THAMILINI'S FUTURE AMBITION

LTTE political chief Thamilini ....who gets freedom .....dreams of getting married and having children

     LTTE political chief Thamilini is now in her village in Paranthan, Vavuniya with her kith and kin. The Sri Lankan courts granted her a most humanitarian decision. Now her only hope is to get married and have children. Her age is 40 years. Authorities of the National Security Forces and those responsible had a serious problem on their hands about granting her freedom.The suspicion on their minds was that if she was released, whether the ghost of the international diaspora would use her as a propaganda instrument. Apart from that, there was a suspicion whether certain extremist factions would invite her to their stage. 
 
     But today, Thamilini who is now not a tender girl as such is presently a matured woman who is bent on spiritual thoughts looking at life in a clear perspective and is really a rehabilitated woman. Therefore, those efforts were just fishing in shallow waters. I am narrating the story of Thamilini who became a prey to help LTTE achieve their violent objectives with the idea of conveying a lesson to many young boys and girls.

     Thamilini's origin of birth was spread across Jaffna. Their generation then gradually migrated to Kilinochchi and Vavuniya because of poverty. The real name in the birth certificate of Thamilini who was born on the 23rd of April in the year 1972 in Paranthan is Subramaniam Sivakami. Thamilini who lost the love of her father while still small, live a quiet but life of poverty with her mother and 2 sisters.

     Initially she began her studies at Hindu Vidyalaya in Paranthan. Thilini who displayed her capabilities in various activities, creating a revolution in sports activities finally passed her O/L examination. In order to prepare for her A/Ls she entered Kilinochchi Maha Vidyalaya.

    Kilinochchi at that time was the capital of the Tigers. They invaded schools and distorted the minds of innocent children. These LTTE addicted speakers invaded Kilinochchi Maha Vidyalaya too and grabbed the children there.

    "Those known as Sinhalese are barbarians. Though you don't know ... they shot our fathers for no reason at all and killed them ... raped and killed your mothers and sisters. They never gave  us freedom. These areas are ours .... these regions are ours from the dawn of history .... now they have made these areas and lands their own". Saying such false words they lured these small children to their organisation by dropping their net on them. Thamilini and many an innocent youth got entangled in this net, maybe also because they were of a tender, aggressive age.

    In this way she put a stop to her A/L exams on 21st July 1991 and joined the Organisation. This LTTE Forces took her away while her mother was yelling. Thamilini  received her first training in the LTTE camps in Kilali and Neeruveli. They provided her with an identity card too and its number was 1736. In addition a name was bestowed on her. She who was Subramaniam Shivakami .... then became Thamilini from that day. In a few days' time she was given a heavy dress which was the LTTE uniform plus a cyanide capsule.

    She who was at a tender age of entering into wedlock and be happy after having a child and carrying carrying the child in her arms received only a gun to her hands. The weight of that weapon may have dissolved her emotions.

    Thamilini's soul then drifted across to the battlefield. She too was trapped in that fighting Force. During the period when she was inside there she couldn't help but shed tears when thoughts of her mother and sisters came to her mind. While staying there she also came to know that a sister of hers had been dragged away by the LTTE.

    Though youth who go there in their young age and because they have got duped as a result of their flowery words these youth of course will not be able to come back home. Thamilinitoo faced such circumstances. Thamilini came to the forefront with the LTTE Forces to attack in the Yaldevi Operations launched by the Sri Lankan armed forces to capture the Kilani lagoon.

    Subsequently she was a Tiger Girl who was at the forefront in their attack against Punarin and Nagathavanthurai which operations was known as Thavalei (Frog) in 1993. After the Punarin attack, Thamilini who captured a T55 war tank displayed great prowess in transporting it into their dominant areas through a jungle route.

    Like the saying, 'the bull that attacks is clever in its operations', Thamilini who is an expert in the battlefield as well as in speech and strategic thinking came into the attention of Anton Balasingham who was the Theoretician of the LTTE organisation and his wife Adela Balasingham during this period. They told Prabhakaran about her. It was almost uncontested that she was then posted as the Chief of the political division, having been released from the battlefield to some extent.

    Apart from that she became the Manager of a choir factory which was being maintained by the Tigers on the sly and also a farm of the LTTE.

