Human bombs spawned by Prabha's cult

How relevant is the cult which thrives on murder than popular mass support?

By Kusal Perera

I tried to recall my last visit to Jaffna, being a very frequent visitor in the 1980s. The last time was immediately after the Indo - Sri Lanka (Peace ?) Accord in July, 1987. I was accompanied by two Tamil friends. Wonder where their silent souls are now?

We were on our way to Point Pedro and stopped at Nelliady, turned towards Vathirai and went to the Nelliady Maha Vidyalayam. It was in shambles. The whole school, except a long half-walled building, at the far end, was without parts of its roof. We stood before the debris, to read a list of names typed on a few sheets of paper and stuck on a remaining half pillar. The names were all of army men.

If memory serves me right, they were from the Gajaba Regiment, totalling around 128. All who had camped there, after the successful Vadamarachchi attack, in June 1987, and then had to die from the blast, that was engineered with an old lorry ramming through the barricades and into the school, on July 5.

The LTTE cadre who volunteered to drive that lorryload of explosives, had his photo enlarged and displayed all over Jaffna, honoured as a martyr. The first LTTE suicide bomber, a teenager, named Captain Miller.

How many more young girls and boys have since followed Captain Miller into martyrdom, during the past 13 years, I wouldn't know. Since then, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, President R. Premadasa, UNP Presidential candidate in 1994, Gamini Dissanayake and his entourage and in between a host of top security officers, have all been victims of LTTE suicide bombers. President Chandrika Kumaratunga herself survived an attempt on her life by an LTTE suicide bomber. The Central Bank building was rammed by an explosives-laden truck in January 1996, driven by a suicide bomber, killing over 87 innocent people and injuring another 1000. Long before that, JOC headquarters at Flower Road was hit the same way and devastated.

The "Black Tigers" or "Karum Puligal" as the suicide bombing outfit within the LTTE is called, are a phenomenon hardly seen in any other guerrilla or terrorist organisation.

There have been instances of suicide attacks by Hamas guerrillas against Israeli military outposts but that's in the Middle East. They are also from the Islamic faith, who believe they would go to heaven when they make the supreme sacrifice. That for them is motivation. Within the SAARC membership, to date, there has been only one instance other than the LTTE where a suicide bomber has been reported - from Kashmir, where again the motivation could be heaven after death. But never has there been such regularity and consistency in using suicide bombers as a weapon of destruction, as by the LTTE.

What motivates Tamil youth to join the Black Tigers? Hinduism, the faith of the vast majority of the Tamils and the only religion on this earth that has no spiritual leader, offers little motivation for suicidal sacrifices.

Hinduism does accept reincarnation, but not in a form that would motivate a person to sacrifice his or her life for a heavenly existence after death. Of course, in ancient Indian society, 'Sathi puja', widows sacrificing their lives on their husbands' funeral pyres, was more prevalent among the higher castes, like the priestly Brahmin and Kshastriya castes. 'Sathi puja' is almost non-existent among the scheduled castes and tribal people, in ancient India, according to writer Sudheer Birodhkar. Therefore, it is doubtful whether it was Hinduism alone that provoked 'sathi' within Indian society. It is nevertheless definite that 'sathi' was no heroic deed. The widow was never a martyr. She was compelled to do so with "sathi" given a halo of holiness.

Within the Sri Lankan Hindu communities, considered more liberal than those in India, one is yet to trace any evidence of 'sathi'. This demonstrates that within our society, there is hardly any tradition on which the LTTE could draw historic parallels to mould its "Karum Puligal" to sacrifice their lives for Eelam.

The LTTE draws its fighting cadres basically from the poor and the underprivileged Tamil communities from the north and the east. A majority of them are Hindus. There have been no reports of Colombo or urban based Tamil youth turning into hardcore Tigers, at least while in Sri Lanka. There have also been no reports of clandestine recruitments for the LTTE, within Colombo.

It has always been cases of "implants" from the Wanni or the east or a rare case of a very well paid "carrier" being behind all the tragic and brutal assaults in Colombo, its suburbs and even Kandy. To date, there have also been no reports of an urbanised Christian Tamil playing a "suicide bomber".

What then is the motivation to join the Black Tigers? This motivation, therefore speaks of a unique political cult, somewhat like that of Doomsday cults, developed by a man who has nothing but a fanatical dream. An obsession that would not compromise anything short of his dream, a Thamil Eelam.

The process of devout political motivation is no doubt founded on the father figure of Velupillai Prabhakaran. For Prabhakaran to achieve that sacred image within the LTTE, would have taken much effort, more than time.

The following quote from a Jawaharlal Nehru University research scholar, Sabil Francis, sums up the dogma of Prabhakaran: " There has been a radical shift in the ideology and tactics of the LTTE after the ascendancy of Prabhakaran, who reached the top after a power tussle in the 1980s. The LTTE then saw the struggle as one against the Sri Lankan army and not against the Sinhalese people. After 1982, reflecting the ascendancy of Prabhakaran in the organisation, the stress on Tamil nationalism increased. The scope for any compromise within the framework of a united Sri Lanka, thus shrank."

