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Claws around
Batticaloa
By Kumudini Hettiarachchi
Batticaloa:
Boys and girls sit ramrod straight on their bicycles while pedalling
to school. Office workers hurry by looking at their watches. The
garbage collectors are out on the town in their ramshackle trucks
picking up the rubbish. The street vendors are doing brisk sales
and the fishermen cast their nets in the beautiful lagoon stretching
as far as the eye can see, conjuring up visions of singing fish
this area is famous for.
In the outskirts,
large herds of cattle are being driven to their grazing grounds,
firewood cutters balance heavy loads precariously on their cycles
and head towards the town and the Kallady bridge spanning the lagoon
creates a picture of absolute tranquillity. 
Peace has come
to Batticaloa and there is no doubt that the men, women and children
of this town are attempting to make full use of this opportunity,
though some describe it as a "small respite" before they
are hurtled into the boiling cauldron of north-east politics.
But the
veneer of normalcy is deceptive. Just scratch the surface and out
come tales of abductions, forced conscription, extortion, house
and land grabs, cattle seizure and a methodical system of taxation
where every government servant is compelled to pay eight percent
of their salaries and aerated water dealers Rs. 1 on each mega bottle
to "them".
No complaints
are made because no one heeds their cries and there is no one to
turn to. There is hesitancy and doubt, when people are questioned.
Men and women cast surreptitious glances over their shoulders, for
the spy network is said to be excellent.
Gradually, after repeated assurances that names and photographs
will not be published, the tales tumble out.
"There
is no law and order now. It's the rule of the Tigers. Those days,
they moved about freely only in the 'uncleared' areas, but now after
the government and the LTTE signed the peace pact, they are all
over Batticaloa, even in the town. Have you seen their office?"
asks an elderly man, most probably a retired public servant.
What of the police and the army? Is anyone complaining to them?
Apparently, not. "We are expected to take our problems to the
LTTE. They solve them immediately and arbitrarily," says another
resident, citing the case of a man whose son-in-law came home drunk
and assaulted his daughter. The man went to the LTTE. "They
came, thrashed the living daylights out of him and warned him not
to do that again," smiles the man, overcoming his fear for
the moment.
Here are some
of the incidents, reading like a cheap, fictitious thriller, The
Sunday Times gathered from the people of Batticaloa.
* A family which had one daughter and 20 acres of paddy were told
by the LTTE - "Give us your daughter or your lands." The
family was not ready to part with their daughter, so the Tigers
took the land. However, the harassment continued. One day they accosted
the girl's mother in a bid to grab her identity card, which is invaluable.
She managed to board a bus and get to town, with the other family
members joining her. The LTTE has now occupied their house and the
family is dispossessed from their village, living as guests with
friends in the town.
* o Six young girls returning from tuition are abducted in Palugamam.
Later the LTTE hands over the girls' jewellery to the parents asking
them "not to worry". Of six parents, only one, a mother
had complained to the Local Monitoring Mission. The father is said
to have later withdrawn the complaint. Nobody reports the incident
to the police.
*A child who had escaped from an LTTE training camp in Karadiyanaru
alleges that there were about 80 children with him. When the LTTE
was not able to get a child from some families they brought babies
from their 'saree cradles' and kept them in the camp, until the
parents showed up with the older children.
* The LTTE had seized the tractor of a farmer and demanded a ransom.
The man had reported the matter to the army and they, in turn, had
got it back and given it to him. But the LTTE had taken it for the
second time and the farmer had committed suicide two weeks ago.
*When the LTTE found that a child they had conscripted was disabled
they had given him a sound beating and thrown him out. The child
now needs psychiatric treatment.
*A lawyer who had been asked to pay up Rs. 1 million had left hearth
and home and vanished from the town.
*An 82-year-old man is asked to pay up Rs. 2.5 million. There are
negotiations and one LTTE group says don't, but another persists
in demanding the money. There is a delay and a grenade is thrown
at the house. Fortunately, no one is injured.
*Large herds of cattle and also houses and property owned by affluent
people have been commandeered by the LTTE with impunity. Every farmer
and fisherman has to pay up. "I give them coconuts and woven
cadjans. The number is assessed on the produce from the property,"
said a man who declined to be identified.
*When a court order is given in some dispute such as a land case,
the disaffected party goes to the LTTE and they reverse it, depending
on whoever goes to them first. "Come to us and we will settle
matters soon," is the kangaroo court message.
*Women have been given a strict dress code, through leaflets distributed
by the LTTE on International Women's Day, which fell on March 8.
It's saree for the married women when they move about in public
and salwar kameez or something 'decent' for the others.
"The people have a grievous foreboding about what awaits them,
but there is nothing they can do. There is no clear path,"
says a human rights activist who has been fighting long and hard
for the rights of the Tamils from the time the conflict erupted
in the early 1980s.
"In those days there were a large number of disappearances
and killings, mostly carried out by the security forces. We battled
it out with them and brought about a system where there was a certain
amount of justice being meted out to the people. Now everything
has changed. These are serious human rights violations by the LTTE,"
he stresses.
There is also no one person the people can pin the blame on. "The
LTTE is like an octopus with the tentacles spread all over. When
you trace one, another springs up elsewhere," another resident
said in despair.
A rare Sinhalese in Batticaloa explains that the Tamils feel marginalized
not only by the government but also by the media. "Still government
circulars are being sent in Sinhala and the Tamils have the feeling
that the media doesn't really care for them or are concerned about
them," she says.
Only one Tamil we spoke to in the town said, "It is good that
the LTTE is here. We must help them. It's the security forces which
are not keeping to the MOU and releasing the buildings they have
occupied."
When questioned about extortion and abductions, he said, "They
need money to maintain their cadres and we should help out."
"Any guerrilla group uses pressure to get their demands. But
what we must check out is why the LTTE is persisting in such activity
as extortion and conscription even after the government has shown
its absolute sincerity in going more than halfway to try and resolve
the conflict," an analyst in Colombo said.
Three issues arise out of the situation in Batticaloa - Tiger chief
Velupillai Prabhakaran has lost control of his cadres in the east
because they feel that they deserve more for their efforts; there
is a communication problem between Prabhakaran and eastern leaders
such as Karikalan (political) and Karuna (military) or Prabhakaran
claiming that he has asked them to stop such activity is just an
attempt to pull wool over the eyes of everybody. "All these
just don't jell," the analyst said.
He feels that there is an urgent need for the Tigers to rethink
their strategy in view of the "changed scenario". It's
time for them to move away from the image of an "antagonistic
force" which they have held for 20 years and get into the role
of doing the right thing by the Tamils in the long run. They should
take into account the mood in the south for peace, the cautious
optimism of the Buddhist monks and grab this chance for peace.
Leaving the
overall picture aside, for the people of Batticaloa it is a very
real matter of life or extinction in the face of more Tiger control
in the area. "If the Interim Administration comes through for
the north-east with the LTTE at the helm, will it work under Sri
Lanka's Constitution, police, law and civil administration or under
the Tiger system, because they already have one in place? These
should be addressed very seriously by the government," pleads
another resident.
Succinctly sums
up another wealthy businessman, "We have no choice. We are
slaves."
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