Final days of eelam war 4

V Sudarshan
First Published : 22 May 2009 01:07:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 22 May 2009 01:11:18 AM IST
More or less the only show I watch on TV is Jay Leno. But with the run-up to the election results and the final assault on the LTTE, television news programmes have been equally entertaining. I am not saying I was confused. But I felt no closer to the truth. After watching a surfeit of analyses on poll outcomes, especially Tamil Nadu, I wanted more clarity on issues that went beyond standard psephologist mumbo jumbo. On Tamil Nadu, how could so many people get it so wrong? Is Prabhakaran really dead or just having a quiet laugh in the company of that other diehard — Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose? What ministry will Kanimozhi get? Will Karunanidhi write a poem on Prabhakaran? To get authoritative insights I met Killi (originally from Killinochi), the talking parrot on Thursday and put some searching questions to her. Excerpts:
Is Prabhakaran really dead?
Not only him but his family as well. His wife Madhivadini, his sons Charles Anthony and Balachandran and his daughter Dwaraka. All are dead.
When did Prabhakaran die?
On the 16th. I know you will ask me how I know. Nadesan made a satellite telephone call that afternoon to one of his friends in Tamil Nadu to tell him “Everything is over, everything.” You could hear the tears flow out of his voice. Then Rajapaksa cut short his trip to Jordan and came and kissed the tarmac. Just think: Why would he do that? After all he goes abroad a lot and doesn’t kiss the tarmac whenever he comes back. It’s not some landing ritual after flying Air Lanka. He did not kiss the ground because the LTTE had been defeated. LTTE was as good as dead when they boxed themselves in that strip of beach. He kissed the ground because he got the information Prabhakaran had been killed. It was his way of saying Mahinda Chintana had reached a decisive moment.
Who killed Prabhakaran?
Even for a parrot that’s a tough one. People will believe that the Sri Lankans killed him. Executed him, considering that his head is almost clean gone as though it has been hacked by a machete. The wound is probably from short burst fire at close range. But my money is on either Soosai or Pottu Amman killing him. He died on the banks of the lagoon. Soosai had been of the opinion that they should surrender, which is why his family ran away. He was a bitter man and he was one of the last to die, certainly after Prabhakaran. Both he and Pottu had watched their leader procrastinate day after day as thousands died like flies daily around them. They could not bear to see the gains that they had made over the years suddenly evaporating. Their whole life’s work had now become meaningless. Both had good reason to kill Prabhakaran who, frankly, had reached a stage where he was unable to make any rational decision. They knew that the Sri Lankans would come and slaughter them once the elections in Tamil Nadu were over on the 13th. The leadership was divided. One section was all for surrender. But Prabhakaran couldn’t make up his mind.
Charles Antony looks as if he had been executed as well, with a bullet wound in his eye…
I agree. If you notice most of the bodies have head wounds. Even when an enemy is dead sometimes you shoot just to make sure. No better place to put a bullet than the head for that purpose.
Why did the announcement of Prabhakaran’s death become so contradictory and stretched out over two days?
That’s easy to answer. Just as the National Security Adviser had requested Rajapaksa to put off the inevitable till after the elections in Tamil Nadu, New Delhi made a request that the announcement of Prabhakaran’s death be delayed and disseminated in such a way that the news could be digested in Tamil Nadu without untoward incidents. The key lies in the ambiguity. Which is why the Sri Lankans have not yet released evidence of the deaths of the other members of the Prabhakaran family. It’s news management.
Is that why Karunanidhi is having difficulty accepting Prabhakaran’s death?
Oh Karunanidhi knows he is dead all right. It’s just that it is difficult for one leader of Tamils to acknowledge openly that the Sinhalas had been responsible for the death of a brave Tamil leader while Karunanidhi sat firmly on his own hands. It must be difficult for Karunanidhi to have watched the slaughter that has been going on in Sri Lanka over the last year even as New Delhi was sending what it cutely calls defensive capabilities over to Rajapaksa so that he could prosecute his war better. That way you could argue that even India’s nuclear capability is essentially defensive. If you look at it in strictly Tamil terms it is the worst ever debacle for Tamils in history. The worst.
You know, Karunanidhi wrote a poem when Tamil Selvan died. Will Prabhakaran get a poem from him?
Prabhakaran will turn in his grave if Karunanidhi wrote a poem for him now. Jokes aside, there is a whole book of sad poems waiting to be written. But it’s unlikely that Karunanidhi will write even one tiny little haiku till Kanimozhi becomes heath minister and Azhagiri the surface transport minister. That’s for sure.
Turning to the Tamil Nadu elections, was Sri Lanka not an issue? How did Karunanidhi manage the impossible?
Let me tell you four or five things quickly. Sri Lanka was definitely an issue, which is why everyone jumped in. The results could have gone either way and the tipping point against the DMK would have come if Prabhakaran had been killed during the election campaign. So New Delhi got Colombo to wait till the elections were over. The next task was mobilisation. If the DMK mobilised more voters than the AIADMK, they stood a better chance. Look at the turnout. In fourteen constituencies it was more than 75 per cent and over 70 per cent in 15. For this the DMK mobilised a lot of money, roughly I would say Rs 30 crore per constituency and in one constituency that polled more than 80 per cent votes it was Rs 110 crore. The DMK’s booth committees worked superbly. Number three, the old man told those candidates who were up against the PMK not to bother coming back to him if they lost. As a result those candidates worked extra hard to stay on in the DMK. It helped that Jayalalithaa gave PMK some difficult seats. Karunanidhi wanted to teach the PMK a lesson for ditching him and this was his revenge for all the tantrums Ramadoss had thrown since 2006.
How do I know all that you are saying is true?
What are you thinking? You are the one talking to a parrot.
sudarshan@epmltd.com