    In the meantime the LTTE decided to publish a LTTE magazine for women. The name of the magazine was Neesundera Paravaikal. The Sinhala meaning was 'flapping wings in freedom'. Thamilini was a chief member of the editorial board of the publication.

    She had no chance to find out about her mother and her younger sister who joined the LTTE or the other sister who was at home. Even within the organisation she was able to see her sister only once or twice.

    Though however much tears she shed in her life because of sorrow, she got nothing from the LTTE except extracting her intelligence and energy.

    In the years 1997 and 1998 when the Jayasikuru operations was active in getting hold of the Wanni, Thamilini thought of going to the battlefield on behalf of the LTTE as a sort of cure for everything attitude.

    There were 3 most powerful female characters. They were those who served both in the battlefield and political section. They were Thamilini, Arsian and Kalachelmi Ponnathurai. She was also known as Durga.

    The Sthichijaya (2) operations of the army which took place in September 1998 was a significant time which shook this iron woman. It was the sad news that her sister enlisted with the LTTE had died sacrificing her life on behalf of the organisation. The only thing that the LTTE did was remove the weapons, ammunition and cyanide capsule given to her sister by the organisation themselves.

    On the occasion when the Sri Lanka army launched the Agnikhila operations to capture Alimankada in 2001, what the LTTE did was send Thamilini to the battlefield from her political division. Because of the frightening bravery she had portrayed and the lives she had rescued she was able to earn distinguished popularity during the period in February 2002 when the LTTE had laid down their arms.

    She was not only invited for lectures, but was given a double cab for her travelling in addition to a separate vehicle for her bodyguards. Thamilini even participated in some of the seminars held in Colombo. She even attended some seminars held by her organisation in Europe during 2005 - 2007.

    In the beginning stages when Prabhakaran had planned to get together powerful males and females in his organisation and make them get married, it was Thamilini who was against this proposition but had struck up a romance with a youth by the name of Kay. Though the rays of the first love began to shed on her, in a short period of time Kay died and Thamilini's love story ended there.

    When the war once rose its head somewhere in 2004 and when LTTE became cornered in a jungle area in the Mullaitivu district and with Thipan's death, it was thought that the end of Thamilini and many other groups was at hand. That incidentally was the turning point oh Thamilini's life.

    Arsian and Durga who held authority as female leaders of the LTTE dying in the last battle came to Thamilini as a bolt of lightning. In that confrontation Thamilini too was seriously injured. Because of her cleverness she managed to save her life.

    In the same way, she constantly felt the incidents of the bereavement of her friends and that of her sister as a needle travelling along her throat horizontally and not vertically. She also used to feel as it was her sister dying in the same way when she witnessed her friend at the moment when she was breathing her last at Paranthan.

    When the civilians surrendered to the Sri Lankan army on May 16th, 2009, her mother in the company of the other sister came with hopes of safety. It was by throwing the weapon, clothes and cyanide capsule which were so far guarded, into the lagoon.

    Thamilini who breathed a sigh of relief in the welfare camp and arrived with the civilians was taken into custody on May 27th, 2007 on information received by the Intelligence Unit of the government. She was not brought among those 1,235 who had committed grave violent crimes and were taken into custody because she was a political leader. She was considered only as a member of an anti-government terrorist movement among 11,989 individuals.

    After being taken into custody, subsequent to the humanitarian decision of the courts she ultimately ended up at the Punthottam Rehabilitation camp in Vavuniya. I will now tell you about what I experienced in the association of Brigadier Dharshana Hettiarachchi and Colonel Jagath.

    She is now 40 years. What she now wants now is to get married, to get children and lead a successful life as a woman. Here she practised meditation. She said that she got consolation and peace in her life through meditation. She who joined in trips in villages down South and villages of Narampanawa in the Kandy district was shocked about the wrong image she entertained about the Sinhalese people.

     She also said that affection, modesty, the act of sharing and good etiquettes were among her people. Earlier she was a Hindu and though later she became a Catholic, she practised meditation in Buddhism. She was also happy about granting the government loan of 4% to government workers of families of those who lost their lives in this manner.

    We too appreciate the effort taken by Thamilini to get married and live a justified life. She now lives in the house in Paranthan, Vavuniya. The storm that blew in her life in the past is now a worry to her. Therefore, she has put a stop to all her phone calls and confrontations and meetings with others.

Silumina newspaper report -- Upali Samarasingha