Tigers’ terror campaign paralyses Jaffna

Fear spread in the Themarachchi-Chavakacheri areas after a flyer, purporting to be from the LTTE, asked residents of the area to clear out soon. Thenmarachchi is the part of the peninsula directly north of Elephant Pass, the onlybig army camp that stands between Killinochchi and Jaffna. As for Chavakacheri, only a thinly guarded lagoon separates it from Killinochchi.

On the heels of this handbill, came a widely circulated two-page leaflet warning people not to have any contact with the army or political parties, causing another wave of panic amongst residents. “Every line of it is a threat,” said secretary general of the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), Suresh Premachandran.

The leaflet was signed by Thooyavan, who is said to be the LTTE’s underground man in the peninsula. He heads an organisation that calls itself the Tamil Eelam Administration Service.

All the four magistrate courts, which reopened recently as part of the government’s “normalisation” programme, have shut down in the wake of the threats. The courts functioned out of hired houses but lawyers had stopped attending them weeks ago after they received similar warnings.

Local government too remains paralysed after the killing of Jaffnamayor Pon Sivapalan last month. The Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), Sri Lanka’s oldest Tamil party, had won the Jaffna municipal council elections held in January this year, and appointed Sivapalan to head it after the first mayor, Sarojini Yogeswaran, met a violent death at the hands of the LTTE.

Indicating that it neither trusts the government’s assurances of normalcy in Jaffna anymore nor the army, to provide it adequate security, the TULF has decided not to nominate another mayor for the present. “It’s like throwing a baby before a running train,” said a senior Tamil politician.

Other town and village councils too have ceased to function. In fact, some of them never started functioning though local elections were held 10 months ago. Many of the elected members have not taken their oath of office, and many who did, have resigned for fear of offending the LTTE which opposed the elections.

According to reports, the elected members have now sent an urgent appeal to heads of western diplomaticmissions in Sri Lanka urging them to restrain the LTTE from interfering in their functioning.

To add to the uncertainty of civilians in the peninsula, all passenger flights to and from Jaffna have been suspended following the mysterious disappearance of the Lionair aircraft with 54 people on board two weeks ago. It is widely believed to have been shot down by the LTTE though no wreckage has been found.

The suspension of civilian flights has left nearly 2,000 people stranded in Jaffna, including those employed abroad or requiring urgent medical treatment. Jaffna is now virtually cut off for civilians except for a few hundred phone lines and a perilous sea route where the LTTE’s waterborne Sea Tigers rule the waves.

The army attempted to commandeer a cargo ship that had finished unloading supplies at Point Pedro to ferry the stranded civilians out of the peninsula, but the owners reportedly refused saying that they could not take the risk till the government arranged for the insurance of all thepassengers.

With fear and panic, there is also a sense of deja vu. “It is as if the wheel has turned a full circle. This is how it all began so many years ago,” said an elderly resident, one of the last batch of civilians to return from the peninsula.