The Black Tigers of the Sea that were lost to the sea in the Battle of Kilali.!
The Black Tigers of the Sea that were lost to the sea in the Battle of Kilali.!
Sea Tiger
Major Nilavan
(Varathan) Kandasamy Ramachandran
Kallichhai, Vadamunai, Mattacalappu
Birth: 19.07.1974
Death: 26.08.1993
Event: Died heroically by sinking a Navy submarine in the Yarlpanam coastal waters.
Sea Tiger
Captain Mathan
Sinivasagam Sivakumar
Border Street, Mattacalappu
Birth: 07.09.1975
Death: 26.08.1993
Event: Died heroically by sinking a Navy submarine in the Yarlpanam coastal waters.
Navy Karumpuli who disappeared into the sea.
How long has it been since I saw my son! How is he now?’
The mother was nostalgic. She has not seen her son, since the Sinhalese attacked again three years ago. The son left the home and were not seen since.
One day.
The sad news reached the mother that a mine had exploded during a fight and her son had lost his leg. The mother’s eyes were filled with tears of pain. She was thinking of her son. For a few days, the mother’s nights had been long and sad.
Time had moved on.
His son is in Yarlpanam. He is a sea tiger in Kilali. He is working as a sea tiger in the Navy Team, protecting the people. Mother longed to see her son. Affection and longing troubled her.
Checkpoints, military torture. Probing questions in vulgar Tamil, at the end of a tragic journey that began in Kiran and ended in Thandikulam. The mother arrived in Yarlpanam.
She registered her name in the Mattacalappu contact number, sent a message to her son, and waited impatiently. A day passed while she was watching the door of the house where she was staying. But her son did not come.
“There was a Karumpuli attack on the Navy in Kilali.” Only one message came.
Everyone was sad and happy. The mother herself had endured the news that had been talked about so much since evening. She shows it in the special edition of “Eelanatham”. Those pictures! That picture! The mother looked at it intently. Her eyes darkened. Her body stiffened. She could not believe it. Varathan. Her son. She looked at the name again and again, wondering if it was him. Yes! It was the mother’s child.
The son who will find food for her in the forrest, when there is no food in the house. That same son.
When the Sinhalese army stopped him on the road and gave him a grenade and said, “Put it in your mouth!”, he would say, “If you want, put it in your mouth!” and return it with courage. That son!
The Karumpuli stood beside the national leader, who was standing there with sadness and smiling. The mother cried until her tears ran out to relieve her anxiety.
Varathan was the fourth of the nine children born to Kanthasamy Aiya and Amma. His real name was Ramachandran. After 1973, Varathan’s birthday would come every year two days before the Tamil New Year.
The family situation made the one who went to school with enthusiasm and was interested in education and sports. And to to the fields with his father. The country situation made the one who shared the family burden and stayed at home until the age of 16. Then he went to the movement.
The village is Kallichai Vadamunai, 15 miles east of Mannampitiya. It is one of the border villages of our homeland that is experiencing the cruel path of occupation.
He completed his training in Mattacalappu.
One of the days when the war with the Sinhala army had started again and was moving with the sound of explosions. One of the landmines that the enemy had planted between Kallichai Vadamunai and the Pendukal Senai. Here Varathan lost his right leg.
Varathan was brought to Yarlpanam during hellish agony to be torn apart by the thorns of the forest. After completing his treatment, he was assigned to the photography section.
The base of the Naval Team in Kilali.
They are in the noble mission of protecting our beloved people, from the racist demons.
A life of staying awake at night and guarding the waves.
Mathan is the one who always fills the camp with excitement. His is a vibrant nature. Varathan and Mathan are close friends. It was a relationship that slowly began when they worked together in the photography section. Today, it has become a lifelong friendship.
They wrote a letter to the national leader together, came to the Naval Team together, practiced swimming with one leg and a half, received training, rowed and played in the sea together, worked together in Kilali, gave the name of the Karumpuli together, and finally left together.
Mathan is vibrant. Standing on one leg and shouting. He is a great friend who used to climb trees on one and a half legs, pluck mangoes and fresh water, and eat with us. He is a man who fights in the sea with his boat all night. And during the day, he beats his comrades who are resting and trying to work hard. And then he runs around and gets angry with them. He would also have gone to fight at night.
