Military is a profession that respects and hold rich customs and etiquette. It is these customs and etiquette and their resultant ethical behaviour that distinguish a professional military from a bunch of murderers or a terrorist outfit. Moreover for an outfit as such, military ethics may be viewed as something that can be manipulated to gain propaganda mileage. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or the LTTE is one such terror outfit that often deprave military ethics in the meanest manner to further its sinister motives. Many pro LTTE websites reported one such shameful drama enacted by the LTTE terrorists at their sanctum sanctorum in Wanni. The reports said that the LTTE had cremated eleven bodies of "SL army soldiers" killed in recent clashes in Omanthai with "military honours". Further, the reports blamed SL army for not accepting the bodies once they had sent through ICRC and denying an honourable funeral to those who sacrificed their life in battle. The defence.lk learnt from senior defence officials that this was another abominable trick of the LTTE leadership to bring discredit to SL army as well as to dupe his own cadres. We were further edified on the issue as we learnt some of the highly classified information on the LTTE's behaviour towards its own cadre through intelligence sources.
Defence sources have recently revealed, how the LTTE leadership denied the final rights to one of his senior most cadres, Sinnathambi Kanapathipille Shivamoorthi alias "Colonel Nagulan". Self styled colonel Nagulan was killed along with six other LTTE cadres by the army at Eravur in Batticaloa on 23rd May 2007. Self styled Major Maniwannan Master, the LTTE's intelligence coordinator for Batticaloa; and LTTE female cadre Mala, a senior member of LTTE's Sothiya band were also killed in the same confrontation.
Nagulan was the leader of the LTTE's "Charles Anthony" band and known to be one of the most battle hardened members of the LTTE. A senior defnce official speaking exclusively to defence.lk said, that Nagulan had taken over the Charles Anthony band in the year 2006. The band is one of the LTTE's oldest fighting units named after the son of terror chief V. Prabhakaran. Nagulan was appointed as the leader of the band after the death of Weeramani who died in an accidental explosion at Nagarkovil, the official further added.
The LTTE identity card found with the body and a video of Nagulan speaking at an LTTE camp were also provided as a proof.
"Nagulan was an exception from other Wanni LTTE leaders. He used to lead from the front and his loss will certainly have an adverse effect on the terror outfit" the official said.
"The bodies were later handed over to the LTTE through the ICRC. One female body was identified by the parents as of their young daughter abducted by the LTTE and taken to their residence at Batticaloa. The other six were taken to Thoppigala by the ICRC" the official further said.
According to the sources, Nagulan along with other senior LTTE cadres were buried in a mass grave without any funeral honours. Not a word was published on any of the Pro LTTE websites on Nagulan's death.
In early April 2007, the LTTE played a similar drama in Wanni by giving an enemy burial for over 50 of its own cadres. The LTTE cadres who were killed in action during the end of March and early April in North of Mannar were buried in a mass grave as "army" soldiers, before a large gathering of junior LTTE cadres. An ICRC official who had also seen the bodies reported to army that he saw over 50 mutilated bodies clad with army overalls being piled up at an LTTE camp. The LTTE heads in the area had refused to hand over the bodies except one to the ICRC, though they had claimed that the bodies belonged to army. Up on receipt of the body army officials identified the body as one of the soldier who had gone on missing after the battle. However, the military proved with its records that the bodies buried by the LTTE did not belonged to any of the army soldiers.
Warfare is essentially based on deception. As epic military genius, Sun Tzu once told, it is customary for any professional military to pretend incapable when capable, inactive when active, far away when closing in and vice versa. Thus, a military may hold certain information from the public on its successes as well as failures in order to ensure unhindered operation to achieve the larger objective.
However, no organized military can hide their death figures since it must inform the fate of the soldier to his /her next of kin and keep its records updated. With regard bodies of own soldiers held by the enemy, armed forces even fight separate battles to acquire them if the enemy refuse to hand them over. SL military is no exception.
In the chaotic situation in battle, it is obviously impossible to state exact numbers of deaths and casualties until the situation permits a proper head count. Military Spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarashinghe on Wednesday (06th) announced that army has lost 15 soldiers and few others had gone on missing. Still this figures may change as the missing soldiers are turning up daily. However, Brigadier Samarasinghe clearly stated that there were no army soldiers among the eleven dead bodies sent back to the LTTE.
(http://www.defence.lk/new.asp?fname=20070608_01)
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