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Message: <blockquote data-quote="uhox" data-source="post: 1176000" data-attributes="member: 32883">onna me topic ekata adala info tikak denawa...Meka PRO ltte PROFESSOR kenek liyapu ekak...LTTE eke vikashanaya genaPirapaharan, Chapter 15JR Visits China and the USby T. Sabaratnam(Volume 2)The Chunnakam MassacreTrade and Shipping Minister Lalith Athulathmudali was appointed Minister of National Security and Deputy Defence Minister on 23 March 1984. An Oxford educated lawyer-politician with an unbridled ambition to succeed Jayewardene as the president of Sri Lanka, Athulathmudali took the appointment as the gateway to realize his desire.  He plunged into the task of destroying the Tamil armed struggle with enthusiasm and demonstrated to the Sinhala masses that he was the real reincarnate of Dutugemunu, the ancient Sinhala King who defeated the Tamil monarch Elara and reinstated the Sinhala dominance.Sinhala politics of the 1980s should be understood to place the anti-Tamil activities of the Jayewardene regime in the correct context and perspective.  Athulathmudali, Mahaweli and Lands Minister Gamini Dissanayake and Ranasinghe Premadasa were competing to succeed Jayewardene, whose second six-year term of office would end in 1988.  They were competing to present themselves as the best Sinhala nationalist leader.Gamini Dissanayake had already chosen his role as the minister who implemented Jayewardene’s third policy track of destroying the basis for Tamil Eelam, the claim for a Tamil homeland.  Premadasa had taken upon himself the role of denying the Tamil demand for an autonomous federal region.  Athulathmudali had now received the opening to present himself before the Sinhala electorate as the leader who destroyed the Tamil freedom struggle, which he and Jayewardene called Tamil terrorism.Athulathmudali got into the act soon after being appointed.  He summoned a top level conference of service and police chiefs soon after he took over the new posts at the Defence Ministry.  He invited me to cover the function and the conference.  He announced at the conclusion of the conference, "Tomorrow we are going to Jaffna.  President Jayewardene had given me two specific tasks.  The first task is to defeat terrorism.  The second is to transform the ceremonial military into a fighting force.  We cannot fulfill those tasks sitting here in Colombo.  We will go to the scene of the battle.  Tomorrow morning we will be working out our strategy to defeat terrorism from Jaffna."I decided to opt out of the press corps that accompanied Athulathmudali to Jaffna.  I told him that the usual defence reporter would fly with him to Jaffna.  I told him that I would continue to cover his trade and shipping ministry and the All Party Conference (APC), which had been sitting at the BMICH since January 1984.  I told him that, being a Tamil, I would be looked at with suspicion by the military and that, being a Jaffna man, I would face the risk of death.  He readily accepted my reservations.  He said, "Saba. You are right."  My respect for him grew.Jayewardene appointed General Sepala Attygala as defence secretary and his son Ravi Jayewardene as national security advisor.Lalith AthulathmudaliAthulathmudali flew to Jaffna in the morning of 24 March 1984.  Attygala, Ravi Jayewardene, commanders of the army, navy and airforce and the Inspector General of Police went with him.  Senior army and police officers deployed in the Jaffna district attended the conference.  Half an hour after the conference started Jaffna’s Police Superintendent whispered to the IGP that a sergeant and two police constables had been killed in Point Pedro. The IGP passed the message to Athulathmudali, who was visibly shocked.The LTTE had carefully planned this attack.  It was intended to give a message to Athulathmudali.  A group of LTTE hit-men waylaid and attacked a police patrol in Point Pedro.  A sergeant and two police constables were killed in the spot and two other constables and the driver were injured. T he attackers fled with the weapons of the policemen.Two days later, on 26 March, gunmen shot and killed a member of the airforce in Chunnakam. Airforce men avenged his death two days later, 28 March.  They arrived at the Chunnakam market, the biggest vegetable market in the Jaffna peninsula, in a jeep and a truck and went to the Chunnakam police station.  Then they went to the market packed with people as it was a market day. They then opened fire on the civilians in the Chunnakam market square.Nine persons died and over 50 were injured and Subramaniam, known as Maniam, the market keeper, collapsed and died of a heart attack in the market square.The LTTE and other armed groups were now ready to attack the Sri Lankan security forces. The LTTE decided to punish the security forces for the Chunnakam massacre.  They decided to ambush the platoon of soldiers who belonged to the newly-formed Gajaba Regiment which provided guard to the trains plying between Colombo and Jaffna.  The soldiers who provide guard to the Yal Devi express train disembark at Jaffna station and travel in a convoy of vehicles to Palaly Camp.  