Ten years ago my now defunct publishing company Literate World published the first comprehensive and richly detailed biography of Vellupillai Prabhakaran.
‘Inside an Elusive Mind’ by veteran journalist and seasoned Sri Lanka observer M R Narayan Swamy (MR) was a standout book in terms of its brilliant detailing and explaining the rise of the world’s most ruthless guerilla leader. The book was one of 10 that I personally commissioned as part an abortive effort to create solid global content. My vision was to emerge as a respectable and inventive publishing name on a global scale. The reality turned out to be diametrically opposite as partly manifest in this unpaid blog.
As I read the accounts of how Prabhakaran’s 12-year-old son Balachandran was allegedly killed in cold blood by the Sri Lankan army in May 2009, I was reminded of MR’s book this morning. The book is a compelling read if you want to understand what it is that has brought the debate to the cruel death of a 12-year-old boy.
Britain’s Channel 4 and independent filmmaker Callum Macrae have come together to make a documentary called ‘No Fire Zone’ about the Sri Lankan army’s massive operation in 2009 that not only wiped out Prabhakaran’s separatist Tamil Eelam movement led by his Tamil Tigers insurgents but killed him and thousands of others. In the immediate aftermath of that military onslaught it was not clear whether Prabhakaran’s family had survived or not.
The documentary’s main focus is on the allegations of grave war crimes committed during the operation. One major piece of evidence in support of the allegations is a set of three photographs of Balachandran apparently sitting inside a Sri Lankan military bunker. There is also a picture of him lying dead on the ground with five bullets in his chest. The allegation is that he was killed in cold blood after being captured alive.
The Sri Lankan government, which is under some serious international pressure over these allegations, has rejected the claim saying that the pictures are “morphed”. It has been Colombo’s consistent position that no war crimes were committed during the operation. The documentary has acquired particular traction in the run up to the upcoming annual meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva. Like last year, this year too Sri Lanka will face a resolution that would likely question its commitment to human rights in general and to implementing he recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC).
The United States will introduce a fresh resolution at the UNHRC meeting starting February 25. For nearly three years after the military operation it was India’s support that considerably shielded Colombo against a serious human rights scrutiny. That changed last year when India voted against Sri Lanka on the US-sponsored resolution. There is a likelihood of New Delhi doing the same this time around as well.
With the Tamil Tigers eliminated, the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has managed to accelerate the island nation’s economic growth fueled mainly by Chinese investments in infrastructure, including in developing the $1.4 billion Hambantota port. Being exposed to a global human rights censure is the last thing that the Rajapaksa government wants.
It is in this context that the Channel 4 documentary has come as a source of great discomfort for Colombo.
MR’s book did a terrific job of capturing Prabhakaran’s complex and macabre world that prevailed for over a quarter century inside the island nation. Among the many striking descriptions in the book there was one about Prabhakaran’s early life. “To anyone who cared to see, even at that early age Prabhakaran was already showing signs of being different from the rest of the crowd. Some of his actions and behavior betrayed an evolving ruthlessness that was to become the hallmark of his terror campaign later in his life,” Swamy writes. He particularly mentions how as a teenager Prabhakaran would tie himself inside a gunny bag and stay in the over 100 degrees F. sun the whole day as part of what in retrospect seemed like a routine designed to toughen himself.
“He would wrap himself with bags used for carrying red chilies or insert pins into his nails. If all this appeared to foreshadow a man preparing himself for a life that demanded great levels of physical endurance, Prabhakaran added a twist to it by pricking insects to death with needles,” Swamy writes.
Rereading this passage in light of the what Prabhakaran’s own son went through for no fault of his is quite a story.