by Rohini Mohan
The supreme leader’s special friendship with his right-hand man Pottu Amman had decayed around 2007, when he replaced him with Ratnam Master. If all of Vanni was heading to PTK, her father was puzzled as to why Annan’s most trustworthy commander had not been put in charge.
Mugil realised that Father was speaking to her as if she were still privy to the inner workings of the LTTE. She wanted to tell him that she wasn’t sure her leaders even had a coherent plan—that if Pottu Amman was dragging unwilling children into war, this was probably the last stage. But her father wouldn’t believe that. She wasn’t sure she did entirely. So she told him that Pottu Amman was still holding onto PTK while other zones had been captured. ‘So maybe it’s good we have him here,’ she said.
‘He’d better not surrender and sing like the others,’ Father said.
As soon as he said this, the old man, the pregnant girl’s grandfather, seemed to stir awake. ‘Don’t count on it,’ he scoffed, shaking his head in a way that annoyed Mugil. ‘There are so many spies and leaks on our side now. It’s better the leaders keep their plans close to their chests.’
This was a familiar refrain. Traitors—throhis—were the ghosts of Vanni. Everyone believed in them but few had evidence. They were considered the hidden rot in an otherwise perfectly healthy system, and leaders didn’t think twice before putting a gun to their heads. Anyone could prove a traitor—it could be a friend, relative, or comrade—and, since there was always the threat of army torture, no one could be sure of not becoming one some day. Every combatant feared succumbing to coercion and divulging strategic secrets. So throughout training, each fighter was warned that a moment of weakness could mean the death of thousands of Tamils, perhaps even his or her family. The fatal cyanide vial, which every cadre carried, was the potent symbol of this dread of the throhi. Biting on one, and committing suicide on capture meant you avoided the shame of betraying your community.
Treachery was not solely a matter of divulging secrets to the enemy. Infractions of protocol or convention could prove unforgiveable—a sign of disloyalty, for instance, or a desire to cut ties with the LTTE. Privileging family over the Tamil nation, harbouring personal ambition or merely demonstrating critical thought could damn you. The price for questioning the LTTE’s actions was death. Rajini Thiranagama, a former combatant, wrote about the atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan army and the Indian army stationed in the north in the late eighties, as well as similar crimes of the Tamil militias, including the LTTE. It was the Tigers who killed her in 1989. Thiranagama’s co-authors, professors from Jaffna University, fled the country, fearing the same fate. The Tigers had always been a tough outfit, but once they had hunted down their competitors among the militants and emerged as the unrivalled leaders in the Vanni, a ruthlessness entered their bones. They didn’t tolerate any view that contradicted their propaganda.
Lest their comments be carried to the high command, Vanni’s residents largely avoided talking about the workings of the LTTE unless it was to eulogise the movement. Doubt or negativity among civilians, it was said, would hinder the Eelam mission. Death, fear, depression, none of it was considered a good reason for a Tamil to retreat from the Vanni. Prabakaran once said in his annual speech on Martyrs’ Day that traitors were ‘more dishonourable than enemies’. Lost battles were blamed on betrayal, and considerable energy was spent on rooting out spies and informers.
Her community blamed the ongoing war squarely on someone it considered, as did Mugil, to be the greatest traitor of them all: Colonel Karuna, the eastern wing commander, who had been close to Annan but broke away from the Tigers in 2006. Since then, the Vanni was inching towards decimation.
Mugil was wary of spies, like everyone else, yet reluctant to encourage the gossipy direction of the grandfather’s comment.
‘They won’t all turn out to be like Karuna,’ she said. ‘We wouldn’t have come so far without loyal fighters.’ She would have said more but was afraid her recent doubts would become obvious.
‘Oho! How could they know of our hideouts if throhis hadn’t blabbed?’ the grandfather argued. ‘Oh, how will we win with people stabbing us in the back all the time? We need to support the movement at this time.’
