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The female Tiger fights on
The mortars they once fired are now silent but their determination remains as they train their sights on the caste and dowry systems in the North. Frances Bulathsinghala reports

Their hair is plaited and neatly tucked in. They sit, spines erect, gaze attentive and smiles reticent. If somewhere on the horizons of their gaze, they see the phantoms of their past, they do not give evidence of these visions. If the echoes of past gunfire reverberate and encroach into their sleep and continue in the day harboured in the silence of peace, they do not show it.

The tiger-striped uniforms have now been replaced with their 'non-military uniform'. A masculine looking shirt is pulled over equally masculine looking trousers. The military persona that is attempted is achieved by the black belt pulled tight over the shirt. This attire identifies them as members of the LTTE. If the cyanide still hangs round their neck, they keep it out of sight beneath the shirts buttoned upto their necks. Asked for their names they give you those they have been given by the LTTE, names which signify both militarism and patriotism. Where other Tamil women have cradled their newborns, these women whose lives have been fettered by death have cradled heavy mortars and sniper weapons, nursing death - for the past 20 years of war.

Kalavilly is the head of the female section of the LTTE political wing in Jaffna. She is 30 years old hailing from a humble family and like many of the other LTTE female cadres heading political operations in the North East, has actively taken part in the heaviest of battles in Jaffna. And where her earlier duties were to lead platoons of fighters she now steers awareness in what she describes as the 'Tamil women's awareness of their rights'. Asked to explain, she describes it as the Tamil women's knowledge 'of their motherland'.

It has been a transition from one horizon to another; from war, to peace, these past three years for Kalavilly and her co-fighters -and one clearly detects fissures of militarism in this young woman's statements.

But it is also clear that where she earlier manoeuvred death, she today attempts to manoeuvre a casteless existence among the highly caste conscious Jaffna community. The caste issue, according to Kalavilly, is the 'new war'.

Kalavilly has been with the LTTE movement for over half her life. Her decision to join the LTTE had been taken after her elder brother, active with the movement was shot dead by the Army just before the Jaffna exodus of 1995. Her father had been a fisherman who had fled to the LTTE-controlled Wanni region with his family in 1995 when the people of Jaffna were forced by the LTTE in the face of the military taking over the peninsula, to leave the area and head for the Wanni.

In an unemotional even tone she explains that in the LTTE movement the girls play an equal role to men in both fighting their guerilla war and undertaking suicide missions. And if there is regret for her war-torn youth and femininity, it has been lost in the smoke of yesterday's gunfire.

Asked the rather fickle question whether she misses the exotic sarees that Tamil women wear, even in everyday life, she replies that she hardly ever wears them. "We have been trained to fight for a goal. That expensive life is not for us. We have survived with the minimum. There may be other Tamils who are rich who do not know the suffering that we were exposed to, who revel in a cushy life but for us it is not a matter of draping ourselves in finery," says Kalavilly adding that they reserved the saree for special functions and even then, wore it in the simplest possible manner.

"Even for functions we do not have the type of jewellery that they have," adds 27-year-old Selvarajah Muller, an orphan who had been brought up by the movement from the age of eight, referring to the high caste Tamils who would never be caught leaving the house without being adorned with gold.

She has paid the movement back by sacrificing her limb. With her left leg replaced by plastic, Selvarajah quips that they (the girls in the LTTE) do not have nor want jewellery.

Asked the unpleasant question about suicide missions, I am told by Imer Ye Ven, a co-ordinator of the LTTE who was present during my conversations with the female cadres, to please change my topic because 'they do not want to talk about those things'. Asked if death was not a reality that the movement faced and courted with a passion from the organisation's inception in 1983 I am told that death is only a reality 'forced by circumstances'.

"It is not true that we just want to die. We too want to live," retorts Kalavilly and for a moment the force of life seems to have unshackled her hero-worship of death. Her next sentences border on a vulnerability not expected of her. "Do not just call us killers. It pains us."

The conversation halts at the subject of suicides and war and rapidly moves in the direction of present-day social inequality among the Tamils and the question of dowry which is described by the LTTE as a menace.

"One of our aims now is to mobilize the Tamil people against this menace. Earlier we had the war to fight and win. Now we have the war of dowry to fight and win. We have not won yet," says Selvarajah Muller who is now in charge of the political administration of the Kayts region, transiting from wielding heavy machine guns in all the main offensives between the government and the LTTE.

"We now handle the mobilizing of people towards accepting the harshness of our regulations. The eradication of the dowry culture is one of our main concerns," says Selvarajah admitting that 'some' Tamils were opposed to their 'ways of doing things'.

Asked if this means that the LTTE is aware of any arising unpopularity she quickly dismisses the question and states that 'some' Tamils living 'posh' lives find it difficult to adjust. The issue of marriage is tackled systematically much akin to one discussing a recipe.

"First the movement, then the land and then marriage." This phrase is from 23-year-old Maran Pumahal who blushingly admits (after being prodded by other female militants) that she is waiting for 'peace to come' so she can be allowed by the movement to begin family life with her fiancé who is also in the LTTE. Keen to make sure that I do not get the 'wrong' picture, as she puts it, she adds that the females in the LTTE can marry those 'outside' the movement provided they serve the movement for about four years.

"Although you interview us, it is we who feel like asking you questions. We want to ask you about the lifestyle of the average Sinhala girl, the levels of education they like to aspire to and what they know of us." This rather unexpected barrage comes from 23-year-old Anpu Nadarajah which gives vent to a series of questions I have to answer about myself, my family, profession and for the feminine clan of my race as a whole. Having never travelled to the southern regions, asked if they remember what they studied about Sinhala history and historical places they switch back from being curious girls to members of the LTTE.

Their response is that everything in the textbooks about the history of the country is lies to mislead the Tamils about 'the Tamil history'. Asked how they know this, they reply that 'their leaders have told them so'. And when the conversation dwindles and the tea served by them is drunk, I stand up facing the larger than life photograph of Vellupillai Prabhakaran to shake hands with these young women who are neither responsible for the making of war, or peace.

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