A Sri Lankan officer who even in LTTE custody remained a humanist | M.R. Narayan Swamy

BOOK REVIEW
 

A Long Watch: War, Captivity and Return in Sri Lanka

by Commodore Ajith Boyagoda (as told to Sunila Galappatti)

HarperCollins India
Pages: xi + 224
Price: Rs 350
 

He was an officer in the Sri Lanka Navy who remained a prisoner with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for eight long agonizing years, at times chained in a cage-like environment. Fortunately, for more reasons than one, the Tigers treated him with some deference (except in patches) even if they tried to – and failed – to recruit him to their cause.
 
Strangely, Sri Lanka was not kind to him when he was in captivity; he was vilified as a traitor. Yet, when he came out a free man in 2002, he had no hatred for the enemy but was more disappointed with his own compatriots for treating him harshly. This is a beautiful but painful story at the same time, a small mirror to what Sri Lanka underwent for a long time. In my view, it is one of the finest books written on the island nation’s horrific conflict.
 
In a rarity in South Asian writing where patriotism worn on the sleeves often stifles truth, Boyagoda admits the ugly truth that all through the three decades of war, the government in Colombo prioritised what the “southern people” (read Sinhalese) wanted. He also witnessed in the early 1980s at Karainagar in Jaffna what the “Sinhala army” did while walking through a Tamil village: “Whatever they saw, they destroyed. Wardrobes had been opened, clothes pulled out, family photographs smashed.”
 
There was also systematic looting of Tamil homes. “The troops knew that the shrine rooms of houses generally contained the family safe. So, this was what they broke into, looking for gold… I saw it with my own eyes.” Boyagoda could not stop the looting but he could stop the troops from taking away the stolen goods out of Karainagar. Naturally, he was not a popular military officer. Any Tamil who witnessed the mayhem, the officer author says, would enlist with the LTTE. Indeed, this is how the militant ranks swelled in Sri Lanka.
 
When Boyagda became a prisoner after a devastating LTTE suicide attack in 1994, it marked the start of an imprisonment that would profusely influence him. It wasn’t easy to begin with. A total of 22 of his crew had perished when one of two LTTE suicide boats, one driven by females, had rammed into SLNS Sagarawardene, a 40-meter offshore patrol vessel, forcing it to sink. The attack was commanded by Soosai, the LTTE naval wing head. Naturally, the Tigers were surprised that the captain of the ship fell into their hands.
 
The transformation from being an officer accustomed to the facilities to a prisoner who had to obey his new masters was not easy. He was interrogated at length but not harshly – for the simple reason that the Tigers were already in possession of a lot of information about the navy. It also helped that the LTTE learnt from civilians in Jaffna, where Boyagoda was posted earlier, that he was kind-hearted and never harassed ordinary folks. Being a humanist in war was paying dividends.
 
Boyagoda and a 10-year-junior fellow sailor who too had been captured were lucky that their captivity was reported to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Thanks to this, they were not tortured although the quality of food given to them depended on whether or not the LTTE was scoring victories in the war or taking a battering. (Some soldiers captured earlier were, however, treated harshly.) But the prolonged incarceration did affect Boyagoda’s health who, at one point, suffered loss of weight and vision. On its part, the LTTE used the prisoners as propaganda tools and tried to exchange them for fellow cadres jailed in Sri Lanka.
 
Barring one, most LTTE fighters who were in charge of the prisons were affable. As a show-prisoner, Boyagoda was addressed as “Sir” by most LTTE members. The exception among the “jailers” was a Sangeethan, who hated the men simply because they were Sinhalese. He invented transgressions in order to punish them. Under his charge, Boyagoda and the others got less food, less water and no change of clothes. They were permanently put in chains. In desperation, Boyagoda meditated to gain inner strength. Nelson Mandela’s long years in prison, which he read in jail, also gave the Sri Lankan hope and courage. Finally, after a complaint to the ICRC, Sangeethan, to everyone’s luck, was replaced.
 
Eventually, after eight punishing years, when Sri Lanka entered a new phase of ceasefire, Boyagoda was freed amid much publicity. In captivity, he had been moved from prison to another, from Jaffna to the jungles of Vanni. He returned to the navy, which was not too happy to take him back, and then to a civilian life. By then, his aged father had passed away and his children had grown up without seeing their own father. The transition from a prisoner to a free man was in some ways tougher.
 
Besides his life in captivity, which Boyagoda describes without fear or favour, some of his observations about the LTTE and its men and women (many not even adults) makes profound reading.
 
Boyagoda says most LTTE fighters he came across had never seen any of the Sinhalese people they were fighting. Even some cadres born in the 70s had never seen the enemy except in battle. Selvaratnam (Sasikumar Master), one of his first “jailors”, like most others in the LTTE, had no faith in the periodic peace talks. He dubbed negotiations with Colombo a “nonsense”. As far as he was concerned, they just gave a breather for the LTTE to prepare for another war. He was supremely confident that an independent Tamil Eelam would be a reality by the year 2000.
 
Another “jailor” was Mohan who came from a family of Sai Baba devotees and a strict vegetarian. Early on, he gave Boyagoda a photograph of Sai Baba as a protection and a book on the holy man. Mohan also gifted the Sri Lankan some vibuthi (holy ash), which Boyagoda carries in his wallet even now.
 
Boyagoda saw that the LTTE had an extensive network of prisons in its domain. These were mostly for their own “traitors” – cadres who were in trouble with the movement, paramilitaries from rival groups and disobedient civilians. Some Tamil prisoners he saw appeared only half-conscious – obvious victims of LTTE torture. There were nights when he heard pitiful cries from some cells. Some prisoners were finished off with a shot to the head.
 
The best jailor was known by his nom de guerre Newton. He was “a universal favourite – the best keeper of our captivity”. Under Newton’s care, combined with possibilities of fresh peace talks, life improved for Boyagoda and the others. They were even allowed to cook themselves with provisions provided by their families and brought by the ICRC. The prisoners also got to play cricket – with LTTE cadres! In the end stages, the prison seemed more like a dormitory. Newton even introduced his young daughters to Boyagoda. But Newton was very clear, after seeing Sinhalese racism, that there ought to be an autonomous Tamil state.
 
Boyagoda, like many Sri Lankans, believes there could have been a settlement at some point between the government and the LTTE. But Sri Lankan politicians could not put a settlement above their own political interests. He doesn’t spare the LTTE either. “Neither side had the political maturity to do it.”
 
After release, Boyagoda was one day surprised to get a call from a Murali, who was one of his earliest interrogators. Murali telephoned from Canada. He said that when he was working in the LTTE intelligence, he was also working for India’s intelligence agency, the RAW. According to Murali, the RAW had blackmailed him into service by threatening to expose a love affair that was forbidden under LTTE rules. Murali later worked for the Sri Lankan intelligence too in return for a safe passage out of the country.
 
What Sri Lanka underwent was one of the most painful and complicated chapters in South Asian history. As Boyagoda says, racial animosity kept the war alive, reinforced by prejudices on both sides. In the end, the war did not just destroy the LTTE but Sri Lanka’s soul too. “There is absolutely no victory in a war … a fight between brothers.”
 
This is not a new book but without doubt a gem of a work. I am glad I read it. I strongly recommend the book to everyone interested in Sri Lanka.