Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 15, 1990 TAG: 9006150012
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: KANDY, SRI LANKA LENGTH: Medium
Piyeratna Ranaweera said he was one of 115 policemen who were captured at Kalmunai police station Monday when the rebels overran 11 police stations in the Eastern Province.
The fighting, which began Monday, was the worst violence since negotiations began between the government and the Tigers in May 1989.
At least 110 government troops have died, but one unconfirmed report said the Tamil Tiger rebels also killed 125 to 150 policemen who were among the 600 officers captured. A spokesman for the Tigers said the report could be anti-rebel propaganda.
Ranaweera said that all 115 policemen captured with him were blindfolded and the Tigers took their watches and wallets, tied their hands and gave them water. They were then taken in three buses from Kalmunai, 135 miles east of Colombo, to a rebel camp 20 miles to the south.
Ranaweera, lying in a hospital bed with his broken left arm in a sling and bloodstained cotton on the bullet wound in his left ear, said one busload of the captive policemen was taken from the Tiger camp shortly before midnight Monday.
"At 12:45 [that] night they took the second busload again to the jungle," he said in a weak voice.
He said he was blindfolded when he got off the bus so he could not see if the men from the first bus were there.
"They lined us all up and made us lie on the ground face down and they opened fire with T-56 rifles. Then they held a torch to our heads and if they heard a cry they shot again."
Ranaweera said the bullet grazed his left ear. The Tigers apparently thought he was dead and left.
He said he crawled into the jungle and realized his left arm was broken. He fixed a sling for it.
While he was lying in the jungle he heard the third bus arrive, and then he heard more shots. He estimated it was about 3 a.m. He said he saw no one else alive.
After the third bus left he started making his way inland toward government lines, but "I fainted a couple of times. I was very thirsty. I found a lake with elephants . . . and I drank."
The young Sinhalese policeman said he came to a small farmer's hut. "Some Tamil people were there. I explained what happened, but they left me."
About 3 p.m. Tuesday, when he estimated he had walked about 14 miles toward Damana, a Sinhalese-dominated town 18 miles southwest of Kalmunai, he reached a second hut, he said.
"I saw a Sinhalese man and he took me and there were Sinhalese boys and they took me on a motorcycle to Damana."
Ranaweera was admitted to the Government Hospital in Kandy, the largest town near Damana.
The spokesman for the Tigers, Dominic, said the mass killings of policemen "could have happened or it could be anti-Tiger propaganda. Communications are difficult and we are trying to find out what really took place."
Dominic, who uses only one name, was speaking to reporters in the northern town of Jaffna, the headquarters of the Tigers.
The Tamils, who are mainly Hindu, have been fighting for an independent nation, claiming discrimination by the majority Sinhalese, who are mainly Buddhist.
At least 11,000 people, including 1,200 Indian soldiers sent to the region as peacekeepers, have been killed in the Tamil war since it started in 1983.
by CNB