Sri Lankan Rebel Base Left in Ruins

AP ^ | 12/31/04 | ARTHUR MAX

[TexKat]

MULLAITIVU, Sri Lanka - This town is no stranger to carnage, always bouncing back from the damages suffered during its periodic turns on the front lines of Sri Lanka's two-decade civil war.

A government assault drove out ethnic Tamil rebels in 1990. After six years of siege, the guerrillas took it back in a ferocious, one-day battle that wiped out the army garrison of 1,200 and killed 800 rebels. The Tamils rebuilt, and the rebels' secretive chief, Vellupillai Prabhakaran, even made the town his home.

But Mullaitivu met its match in Asia's tsunami catastrophe.

Sitting on Sri Lanka's northeast coast, the town took the full force of Sunday's mammoth waves — devastation in full evidence Friday when Associated Press journalists got one of the first glimpses by outsiders of the damage inside the rebel-controlled part of this island nation off the southern tip of India.

Row upon row of houses were flattened, walls ripped from their foundations. At the Roman Catholic Church, only one wall with its icons and the bell tower still stand.

Worrying about the spread of disease, Tamil soldiers shot dogs scrabbling through the debris and around rotting bodies.

Search teams wearing surgical masks threw logs on top of corpses wherever they found them — under piles of concrete or mounds of garbage and toppled palm trees — and cremated them without ceremony.

The operation's commander, a Tamil fighter who gave his name only as Mohan, said about 2,000 bodies had been recovered, but predicted the toll would be double that by the end of the search. About 18,000 people once lived in the town and the stretch of villages up the coast.

Most survivors, now crowded into makeshift refugee camps, were too dazed to think about the future.

"I can't go near the sea anymore," said Seller Kanthaswami, a fisherman from the nearby village of Kallappadu who lost his wife and teenage daughter. "I don't want to see the sea or hear the sea ever again."

Kallappadu, just a few hundred yards up the shore from Mullaitivu, was leveled. Its mayor, Sathinathan Serthin, estimated half the village's 2,282 people are dead.

Under a cease-fire in effect for nearly three years, the Tamil Tiger rebel movement is in charge of most areas where ethnic Tamils are predominant — including Mullaitivu — running it as a virtual independent state with its own administration, police and courts. The national government, controlled by majority Sinhalese, holds sway on most of the island.

But peace talks broke down a year ago, leading to worsening tensions and fears of renewed fighting, and even a natural disaster hasn't brought the two sides closer. On Tuesday, the rebels conducted separate relief operations in their areas and are even making a separate appeal for aid from donor countries and U.N agencies.

Mullaitivu, about 180 miles northeast of the capital, Colombo, long played a major role in the fighting that began in 1983. But the palm-fringed enclave had largely been quiet since the army was driven out in 1996, leaving its people free to pursue the everyday endeavors of civilians.

Now they will have to pick up the pieces again.

One survivor, Anthony Gerard, has measured his life with the town's rising and falling fortunes.

When government troops captured Mullaitivu in 1990, he fled to India as a refugee. A few years after the Tamil rebels won it back, he returned, and soon prospered from prawn fishing.

Gerard, 39, was preparing his net when the tsunami swept in, washing him 200 yards and slamming him into the roof of a house, where he managed to hang on. His wife's body was found jammed under a bus. His daughter is still missing.

Still, Gerard said, he and his son will rebuild their home and go back to fishing.

"Two years we lived a good life," he said. "Now I'm a refugee again."

[TexKat]

Anthony Gerard stands amidst the debris left in his home, one of the few left intact by Sunday's massive tsunami, Friday, Dec. 31, 2004 in Mullaitivu village in the rebel-held northern part of Sri Lanka. Gerard who became a refugee in 1990 when the Sri Lankan army recaptured the area from the rebels, is now again living in a refugee camp after Sunday's Tsunami wrecked his home and killed his parents, wife and daughter. (AP Photo/Ed Wray)

Anthony Gerard stands among the ruins of his parents' home Friday, Dec. 31, 2004 in Mullaitivu village in the rebel-held northern part of Sri Lanka. Gerard who became a refugee in 1990 when the Sri Lankan army recaptured the area from the rebels, is now again living in a refugee camp after Sunday's Tsunami wrecked his home and killed his parents, wife and daughter. (AP Photo/Ed Wray)

Workers searching for bodies take a break to look at Mullaitivu village's destroyed church Friday, Dec. 31, 2004 In Mullaitivu in the rebel-controlled northern part of Sri Lanka. Over 2,000 people died in this fishing village where major battles between the government and the Tamil Tiger rebels once took place.(AP Photo/Ed Wray)

Human bones are seen at a mass cremation site of tsunami victims at Mullaitivu town in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelaam (LTTE) controlled area of some 425 kms north-east of the Sri lankan capital Colombo. The death toll in Asia's tsunami disaster ticked relentlessly upward to top 125,000 as clocks ticked down to a desolate new year in countries struggling to get food and water to millions facing starvation and disease.(AFP/Indranil Mukherjee)

[The Teen Conservative]

Has anyone found it coincidental that rebellions are usually from the north nowadays? In Afghanistan, Iraq, Kashmir, and now I see Sri Lanka.

[BenLurkin]

Such devastation could not have a more deserving target. The Tamil "Tigers" are among the most vicious terrorists on the planet.

[rockrr]

"We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!"

[stlnative]

do a google search for "Aceh and Osama" (Northern Aceh was totally wiped out - Satellite photos were released yesterday)

[LadyPilgrim]

Hi!

Yes, interesting.

And not just nowadays. Seems like it's been that way forever.

[BullDog108]

Cannuckistan.....

[Brilliant]

But neverfear! our government is sending them $376 million to rebuild!

[no_mm]

good heads-up..tnx

[stlnative]

try "Aceh and Christians" and/or "Aceh Muslims" also.

[Theo]

The South will rise again!




FWIW, I live in Virginia.... :-)

[sukhoi-30mki]

& what exactly is the guarantee that the terrorists are the ones being killed.Vellupillai Prabhakaran & it's paranoid cohorts are sensible enough to not live near the sea for fear for special forces raids,either by the Sri Lankans or Indian forces(for the assasination of former PM Rajiv Gandhi in 1991).They live in well built houses,while most of the innocent Tamils(& there are many of them) have been affected.Those people live under a dictatorship that can give Kim Jong Yil a run for his money anytime,any place.

[American in Israel]

A reliable, as yet unconfirmed report has emerged that in October 2001, Christians in Aceh were forced to sign a 'Mutual Agreement' to destroy a number of their own churches. They were also not to engage in religious activity in the homes of residents nor missionary activity. The purpose of this agreement, signed by representatives of the Islamic and Christian communities, was to 'create an atmosphere of living in harmony between the religious communities'. Failure to co-operate would result in 'unwanted consequences which could instigate the destruction of unity and oneness between the religious communities'. There were no restrictions placed on the Islamic community.


Islamic Sharia Law was introduced into the Aceh Province at the beginning of 2002. Governor Abdullah Puteh said this was part of a special autonomy package extended to the province last year which would usher in a 'new era' for Aceh. From 15 March, police will start enforcing Islamic dress code. The sanctions on violators are as yet unspecified except that they will be 'firm'. Government and private offices must have business signs installed in Arabic-style script. This apparently growing push for hardline Islam in Aceh will cause suffering for its small Christian minority.

[nw_arizona_granny]

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