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The Pirabhakaran Phenomenon
Part 14
Sachi Sri Kantha[8 September 2001]
Casualty Breakdown in Eelam Civil War
The significance of 
‘Jaffna 1980’ 
book 
I wish to reiterate the significance of 
‘Jaffna 1980’ 
book authored by RobertHolmes, which I have cited in Part-13 of this series, to support my proposition that Alfred Duraiappah’s contributions to Jaffna society was ameager one. In my opinion, if the
 Broken Palmyra
which was published 10years later than
 Jaffna 1980
was an over-rated book by Sri Lankanacademics and polemicists,
 Jaffna 1980
has been highly under-rated by all.One contributing factor for this over-rating was that the lead author of 
 Broken Palmyra
was a young Tamil woman doctor, who had married aSinhalese and who had lost her life tragically in 1989.Both the
 Jaffna 1980
and
 Broken Palmyra
have two components incommon. One is that, both books describe the Jaffna society. The other isthat two of the authors of 
 Broken Palmyra
as well as the author of 
 Jaffna1980
shared the Christian values of upbringing. Since Robert Holmes, anAmerican missionary, had lived in Jaffna for a long time, with wisdom andexperience, he also could observe the positive aspects of the Eelam Tamilsociety impartially, than the tinted-eyes of inexperienced, youthful authorsof 
 Broken Palmyra
, who present a ‘We are the sinners’ message. The practice of casteism in Jaffna has been critically commented by Holmes, buthe more or less, has moderated the tone of criticism, based on his ownupbringing in the USA, where the racism against the Blacks in the first half of 20
th
century was no less demeaning than the casteism practiced in Jaffna.Dr.Holmes had left out several Tamil personalities who contributed much toJaffna culture. Why I chose that book is that, it provides a ‘birds-eye-view’of how Jaffna was like in 1980, to an American - who was not a tourist or a journalist. He had lived in post-independent Jaffna for 12 years. That is asort of record for an outsider, and his work on how Jaffna was in 1980 wascommendable. We will never see the Jaffna of his descriptions. He
did not 
write the history of Jaffna.
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My reasoning for chosing that book as my reference source on Duraiappahwas that if Duraiappah, as presented by Rajan Hoole, was such a civic-minded politician, he would at least have been mentioned once in that book.Holmes has not included other mayors of Jaffna and he had not evendiscussed about any politician, other than S.J.V.Chelvanayakam andAmirthalingam (in passing). No mention was made aboutG.G.Ponnambalam. That was the prevailing situation in 1978-80. The pointI wished to stress was, for an average Jaffna man, only Chelvanayakamcounted among the politicians at that time. And Pirabhakaran was yet toemerge. In the absence of another 
non-Tamil, non-partisan, educated observer of the Jaffna scene, who had lived in Jaffna for more than 10 years
, I can cite only his work.
LTTE’s view of its Tamil rivals in 1987
The seeds for the disinformation campaign that the LTTE is an ‘anti-Tamil’organization were first sown by the India’s Intelligence-wallahs and their Eelam acolytes, once the officers manning the Research and Analysis Wing(RAW) found to their chagrin that Pirabhakaran had left Tamil Nadu. HowLTTE viewed the situation in early 1987, when Pirabhakaran returned toEelam is revealed by the interview given by Kiddu to
 Asiaweek 
’scorrespondent Aruna Kulatunga in December 1986.Since Kiddu has left the scene now, I reproduce in entirety his answers toKulatunga’s questions on the Tamil cause. He was only 26 then, and heldthe position of Jaffna military commander of the Liberation Tigers of TamilEelam. In his interview, Kiddu had stated the obvious fact of the meddling by India’s Intelligence-wallahs, without naming the organization openly.
 Asiaweek 
: Why did you join the militant movement?
Kiddu
: Ours was never an ideological struggle against a majority because of race or religion. It had to do with economic factors – education, employment, our right to decide what we want to do.
 Asiaweek 
: Tamil politicians are negotiating with the government rightnow. Why have you refused to do so?
Kiddu
: The politicians have no say in Jaffna now. We are in completecontrol. They don’t even come to Jaffna. We haven’t negotiated withthe government because there is nothing to negotiate. We want aseparate state and we have already achieved our objective here inJaffna. But if they want to talk to us, they are welcome.
 Asiaweek 
: What action have you planned for the present and future?
Kiddu
: For now, it’s a case of containment. We have time on our 
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hands. Our cadres are very young, mostly in their late teens. All arecompletely committed, all have been personally affected by theviolence. The LTTE has more than 10,000 regulars all over thecountry. The whole population of Jaffna supports us.
 Asiaweek 
: What about the other Tamil militant groups?
Kiddu
: PLOT [People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam] hasceased to exist and its Jaffna leader, Vijayapalan, is in our custody. Weare now in the process of disbanding EPRLF [Eelam People’sRevolutionary Liberation Front], just like we did to TELO [TamilEelam Liberation Organisation]. The latter was acting against thecommon interests of the Tamil people to establish a state of their ownand govern it themselves. TELO was being influenced and virtuallycontrolled by outsiders. Secondly, it was carrying out anti-social actssuch as robbing people of money and levying taxes that were too high.EPRLF came under the influence of the same people who controlledTELO.We have asked EPRLF to disband itself and turn over its weapons tous. If it disobeys, we will have to take strong action. That’s the onlyway to prevent a third party from interfering in what is purely a problem between us and the Sinhalese. After all, we are still SriLankans.
 Asiaweek 
: Why insist on a separate state?
Kiddu
: [That] is our ultimate goal. We will not lay down arms until weachieve it. But, in the interim, we want the authorities to recognize thatwe have the right to a separate state of our own and to occupy areaswhere Tamils have been living for ages.
 Asiaweek 
: Do you think the new peace proposals are sincere?
Kiddu
: We think they are a farce. The government says there isdevolution of central power. But each department is ultimatelycontrolled by an appointee of the president. Even the chief minister will be a presidential appointee. So what is the control we are going tohave?The issue of 
 Asiaweek 
magazine [February 8, 1987], which carried Kiddu’sinterview also informed the readers that he had a $35,000 price on his head.About Pirabhakaran’s return, it regurgitated the Indian Intelligence-wallah’sstory line [see, Pirabhakaran Phenomenon-Part 13] as follows:“Early last month, Prabhakaran returned to the peninsula from his base in Madras, the capital of Tamil Nadu State in south India. His visit – the first in three years – came amid rumors of a power struggle between the LTTE’s India-based leadership and field commanders in
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