The Pawns Of War

On September 18, 2006, 11 Muslim labourers, engaged in the clearing of areservoir at Rattal Kulam in Pottuvil in the southern part of the Ampara districtin the Eastern province, were found hacked to death. While immediatepopular anger, in townships like Pottuvil and Ulla, was directed against theSpecial Task Force (STF) of the Police, who were said to be in control of thearea during the incident, the lone survivor of the attack, Kareem Meera Mohideen,recuperating from grave injuries, identified the rebels of the Liberation Tigersof Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as the attackers. The LTTE tried its best, to wash its hands off the incident byblaming it on the STF.

The killings had come a month and half after the tragedy at Muttur inTrincomalee district. Amidst ground fighting between the LTTE and governmentforces to control the town and its surrounding areas, at least 10 displacedMuslim civilians, who had sought refuge in the Arabic College in Muttur, werekilled and several others sustained shrapnel injuries when LTTE shelled the campon August 3. On this occasion too, the pro-LTTE website Tamil Net had allegedthat the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) was responsible for the killings. A day later, onAugust 4, 17 aid workers attached to the French Aid agency, Action againstHunger were executed with bullets to their heads. On the same day, the LTTEkilled over 100 Muslims, including women and children, after accusing them ofcollaborating with the Security Forces (SFs). The victims had been interceptedby the LTTE cadres at Pachchanoor, while fleeing Muttur. The LTTE, however, onAugust 6 denied the charges. "There is no massacre as alleged by the SriLankan government", the head of the LTTE peace secretariat, S. Puleedevansaid, adding, "We have not killed any civilians. In fact, we gave them noticeto quit the area before we launched our operation." The InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross (ICRC)’s search for the bodies lasted only one houron August 16 following the LTTE’s threat to "shoot any one who dared toapproach the forest".

As the situation in Muttur worsened during weeks of heavy fighting andartillery assaults, the Muslim population fled to Kantale, a predominantlySinhala town about 60 kilometres away. By August 8, there were over 40,000internally displaced Muslims seeking shelter in tents and in Muslim schools inKantale. It was exactly after a month that, on September 7, the governmentannounced that the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) would return to Muttur.Many returned reluctantly for the holy month of Ramadan.

Their stay, after their return to Muttur, however, turned out to be a ratherbrief. On September 22 and 23, 700 to 800 families – 10 per cent of Muttur’spopulation – left the township after the Tigers warned that they were planningan offensive to reclaim the territory lost to government forces. The LTTEcirculated leaflets in the area asking the people to leave the area as theycould launch hostilities on Muttur "at any moment". Families boarded boatsin Muttur and sailed for the nearby Muslim-majority island of Kinniyai, as government forces refused to let them pass by road. Roadblocks were, however,removed on September 23, after meetings between the government and localauthorities. government ministers also travelled to the area to try to persuadepeople to stay. But the residents were just too afraid.

It is interesting to analyse whether the recent incidents of repeatedvictimization of the Muslims, constituting 7.15 per cent of the country’spopulation of 20 million, is the result of their being ‘caught in-betweendifferent manifestations of the conflict at different moments in history’ –a collateral fallout of the long and bloody war, or a part of the larger goal ofethnic cleansing by the LTTE. As the LTTE is finding it increasingly difficultto face one of the most determined efforts by government forces, the Muslims areturning out to be its easy prey. While each of these arguments contains elementsof truth, there is significant evidence that the Muslims have also been thevictims of opportunistic policies of successive regimes at Colombo, for whomthey are a useful, yet dispensable demographic.

The Eastern province – once predominantly Tamil, is today a volatile mix ofSinhalese, Tamil and Muslim populations. More than 31 percent of the country’sMuslims live here, making them a distinct opposition group in the LTTE’shomeland campaign, the reason why the LTTE has been stubbornly opposed to Muslimparticipation in the peace talks. The East, in fact, remains the last Muslimbastion after the 1990s, ever since the LTTE purged the country’s Northernprovince of its substantial Muslim population through a systematic campaign ofviolence. The LTTE’s forcible expulsion of the entire Muslim community of the districts of the Northern Province, numbering an estimated 75,000 in October1990, was part of this campaign. [A Report by the United States Department ofState quotes a much smaller number of Muslims, 46,000, who were expelled fromthe Northern province. The Report, nevertheless, however, qualifies thisobservation, stating further: "Some Muslims returned to Jaffna in 1997, butdid not remain there due to the continuing threat posed by the LTTE."

