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SRI LANKA: THE
UNTOLD STORY
Chapter 53: The Kilaly
massacre
By K T Rajasingham
General Denzil Kobbekaduwa and nine other Sri
Lankan security service personnel being killed in Araly
Point Kayts on August 8, 1992, prematurely halting an
impending onslaught on Jaffna peninsula, burst opened
the floodgates of violent activities, both by the
Government and by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE).
And the year 1992 became a tragic year
of military disasters for the Sri Lankan armed forces as
they paid a heavy price for their miscalculations and
for rivalry within the ranks. Furthermore, they were
thinly spread to hold on to the conquered areas in the
North and Eastern provinces, where innumerable incidents
of raids and ambushes by the LTTE took place.
The several kilometers of military fences and
defense sentry posts that had been built by the army to
reinforce the blockade of Jaffna peninsula were
constantly subjected to commando raids by the Tigers,
with heavy causalities on both sides.
The Sri
Lankan army built up a massive security cordon to
protect its installations at Kaddaikadu near
Vettilakerni on the eastern coast of Vadamaradchy. As
the area and its surroundings were full of sand dunes,
the army bulldozed the sand into a two-meter high wall
for the entire 12 kilometers from the coast to Elephant
Pass army camp.
In front of the bund, a short
distance apart, were two large barbed wire fences, while
a minefield in front of the fences completed the
security set-up of the camp.
Dotted within the
bund were dozens of small sentry points and watch towers
with four to six men on constant look out for enemy
intruders.
On October 1, 1992, the Tigers
launched a surprise attack on Kaddaikadu camp. The
operation got underway in the midnight with the LTTE
fighters sliding and slipping across the white sand
under the cover of the darkness, holding their lethal
weapons steadily. They, especially the LTTE women
fighters, managed to pass over the minefield without
setting off a single explosion. The LTTE cadres
penetrated deeper into the camp by cutting their way
through the barbed wired barricades and passed sentry
points without disturbing them. They then scaled the
bund and descended into the camp compound and opened
fire on the inmates.
The Sri Lankan army was
shocked and utterly confused. The troops began to run
all over and fled in panic with the Tigers in hot
pursuit. The troops ran for their lives to the main camp
at Vettilaikerni and the Kaddaikadu camp was completely
overrun by the LTTE fighters.
The LTTE cleared
the camp and appropriated a huge cache of arms and
ammunition, before vanishing before daylight without
exposing themselves to aerial bombardment.
According to LTTE reports, they took away with
them US$50 million worth of arms and ammunition,
including over 200 modern rifles, light machine guns,
grenades and mortar shells. According to a government
report, the LTTE killed one officer and 11 soldiers in
the Vettilaikerni attack.
Palliyagodella,
Ahamadpura and Agbopura are villages on the outskirts of
Polonnaruwa. The Government had deployed troops to
provide security for the Sinhala and Muslim inhabitants
of these villages. But on October 5, 1992, the LTTE in
large numbers attacked all three villages
simultaneously. As many as 146 innocent civilians were
shot and hacked to death, and 83 civilians were injured
as well as 20 soldiers from the Sri Lankan army were
also killed.
On November 23, 1992, to mark
National Heroes Day Week, the LTTE launched a massive
assault on the security perimeters of the Palaly
military complex base, the largest military installation
in the Jaffna peninsula, housing over 5,000 combined
security personnel of the army, navy and air force.
The security structure of Palaly base was far
more extensive than that of Kaddaikadu camp, with a
complicated network of barbed wire fences, minefields,
underground trenches, high walls of sand barricades,
watch towers, and hundreds of sentry points occupying
the entire peripheral security ring, and it was said
that the Palaly security system was impenetrable.
But an LTTE commando unit launched a swift and
daring raid on the eastern sector of the defense line -
a four kilometer section extending from Ottakapulam near
Atchuveli to the coast of Thondamanaru.
Due to
the LTTE blitzkrieg, within an hour, more than 150
sentry points were overrun and destroyed, the entire
defense perimeter of the eastern front collapsed due to
the ferocity of the lightening LTTE attack. The
frontline Sri Lankan troops suffered heavy causalities
and withdrew in total confusion.
The LTTE, after
capturing a large quantity of sophisticated weapons,
made a swift withdrawal before dawn, before the Sri
Lankan army could mobilize its forces. In this attack,
according to government reports, 46 soldiers were killed
and five reported missing. The LTTE suffered heavy
causalities, losing nearly 60 cadres.
On the
same day, the LTTE attempted to overrun the army
defenses at Cheddikulam, but the Sri Lankan troops
fought back effectively and killed nearly 15 LTTE
cadres. Meanwhile, on November 15, 1992, the Sri Lankan
Navy Chief Admiral Clancy Fernando was killed in
Colombo, at Galle by a suicide bomber, Subaramanium Loja
Mohan alias Mohan, riding an explosive-laden motorcycle.
Also killed were flag lieutenant Sandun Gunasekera and
the driver of Fernando's vehicle.
