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It was a desperate last phone call but it did not
sound like a man who would be dead within hours.
Balasingham Nadesan, political leader of the Tamil
Tigers, had nowhere to turn, it seemed.
"We are putting down our arms," he told me late last
Sunday night by satellite phone from the tiny slip of
jungle and beach on the northeast coast of Sri Lanka
where the Tigers had been making their last stand.
I could hear machinegun fire in the background as he
continued coolly: "We are looking for a guarantee of
security from the Obama administration and the British
government. Is there a guarantee of security?"
He was well aware that surrendering to the victorious Sri
Lankan army would be the most dangerous moment in the
26-year civil war between the Tigers and Sri Lanka's
Sinhalese majority.
I had known Nadesan and Seevaratnam Puleedevan, the
head of the Tigers' peace secretariat, since being
smuggled into rebel territory eight years ago.
At that time the Tigers controlled a third of the island;
now these two men were trying to save the lives of the
remaining 300 fighters and their families, many of them
injured. Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were
trapped with them, hiding in hand-dug trenches, enduring
near constant bombardment.
For several days I had been the intermediary between the
Tiger leadership and the United Nations as the army
pressed in on the last enclave at the end of a successful
military campaign to defeat the rebellion.
Nadesan had asked me to relay three points to the UN:
they would lay down their arms, they wanted a guarantee
of safety from the Americans or British, and they wanted
an assurance that the Sri Lankan government would agree
to a political process that would guarantee the rights of
the Tamil minority.
Through highly placed British and American officials I
had established contact with the UN special envoy in
Colombo, Vijay Nambiar, chief of staff to Ban Ki-moon,
the secretary-general. I had passed on the Tigers'
conditions for surrender, which he had said he would
relay to the Sri Lankan government.
The conflict seemed set for a peaceful outcome.
Puleedevan, a jolly, bespectacled figure, found time to
text me a smiling photo of himself in a bunker.
By last Sunday night, however, as the army pressed in,
there were no more political demands from the Tigers and
no more photos. Nadesan refused to use the word
"surrender" when he called me, but that is what he
intended to do. He wanted Nambiar to be present to
guarantee the Tigers' safety.
Once more, the UN 24-hour control centre in New York
patched me through to Nambiar in Colombo, where it was
5.30am on Monday. I woke him up.
I told him the Tigers had laid down their arms. He said
he had been assured by Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan
president, that Nadesan and Puleedevan would be safe in
surrendering. All they had to do was "hoist a white flag
high", he said.
I asked Nambiar if he should not go north to witness the
surrender. He said no, that would not be necessary: the
president's assurances were enough.
It was still late Sunday night in London. I tried to get
through to Nadesan's satellite phone but failed, so I
called a Tigers contact in South Africa to relay
Nambiar's message: wave a white flag high.
I was woken at 5am by a phone call from another Tigers
contact in southeast Asia. He had been unable to get
through to Nadesan. "I think it's all over," he said. "I
think they're all dead."
That evening, the Sri Lankan army displayed their bodies.
What had gone wrong with the surrender? I would soon find
out.
I discovered that on Sunday night Nadesan had also called
Rohan Chandra Nehru, a Tamil MP in the Sri Lankan
parliament, who immediately contacted Rajapaksa.
The MP recounted the events of the next hours: "The
president himself told me he would give full security to
Nadesan and his family. Nadesan said he had 300 people
with him, some injured.
"I said to the president, 'I will go and take their
surrender.'
"Rajapaksa said, 'No, our army is very generous and very
disciplined. There is no need for you to go to a warzone.
You don't need to put your life at risk'."
Chandra Nehru said Basil, the president's brother, called
him. "He said, 'They will be safe. They have to hoist a
white flag.' And he gave me the route they should
follow."
The MP got through to Nadesan at about 6.20am local time
on Monday. The sound of gunfire was louder than ever.
"We are ready," Nadesan told him. "I'm going to walk out
and hoist the white flag."
