COVER STORY

Caught in the crossfire in Vavuniya

V.S. SAMBANDAN
recently in Vavuniya

CAUGHT between despair and hope - that sums up the state of the residents of Vavuniya. The sound of heavy artillery sends them helter-skelter, whether it is day or night.

Vanuniya's woes started in early November when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam embarked on its offensive in the Wanni region. When Operation Oyatha Alaigal began along the eastern flank of the Kandy-Jaffna road (A-9 highway), the residents were caut iously optimistic that their town would not be affected. However, in just over a week, they found themselves packing their belongings and proceeding to areas specified by the LTTE. The LTTE, in broadcasts on the Voice of Tigers (VoT), asked them to shift from Vavuniya town, Pandarikkulam, Katkuli, Thonikkal, Vairavapuliyankulam, Pattanippuram, Veppankulam, Nelukkulam, Thand-ikkulam and Pathinarmagilamkulam, as the Army camps there could be shelled. The safer places it suggested included Aasikkulam and R ajendrakulam.

A few days after most of the town's residents, estimated at around 80,000, had evacuated, another LTTE broadcast asked them to shift back to their homes but warned them to keep off the Army camps. (No correct estimate of the population figures of Vavuniy a is available, and this confirms the distancing of the northern districts from the rest of the island. As no census was taken in the northern and eastern areas since 1981, actual population estimates vary from the figure provided by the Government, whic h is 50,000, to that mentioned by relief agencies, 1,00,000.) The confusion over numbers notwithstanding, it was a matter of grave humanitarian concern.

SRIYANTHA WALPOLA
Civilians in makeshift tents outside Vavuniya.

The residents of Vavuniya did as they were told. The Tigers ensured that their word was taken as a command by the civilians in the government-held areas. The military aggression of the days preceding the announcement only reemphasised this. "I did not pe rsonally hear the LTTE announcements, but I was told that the leader wanted us to move. So I obeyed. Then, he wanted us to return. We did so," said a resident of Vavuniya. Some Tamil leaders were of the opinion that the LTTE carried out the entire Vavuni ya exercise just to prove a point. "It caused so much of misery to the people to prove the point that its word carried weight."

THE majority of people who fled Vavuniya during the current offensive were those who had sought refuge in the town after their lives were disrupted in an earlier offensive elsewhere in the north. Thousands of people - students and traders, landlords and the landless, professionals and casual workers, government employees and shopkeepers - who were uprooted from the battle-scarred northern districts had only started life anew in Vavuniya.

On November 11, when the LTTE asked them to move out, they were confused. Did the Tigers mean what they said? Was it a ruse to send the Army into panic? Was it a rumour spread to cause confusion? However, all doubts ended the following morning.

Moving out of the heavily fortified town was the first priority. "Those of us who have passes (issued by the police) can go to Colombo, but others would have to stay behind," was the initial reaction.

"I am going to lock my house and flee. In which direction? The Tigers have specified some locations. We will follow their instructions," a watchman of a lodge in the town said.

IN Rajendrakulam near Vavuniya, a new settlement had come up overnight. Several families were living under extreme odds - under trees or bullock carts, in makeshift huts, in semi-finished houses and in thatched-roof schools.

"I have been on the move since the 1970s," said I. Sabaratnam, a former employee of the Excise Department. He has practically lived out of his suitcase, having moved to whichever area the displaced people were sent to. The exodus from Vavuniya brought lu ck to Sabaratnam, who now owns a soft drink stall. "Look at the wares I sell," he said pointing to the stacked-up bottles of aerated drinks and household goods. "Traders from Vavuniya sold them at rock-bottom prices. They just wanted to sell their stocks and take the money before fleeing." With a shop located in a displaced region, finding buyers could well turn out to be his next problem.

Along the dirt track that runs across Bharatipuram, another location near Vavuniya, families live in tents, children play in makeshift swings and men huddle around a tea-stall.

"Whether we have money or not, what we need is passes," said Thurairaja, a former resident of Jaffna. For people like him who have been constantly uprooted, the main concern is to ensure that all members of their family have passes. "Only that will ensur e that we travel together." In the militarised zone, only civilians holding a pass issued by the police can move about freely. People without passes could be taken for militants.

"Imagine carrying passes in one's own land. I was leading a comfortable life in Jaffna. I owned a car, my family was well-settled. The troubles began and we left. Now I work as a mason. But there is not enough work."

For Shah Jahan, who fled Jaffna after the LTTE began its ethnic-cleansing, his family's return to Vavuniya would be determined by the Tigers. "If they remain in the area, I will not come back," he said, as he waited for a bus to take his family to the Mu slim-majority Puttalam town.

Voluntary organisations gave priority to providing shelter. But those who wanted tents were required to produce their passes and register themselves with government officials.

Dharmalingam, a leftist now in his sixties, is in a tearing hurry. "I have a list of 70 people. I want to ensure that everybody gets some kind of shelter. Let us go fast, the officials may go away," he says as he gathers a group of people. At the makeshi ft office, an empty desk awaits him. "They have gone," a 50-year-old widow tells him. "I have to come back. I hope it does not rain (for the people have no roof over their heads)," he says. He added: "Some of the former militant groups have helped us. Th e houses, which are yet to be completed, were built at the initiative of the members of Parliament belonging to the People's Liberation Organisation for Tamil Eelam (PLOTE)."

SRIYANTHA WALPOLA
The exodus from Vavuniya following an LTTE broadcast asking
residents to leave the town.

At Bharatipuram, cadres of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) were overseeing mass cooking for the displaced. "We are trying to do our best. Some rice, some curry, some vegetables," says Ganeshamoorthy, urging the workers to finish the task f ast. As the rice boils, there is a cloudburst. A heavy downpour sends the people running for cover. And with that goes the hope of a meal.

THE situation in Vavuniya changed rapidly when the Tigers asked the displaced people to return to the town on November 17. The residents returned to their moorings, to begin the process of normalcy. But this was shattered by incessant shelling of Army po sitions north of Vavuniya. A shell which landed at Thonikkal, on the outskirts of the town, killed a child and injured three persons. Panic set in again with hundreds of civilians taking shelter at a church in the town. "We do not stir out after dark," s aid Ganesh, a casual worker. After dusk, the roads are largely deserted, with most people choosing to stay indoors.

In the areas near Vavuniya, an uneasy calm prevailed. "We don't know what will happen next," said a shopkeeper at Medawachchiya, south of Vavuniya.

Rather than the threat of a Tiger advance, it is the refugee influx that is a matter of concern for the people living in the vicinity of Vavuniya. In Anuradhapura, further south, Sinhalese residents of Vavuniya had sought refuge with their friends and re latives.

The Army maintains a nervous vigil, checking all those who enter or leave the town. At a checkpoint outside the town, students wait for some mode of transport to take them to safety. Resumption of normal life depends on the course the conflict would take next.