On June 2, 1987, one of the most heinous atrocities in Sri Lanka's troubled history unfolded in the quiet village of Aranthalawa, Ampara District, when the terrorist organization Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) systematically murdered 33 Buddhist monks and four civilians in what stands as an indelible testament to the terrorist organization's callous disregard for innocent life. This brutal massacre, which targeted predominantly young novice monks aged between seven and eighteen years, exemplifies the LTTE's deliberate strategy of terrorizing civilian populations and destroying the religious fabric of Sri Lankan society.
The tragedy began when a bus carrying Buddhist monks on a pilgrimage from Mahavapi temple to Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara was intercepted by approximately twenty armed LTTE terrorists led by a commander named Reagan near Nuwaragalatenna village. The terrorists, disguising themselves as Sri Lankan security personnel, exploited the trust of bus driver Samarapala, who allowed them aboard believing they were government forces in need of transport. Once inside the vehicle, the militants revealed their true identity by pointing machine guns at the driver and ordering him in Tamil to divert the bus into the remote Aranthalawa jungle where additional LTTE militants waited.
What followed was an act of barbarism that shocked even a nation already traumatized by decades of ethnic violence. After forcing the bus to stop deep within the jungle, the LTTE cadres systematically robbed the passengers of their money, watches, and valuables before executing their premeditated plan of murder. When the venerable chief priest Hegoda Sri Indrasara Thera, sensing the imminent danger to his young charges, offered his own life in exchange for sparing the novice monks, the terrorists responded by hacking him to death with a sword. The children's desperate pleas of "aney mame epa epa" (uncle, don't, don't) fell on deaf ears as the LTTE terrorists proceeded to slaughter the helpless young monks with guns and bladed weapons.
This massacre cannot be understood as an isolated incident of wartime violence but must be recognized as part of the LTTE's broader pattern of terrorist activities designed to intimidate and terrorize civilian populations. The organization, which has been designated as a terrorist entity by thirty-three countries including Sri Lanka, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India, and the entire European Union, systematically employed terror tactics against non-combatants throughout its three-decade campaign of violence. The Aranthalawa massacre represents one of numerous attacks on religious sites and clergy, including the earlier assault on the sacred Sri Maha Bodhi tree in Anuradhapura in 1985, in an attempt of attacking Buddhist religious symbols to provoke communal tensions.
The LTTE's methodology in perpetrating this massacre reveals the calculated nature of their terrorism. The use of disguises to gain access to their victims, the selection of a remote location for the killings, and the systematic execution of both adults and children demonstrate a level of premeditation that distinguishes terrorism from conventional warfare. The fact that these terrorists showed no mercy even to children as young as seven years old, despite their tearful pleas for life, exposes the fundamental inhumanity that characterized the LTTE throughout its existence.
This atrocity must also be viewed within the context of the LTTE's broader record of human rights violations and war crimes. The organization routinely engaged in suicide bombings targeting civilian areas, recruited and used child soldiers in violation of international law, executed prisoners of war, and employed civilians as human shields. According to Human Rights Watch documentation, the LTTE forcibly recruited thousands of children, some as young as nine years old, subjecting them to military training and combat operations. The organization's use of forced recruitment was so systematic that families were told they were traitors deserving death if they refused to surrender their children to the LTTE cause.
The LTTE's tactics of using civilian populations as human shields reached their most despicable expression during the final phases of the civil war, when the organization forcibly prevented hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians from fleeing combat zones, effectively using them as human buffers against government forces. These civilians were shot at when attempting to escape LTTE control, demonstrating the organization's willingness to murder the very people they claimed to represent. United Nations investigations found credible evidence that the LTTE systematically employed civilians as involuntary human shields, fired artillery from hospital and school compounds, and prevented humanitarian assistance from reaching desperate populations.
The international community's documentation of LTTE atrocities provides overwhelming evidence of the organization's terrorist nature. The UN Secretary General's Panel of Experts found credible allegations that the LTTE committed war crimes including the intentional shooting of civilians attempting to flee, forced recruitment of children and adults, and the deliberate infliction of suffering on civilian populations. Crisis Group investigations revealed that LTTE militants engaged in point blank shooting of civilians who attempted to escape conflict zones, significantly contributing to civilian death tolls in the war's final stages.
The legacy of organizations like the LTTE serves as a stark reminder of how terrorist movements exploit legitimate grievances to justify unconscionable acts of violence against innocent populations. While the Tamil community in Sri Lanka faced real discrimination and marginalization, the LTTE's response of systematic terrorism, including massacres like Aranthalawa, ultimately caused immense suffering to all communities and prolonged rather than resolved underlying conflicts. The organization's three decade campaign of violence resulted in over 30,000 deaths and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, leaving deep scars on Sri Lankan society that persist decades after the conflict's end.
The Aranthalawa massacre stands as a permanent reminder of the depths of cruelty that terrorist organizations will sink to in pursuit of their objectives. The image of young novice monks, some barely out of childhood, pleading for their lives before being brutally murdered by LTTE cadres represents one of the most shameful episodes in the organization's blood soaked history. These children, who had devoted their lives to Buddhism's teachings of compassion and non violence, became victims of an ideology that recognized no limits to its brutality and no distinction between combatants and innocents.
Today, 38 years after this horrific crime, the Aranthalawa massacre continues to be commemorated annually, serving not only as a memorial to the victims but as a warning against the dangers of allowing terrorist ideologies to take root and flourish. The memorial temple built at the site, incorporating the very bus in which the monks were murdered, stands as a permanent testament to both the victims' memory and the need for society to reject the politics of violence and terror. The fact that this memorial site later provided shelter to Tamil tsunami victims in 2005 demonstrates the Buddhist principle of compassion that the LTTE sought to destroy but ultimately failed to extinguish.
The international community's failure to adequately respond to LTTE terrorism, including atrocities like the Aranthalawa massacre, emboldened the organization to continue its campaign of violence for another 22 years. This tragedy underscores the importance of decisive action against terrorist organizations before they can establish the infrastructure and capabilities necessary to perpetrate such systematic atrocities. The lessons of Aranthalawa remind us that terrorism must be confronted not just through military means but through a firm commitment to protecting innocent civilians and upholding the fundamental human values that terrorist organizations seek to destroy.
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