Yarl Devi reaches Jaffna at around 9.30 p.m.  The convoy, led by a five-ton Bedford truck, went along Hospital Road to the town and then proceeded to Palaly.Car Bomb AttackOn 9 April the train was slightly late and the convoy of three vehicles left the station at about 9.45 p.m.  As it was traveling along Hospital Road, a booby-trapped car parked near the historic Adaikala Matha Church exploded throwing the massive truck twenty meters away.  The truck fell into the drain.  Thick branches of a shade tree that stood about 70 feet away were shaved off at various places.  Leaves on some branches were roasted.  Over ten soldiers who travelled in the truck died.  It took several minutes for the soldiers in the other vehicles to recover,The 9 April explosion was the LTTE’s and Sri Lanka’s first car bomb explosion.  Before that car bombs had been used by the IRA and Palestinian guerillas.The army retaliated.  Soldiers set fire to the shops and houses in the vicinity.  They shot and killed the people who tried to escape.  Two armoured cars stationed at the Buddhist temple, Naga Vihara, rushed to the scene of the ambush and fired several rounds with the 7.27 guns at the church, damaging the building and the statue of Jesus Christ.The Catholics were enraged.  On 10 April morning the entire Catholic coastal belt rose in protest.  A group of civilians first marched around 8 a.m. to the Sinhala Vidyalayam which the army used as a resting place and burnt the buildings.  Another mob vented its anger at the Buddhist Naga Vihara at Stanley Road around 8.30 a.m.  Eye witnesses told me that the people were so worked up that they marched to the Vihara with crow bars and iron rods and demolished the building to the ground.  Many used their bare hands to pull down the buildings.Two weeks after that incident I met the chief priest of the vihara in Colombo.  He showed me an album of photographs which showed a mound of rubble.  He blamed the LTTE for the destruction.Eight armed youths entered the Jaffna branch of the Bank of Ceylon when it opened the door at 9 a.m. and robbed 1.2 million rupees in cash.  They escaped in the bank manager’s car.The government declared an 18-hour curfew at 12 noon on 10 April in the Jaffna district.  A large contingent of soldiers was brought to the Jaffna town that night.  They burnt down the Jaffna Cooperative Stores and the adjacent buildings.  They fired at civilians, killing many.Soldiers tried to march towards Gurunagar, the densely populated Catholic village to the southeast of Jaffna city. The residents, led by Catholic priests, put up road blocks.  They parked vehicles across the road.  They burnt used tyres and logs of wood.  The LTTE took a lead in mobilizing the people.  Kittu and other LTTE cadres were there distributing grenades and petrol bombs.The LTTE and other militant groups succeeded in restricting the movement of the soldiers.  The army and the Colombo press were upset over this development.  An army officer described to the Daily News this new phenomenon thus: "The terrorists employed new tactics, not encountered previously, to prevent the free movement of army patrols."An Information Department publication Mission of Violence has this: "On the night of April 10, army patrols encountered road blocks, burning tyres were thrown on the road and at several points, were ambushed by armed youths, who used their firepower with the assurance of professional soldiers."Jaffna Government Agent Devanesan Nesiah said the military killed more than 50 civilians. The Jaffna Citizen Committee claimed that the number killed by the army was 234 civilians in the four days beginning 9 April.  State Ministry secretary Douglas told the weekly press briefing, "I cannot say every single person killed was a terrorist.  When soldiers are ambushed or come under attack they fire in all directions.  What else can they do?  After all how does one identify a terrorist?"On the same night a group of armed LTTE cadres exhibited the high degree of professionalism they had achieved.  At 8.15  they walked into the Point Pedro police station, firing automatic weapons as they entered. The policemen threw away their old shotguns and fled.  The Tigers used powerful explosives and blasted the buildings and burnt the two jeeps parked in front and walked away taking with a walkie-talkie set.The August 9 ambush gave a new dimension to the armed struggle.  The LTTE made use of the car bomb for the first time.  It mobilized the people against the army.  It successfully restricted the army's movement.  And, above all, the ambush signified the intensification and sophistication of the armed struggle.Athulathmudali reacted with anger.  He had been aware of India’s training program since December 1983.  The first ten days of April 1984 had demonstrated the high level of efficiency the armed groups, especially the Tigers, had achieved. The security council meeting he presided over on 11 April considered ways and means of curtailing the movement of the militants across the Palk Straits.  