This ideological shift, within the LTTE, was clearly articulated by Prabhakaran himself in an interview with India Today when he was on Indian soil in 1986. Prabhakaran minced no words saying, "We have crossed the stage of being able to visualise a solution within the framework of a united Sri Lanka. We have come to a point of no return with regard to the Eelam goal." With this dogma, Prabhakaran had set his goal and allowed no one to challenge his authority within the LTTE. And according to Francis, ever since then, " no one has challenged Prabhakaran and lived to tell the tale. Having successfully eliminated the entire second rung of the LTTE, Prabhakaran's word remains unchallenged. "

Prabhakaran thus worked himself to be the most sacred image of Eelam - both within the LTTE and outside. On this exclusive image, rests the motivation of youth who would sacrifice their lives for Eelam and around this image, is a kind of Doomsday en mass cult hysteria that the LTTE consciously hypes up by ritualised campaigns. Video shows of "mock attacks" on army camps that would raise goose pimples on any trained cadre, Martyrs' Weeks, creation of heroes' cemeteries, naming of weapons after those who sacrifice their lives on 'heroic deeds' as defined by the LTTE, make up this package. There is promise of martyrdom after death. For those deprived youth, often in their early twenties, this sacred and heroic cult of Prabhakaran along with his hyped propaganda, could provide plenty of motivation. For the trained and assigned suicide bomber to dine with the Supreme Leader on the day of his / her passing out, to take an oath of allegiance in front of him would be the crowning glory of indoctrination.

But, how relevant is this "Prabhakaran cult" to the grievances of the Tamils? How far would the Tamils go with a cult that thrives more on suicide bombings than on popular and open mass support? The Tamils have been deprived of the opportunity of negotiating peace through a democratic process, for well over 17 years.They have lately been deprived even of deciding the ground rules for a negotiated settlement of the armed conflict, with Prabhakaran deciding when, where and who should discuss what. Looking back on the attempts at negotiating peace, it is almost 17 years now since the LTTE first walked out of the Thimpu discussions in August 1984. That's when the Indian government forced all armed groups, PLOTE, EROS, EPRLF, TELO and LTTE, to sit for a negotiated settlement. Ever since then, they have been in and out of negotiations with three Executive Presidents.

The fate of these negotiations was finally decided by the Prabhakaran cult, fierce and brutal as it is. It has taken on itself the sole responsibility of representing the Tamils wherever they are on this globe and deciding what they should have, purely on Prabhakaran's ability to use the Black Tiger suicide squad at will. The penetrating effect of the Black Tigers has driven all other Tamil political entities including the TULF to voice only what Prabhakaran would wish to hear. No doubt these mediocre Tamil leaders prize their life more than a negotiated peace, having witnessed Prabhakaran gunning down leaders like Amirthalingam, Yogeswaran and wife Sarojini, Neelan Thiruchelvam, Thangathurai, Sam Thambimuttu, Pathmanabha, Sri Sabaratnam and a host of others who add up to 39 national and provincial Tamil leaders killed by the LTTE. To that extent, Prabhakaran has now become a savagely important factor in any attempt at concluding this war. So much so that Sri Lankan situation observers from across the Palk Straits, like D. Azhagarasu feel "given the nature of the LTTE and its history, the future of peace in Sri Lanka depends either on uprooting the LTTE totally or granting Tamil Eelam as the LTTE demands. The former is not possible in the near future and the latter cannot be achieved".

Yet the Colombo based Tamil polity, coerced to numbed acceptance of the LTTE presence around them, would not be a "living" stakeholder in Prabhakaran's Eelam. Assuming that Eelam is allowed as the LTTE demands, there is very little chance of these Colombo based Tamils migrating to that "Tamil Homeland". These Tamils have been among the Sinhalese for well over two generations and their breeding in a cosmopolitan culture, has made them "diasporic". They have over many a decade developed and meshed their economy with that of the urban life, it would now amount to forced dislodging. Almost all the Tamils who were virtually uprooted with their entire wealth set on fire in July 1983, and sent to Jaffna through refugee camps opted to resettle in Colombo. They are no small community, either in terms of their presence in Colombo and its suburbs, or in terms of the whole Tamil population in the island. It is safely projected that of the total Tamil population of 12.6 percent, which is again a projection (There has been no national census since 1981 and all demographic figures are projections based on statistics up to 1981), a sizeable percentage close to 50, which could be around 1.17 million Tamils, live outside the LTTE defined Tamil homeland. If one adds another 600,000 to 800,000 expatriate Tamils who are abroad, not because they are humiliated, ill-treated or tortured, but because the war provides a readymade excuse to migrate to greener pastures, the total Tamil population outside Prabhakaran's dreamland would be around 2 million. And of those who live in the north and the east, projected to be around 1.2 million, what would be the sympathetic number, who would approve of LTTE politics, without coercion? It is therefore politically wrong to assume that the LTTE is the sole representative of the Tamils. It is equally wrong politically, to allow over one million Tamils who are outside the north and the east, to live under the threat of the Karum Puligal human bombs. It is only when they are kept outside the political discussion of possible negotiations, that Prabhakaran assumes that he is the sole representative of the Tamils.

It is on this assumption that Francis says,

" Prabhakaran does not want to be the Chief Minister of a Tamil state in a federal Sri Lanka - he wants to be the President of an independent Tamil Eelam. To a man who once looked in the mirror in Madras and said, 'I am history', nothing less than the chance to make it will be enough. And that is the tragedy of Sri Lanka." And that, is Prabhakaran's tragedy too.

With a "Karum Puligal" suicide squad that has vowed to blast any "Tamil traitor" who would compromise on Tamil Eelam, Prabhakaran would have to go on with his dream, come what may.

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