The White Van War: A War Where Victims Were Fed to Crocodiles
The Forgotten and Brutal Civil War/Ethnic Cleansing In Sri Lanka
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The Sri Lankan Civil War (1983–2009) was a bloody, decades-long conflict that emerged from ethnic tensions between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils, represented by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), with the latter demanding a separate state, Tamil Eelam, in the northern and eastern parts of the island.
Add to this mix was the Muslim population, caught in the crossfire and often treated like that odd family that was invited to the wedding but whom nobody wanted to speak with.
Tensions erupted in a political ecosystem of divide-and-rule policies. The British favoured the Tamils, particularly in education and civil service, which left the Sinhalese seething with resentment. Post-independence, the Sinhalese swung the pendulum back with discriminatory policies like the ‘Sinhala Only Act, ‘sparking Tamil grievances.
In the years following independence, Tamil communities increasingly felt alienated as Sinhalese nationalism rose unchecked.
Enter the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), arguably the world’s most organised insurgent group-cum-cult.
Colonial legacies had turned these paradise islands into war zones.
The Sri Lankan Sinhalese dominated the army and indiscriminately shelled civilian areas, particularly during the final months of the war. Credible reports indicated that they executed surrendered LTTE fighters and committed mass disappearances. They were an army in name only, more a savage, well-funded gang torn between ethnic cleansing and military objectives. They blocked humanitarian aid to Tamil areas, leading to mass starvation and deaths.
The final offensive in 2009, which ended the war, saw tens of thousands of Tamil civilians trapped in the war zone, bombed, and killed—leading to accusations of war crimes against the government.
The war officially ended in May 2009 when the Sri Lankan military killed LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, effectively crushing the Tamil Tigers.
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Maju (Manojkumar Pirathapan) was a student at St Michael’s College. He was two weeks shy of his 19th birthday when Sri Lanka’s Special Task Force (STF) rounded him up and killed him in the Lake Road Massacre of 1985 in Batticaloa Town.
On November 13, 1985, STF troops began rounding up Tamils in Batticaloa in retaliation against civilians after a landmine explosion. Troops radioed each other about Tamils on the road and redirected them to Lake Road.
Thirty-three years later, families of the victims recalled how 13 young Tamil men were rounded up and made to walk with their ID cards in the air. STF troops shot them in the neck or head, except the youngest, Maju, who they shot in the chest.
In other cases, Tamil boys in their high school blazers were snatched from bus stops, a white van would pull up, and they were gone; they had been on their way to high school; in one case, boys were picked up simply because they had mocked their High School Principal’s son.
The boy’s bodies were later found in Jaffna Lagoon, a body of water befouled by human corpses.
According to the Tamil Daily News, some of the dead bodies of victims would then be thrown into a nearby reservoir filled with crocodiles.
Many others were tossed in Sooriyakanda mass graves, where the remains of murdered schoolchildren were found.
146.000 civilians are still unaccounted for.