On a quiet evening when there were no ready-made runners for the fight. Mathan would be lying under a coconut tree. A song will spread out in the sea breeze. Even though he knows that his voice is not suitable for singing, he will sing. There is a charm in it. It will attract those around him. Mathan, who always talks nonsense like someone who is not paying attention to anything, will show his talent in action during work. He will complete some tasks that we cannot do, even if he is lazy for a morning. Mathan, who usually does not make mistakes, is a fighter who corrects his colleagues when they make mistakes.
Due to Mathan’s natural stubbornness, a fight that started with Varathan finally ended in a serious one. The two of them parted ways without talking. The next 24 hours passed in a frustrating manner. Varathan went to take a bath. They always went together. Now Varathan was alone. Mathan was watching from a wooden stick with his face hanging down.
Varathan is a quiet man who doesn’t talk much. He is more involved and confident in actions than stories. He would advise us, “Whenever you tell a story, try to find something that can be used for the movement.” It was a volcano that was bubbling inside him without being seen from the outside.
It had been a long time since he had separated from his mother and father and from his relatives. Where are they? Are they wandering around oppressed by their problems? Varathan felt the urge to write a letter home. Varathan wrote a letter. He waited for a reply. He wrote another letter. He waited again. There was no reply. The third time there was no reply. The fourth letter was also lost. There was no reply at all.
Varathan unexpectedly met some of his relatives who had migrated and settled in Kilali. “One night, a group of people, hundreds of people, entered the village, slashing and shooting. Brother. Your family members who escaped and came to us. What happened? God only knows!” They said, looking at the sky and spreading their hands, and left with a sigh.
He was overcome by the news that thundered in his ears. The storm that was already raging inside him became furious. But he did not know until the end that it was just a rumor.
The vast sea of Kilali.
A 20-mile-long expanse of red water where the blood of the Tamils moves like waves.
The Sinhalese army roaming with bloodthirsty. The death ring that stands guard with life-swallowing guns. In that death ring, the Navy Team stand guard like sea walls, and our people bravely march towards the peninsula.
Our boats moving like dots on the screens of the powerful radars deployed in Nagathevanthurai, a field of achievement where we can accurately identify and attack and sink the enemy boats rushing to attack. Even in the pitch darkness where we cannot even see the palm of our hand, relying only on our eyes, confront and repel them.
The battlefield that was showing the heroic feat of the Naval Team who blocked the enemy’s territory and created a heroic feat. And the efforts and energy of Leader Prabhakaran who raised it to a great level of development on the world stage.
The Naval Team, who have been guarding the area since the day people began to travel in the Kilali Sea, have been a force to be reckoned with.
In every battle the fighters have faced on that sea, their guns have been torn from their hands.
At dawn, whenever our people who have gone on a journey are found dead on the shore, a fire burns within them.
They are brave fighters. In their boats, they will confront the enemy’s boats head-on and leave them stunned. Even in the darkness, as if blindfolded, they will identify the enemy’s boats, steer their boats without hesitation, and attack and crush them. In those hair-raising moments, the enemy will rush to the rescue.
They were waiting for a Karumpuli attack. The heroic vow, “We must kill those who killed our people in this very sea,” was ringing in their hearts. They looked forward to the night the Karumpuli attack would be carried out, every day.
“Why are you becoming a Karumpuli?” They did not have the knowledge to give a detailed explanation, but they were those who understood its need, its importance, its strength, mentally and clearly.
Varathan was deep in thought. He would tell a friend who was passing by, “I keep thinking about what the national leader said. All my thoughts are on that. I will wait for that moment for a long time. One day, a ‘water jet’ will crash in the sea of Kilali.”
Mathan was the same. He would often say, “How many people’s blood has mixed with this water. One day, I will learn a lesson for all this. I will achieve it. I must destroy them in this sea.”
Mathan was from Mattacalappu. Srinivasan Sivakumar is his birth name. He was born on Monday, September 7, 1975. He is the middle of three brothers and a sister in the family. He was studying in the 9th grade at Hindu College, Mattacalappu. One day in the middle of 1989, he left for school and did not return. “He must have went to the movemen.” The speculation of the people in the house.