Sri Lankan Muslims have also been encouraged and instigated by successiveSinhalese governments at Colombo in the hope of weakening the LTTE’s claim to thewhole of the Eastern Province. Sinhalese governments have encouraged Muslimaspirations for a separate administrative unit for the Muslim-majority areas ofthe Eastern province. During the 1980s, it was the Sri Lankan government of thetime – specifically the STF – that provided Muslims with weapons, ostensiblyso that they could protect themselves against Tamil militant groups. By armingMuslims, sections in the Lankan government were also hoping to deepen the dividebetween the Tamils and the Muslims in the Eastern province. When the LTTEunleashed violence against Muslims from 1990 onwards, many Muslim youth pickedup weapons, if only to protect their homes and villages from Tamil Tigers’terror. This led the LTTE to view the Muslims as Colombo’s quislings. Theclose ties that the political organisations representing the Muslims, such asthe Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), enjoyed with the LTTE’s rival EelamPeople’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) and the Indian Peace KeepingForce (IPKF), further antagonised the Tigers. The LTTE ordered all Muslims toleave the Northern Province and periodic acts of violence were also directedagainst the Muslims in the Eastern Province. Thus,

In 1990 (August 3 and 11) 110 Muslim men at prayer in mosques in Kattankudy and 130 men, women and children in Eravur were massacred by a group of 50 LTTE cadres brandishing T-56 assault rifles, knives and razors..

In 1991, at Palliyagodella 109 Muslims including women and children were hacked and shot dead by the LTTE. Around 650 families were displaced in the incident.

In 1992, 24 Muslims were hacked to death in Kalmunai.

The BBC reports that, since 1996 and till the recent incidents in Muttur and Pottuvil, the LTTE executed over 30 attacks against the Muslims.

Even during the ceasefire period, beginning 2002, Muslims were being targetedthrough a systematic process of abduction, intimidation, seizure of land andproperty and economic restrictions, including 'taxation' by the LTTE. Muslimsfrom Mannar and Jaffna who had returned to their old homes following theceasefire, began to move away again to areas around Puttalam and Kalpitiya asearly as first week of July 2006, following acts of intimidation by the LTTE.

While Muslims have been systematically targeted by the LTTE, the governmenthas also failed to provide them the support that they need. Till recently, the government had pursued a line similar to that of the LTTE in excluding theMuslim representatives from the formal peace negotiations, thus contributingfurther to their sense of marginalization and alienation.

Responses of the Muslim political parties, such as the SLMC, have reflectedtheir lack of faith in either of the two warring parties. In a statement onAugust 4, before the Muttur massacre was reported, the SLMC adopted a resolutionthat read:

"In the context of the fact that both the government and the LTTEare engaged in fighting, totally disregarding security of the civilian population, it is urged that the co-chairs to the donor countries should convene an urgent meeting to exert pressure on the two sides for immediate cessation of hostilities so that immediate humanitarian needs of the people could be provided… The fact that all appeals for urgent humanitarian assistance to the affected civilian population have been repeatedly rejected by both the government and the LTTE should be brought to the notice of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC)…."

Similarly, after the Pottuvil killings, the SLMC leader Rauff Hakeem calledfor an international probe with assistance from the United Nations to find outthe actual perpetrators of the massacre. The demand was rejected by theGovernment, which said that Sri Lanka has the expertise to carry out a fullprobe. This has been a further cause of annoyance for the Muslims as the government had allowed foreign forensic scientists to carry out investigationinto the August 4 killings of the 17 aid workers, of whom 16 were Tamils,attached to Action against Hunger.

It is in this context that the reported proliferation of armed Muslimmilitias in the Eastern province assumes importance. In fact, one of thetheories that abound regarding the August 4 killing in Muttur, is that thehundred odd Muslim victims actually belonged to the Islamic organisation ‘Jihad’.

Indications do suggest that such periodic victimization is driving Muslimsinto the lap of existing extremist groups. Thus, unlike the past, when Muslimswere by and large at the receiving end of violent attacks by Tamil Tigermilitants, and of perceived official neglect, the Muslim militias now appear tobe inclined to fight back. Islam in Sri Lanka – which had remained, by andlarge, free of fundamentalist and pan-Islamist influences of Pakistani origin– is now changing. districts like Batticaloa have becoming home to growinginstances of Islamist extremism and have witnessed tensions between moderate andhardline Muslim factions. An unspecified number of people in the district havereportedly travelled to Saudi Arabia for religious studies. In October 2004,followers of Sufi Islam in the town of Kattankudy near Batticaloa were attackedand their mosque demolished by mobs incited by orthodox Wahhabi clerics trainedin Saudi Arabia. It was also reported that hundreds of Sufi Muslims wereforcibly ‘converted’ to the orthodox faith. In the first week of April 2006,a policeman’s death in Batticoloa was linked to Islamist extremists. Women inburqa and hijab are increasingly seen in Muslim-populated areas from Kattankudyto the cosmopolitan capital, Colombo. Names such as Osama Group, the MutturJetty Group and the Knox Group, reportedly financed by ‘money from the MiddleEast’ figure increasingly in media reports.

While the September 22 decision of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC)to accept the Muslims as stakeholders in the country’s ethnic conflict,entitling them to be represented at future peace negotiations, could help meetsome of the community’s political aspiration, it means little to the people onthe ground, who continue to face the ire of the terrorists, with little supportfrom the state.

Bibhu Prasad Routray isResearch Fellow and Ajit Kumar Singh isResearch Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal