BackDEDICATION
I dedicate this book to the memory of a man I never knew, the late IVAN BOTEJU, Assistant Superintendent of Police.
Ivan Boteju was serving as Assistant Superintendent of Police, Kalmunai on the 11th June 1990 when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam [LTTE], while supposedly engaged in 'peace talks' with the Government, suddenly surrounded and attacked all police stations in the Batticaloa and Ampara Districts. Kalmunai was one of them.
Ivan Boteju refused to heed the demands of the Tigers to surrender arms and vacate the Station.The Tigers attacked with Rocket Propelled Grenades, Mortars and automatic weapons. Though outnumbered and posessed of no similar weaponry but only of two Light Machine Guns, twenty T56s and other rifles and shot guns, the police officers of Kalmunai led by Ivan Boteju defended their station valiantly.
Repeated appeals made by Ivan Boteju for air and artillery support fell on the deaf ears of the Government which - ordered them to surrender instead - and surrender they did. The Tigers who had, before the surrender, promised to give these police officers safe conduct to and release at Ampara, took them, together with other Sinhalese and Muslim Police Officers from other police stations in the Ampara District to the jungles of Thirukkovil, blind folded and with their hands tied behind their backs. There, they were made to lie down, and murdered in captivity with spray upon spray of automatic fire. The total number of Sinhalese and Muslim police officers so murdered in captivity in the East by the LTTE on that occasion was over 600. They all paid with their lives for the trust reposed by the Government in the LTTE.
I dedicate this book to the memory of Ivan Boteju because he symbolises not only those police officers, over 600 in number, but also all those soldiers, sailors and airmen of all ranks, and humble civilians, who were as brave as they are unknown and uncommemorated by the Government or the Nation, and paid with their lives and their limbs for the incredible folly of successive governments repeatedly reposing trust in the LTTE.
May that monstrous folly never ever be repeated.
S. L. Gunasekara.