The sea front of Kilali
Almost 60 days passed like waves.
They had to go to the sea and return to accomplish that great feat. As the days passed, their determination only grew stronger, not weaker.
Every time the battle begins. Our boats will face the enemy with the gun barrels red. The boat will approach him like lightning. The enemy will overtake. The gap between the boats will narrow. The enemy will increase in speed. The boats will drive their modern boats, which can run in one-foot water, through the shallow water with increasing speed. The boats will hit the ground. The Karumpuli will have to return, unable to continue to disperse.
The next day.
They will be hanging their faces on a wall of the camp. They will be worried that they will not be able to break the night. All 61 days have passed like this.
05.08.1993
An ordinary night.
A dark sky without a moon.
A chilling cold.
Although it gives discomfort to the body, the salty air will invigorate the soul.
The Naval Team patrolled the area, and the people’s journey began.
Mathan and Varathan stood ready in the ‘Pulenthiran’, ‘Kumarappa’, with their cans full.
Unlike the previous ones, on the night of the 62nd day, their faces were filled with hope. An unfamiliar exhilaration.
Mathan, after pouring the canister to the guard standing nearby, said; “I will finish today. I will not return.”
The time had passed, and the country was over night. The enemy advanced from the Nagathevanthurai base, tearing through the waves. Today his attack pattern was different.
Although it was different every time, the strategy he had devised today was new. Two teams. One would stop the fighters on one side, and the other would attack the people on the other side.
But the enemy, quite unexpectedly, confronted him on both sides by the Naval Team. The gunboats were blazing, and the sky was ablaze.
At a point when the battle was getting fiercer, the ‘Walkie’ called the waiting ‘Pulenthiran’ boat. Madhan eagerly responded and obeyed the command.
The enemy, who had come to attack the people, was trapped by the fighters at the first battle front. According to the attack plan that had already been explained, the ‘Walkie’ ordered the ‘Water Jet’ boat to be attacked.
Mathan set off with a smiling face, while his comrades around him were amazed. Seeing the Karumpuli boat approaching like a flash of lightning, the enemy tried to flee, but Madhan did not have time to do so and collided with its center. The bright flood of light disappeared, and as the black smoke dissolved into darkness, the fighters were taking weapons from the ‘P 115’ ‘Water Jet’, which was splitting in two and sinking.
With the sea he loved. With the wind. With our religion. With his ‘Pulenthiran’.
The seabed stretched out. That could only be the first great battle the fighters had faced at sea.
From the second battlefront, where the fighters were attacking the team that had come to attack the fighters, the ‘Kumarappa’ boat received a call. Varathan, who was waiting, rushed to the field.
Surrounded by the fighters gunboats, with no way out, Varathan’s target was a ‘Water Jet’ boat that had sent a message to the base and decided to fight until help arrived. ‘Walkie’ gave him a method of attack. He had to break it before help could arrive.
Darkness makes it impossible to see. Observing the circling fighter boats, we ran away and identified the ‘Water Jet’ correctly. We had to confirm that it was his and destroy it. If we accidentally collided with him, the result would be disastrous.
Varathan approached the right target. With increasing speed. The stunned enemy could not do anything and stood there in shock, and in the next moment. In the blink of an eye. The enemy’s boat.
Our beloved Varathan and ‘Kumarappa’ were.
While the communication equipment was calling their warship ‘P 121’ at the naval base in Nagadevanthurai, the LTTE Naval Team fighters had finished removing weapons from the sinking boat.
Those lifelong friends who slept on the same mat, ate from the same cup, poured water for the feet of the elephant, rubbed their feet and bathed together, and lived with the same ideal. Those who stood together during every fight in the sea of Kilali and burned the Sinhala souls like fire. Even when they died, they went together.
For us. For the people.
Published by: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Magazine, September/October,1993.
“The Tigers’ Thirst is the thirst of Tamil Eelam”
The Black Tigers of the Sea that were lost to the sea in the Battle of Kilali.!
யாழ்ப்பாணம் கிளாலிக் கடற்பரப்பில் கடற்படையினரின் நீருந்து விசைப்படகு ஒன்றை மூழ்கடித்து வீரச்சாவு
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