User:Gettingthere/draft content

"This is a user draft for my edit to Tamil Tigress. To make it easier for editors to check that the statements in the edit is directly supported by published reliable sources, the section of the particular source that supports each and every statement is given within a box under the relevant statement, labeled by the relevant ref number.

The book’s authenticity is also challenged on the grounds of a fundamental error in historical detail. This is a misrepresentation by the author of the identity of her combat adversaries which contradicts the historical context of her claimed fighting tenure (late 1987 to 1988 according to Tamil Tigress)

1)

...My questions arose in part from two minor little tale-tale slips in local parlance and in part from a major error in historical detail. ... Thus, from October 1987 or so the LTTE moved into the guerrilla mode of resistance and centred their high command within the jungles of Mullaitivu in the northern Vanni, while maintaining underground activity in the Jaffna Peninsula. These details are supplied here to indicate that the “Ambush” that is described in graphic detail by de Soyza in Chapter One must have entailed an encounter with Indian troops. The enemy is not a named in this account. They are just “soldiers.” However, all the blurbs advertising the book state that “two days before Christmas 1987, at the age of 17, Niromi de Soyza found herself in an ambush as part of a small platoon of militant Tamil Tigers fighting the government forces that was to engulf Sri Lanka for decades.”6 The “Ambush” is clearly designed to provide a dramatic start and the blurb underlines the pathos by stressing Niromi’s youthfulness and placing the encounter just prior to the natal day of Jesus Christ. But why obscure the presence of the IPKF, if, indeed, this event occurred?

2, 3

Market Pitch, Fundamental Error The dramatic beginning via “The Ambush” is geared to the book’s market pitch. Both the back cover and the cyber-world notices advertising the book tell us that “two days before Christmas 1987, at the age of 17, Niromi de Soyza found herself in an ambush as part of a small platoon of militant Tamil Tigers fighting the government forces that was to engulf Sri Lanka for decades (emphasis mine).”... But within this little tale within a biographical tale lies a fundamental error. Once the uneasy relationship of ‘alliance’ between the LTTE and the Indian government (the LTTE’s ‘mentor’) unravelled in September-October 1987, the Tigers were engaged in a guerrilla war with the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in the northern and eastern parts of the island. As the details below reveal, the armed services of the Sri Lankan state (GoSL) were not directly engaged in this war and did not have joint operations with the Indians on the ground. In brief, the December skirmish could NOT have been against Sri Lankan soldiers. It is not an Allen & Unwin mistake. When de Soyza was interviewed by Margaret Throsby, she remarks “when I joined, the Indian forces had arrived and the Tigers had chosen to fight the Indian forces as well as the Sri Lankan forces.”[xi] Such profound ignorance suggests that she was not in Sri Lanka then and that her tale is a fabrication fashioned without adequate homework. ...Once war erupted in early October 1987 their main enemy became the IPKF, with the Sri Lankan state and the Sinhalese people receding into the background as the distant enemy (albeit the ultimate future enemy). For outsiders to comprehend this vital context, an outline history has to be inserted here. Dramatic Shifts in the Year 1987 .... ....This, then, became the casus belli and the final device to convince the Tamil people — its people in the LTTE conception — that the IPKF must be resisted. Implications The setting that I have traced above is pertinent to the embellishments in Tamil Tigress, notably the use of Thileepan’s photograph with Muralie beside him – both prominently highlighted in the book as the Tiger officers who enlisted Niromi (Tigress, 66-69), while Muralie was the platoon leader during her first experience of battle. These touches in turn provide a possible explanation for the reasons that induced de Soyza to obscure the fact that this fire-fight was against the IPKF. The alleged autobiography was finalized in 2010/11 in a context where the Western media has targeted Sri Lanka as an Ogre guilty of war crimes. To place Indian troops behind the guns that threatened her platoon would tarnish her goals. These goals include an explicit desire to show Australians that the boat people who had begun to arrive off the coast of their continent were not economic refugees, but worthy asylum seekers fleeing persecution. She told Throsby that her tale was in line with the revelations provided by the Channel Four documentary Killing Fields and the Moon Panel of Experts. “I knew that when the Tamil Tigers were caught by the soldiers those things would happen they would be shot in the head, raped, tortured all of those things …It was nothing new.”[xxii] To complicate this propaganda pitch by placing the IPKF in the first chapter would spoil her intent.

From late July 1987 to early 1990, the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord and the consequent arrival of the IPKF ensured the withdrawal of the Sri Lankan troops from the Battlefield. Under the terms of the agreement,Colombo agreed to a devolution of power to the provinces, the Sri Lankan troops were to be withdrawn to their barracks in the north and the Tamil rebels were to surrender their arms. When the LTTE was at war with the IPKF from early October, 1987 to end of 1989, not one of the three arms of the Sri Lankan forces participated in joint action with the IPKF or had any integrated command structure. The Sri Lankan forces stayed clear of direct combat with the LTTE during this period, apart from the limited operations undertaken at sea by the Sri Lankan Navy.