Admiral
Fernando was responsible for several naval initiatives
to dent the LTTE's domination of the Kilali lagoon,
separating the peninsula from the mainland, and he was a
prime target of the LTTE. His death not only demoralized
the Navy but also impeded plans to develop a brown-water
navy to fight the LTTE Sea Tigers.
Following the
assassination of the Navy Chief, the police and the
army, supported by the intelligence agencies, began to
conduct operations to identify LTTE operatives in the
city. Mohan was a member of a nine-member LTTE hit team
operating in Colombo under the directive of Kanagaratnam
Sivakumaran, alias Kannan. When a police team moved in
on Kannan on November 24, 1992, he committed suicide by
exploding a grenade. Kannan had taken precautions to
evade suspicion by establishing residence in a plush
area in the city. The security forces arrested another
team member who provided information that revealed
future LTTE targets in the city.
After the
killing of Admiral Fernando, the violent ethnic war
escalated. Speaking in parliament on November 19, 1992,
Lakshman Jayakody a senior leader of the SLFP, gave the
human cost of the war since July 1983 as follows: 30,000
civilians of all communities dead, inclusive of
militants. 8,000 made limbless, 600,000 made refugees. A
further 200,000 displaced persons living with friends
and relatives, 170,000 in India and another 200,000
outside South Asia. According to Jayakody, the defense
expenditure stood at an annual $500 million. Armed
services causalities, according to the senior SLFP
member of parliament: 5,500 service and police personnel
killed since July 1983, desertions up to 1992 November
were 7,700, but he pointed out that desertion from the
armed services since August 1992 until November 1972
were 1,300.
On the night of January 2, 1993,
more than 50 people were killed and 15 injured in the
latest in a series of attacks by Sri Lankan naval
gunboats on civilians. Passengers traveling in a
flotilla of 16 boats across the Kilaly lagoon were fired
on in the glare of a spotlight. The attack lasted over
half an hour. A few weeks earlier the navy had killed 15
people who were crossing the lagoon on a ferry. The
members of the Ferry Transport Association refused to
work as a result of these killings, consequently
stranding over 800 passengers without food or shelter.
Subsequently, out of sympathy, the ferrymen
decided to take their boats out, and ended up being
killed in the massacre on January 2, in which there was
overwhelming evidence of navy personnel atrocities. Many
of the bodies that floated back to shore, were badly
mutilated.
The Virakesari - a Tamil daily, dated
January 6 and The Island of January 7 reported that two
Tamil MPs, Navaratnam and Premachandran, had protested
about the incident to the President and had called on
him to institute an independent inquiry. Unfortunately,
there was no favorable response forthcoming from the
President.
But the government responded in an
indirect form by news reports appearing in the front
pages of the Daily News of January 6 and January 7,
although the government controlled paper had not earlier
reported about the massacre. The first report was filed
by Lankapuwath, the Government News Agency, headlined
"Main highway to Jaffna open since July 1991", quoted a
spokesman, "The security forces had done their duty by
the public of Jaffna by clearing and reopening the main
A-9 highway and safe passage was ensured to the public
by the security forces. However, the public were being
prevented from using the highway by the LTTE who were
more interested in extorting money by forcing the public
to use their transport in no-go- zones and also by
preventing the transport of ample stocks of food and
other essential items ..."
The second report was
about the broadcast the previous day. According to the
second report, that Jaffna lagoon had been declared a
prohibited zone. It read, "The Jaffna lagoon has been
declared a prohibited zone under section 5 (Chapter 40)
of the Public Security Ordinance, under which no person
will be permitted to ply or use any vessel other than a
vessel belonging to the Sri Lanka Navy or any vessel
authorized in that behalf by the competent authority.
Any person who contravenes the provisions of this
regulation will be guilty of an offence. These
regulations will be cited as the Emergency Establishment
of a Prohibited Zone - Regulations No. 1 of 1992. A
certificate under the hand of the Commander of the Sri
Lanka Navy [Competent authority appointed by the
President], to the effect that any area specified in
such certificate is within the prohibited zone shall be
admissible in evidence and shall be prima facie evidence
of the facts stated therein …"
The Island
newspaper of January 8 also reported on a cabinet
conference of the previous day, "The military is
prepared to consider opening the Jaffna lagoon which has
been declared a 'prohibited zone' for civilian traffic
to and from the Jaffna peninsula during daylight under
strict naval surveillance, military spokesman Brigadier
Anil Angamana announced yesterday."
In January
1993 all local-level government functions were
decentralized to the district level under the leadership
of the Divisional Secretary. Other rounds of provincial
elections took place later on, increasing overall demand
for more effective devolution.
Subsequently the
seven Provincial Councils in the country were dissolved
on March 16 for fresh election. Nominations were called
for all these seven, but not for the Northeast
provincial council Chandrika Kumaratunge, who was in
self-exile in London, returned to Sri Lanka in 1992 to
inject new life into her family's moribund SLFP. Her
rise was meteoric and she contested in the Western
Provincial Council. In 1988, her husband Vijaya had been
gunned down - four days before their 10th wedding
anniversary.
CHAPTER
52: President blamed for assassinations
NEXT: Chapter 54: Peace talks
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