Discipline in the North
Lesson for the South

For twelve years, a part of our Island has been put behind a screen of ‘The Palmyrah’, that I was not able to penetrate till Monday 15 February. It came in the early afternoon after we crossed the Omanthai barrier into the uncleared LTTE area.

Today, however, I have no regrets that I was kept waiting for four hours at the first LTTE check point at Pariyankulam on the way to Mallawi because an Australian journalist thought she could hitch a ride to the Wanni. Nor have I any regrets that I was kept waiting on Tuesday and Wednesday in a house because of a bureaucratic mishap, or rather a blunder, that had occurred in Colombo, and the LTTE were not properly informed as to how I would be traveling.

I accepted their apologies when theoretician Sudar, in Tamil with Pullithevan of the Political Wing translating, told me that they regretted having to delay us for verification. I thought it was funny, when a smiling Sudar told me that if in the South there was a power cut for two and a half hours per day, the Wanni has had a power cut since 1983!

With the four-hour delay, our convoy of three vehicles traveled at dusk through dirty roads lined with beautiful mangroves along the Madhu Road. The water lilies and the strange twisted tree trunks reminded me of Piccasan tableaus, strange and beautiful. The vehicles stopped once too often for the convoy to get together. ‘Shielah’ the Aussie was lost, then found by the LTTE, coolly filming the scenery while we sat cursing her.

As dusk turned to dark I peered into the dark forms in the quarter moon’s light later on as we approached the town of Mallawi, where high profiles usually sit to discuss peace.

If rural roads in the South are bad, roads in the Wanni are non-existent. They are dirt tracks that the recent rains have turned into death traps. I saw nothing except the silhouettes of trees and the flames from kerosene oil lamps and fireplaces. This was not a sightseeing tour and there could be nothing sinister if the LTTE were unwilling to allow us to see more and by daylight. After all, if we traveled at night it was because of our own idiocy.

We had a guide in the car driven by a schoolmate old Wesleyite, Mano Rajasingham, who had three Aussie TV persons here to film a documentary. The guide was a tiny one-armed war-veteran called Sunderam. Taciturn, and only smiled at my attempts to pick conversation in broken Tamil whenever we stopped to wait for Sheilah. A million twists and turns later we were welcomed by ‘Daya Master’ who after dinner promised to fix up the interviews that I wanted. “Tomorrow morning, at nine.” 

But, it was early in the afternoon, when two tall well built smiling young men and an older well-dressed school principal, got off at the gate and walked into the house. I was slow to recognise the trio and they turned out to be Sudar, Pullithevan and Ramu Sinnappa also known as ‘Master’. Most of the leaders are former school principals and teachers with leadership capabilities.

Here, were three of the LTTE’s main supports to the leader Prabhakaran, theoretician Balasingham and Tamil Selvam. We were warmly welcomed, yet the undertones of their speeches were that they were in command and would direct us to where ever we wanted to go.

In a wartime situation no one wants journalists stepping on secrets, or land mines. Ironically, confidence will take a long time to grow on both sides. Technically, we are enemies, with outstretched hands of friendship. I will only try to foster good feelings and trust with whatever I write.

Wanni is plagued by poverty and illness and the people more often than not settle for one meal a day. With an average income of Rs. 800 per month it cannot be difficult to understand why there is no crime in the Wanni. There is nothing to steal. There is no murder either. The stiff sentences given by Tamil Eelam Courts of Law are dissuasive and there are civilian informers all around. Basically used is a reformed people-friendly version of the Thesavalamai Law, which has been in operation since time began in the Chola Kingdom.

“We are optimistic” the three leaders said “that Peace is at hand, but this is just the initial stages”. They reiterate that Madam Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga positively began talks when she came into power in 1994 - “we will wait and see”.

‘Where could it go wrong?’ is a question we could ask ourselves and I would be the first to reply that we use the same yardstick to measure the LTTE’s commitment as we do the UNF government without allowing the Media personnel to mislead everyone with reports based on hearsay. We have to realise that many prominent people will not have the same perks if the war ends. No bullet proof cars, no commissions, no trips abroad, no foreign mistresses and Bank accounts in short.

Building trust between the parties is most important and from what I gathered is that the LTTE will continue to recruit and train their young ‘just in case’. On the other hand a senior officer of the Sri Lankan army who cannot be named for security reasons advised that the army should maintain vigilance and train their own “just in case”.

In the schools in the Wanni, there are no chairs, no desks, just a pockmarked blackboard and a teacher with a few bits of chalk. They are however marching at sun up, marching in the afternoon sun and marching at sun down. They have no cricket pitches, no football fields to play on in most places there. Why should this be so? The children in the Wanni have seen no television, have just heard a radio, and watch LTTE glorifying films at a street junction like in the USA where there are ‘drive-in’ movies. These films are shown with a power generator. In most homes there are dangerous bottle lamps. The streets are unlit yet young women and girls are seen out as late as eleven on bicycles travelling after late tuition classes.

“We want to be educated. That is most important,” Saraswathie a fifteen-year-old said. In the Wanni there is no curfew, we saw no queues at checkpoints only at a mobile medical clinic. Vegetables are not heaped in market places but growing in every home back yard. Life here is as tough as it is in Moneragala or in Hambantota, but there is a television to come home to relax.

Who is to blame? The three leaders and I agree that it started with the Colonials and their divide and rule policies. The elite Sinhalese joined the elite Tamils and hijacked the rights of the poor Sinhalese and Tamils.

Today, there is no caste system in the Wanni. Women cannot be asked dowries when they seek permission from their esteemed leader to marry at thirty. Is this the ideal? Earlier in the North and East there has been discrimination on caste basis that was much worse than in the south.

On Wednesday, I left to see the elusive Puwanan. The battle hardened, discreet, soft-spoken veteran, very like the other two Sudar and Pullithevean. He had seen it all. The rotund hero said the literacy rate of the people had fallen from a high 98 % to 75%. He joined the movement as an ‘A level’ student from Vasawana Central College in 1988 and was active on the battle field till 1993 when he was appointed Head of the Administrative Branch Tamil Eelam. His cry was that, of the 350,000 souls in the Vanni 80 percent were displaced and there was never enough money for anything other than a hand to mouth existence after “Chandrika cut the refugees money by half”. He spoke of a legal system that functions and has no backlogs. Arrests are made and the suspects ride ‘double’ on the policeman’s bicycle. Criminal elements leave the Vanni to the Government areas to escape punishment. Taxes are levied fairly. He cited the example of kerosene that rose to Rs 350 per litre in the hard times, and Rs 50 now that the embargo has been lifted. That is only Rs 5 more than it is in the South. The drop in price is because smugglers have been cut out of deals. He noted however that the buying capacity of the people of the Vanni had not improved. They are far below the poverty line.

I later found that Coconuts were sold at Rs 10 - 12, Dhal at Rs 25, Sugar at Rs 48, Flour at Rs 20. The farmer cannot afford the Urea so his rice is going to be a few bushels less at the next harvest. Could they not have Bank Loans, interest-free initially? The Vanni is paradise where ecologically they have been protected from the toxic gases and air pollution caused by excess traffic. Their age old Austins run on kerosene. So be it. If the bus system is to be improved let this be the pilot area. The road network will need to be improved.

The A9 was opened on Friday and I was able to see Master Ramu Sinnappah at breakfast. He harangued me on the need to be punctual and talked to me about discipline. I found out the hard way that the Vanni is more disciplined than the rest of Sri Lanka. That is the first lesson we can learn from the LTTE.