet you soon in Valhalla’.

CYCLIC