In contrast the blurb of Tamil Tigress announces, “Two days before Christmas in 1987, at the age of 17, Niromi de Soyza found herself in an ambush as part of a small platoon of militant Tamil Tigers fighting government forces in the bloody civil war that was to engulf Sri Lanka for decades…”

1

Thus, from October 1987 or so the LTTE moved into the guerrilla mode of resistance and centred their high command within the jungles of Mullaitivu in the northern Vanni, while maintaining underground activity in the Jaffna Peninsula. These details are supplied here to indicate that the “Ambush” that is described in graphic detail by de Soyza in Chapter One must have entailed an encounter with Indian troops. The enemy is not a named in this account. They are just “soldiers.” However, all the blurbs advertising the book state that “two days before Christmas 1987, at the age of 17, Niromi de Soyza found herself in an ambush as part of a small platoon of militant Tamil Tigers fighting the government forces that was to engulf Sri Lanka for decades.”6

2) and 3)

Market Pitch, Fundamental Error The dramatic beginning via “The Ambush” is geared to the book’s market pitch. Both the back cover and the cyber-world notices advertising the book tell us that “two days before Christmas 1987, at the age of 17, Niromi de Soyza found herself in an ambush as part of a small platoon of militant Tamil Tigers fighting the government forces that was to engulf Sri Lanka for decades (emphasis mine).”... But within this little tale within a biographical tale lies a fundamental error. Once the uneasy relationship of ‘alliance’ between the LTTE and the Indian government (the LTTE’s ‘mentor’) unravelled in September-October 1987, the Tigers were engaged in a guerrilla war with the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in the northern and eastern parts of the island. As the details below reveal, the armed services of the Sri Lankan state (GoSL) were not directly engaged in this war and did not have joint operations with the Indians on the ground. In brief, the December skirmish could NOT have been against Sri Lankan soldiers.

That this is not a Publisher’s mistake confined to a publisher’s blurb is confirmed by a statement the author makes in her Margaret Throsby interview. “…when I joined, the Indian forces had arrived and the tigers had chosen to fight the Indian forces as well as the Sri Lankan forces”-(between 18.45 and 19.02)

2),3)

It is not an Allen & Unwin mistake. When de Soyza was interviewed by Margaret Throsby, she remarks “when I joined, the Indian forces had arrived and the Tigers had chosen to fight the Indian forces as well as the Sri Lankan forces.”[xi] Such profound ignorance suggests that she was not in Sri Lanka then and that her tale is a fabrication fashioned without adequate homework.

In her Throsby interview, responding to a question about a film, which claims to be a documentary covering the atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan Government Forces during the final stages of the Elam War, Niromi de Soyza makes another statement, which can be linked to this misrepresentation of the historical context of the period.

(between 35.56 and 36.23)“Were you able to watch the four corners documentary? “

“I watched it. I forced myself to watch it… It distressed the whole time….I couldn’t sleep that night… but at the same time it wasn’t new. This was something that I knew had happened. I mean I had witnessed much of it and I knew when… the Tamil tigers were caught by the soldiers those things would happen …they would be shot in the head, raped, tortured all of those things. It was nothing new.”

2), 3)

She told Throsby that her tale was in line with the revelations provided by the Channel Four documentary Killing Fields and the Moon Panel of Experts. “I knew that when the Tamil Tigers were caught by the soldiers those things would happen they would be shot in the head, raped, tortured all of those things …It was nothing new.”[xxii] To complicate this propaganda pitch by placing the IPKF in the first chapter would spoil her intent.

Michael Roberts, a Sri Lankan-Australian historical anthropologist has interpreted this contextual misrepresentation by the author of Tamil Tigress as an attempt to give the book a greater contemporary currency by projecting the Sri Lankan Forces(contemporary target for war crimes allegations) into the fighting experiences attributed to Niromi de Soyza in Tamil Tigress.

1)

One speculative answer would be that any indication that the early fighting encounters of Niromi de Soyza were against Indian troops would complicate the story. Further, that in a context when the Western media was verbally thrashing the Sri Lankan state, and where some articulate elements in Australia society, from Gordon Weiss7 to Bruce Haigh to David Feith to Damien Kingsbury to several journalists, have been in de facto alliance or in affinity with the LTTE lobby, it would be poor market sense to highlight the fact that her experience of fighting was against the Indians. Battle-experience in teenage days could highlight bravery in innocence; but it would be best to depict the OGRE as the contemporary “Bad Boy,” that dirty state of Sri Lanka under the Rajapaksas. Rajiv Gandhi’s India would not be as effective an enemy for any sales pitch in a market indulging in Sri Lanka bashing, with a touch of “churnalism” here and there.8

2), 3)

These touches in turn provide a possible explanation for the reasons that induced de Soyza to obscure the fact that this fire-fight was against the IPKF. The alleged autobiography was finalized in 2010/11 in a context where the Western media has targeted Sri Lanka as an Ogre guilty of war crimes. To place Indian troops behind the guns that threatened her platoon would tarnish her goals. These goals include an explicit desire to show Australians that the boat people who had begun to arrive off the coast of their continent were not economic refugees, but worthy asylum seekers fleeing persecution. She told Throsby that her tale was in line with the revelations provided by the Channel Four documentary Killing Fields and the Moon Panel of Experts. “I knew that when the Tamil Tigers were caught by the soldiers those things would happen they would be shot in the head, raped, tortured all of those things …It was nothing new.”[xxii] To complicate this propaganda pitch by placing the IPKF in the first chapter would spoil her intent.