Vantharamulai-90 massacre

In 1990, more than 50,000 Tamils from Sungankerny, Karuvakerny and Bandaramulai villages all came to Eastern University, Batticaloa to flee from the Sri Lanka Armed Forces. On the 5th September 1990, the SLA arrived, and arrested 158 innocent civilians and massacred them. On the 23rd of September 1990, the SLA came again and arrested a further 16 Tamils and massacred them.

The university lecturers responded quickly and provided the university as a place of refuge for the fleeing people. They raised white flags to ensure that the SLA would not come inside and harm anyone. However, their efforts were in vain. Varnakulasingam is one of the lectures. His account of the incident is as follows,

“People who ran to Vantharamulai University in fear of the SLA were immediately received and consoled. I was one of the people that helped change this place into a refugee camp. Dr Vadivel Mohan also worked very hard to make this possible.

The Army had started cutting people in Valaichennai Village near Vantharumulai. People all ran to the University for refuge. In this village 48 people were taken away to Valaichennai Main Road. At the Main Road, there was a bottle shop. Beside this there was a garden which belonged to Selvanayagam. They took the captured people to this garden. They dug up the ground with a bulldozer. They shot these 48 people, threw them in the pit and closed them. If you dig there, many truths will unfold. The bulldozer followed closely behind as they killed everyone. We could not work out where they had thrown the bodies.

They went into Sungankerny, Kavuvakerny and Kondayankerny. There they killed, shot and tortured anyone they could. The people who escaped from this all ran and stayed in the University.

We believed that the army would not come in here. I was in charge of the hostel at the University. Students from Vavuniya, Killnochchi, and Mullaittivu helped us. One of the boys who worked very closely with us named Pirabaharan was cut and killed by the Army. I think he was a student from Vuvuniya. We knew if we left the University, they would hit and kill us, so we just stayed there with all the people. Everyone was screaming and crying in fear. We told them not to worry that the Army would not come to the University. Within one week 50,000 people came to this university as refugees. Every building was full of people.

It took the Army 7 days to reach Vantharamulai from Valaichennai. Till then, they slowly went into every village on the way and killed and cut everyone they could. We did not know if they would arrive today or tomorrow. We waited trembling in fear. We had heard about what had happened at Valaichannai. Because of this everyone was very scared. We, the lecturers, closed the gate of the University and stood at the entrance. If they came, they would come by road and we would talk to them and not let them go inside. As we stood bravely, the army approached. Thinking that they were only on the road, we turned around to find that there were many armies inside the university. As the helicopters circled above, our staff all stood on the road. Army superiors who had come by road approached us and spoke to us. We had already placed signs in Sinhalese and Tamil to tell the army not to enter the place of refuge. The army commander asked us where the people inside were from. The people were from 6 villagers from Valaichennai to Arumuhathan Kuddiyirruppu. Whilst this was happening, 2 buses came. They asked everyone inside to stand in line. Thangamani Chettiya from Vallaichennai was with me at that time. He was a good man. Two Muslims named Muthalali and Kalil were with the Army. They both knew me and Chettiya very well. They used to borrow Chettiya’s vehicle and drive it often. He prayed to them with his two hands. They picked out 138 boys from those that were standing in line and made them get on the bus. Both of the buses left. We knew they were going towards Valaichennai, but nothing else. The mother and fathers all screamed. We did not understand anything. Chettiya, Dr Jayasingam, head lecturer Manosabaratnam and I took down the names of the 138 boys. Though we had their names, we did not know who we could ask to find out where they had gone. Every camp we asked denied having the boys. Within 4 days, I walked along the sea shore to my house in Valaichennai. At my house, they surrounded the house and caught me. This happened around 8 pm. They took me to Navalladi Army Camp. I later found out that Ratnamalai the person in charge of the camp studied with me. I did not recognize him, but he recognized me. By the time I got there, they had tied up 13 from my village to the sentry point with one long string. These men had been previously caught. On the 3rd day, they hit them all and killed them. My head started spinning as I watched this torture. Before they killed them, the person in charge of the camp came. He sat on a chair and asked for the rope that was tied around everyone to be removed. He lit a cigarette and told everyone to take turns to smoke it. He asked them if they were tigers. By the time they had finished smoking the cigarette; their hands had been tied up again. A short time after this, one of the Army started playing a ‘baila’ song which made fun of Tamil people very loudly. All the army was in a state of intoxication. Whilst they were dancing, some other army personnel came with sticks, axes, and iron bars. They started hitting all the people randomly. For few minutes, they were screaming and blood was bleeding from their whole body. Some heads were broken into pieces, some hands and legs were cut off – within a few minutes there was no noise. All 13 were hacked to death. Then they put all the bodies in a pit and burned those bodies with tyres and firewood.

From this incident I presume that the same thing must have happened to all 138 people who were arrested in the campus. In Navaladdy camp, there were a lot of pits. If these pits are excavated the number of people who were killed in this camp could be discovered.

Later they asked me and another person to go and sleep in a room. How can I sleep after seeing the cold blooded massacre? I didn’t have a wink of sleep the whole night. During my stay in that camp, I had seen some Muslims coming into that camp with their traditional hats. Then they removed the hats and went with the army for various activities against the Tamils in those areas. I was on tenterhooks for nearly nine days in that camp. Then I was released with a warning that I should not disclose those matters to anyone outside or I would face the same consequences.

Soon after my release, I went along with my colleagues to Kondayankerny camp to find out as to what had happened there. There we saw a pit covered and by the side of the pit, there were ladies cloths including underwear. We also saw children's clothes. Then we knew, what had happened there for the women who were taken into custody. It is believed that forty eight people were buried in this camp. To my knowledge, the killings continued for a week in the villages of Sithanddy, Kondayankerny, Vantharumulai, Iyankerny, Sathurukoddan and Karuvakerny. Hundreds of people were killed. There are few survivors who are eye witness to these killings. But they are scared to reveal these secrets to outsiders. They were warned by the soldiers not to disclose anything to anyone. If they did so, they would face the same fate.

One Lt. Killad was the person who master-minded all these killings. Now he is a Captain. I know how he killed one Jeyaveran who is known to me. That camp was next to a mosque. Jeyaveran's head was hit against the mosque wall. As he was not killed, he brought a big baton and killed him by hitting him on his forehead.

At Oddumavaddy Bridge, many were hacked to death by the soldiers with the help of some Muslims. If someone can get hold of Muslims at Oddumavaddy, you can get the whole truth of these massacres. The name of these perpetrators, the names and number of victims, the places where the offences were committed etc.”

He concluded by saying that one day all these mass graves will be opened and it will be proved to the world that thousands of Tamils were hacked to death in Batticaloa by the Army.

22 November 2006

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