CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

Can these correspondents show early symptoms of Necrophilia?

by P.A. Punchibanda, Sri Lanka

Dismissing mounting criticism of Wednesday's bloody army offensive on the Jaffna front, Army Chief Lt. General Sarath Fonseka asserted that it suffered 43 fatalities with 33 more soldiers missing in action. He vehemently rejected claims that the army lost almost 150 officers and men in action and over double that number wounded. The correspondent of the CNN TV channel and the Agence France Press (AFP) have reported that the fatalities suffered by the SLA were more than 150 and claimed that this information received from a Reliable Sri Lankan Police source.

When, B Raman, Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, reported the same figure on his Pro Indian web site Lankaguradian blogspot and said LTTE fatalities were limited to 16, it was well understood by Sri lankans, as a perpetual habit, the pro-LTTE websites always do this to prop up the ever loosing image of the LTTE terrorists in the international arena.

Dr. Sumanasiri, a consultant Psychiatrist in Colombo, however, suggested, the only reason some of these people could visualise very high number of dead bodies in a conflict like in Sri Lanka, because they may be showing early sign of a psychiatric condition called Necrophilia. Necrophilia, also called thanatophilia and necrolagnia, is a type of psychiaric disorder characterized by a special attraction to corpses and particularly, a sexual attraction to corpses when it is acute . The word is artificially derived from Ancient Greek: (nekros; "corpse," or "dead") and (philia; "love"). The term appears to have originated from Krafft-Ebing's 1886 work Psychopathia Sexualis

For psychologist/philosopher Erich Fromm, necrophilia is a character orientation which is not necessarily sexual. It is expressed in an attraction to that which is dead or totally controlled. At the extreme, it results in destructiveness and a hatred of life.

For Fromm, necrophilia is the opposite of biophilia. Unlike Freud's death instinct, it is not biologically determined but results from upbringing. Fromm believed that the lack of love in the western society and the attraction to mechanistic control leads to necrophilia. Other factors include; the impact of modern weapon systems, idolatry of political affiliations, and the treatment of people as things in bureaucracy. Interestingly, 'Lanka-e-News' claims that issuing false reports on the killed war heroes is disrespect to them and this statement alone can indicate early symptoms of Necrophilia.

However, Necrophilia is not unknown in animals. Necrophilia was practiced in some ancient cultures as a spiritual means of communicating with the dead, while others employed it as an attempt to revive the recently departed. A few cases of Necrophilia were reported in the West.

Carl Tanzler was a German-born radiologist at the United States Marine Hospital in Key West, Florida . He developed a morbid obsession for a young Cuban-American tuberculosis patient, Maria Elena Milagro "Helen" de Hoyos (1910-1931), that carried on well after Hoyos succumbed to the disease in 1931. In 1933, almost two years after her death, Tanzler removed Hoyos' body from its tomb, and lived with the corpse at his home for seven years until its discovery by Hoyos' relatives and authorities in 1940.

In UK, Sexual penetration with a corpse was made illegal under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and in US there is no federal legislation specifically barring sex with a corpse, but individual states have their own laws.

At the running rate , Sri Lanka may have to introduce new legislations to protect their dead relatives in near future.

Some of the exaggerated reports are given here for reference

Sri Lanka lost 185 soldiers in Jaffna battle: military sources
by Amal Jayasinghe Fri Apr 25, 10:13 AM ET
COLOMBO (AFP) - At least 165 Sri Lankan soldiers were killed and 20 more went missing in a major battle with Tamil separatists this week, military sources told AFP Friday as journalists attacked widening censorship.
The toll makes Wednesday's clash the bloodiest in recent years and saw the authorities extend "unofficial" press censorship to hospitals and funeral parlours, a media rights group said.
The death toll from the sources were far higher than official defence ministry casualty figures, who have long been accused of massaging the statistics.
The ministry said 43 soldiers died and 38 were missing from Wednesday's fighting in the northern peninsula of Jaffna.
"Some of the senior officers have been told that the army lost 185, including 20 who are still listed as missing," said a military source who declined to be named. "We are trying to establish the fate of the missing."
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on Thursday returned via the international Red Cross the bodies of 28 soldiers they had captured.
The government also reported killing more than 100 rebels and wounding 100 more in the pre-dawn offensive along the Muhamalai front lines on the peninsula.
The Tigers said only 25 of its fighters were killed.
Official defence ministry casualties reports and LTTE figures can seldom be verified because the government prevents journalists from visiting war zones and territory held by the rebels.
The ministry claims 3,105 rebels have been killed already this year -- more than intelligence estimates of the number of LTTE fighters, which was put at 3,000.
Wednesday's confrontation was by far the biggest battle since Colombo withdrew from a Norwegian-arranged truce in January.
The defence ministry said that the air force carried out aerial strikes against a suspected Tamil Tiger base in the northern mainland Friday. It gave no casualty figures, but said the bombed base was near a clandestine airfield operated by the guerrillas.
The Free Media Movement (FMM) said the authorities had prevented photographers taking pictures of military casualties moved to hospitals in the aftermath of the fighting.
Soldiers also provided tight security at undertakers to block the media.
"It is highly likely that these measures have been taken after heavy losses faced by the Sri Lankan army earlier this week after fighting intensified in the north," the FMM said in a statement.
The group said it was urging the government as well as the LTTE to respect the right to information.
"The FMM believes that the right of the public to know information and news relating to the ongoing war is severely undermined by the restrictions placed on journalists."
It said only foreign wire services and a few news websites operating from Colombo reported battlefront casualties independent of government press releases.
Despite the heavy losses in Jaffna, troops made a fresh push into rebel-held territory in the north and captured the Catholic pilgrim town of Madhu, where a venerated shrine is located, the military said Friday.
"Soldiers of the Sri Lanka Light Infantry reached the shrine as the terrorists beat a retreat unable to withstand the army advance," the defence ministry said in a statement.
There was no immediate comment from the LTTE.
The church, in the coastal Mannar district, has in the past provided a sanctuary for thousands of civilians sheltering from crossfire, the ministry said.
It accused the LTTE of turning the shrine into "a terror base by positioning its heavy guns around the church and using it as a barrack for its cadres" since they took control of the area in 1999.
But there were no reports of casualties from Madhu.
The LTTE have been fighting to carve out an independent homeland for Tamils since 1972. Tens of thousands have died on both sides in the conflict.

143 bodies of Army personnel brought to three undertakers in Colombo
(Lanka-e-News, 2008 April 24, 3.45 PM) Media Center for National Security says that 100 LTTE cadres were killed and 196 were injured while 43 Army personnel were killed, 33 were missing in action and 160 were injured in battles in northern fronts yesterday (23).
The enquiries 'Lanka-e-News' made from three undertakers in Colombo connoted to a higher death toll of Army personnel in battles in Kilali Forward Defense Line (FDL).

'Lanka-e-News' learnt that Army handed over 75 dead bodies to a major funeral director in Colombo and 38 and 30 bodies to two more undertakers in city suburbs.
The sources from the undertakers said that there was a delay in supply of uniforms to drape the remains. There was heavy traffic around these undertakers since bodies were being brought to these undertakers. The number of dead bodies received by these three funeral directors is 143. They are the dead personnel of Muhamalai front and the dead bodies of the Nogarkovil front have not been recovered so far.

'Lanka-e-News' believes that issuing false reports on the killed war heroes is disrespect to them.

Disclaimer: The comments contained within this website are personal reflection only and do not necessarily reflect the views of the LankaWeb. LankaWeb.com offers the contents of this website without charge, but does not necessarily endorse the views and opinions expressed within. Neither the LankaWeb nor the individual authors of any material on this Web site accept responsibility for any loss or damage, however caused (including through negligence), which you may directly or indirectly suffer arising out of your use of or reliance on information contained on or accessed through this Web site.
All views and opinions presented in this article are solely those of the surfer and do not necessarily represent those of LankaWeb.com. .

BACK TO LATEST NEWS

DISCLAIMER