"I told him: 'Hoist it high, brother - they need to see
it. I will see you in the evening'," said Chandra
Nehru.
A Tamil who was in a group that managed to escape the
killing zone described what happened. This source, who
later spoke to an aid worker, said Nadesan and Puleedevan
walked towards Sri Lankan army lines with a white flag in
a group of about a dozen men and women. He said the army
started firing machineguns at them.
Nadesan's wife, a Sinhalese, yelled in Sinhala at the
soldiers: "He is trying to surrender and you are shooting
him." She was also shot down.
The source said all in the group were killed. He is now
in hiding, fearful for his life. Chandra Nehru has fled
the country after being threatened, the MP says, by the
president and his brother.
Over the past few days, Nambiar's role as UN envoy has
come into question. His brother, Satish, has been a paid
consultant to the Sri Lankan army since 2002. Satish once
wrote that General Sarath Fonseka, commander of the Sri
Lankan armed forces, "displayed the qualities of a great
military leader".
Although the Tamil Tigers are internationally banned
because of past acts of terrorism, including suicide
bombings, Nadesan and Puleedevan favoured a political
solution to the conflict. Had they lived, they would have
been credible political leaders for the Tamil
minority.
It was Velupillai Prabhakaran, their commander, who built
the movement into a military machine. He was paranoid and
ruthless, and he remained committed to military means
even as the Tamil Tigers lost ground in the face of the
Sri Lankan army onslaught.
Last week, although rumours circulated that Prabhakaran
had survived, the organisation was in disarray. Surviving
Tamil leaders spoke of turning to a political process,
while more militant representatives threatened revenge
attacks.
I am in a difficult position as a journalist reporting
this story. I first went to Sri Lanka in 2001 to
investigate reports that the government was blocking food
and medical supplies to half a million Tamils.
Journalists had been largely banned from the northern
Tamil area for six years.
I found people living in squalor and doctors pleading for
medicine. Leaders such as Nadesan and Puleedevan told me
they had reduced their demands from independence to
autonomy within Sri Lanka.
As I was being smuggled out of the area at night, we were
ambushed by the Sri Lankan army. I was unhurt until I
shouted, "Journalist, journalist." Then they fired an RPG
at me, severely wounding me.
After intermittent contact with the Tamils since then, I
had a series of phone calls from the leadership in recent
months as the Tigers fell back in the face of the army's
new offensive. In one call, Nadesan said the Tigers would
abide by the result of any referendum and begged for a
ceasefire. His plea was rejected by Colombo.
There was dancing on the capital's streets last week
after the defeat of the Tigers. Victory has come,
however, at a shocking cost to Tamil civilians. The
United Nations says that at least 7,000 died in the last
onslaught, although the toll is believed to be much
higher. Some 280,000 who had been trapped by the fighting
have been herded into "welfare" camps surrounded by razor
wire where conditions are said to be deteriorating
fast.
Yesterday international aid agencies claimed up to three
families were crowding into each tent and being forced to
queue for hours for water and food. One aid worker said
there was only one doctor in a camp holding 44,000
people.
Refugees reached by The Sunday Times through aid
organisations vented their fury. "Look at how we live,"
said one woman in a camp with her two children. "We have
no space, no protection from the sun. We are prisoners
with armed guards and barbed wire. What do they think I
will do - a mother and her two children? Why are we
here?"
Reports were circulating that members of paramilitary
gangs were seizing young people from the camps, accusing
them of being Tigers and holding them in secret
facilities, although this could not be confirmed.
The president has talked of reaching out to the Tamil
community, unifying the country and resettling 80% of the
refugees by the end of the year.
"I do not think that is realistic," said Anna Neistat, of
Human Rights Watch. "There is no procedure to release
anyone."
Whatever the declared intentions of the government, there
seems to be little prospect of uniting Sri Lanka in the
foreseeable future unless the Tamil grievances that
enabled the Tigers to flourish are dealt with.
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