All because I am a Tamil a Tamil living in Mulankanvil, Kilinochchi
For 18-year-old Subramaniam Priya, life was a flowing stream of hopes and dreams until one fateful day in February early this year. Life was a challenge for this bright eyed teenager with war spreading its claws towards Mulankanvil in the Kilinochchi area. Before the war extended to her hometown, life continued in a sometimes slow, sometimes fast pace. The village was filled with laughter and good cheer. Uninterrupted transportation led them to the hustle and bustle of street markets with the air filled with the screeches of street vendors.
The air is freakishly quiet now. No more children running around, no more constant honking of the buses. The air is stale and life is an episode of a war-horror movie. Everyone is afraid now. No one knows when the LTTE will come and take their children or parents away. No one knows when an air raid will assail our village. Everyone lives in fear, says Priya. We lived very happily before war tore into our village, she continues, people in the village hate the LTTE, they hate them because they come and tear apart families forcibly recruiting them to the movement and taking away their children. They sometimes take away children who are small, some are not even 16.
She is full of remorse about the harm caused by this never ending war and blames the LTTE for the lies woven about the Sinhalese and the Sri Lankan Army. She sees the futility of it, the stark ineffectuality of the Sinhala-Tamil clash.
There were five members in our family. Now, with me here, in Colombo there`s only two left of our Subramaniam family, narrates Priya. Her father was a Poosary (a Hindu priest) and her mother was a typical housewife, they were proud parents of three children - two girls and a boy with Priya as the eldest. They gave them education hoping that someday they will be able to leave the LTTE territory. She studied up to Grade 11. I was all prepared to sit for the G.C.E. O/L examination in 2006 but was brought down with high fever. I was admitted to the Mulankanvil Hospital and therefore could not write for the exam. She then got prepared to face the exam in 2007 but fate again double crossed her and on her way to the examination she got devastating news. I was on my way to the exam when I got the news that my parents had been killed in an Army Kfir attack. I had to rush back, she wails, and thus her education was hindered. I did not get another chance as I had to join the LTTE in 2008. I had no other way. With two small siblings aged 12 and 9, Subramanium Priya was the only one left to adhere to the laws of the LTTE.
With tears in her eyes she bid her old happy, carefree life goodbye and entered the world of the LTTE on February 23, 2008. Waking up at 4.30 a.m, her life unfolded before her under harsh and tiresome training. The training was really hard there was a lot of running and jumping about to do, but it wasn`t very hard for me, said Priya proudly as she claims that she was quite a sports person in school. I participated in a lot of track events 800m and 1500m were my best. she said. She had won numerous awards and certificates to prove this. Unfortunately they are all at Mulankanvil today. Her joy and pride is a certificate she has received for winning first place in the 800 or 1500m at a sports meet held at Trincomalee in 2001 with the signature of the president. President Mahinda had signed my certificate, she smiles.
Therefore, the training wasn`t unbearable for her Some others used to always cry. They couldn`t keep up with the atrocious training. All LTTE fighters undergo a programme of rigorous training. A typical training schedule is spread over a period of months, which, according to Priya is merely two months during which they receive training in handling weapons, battle and field craft, communications, explosives and intelligence gathering, as well as an exhausting physical regimen and rigorous indoctrination. Priya says that one month of vigorous training and another month of all round education in military and political field of study wrap up the training and education period. They had to prepare us soon for battle. The women allegedly endure the same tough training as men and are broken up into combating, intelligence gathering, political and administrative entities. She had also received Sea Tiger training.
All cadres are carefully indoctrinated on the authorised position they are fighting against an unresponsive and discriminatory Sinhala majority for a separate State Eelam the cadres must banish all fear of death from their minds and be prepared to lay down their lives fighting the Government forces, or consume the cyanide pill fastened around their necks when capture is imminent. The LTTE places immense emphasis on the cult of martyrdom. Thus every morning at 6.30 am they are sworn in, when they pledge their lives for the safety of the movement and protection of `their earth and land`, said Priya with an impish grin with eyes cast down.
She is full of remorse for joining in the movement and says that if she had any other choice she would even have thought about it. While she was a cadre, the LTTE had showed uncanny video tapes of how the Lankan Army treats the LTTE cadres who are taken into their custody. It was torture. They showed us clips where the army was persecuting our members who were caught in a village close to Jaffna. They made us hate the Sinhalese race and our hatred made us unafraid to battle. They taught us to fight for revenge, says Priya adding that however she knows now that they were explicit lies. I wish they know that the Sinhalese are not like that. They have treated me very kindly, given me new clothes and they look after me well. I don`t ever want to go back, said Priya.
LTTE leaders have established a new method of encouraging the recruits by illustrating the fact that all are important. And every one is a huge asset to its community. They have no rank called `soldiers`, their ranks start from `lieutenant` to show that they are all holding important positions. Eighteen year old Subramanium Priya was also a lieutenant. She was forced to the Pooneryn defence line on October 31. She says that there were both males and female Tigers in the Pooneryn line but most were females. There were about 150 of us in a few bunkers spread close to each other out of which about 100 were female cadres. But we were not treated specially by anyone. We were all regarded as the same. We were all there to fight.
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