COLOMBO: Tamil Tiger Chief Velupillai Prabhakaran lost heart and threw his hands up in despair when his peacetime capital Kilinochchi fell to Sri Lankan forces on January 2, 2009, says Thamilini, leader of the women’s wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), in her book Oru Koorvaalin Nizhalil (Under the Shadow of A Sharp Sword).
Recalling those days when LTTE cadres and the Tamil Diaspora believed that the surrender of Kilinochchi was part of Prabhakaran’s plan to draw the Lankan forces into his lair and decimate them, Thamilini says that the leader’s assessment of the situation was totally at variance with that of his acolytes.
Eelapriyan, a close associate of the LTTE’s political leader, the Late S.P.Thamilselvan, told her that when he met Prabhakaran, the latter threw up his hands and told him: “ People think that everything is in my hands. But I have nothing!”
A saddened Eelapriyan told Thamilini: “ If Annan (Prabhakaran) himself says this, what can we do?”
Col.Vidhusha, leader of the Malathi women’s brigade ,who used to meet Prabhakaran often, was told that the LTTE would be able to recapture Kilinochchi only if it had “ 25,000 trained fighters and adequate artillery support.”
And this, when the Tigers’ ranks were depleting by the day and weapons were in short supply.
Thamilini notes that after the fall of Kilinochchi, the Tigers could not conduct any major operation. They were sitting ducks when the Lankan Air Force conducted precision strikes and the army’s Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRP) struck at the Tigers’ hideouts deep inside the Wanni jungles.
The aging commanders (all around 50) had to overwork and shoulder all kinds of responsibilities because, over the years, combat attrition had depleted their ranks and a second line of leaders with adequate battle experience were few and far between.
Those commanders who could meet Prabhakaran, did not have the heart to tell the chief the bitter truth “for fear of confusing him further,” Thamilini says.
Col.Vidhusha, who would courageously speak her mind before Prabhakaran, used to be chided for telling him the bitter truth. “ Don’t further confuse the already confused man,” other commanders would say.
Intelligence Chief Siva Shankaran alias Pottu Amman, like Prabhakaran, also thought that the game was up. But he wanted the war to end in unimaginable violence and willful self destruction.
Pottu Amman ordered the dispatch of wounded cadres and Black Tigers on suicide missions to meet the advancing Lankan troops. He asked cadres to shoot civilians and fellow cadres fleeing to the army’s lines. Some carried out the order, others did not, Thamilini says.
But Political Wing leader Nadesan, who claimed the support of pro-Eelam Tamil Nadu leaders, was banking on them to successfully lobby New Delhi for an Indian intervention in favor of the Tigers.
Thamilini, however, never believed in the sincerity of the Tamil Nadu politicians, who, she says, used the Lankan Tamil issue only to get votes in elections.
Having surrendered to the Lankan forces, Thamilini, whose real name is Subramaniam Sivakami, was imprisoned, rehabilitated and released. But she died of a terminal illness in October 2015. She wrote the book at the sick bed, assisted by her husband, Mahadevan Jayakumaran. Following the release of the Tamil version at Kilinochchi a few months ago, the Sinhalese version was released in Colombo on Friday.