Mugil didn’t understand how this man could gabble on about throhis and winning the war when his own grandson had so recently been forcibly taken by Pottu Amman. She, too, wanted nothing more than for the Tigers to thrash the army, but she had other ideas about who the real traitors were. She was sure it was the political wing that was stealing the children. No sane military would enlist children if they were serious about winning. She couldn’t fathom why the Tiger military leaders weren’t sending the children back. Divyan had been saying for months that they were understaffed, but she thought pushing raw recruits out to fight was inefficient. That’s why her camera had been full of new faces lying dead throughout the battlefield. That’s why the Tigers were retreating like never before. That’s why people were ready to abandon the side they had stood by for decades.
Before she could bite it back, the words rolled out of her: ‘I’ll tell you something, thatha. We won’t lose because of traitors. We will lose because of five-paisa ideas like sending out baby recruits to fight an army.’
The old man looked at Mugil pointedly. ‘How have you escaped fighting and run away?’
‘What’s it to you?’ Mugil snapped. Her mother, listening in silence until now, slapped her thigh to shush her.
‘Don’t talk like that, thatha,’ her mother told the old man. ‘She has done her duty already. Now she’s come home to her children, that’s all. My son and son-in-law are still in the field, anyway. We’re doing our duty.’
Mother then looked at Mugil pointedly and asked her to serve the food on the leaf plates. She called Amuda and her kids. ‘Enough of this useless talk. Shall we eat?’
Quietly, they ate their first meal of the day, digging into the banana flower poriyal (made without coconuts or chillies), boiled kadala paruppu and rice. Mugil’s mother had a lifetime’s experience of making do with limited ingredients, but this was a stretch even for her. A UN truck had brought vegetables and rice, but Mugil’s father had not even made it through the crowd that milled around the distribution area. Mother had then fallen at strangers’ feet, crying about her hungry grandchildren, begging for a share of their supplies. One woman had given in, but only after Mugil’s mother handed over a thin gold bangle for five handfuls of rice.
That night, Mugil prepared to sleep on the highest level, her favoured position in any bunker, from which she could keep an eye on the ground. The grandfather, however, announced loudly that it would be better for the ladies to sleep on the lowest level. Mugil had a mixed urge to both laugh and scream. He wouldn’t have dared speak this way if she were in uniform or if her husband were there.
Lying down in the bunker was impossible; there were too many people. They made space for the pregnant girl to sleep on her side, and the other women sat upright. Maran curled up with his cousin. Kalai slept across her grandmother and Amuda. Tamizh, still awake, sat listlessly on Mugil’s lap. She patted his back. It was cold, but the bodies pressing against each other were comforting. Mugil felt her eyelids shut, even though gunfire rang out at close range.
SHE WAS WOKEN by Maran’s soft crying. Between thunderclaps, Mugil heard explosions. Behind them was the continuous crackle of small arms, some of it close. She peeped through the periscope-like tunnel, from which one could see the ground above. White streaks of fire whizzed through the purple sky. People were running, crying, searching for each other, wild with confusion. The old man and her father hurried to the bottom floor. No one talked while her mother’s fevered chant of the kandhar shashti kavacham prayer wrapped itself around them. This was the bunker’s circle of trust, the space they could understand and return to every time the world above turned into a blur of bullets, fire and falling men.
For the next three days, PTK was under siege. The Tigers were engaging the 58th division
of the army marching from Viswamadu. The cadre had reverted to guerrilla ways and was constantly changing position, firing at the army and immediately moving to another location. When the army responded with missiles, they would hit only ill-informed villagers. The army was equipped with long-range missile launchers, and as it closed in from the west, it loosed them continuously.
The missiles fell round the clock. On the second day, a piece of red-hot metal nearly sliced open Maran’s eye. On the third, the old man went outside during a lull and did not return. Mugil had known him for barely two days. On the fourth day, his granddaughter would not stop saying, ‘They will kill my baby.’
At one point, while everyone in the bunker hid their faces between their knees to avoid the flying embers and the shrapnel, a man dove into their huddle, screaming. The children shrieked. His leg was on fire, and he seemed so stiff with panic that for a second Mugil thought he was dead. They scooped some wet sand from the bags and threw it on his burning limb till he fainted. As the smell of burnt flesh filled the bunker, Mugil realised that the man’s dive had left a gaping hole in their bunker roof.