The result was the creation of a maritime restricted zone, also known as a surveillance zone, inside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters.Athulathmudali told the press that evening that no ship or boat would be allowed to be inside the maritime restricted zone without the permission of the Navy Commander.  The boats that travelled with permission would be escorted by a navy patrol craft.  He said the restriction was imposed to prevent smuggling of narcotics and to prevent the movement of terrorists between Sri Lanka and India.Foreign MercenariesAthulathmudali was questioned at that press briefing about the induction of the Israeli Internal Security Agency Shin Bet into Sri Lanka.  He admitted that Shin Bet was involved in the training of the Sri Lankan armed forces.  He said many Israeli officers were involved in the training of the Sri Lankan soldiers in Colombo.His admission was carefully structured in the form of a question.  He said, "Is it wrong to get our soldiers trained when terrorists are being trained?  The events of the last few days have proved beyond any shred of doubt that terrorists are given professional training in guerrilla warfare."The Sri Lankan government also hired in the next few months Keeny Meeny Services, a Channel Island-based British mercenary company, to train the Sri Lankan Special Task Force (STF), an elite police commando unit set up under the command of Ravi Jayewardene.  The former British Special Air Services personnel provided by the company trained STF personal in counterinsurgency methods.  British mercenaries and British pilots of this company also took part in combat.The British pilots piloted helicopter gunship and combat aircraft.  They took part in bombing raids in the Jaffna Peninsula.  These British mercenaries were paid a monthly salary of around 2,500 British pounds per person.  They operated in Sri Lanka with the tacit approval of Margaret Thatcher's government.  British weapon manufacturers sold huge quantity of armaments to Sri Lanka in April, 1984.  Twenty armoured vehicles, a large quantity of night vision equipment, SLGs, LMGs, etc. were bought.Pakistan also provided training and weapons to Sri Lanka, especially during President Zia Ul-Haq's period.  Reports said that more than 8,000 Sri Lankan troops were trained in counterinsurgency.  Pakistani-trained men wore black shirts and were responsible for indiscriminate killings.Athulathmudali, while engaged in upgrading the quality of the army, was also busy in raising its numerical strength.  When he took charge in March 1984 the strength of the army was about 15,000 with 11,000 regulars and 4000 volunteers.  He launched a rapid recruitment drive by lowering the educational and physical requirements of enlistees.A week after the imposition of the maritime restricted zone a naval patrol craft detained a boat which refused to stop when asked to do so.  The boat, fitted with two 25 horse power engines, was taking fresh recruits for training in Tamil Nadu.  Thirteen were arrested and investigators found among them a young boy aged 16.  Athulathmudali flew to Palaly to question him.  The boy said he was forcibly being taken to India for training.  He added that he had agreed to go with the three hardcore terrorists because they threatened to kill his parents.  For Athulathmudali the boy was a propaganda treasure.On 1 May 1984 gunmen shot a Tamil police constable in Kalmunai town, thus restarting the militant campaign to eliminate Tamil informers and Tamil police investigators.  He was the first policeman to die in the eastern province.  Next day, 2 May, police constable Navaratnam was gunned down at the Point Pedro bus stand.  Navaratnam, a member of the elite Special Unit established to arrest militants was about to board a bus to Jaffna.  Two youths who rode on bicycles shot him and escaped.  Two days later, 4 May, Police Constable Subramaniam, another police investigator of the Special Unit, was gunned down at Meesalai in the Chavakachcheri area. The LTTE killed him for providing the Military Intelligence Unit stationed in the Gurunagar Army Camp information about the hideout of Seelan who died on 15 June, 1983.The escalation of the clash between the army and the militants also resulted in another undesired result which helped the militants to consolidate their position among the people.  The army took control of the civil administration of the Jaffna peninsula, gradually pushing the civilian administration to the background.  Palaly and Elephant Pass military camps emerged as the new power centres.  The commanders of these camps dictated policy and regulated administrative functions, providing primacy to military interests.The overlord attitude of the military commanders antagonized civilian administrators.  The situation in which better-educated civil servants had to take orders from low-placed military officers created a group of time-servers who were waiting to undermine the military.  This process heightened the Sinhala-Tamil estrangement.LTTE eka wardanaya une ohomai...Lalith athulathmudali mahatha saha Denzil kobbekaduwa mahatha nayakathwaya dun Vadamarachchi oparetion eka INDIAN MEDIHATH weema nisa upset nogiya nam..ada LTTE ekak nehe</blockquote>

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