From: rs6x+@andrew.cmu.edu (Ranjith Ravindiran Suresh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil,soc.culture.sri-lanka
Subject: Someting to read: Sep 1991(The war)
Date: 6 Nov 92 11:25:11 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.Eeyi_r200iUxA5kFMr
Organization: Senior, Civil Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA


Hello everyone. 
In order to shed some light on the situation in eastern Sri Lanka(for
those who are not aware), I'm posting an old article from from New York Times.

It was written by Harry Miller, a Jesuit Priest from New Orleans(US), who keeps
records of deaths and disappearances in and around Batticaloa.
The artile was in New York Times on Sep 3, 1991. I've read it also then.


Article Text:

Batticaloa, Sri Lanka -- The other day, Rev. Harry Miller walked into
the parched scrubland outside this war-weary town. He walked until a
couple of young
men with automatic rifles materialized from the landscape to escort him
to their
camp.
It was the local headquarters of the guerrilla army of ethnic Tamils-- the so-
called Tamil Tigers -- who are fighting to establish a separate state on this
island. 
"They had kidnapped this guy," Father Miller said, his native Louisiana
lilt skewed bu a South Asian cadence nurtured over the last 43 years
here. "They wanted him to provide them with 75,000 rupees," about
$1,875. "He's a pensioner
working on our Peace Committee. I told them, "You're not going to get any
money from him even if you kill him.' Finally, I gave them 10,000 rupees and
he's back.
For Father Miller, it was a routine day, perhaps a bit better than a
routine because for the first time in while he had saved a life. More
often in the last year, though, it has been chronicling the deaths and
disappearances of thousands
of local people that has consumed the New Orleans Jesuit.

The Grim Statistics
In a corner turret of the high school he once ran, Father Miller records
each death, each disappearance, each buried body, each pile of ashes,
all the final
product, he says, of arrests and roundups of Tamils by the Sr Lankan army and
police. He tells the tale of what happened to Kockkadicholai village in July.

"There was this army tractor going along hauling some things and the
Tigers blew it up and killed the soldiers," he said. "The army came back
and massacred the 
people of this village, 123 dead and 40 in the hospital. They burned 350
kadjan 
houses, cocunut leaf houses. They just shot the people. Fifty-six of the
bodies 
were burned, 67 were burned. It was the army. No doubt about it.
"They feel free to burn bodies at the roadside because nobody will
testify against them. They feel free to throw boys in the wells beacuse
nobody will testify against them. They feel free to kick boys in the
head because nobody
will testify against them. They feel free to dispose of 2,700 citizens
of Batticaloa."
Behind his battered wooden desk, Father Miller flips through page after page 
listing the names pf people who are no longer found in Batticaloa, names
a small group called the Peace Committee have compiled and sent to the
local army and police commanders  information. The Committee, a group of
local people
put together by Father Miller, badger the army and police for
explanations. Rather do they get any: more often than not it is subtle
threats of violence
that filter their way.
"Already, two presidents of the Peace Committee have resigned," Father
Miller said. "They were afraid for their families."

Rebels rule by the night
For nearly a decade now, the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan armed
forces have battled for control of this eastern part of this island. The
Tigers say they fight for the rights of the Tamil ethnic minority, for
years discriminated by the majority Sinhalase; the Sri Lankan forces
battle to preserve national unity.
In daylight hours, the army controls the single 50-mile stretch of road
between government controlled areas to the west and Batticaloa. But,
when the sun settles into the mountains, the countryside, and the road,
return to the Tigers.
The Tigers tax the local population in gold, as they do elsewhere in the
territory they control. And while the practice of requiring families to
give up
one of their sons to the movement has not become widespread here, there
is a mixture of resentment and ambivalence towrard the guerrillas among
the people of this shrinking town. "They presume to talk for us," Father
Miller said, "but
nobody asked us/ We didn't chose them. But, they have the guns."

When he came here in 1948 as a fresh-faced missionary, Sri Lanka was a
drowsy place of farmers and fishermen. It was like 1890's America, like
the Louisiana my grandfather grew up in." Recalled Father Miller, who is
65 years old. "It's changed a bit and changed for the worse. In those
days, there was never any violence, except on the football field."
Last year, a fellow Jesuit from Loisiana, Eugene J. Herbert, disappeared while 
riding his scooter back to Batticaloa from an outlying convent. "I went to the
army and the police," said Father Miller, " and no investigation was
ever done."
It was last year, he said, that killing here reached a crescnendo and the work
of the Peace Committee began in earnest. "Last July we started to keep a
record 
of people taken into custody by the army. As of this month, we have
2,700 disappeared people. Some come back. Most of those people who
didn't come back are probably dead. In the early days last year, we saw
piles of burning bodies.
People continue to disappear, up until this week."
So gruesome has the situation become that local police chief talks of
his police
camp as Belsen, a reference to the Nazi death camp.
"That's where they take young boys to question them," Father Miller said. 
"They tie them up, drop them in well. 'Are you a Tiger?' 'No.' Drop them again.
'Are you a Tiger?' 'No.' Eventually they get a confession."
Father Miller shook his head. "There's no resolution. Neither side has
lost. Neither side can win." But, still, he insisted, he will remain
here to document the brutality that has overcome his once peaceful town.
"If I find I have no work, I'll go back to Loisiana," he said. "If peace
comes, maybe my work will be finished."

Edward A. Gargan
NY Times