Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
the Tamil collaborators they encountered in detention were members of the<br />
Karuna faction of the LTTE, which split from the LTTE in 2005 and joined the<br />
government. However a large number of informers were actually LTTE cadres<br />
from the mainstream movement active in the Vanni until 2009. These former<br />
cadres have been used as interpreters during interrogations and spotters<br />
brought into Manik Farm camp and the “rehabilitation camps” to identify and<br />
betray their former comrades. In some cases they have been actively involved in<br />
violence against other Tamils, including torture and sexual violence.<br />
One witness reported 30 such Tamil informers being brought on a bus into his<br />
“rehabilitation camp” to screen the inmates. They were looking for leaders or<br />
detainees who might supply intelligence or had lied about the extent of their<br />
involvement with the LTTE. Another witness described informers being brought<br />
into his “rehabilitation camp” to be issued with false release papers so they<br />
could pretend to be released and return to the community to spy on others.<br />
In the huge sprawling security force headquarters in Vavuniya, known as<br />
Joseph Camp, we now know there were at least 60 former LTTE members<br />
working for military intelligence near the end of the war and in its aftermath.<br />
CID had their own dedicated Tamil informers, as did other wings of the security<br />
forces. Several of the informers there were subjected to brutal torture<br />
themselves, including rape and threats to hurt their family members, in order<br />
to force them to cooperate. At least one informer was murdered by the security<br />
forces.<br />
The use of masked or hooded informers has long been a notorious practice in<br />
Sri Lanka with one of the most potent images described in the book, The<br />
Broken Palmayrah, where a Tamil is forced to be an informer for the Indian<br />
Peace Keeping Forces in the late 1980s. The informer’s eyes are visible through<br />
the holes cut out in the hood through which he can be seen weeping. The<br />
image encapsulates the pain of the informer. There is even a special word in<br />
Tamil for informers: “nodders” or Thaliyadi, who are expected to nod to confirm<br />
that a suspect is LTTE.<br />
105
Change language