KAMALIKA PIERIS

Edward Gunawardena pointed out that terrorism in the north started in the early 1970s. The insurgency in the north parallels the JVP insurgency in the south, said analysts. Both insurgencies probably had the same external influence, and that influence probably was USA.

Edward Gunawardena  observed that In May 1972, militant youths tried to topple a key high-tension electricity tower and also kidnap the children of a Tamil cabinet minister, Chelliah Kumarasuriyar.( Island 18.7.21 p 12  ). in 1975 Alfred Duraiappah was assassinated by a group which included  Prabhakaran.. Duraiappah had a significant vote bank among the Sinhalese, Muslims, the business community and the urban poor of Jaffna.

These militant youth groups engaged in many criminal activities in the north. There were many bank robberies and attacks on businesses in Jaffna in the 1970s. There were robberies of banks, co-operatives, petrol filling stations and even passenger bus collections as well.

There were attacks on police stations in the north in the 1970s. 34 police stations were attacked. Police officers including retired officers and police informants were brutally killed. LTTE   attacked police stations in the late 1970s said former army commander Cyril Ranatunga. A majority of the attacks on police stations were master-minded by the LTTE, observed Gamini Samaranayake. PLOT, TELO, EPRLF, EROS and other groups, also launched attacks on police stations. Large guerrilla units numbering between 50 to 250 participated in these attacks.

Police informers were also killed. The guerrillas branded informants as traitors to the Tamil cause for an independent state. These killings came to be known as `lamp post’ killings because most of the victims were tied to lamp posts before they were executed. A note was pinned to each of the bodies identifying them as collaborators.

These attacks continued into the 1980s. The PLOTE” group of Uma Maheswaran attacked Nikaweratiya police station. Date of attack not available, probably 1980s.

TELO stormed Chavakachcheri police station and razed it to the ground, in 1984. They killed the three police they found there. Police Sergeant Balasingham Krishnapillai had taken other 20 Sinhala police officers   to safety in an adjoining estate. they  hid there while the TELO combed the entire area searching for Sinhala police officers.  TELO had  later scolded  them  for failing to find and kill the Sinhala police. LTTE  would have immediately killed Krishnapillai as well.

By the end of the seventies the LTTE had become a well-knit terrorist outfit with a high degree of maturity. Splinter groups had been eliminated. Prabhakaran had become the supreme commander.

LTTE did not confine its activities to police alone. In 1978, the LTTE   had a meticulous plan to explode Air Ceylon Avro aircraft in Galle Face Green on Sept. 7, when a new constitution was to be presented. The flight got delayed, the plan misfired and the explosion occurred before the Avro took off from Ratmalana. Had it exploded as planned it would have hit the world headlines, observed Edward. Two men who had traveled in the Avro flight from Jaffna to Colombo were found guilty of placing a bomb under a seat before leaving the aircraft. They were found to be LTTE.

LTTE also went at the Sri Lankan Army, Navy and Air Force. The dates of these confrontations were often marked as `confidential’ information and only certain   incidents were made public, said Samaranayake.

At the initial stages, the attacks on the armed forces were aimed at army convoys , using landmines, ambushes and booby traps.  Majority of the army casualties of this time were attributed to landmine attacks. Edgar O’Ballance has recorded 14 landmine attacks from 1983 to 1986.

The army and navy camps in the Northern and Eastern provinces were  vulnerable targets. By early 1984,  militants had increased their operations against military bases. Three  of these attacks are significant  said Samaranayake. .The attacks which took place between January and February 1985 were launched against the Karainagar Naval Centre, the Kokkilai Army Camp and the Kilinochchi Police/Army Camp. The naval centre was attacked by the EPRLF.  TELO was responsible for the attack on the Kokkavil army camp in May 1985. In 1987 the ‘guerrillas’, in another combined operation, attacked the army camp in Kankesanturai, killing 18 soldiers. These land-based attacks were followed by confrontations at sea between the Sri Lankan Navy and the guerrillas.

The purpose of these persistent attacks on military bases was to compel the government to withdraw the armed forces from the Northern and Eastern provinces. The Tamil militants also hoped to provoke the armed forces into making indiscriminate assaults on the civilian population so that there would be a mass uprising against the government in those provinces, said Samaranayake. (Continued)