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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Gradually, after repeated assurances that names and photographs will not be published, the tales tumble out.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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