When he came to, the man broke down—he was looking for his children and aged parents. He had lost them a few days earlier and had been sure they would be in PTK. Mugil told him to stay in the bunker until the firing ceased; he was now part of their circle. For two days, they nursed his wounds as best they could, but they could not stop his weeping.
As PTK continued to be pulverised, on 21 January, the government announced a no-fire zone along the A35. It was a thirty-five-square-kilometre triangular patch of land, and its points were Suthanthirapuram junction, a yellow bridge and Thevipuram colony. Heavy fighting surrounded it, but the army promised civilians safety there. As the announcement boomed in Sinhalaaccented Tamil from the army jeeps fitted with loudspeakers, the burning man didn’t wait a moment to announce his decision to leave.
‘Will you make it?’ Mugil’s mother asked, pointing to his rotting leg. She had used her last spare sari to bandage his thigh, and the fabric was soaked with a yellowish secretion.
‘I don’t want to think about that,’ he replied. ‘I can’t sleep, eat or breathe. You are all fortunate you’re still together.’
The burning man left their bunker early the next morning, after touching Mother’s feet. Mugil would never know if he made it out PTK.
AFTER SEVERAL WET days, sunshine lit the bunker in patches. No bombers had come that morning, nor had the rain. For the first time in months, Mugil heard birds sing. After sunrise, on 29 January, the Sri Lankan government had announced a forty-eight-hour safepassage window to allow civilians to move into the Thevipuram no-fire zone.
The streets filled with families, bicycles and motorbikes, tractors, trishaws and bullock carts loaded with possessions double their weight. It was almost impossible to move, and time was ticking away. In half a day, most people travelled just a few metres. Simmering impatience exploded into futile fights: a story did the rounds that a man had slit the throat of a motorist who ran over his foot.
People were desperate to get out of the town, but most couldn’t. Tiger units forbade them to seek protection from the army. Mother wanted to leave for the no-fire zone, fearing she would go the same way as the old man, but Father could not make up his mind. If they left before Divyan got in touch, it would be difficult to find each other later. Others in the bunker were ready to cross over to the army’s side, but it was clear that first the pregnant girl would have to be calmed down. She was now borderline hysterical. She was sure her child had died inside her womb. ‘See, akka? See? There is no movement. Touch and see!’
Mugil decided to take the girl to the town hospital and have her own badly infected shin examined. Mother asked her to get food on the way, or at least water, lemon and salt. The children were wilting with dehydration. Kalai was sucking her thumb and clawing at Amuda’s dry breast.
The road to the hospital was not as treacherous as Mugil expected; the firing had stopped for a few hours and the town was streaked with bloody sludge. Families leaving for the no-fire zone had removed mud-caked bodies from the road and placed them by the side, so their tractors, vans, bikes and cycles could pass. Almost skidding on an abandoned slipper, Mugil had an odd thought—that there must be twice as many desolate slippers as dead people.
The PTK government hospital looked like a crowded market for wounds and flies. There were people moving through the gate, through the compound and up the steps. Others had spread straw mats or saris and lay on them in the heat, waiting for a doctor to call or come by. Insects buzzed everywhere. A toddler was sitting on a bench outside, his left eye bandaged, his right teary. Someone had given him some candy, which he ate dreamily.
She had expected there to be blood everywhere, but all she saw were several colours of infection. Very few had fresh wounds; most were days, weeks, months old, often with fraying temporary bandages. The usual hospital smell of antiseptic was overpowered by the putrid stench of decay.
When they entered the corridor, they saw a grieving man throw himself on a small shrouded body. A child’s feet, wearing thick silver anklets, stuck out from under the dirty bed sheet. A woman crouched next to the child, looking away. A doctor, his once-white coat smeared with many shades of rust, stood with a pad and pen in his hands. A man and three women were hassling him, pulling him in different directions. He walked to an old woman sitting below a window, her eyes closed. He sat down next to her, holding his back as he did so. That’s when Mugil noticed a long piece of bark lodged in the woman’s side. Her abdomen seemed to have closed in around it, as if trying to digest it. Mugil watched the doctor talk continuously to the woman in Tamil while his orderly yanked the bark out in one motion. Anticipating the woman’s scream, Mugil clapped her hands to her ears and turned away.
