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The
ignored side of Balraj story
Balraj’s
death was not ignored. The qualities of his military leadership,
especially his habit of leading his cadres from the front,
had been sufficiently highlighted. His role in transforming
a guerilla group, into a conventional fighting formation had
also been played up.
The story how he was made a Tiger, had been largely ignored.
Like any clever rural youth, he wanted to be a socialist.
He joined Uma Maheswaran’s Peoples Liberation Organisation
of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), when he was a GCE OL student and was
satisfied with pasting posters, distributing leaflets and
writing slogans on the roads.
He was the fourth in a family of five children, four boys
and a girl. He was named Balasegaran. His father Kandiah did
fishing and paddy cultivation, like the other residents of
Kokuthoduvaai, a coastal village in the Mullaitivu district,
with extensive paddy fields.
Bala, as Balraj was called at home and school, was a good
student and his ambition was to enter the university. He completed
his OL from his village school, and moved to Pulmoddai in
the Trincomalee district, to do his Advanced Level. He was
in his home in Kokkuthoduwaai during December 1984 holidays,
when the 20-year youth was pushed into the Tiger fold.
Balraj was jolted by the1983 July riots, but family pressure
kept him calm. His mother kept prodding him to study. He resisted
the temptation to join some militant group and go for arms
training, in India. Things did not move the way, he desired.
The ethnic conflict took a bad turn from the middle of 1984
in the Mullaitivu district. The National Security minister
Lalith Athulathmudali, acting on Israeli advice, started establishing
armed Sinhala border villages, along the Mullaitivu border,
to plug the routes, the guerrillas used to travel between
the northern and eastern provinces. He took over the Kent
and Dollar farms, owned by the Tamils and converted them into
Prisoner Rehabilitation centers. He settled Sinhalese convicts
in them.
The Tamils opposed that scheme. They saw through Athulathmudali
scheme. They said that was an attempt to colonise the Tamil
territory with Sinhalese. Pirapaharan decided to resist that
attempt militarily.
Around midnight on November 30, a selected group of 50 LTTE
cadres led by Mahattaya, attacked the Dollar Farm and the
Kent Farm and killed 62 Sinhalese, including three jail-guards;
33 in Kent farm and 29 in Dollar farm. The attackers
withdrew before the police and the army arrived the next morning.
The government retaliated. It declared 48-hour curfew and
conducted a police and troops cordon and search operation.
The government announced that, it had killed 30 terrorists.
Tamil circles said the victims were all civilians from the
adjacent Tamil villages. The Tigers said their cadres had
returned without suffering any loss.
Air Force helicopters and the army went into action, from
the morning of December 1. They sprayed bullets and dropped
incendiary bombs over Tamil villages in Nedunkerni and Vavuniya.
The Tigers retaliated that night [December1]. Led by Lawrence,
the LTTE cadres hijacked an Elf passenger van, drove into
Kokkilai, a Sinhala fishing village and killed 13 and injured
four. They then drove to Nayaru, another Sinhala fishing village,
and killed four and injured two.
The following day, December 2, soldiers from three army camps,
Kokkilai, Padaviya and Pulmoddai went into action. Soldiers
from Kokkilai Camp conducted search and destroy operation,
in Kokkilai and Nayaru. 12 Tamil youths were arrested
and killed.
The soldiers from the Pulmoddai Camp proceeded to the ancient
Tamil village Amarivayal and drove the Tamils away. Soldiers
from Padaviya army camp split themselves into groups of 20
to 30 men on the evening of December 1 and went to the Tamil
villages around Kent and Dollar farms. One such group marched
to the ancient Tamil village Othiyamalai, five kilometers
from Nedunkerni. They searched the houses and arrested youths
of the age group of 15 to 35 years. Witnesses have submitted
affidavits to Amnesty International, saying that 27 youths
and five elderly men were killed. The second group went to
Chemmalai, another ancient Tamil village. The villagers
fled into the forests and walked through to Mullaitivu.
Thennamarawadi, the northernmost coastal Tamil village in
the Trincomalee district, was attacked on December 2. The
LTTE retaliated by exploding a landmine in Padaviya, on December
4, killing a soldier. The soldiers shot dead at least
90 Tamils, men, women and children, old and young.
On December 6, the army imposed 24-hour curfew in the Tamil
village of Thiriyayi, another ancient Tamil village north
of Trincomalee. The army ordered through a loud hailer
all the 1399 families in that agriculturally prosperous village,
to assemble on the playground. The people were attacked
when they assembled. Over 100 severely injured persons were
admitted to hospital. Similar incidents took place in
several Tamil villages. In Periyakulam, about 20 youths
were lined up and shot.
The LTTE took revenge on the army. It set up an ambush just
outside the Pulmoddai Camp, on December 18. The landmine blast
wrecked a troop carrier, killing 18 soldiers including two
officers. The army reacted. Through loudspeakers it ordered
the Tamil residents of Kokkilai, Kokkuthoduvai, Karunartu
Kerni, Kayadikulam and Koddai Kerni to leave within 24 hours.
The residents of Kokkuthoduwai walked through the forests
and settled in Mulliyavalai.
Balraj’s dream of entering the university was blasted.
He joined Lawrence, the attacker of Kokilai and Nayaru. Later
in his life, he was in charge of the LTTE group fighting to
retake the villages, from which the Tamils were driven away
23 years ago. When he died he was the LTTE commander, battling
with the army on the Weli Oya front.
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