Doctors were operating in open rooms or right there in the corridors. There was no electricity, so large vats of water were being boiled in the backyard on wood fires. The medical staff just dipped the steel clamps, knives and other surgical implements in cloudy hot water before plunging them into people. They were already rationing supplies of gauze, asking people to rip up their own clothes and use them as bandages. As hundreds came for treatment every day, the doctors worked for long stretches without sleep, sometimes forgetting to take a break or eat until they fainted.
Behind Mugil was a doctor whose fingers poked inside a man’s forearm. A woman who acted like a nurse but wasn’t dressed in white fed the patient a few spoonfuls of glucose. Mugil went up to her with the pregnant girl and asked if she could tell whether the baby was dead. When she was done with the male patient, without a word, the nurse touched the girl’s belly and put a stethoscope to her wrist and neck.
‘It is alive, but the heartbeat is very faint. Maybe it has twisted itself in the umbilical cord. Leave her here, we’ll see,’ the nurse said.
Mugil looked at the pregnant girl, who nodded that she would be okay in the hospital. ‘Just send my grandmother here when you get home.’ She’d referred to the bunker they’d shared as home.
Mugil then pointed to her own shin. ‘I can’t walk. Will the infection spread? Will this go away?’ she said to the nurse, trying to speak fast and clear.
‘Is there something inside?’
‘I felt around. Something might be there. I’m not sure.’
‘You have some antiseptic or hot water? Or sugar?’ the nurse asked.
Mugil smiled. ‘No, I only have an X-ray machine in my bunker,’ she said.
The nurse responded with a tired smile. ‘Okay, here,’ she said, handing Mugil half a strip of headache tablets. Mugil asked if she really had nothing else. The nurse swivelled her head, inviting Mugil to look around. ‘Army is not letting the ICRC or UN people bring in the proper medicines,’ she said. The government didn’t want the Tigers accessing emergency painkillers like ketamine for their battle-injured fighters. Because of the embargo on fuel, cold storage sections in the hospital were not able to preserve b
lood or store oxygen either. The nurse hurriedly showed Mugil how to place a splint on the back of her leg and tie it on with a bandage. ‘It’ll help you walk. There’s nothing else I can do for you.’
Outside, for a few hundred rupees, from the Tigers’ cooperative lorry, Mugil bought a piece of pumpkin, 100 grams of milk powder and a bottle of supposedly clean water, which had tiny things floating in it. The supplies came from the UN and the Indian government, but somehow it was the Tiger cadre that was distributing them. They didn’t have any lemons. A handful of salt, dirty and wet, was 1,000 rupees. Mugil wished she had kept the Tiger tooth. It was gold-plated.
She hobbled back to the bunker and sent the pregnant girl’s grandmother to the hospital. They hugged and said they would meet sometime soon, when all this was over.
The next day, on 1 February, the Sri Lankan army rained artillery shells on the PTK hospital for more than four hours.
9.
February 2009
NO ONE WAS held responsible, no one was punished or even questioned. After all, everything could be denied.
Sarva had written a letter describing the prisoners’ attack on him, begging to be moved out of the CRP; he had posted it blindly to ‘The Honourable President Mahinda Rajapakse, Sri Lanka’. Two months later, Sarva had been finally shifted to the Welikada New Magazine Prison on the outskirts of Colombo city. It was the largest in the country. He couldn’t be sure if this was in response to his request or simply the turning of the system’s unseen wheels. In any case, the transfer hadn’t come a day too soon.
The G Cell of the H Ward, where he was now, was exclusively for political prisoners: social workers, politicians, union leaders, protesters, even some army deserters. But the majority were suspected of being Tamil Tigers or their sympathisers. When Sarva was escorted inside, the inmates were lining up to go back to their cells after yard time. He saw most of them take their slippers off outside their cell gates. He felt weak with relief.