KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka, 31 January 2006 — There’s very little of Sri Lanka in Kilinochchi. At first glance, the dusty town of about 150,000 looks like most others on the Indian Ocean island, with shops, small houses and government buildings lining the main street. But buses and trucks maintain a steady, slow pace through Kilinochchi, instead of tearing down the highway and changing lanes at will. Young policewomen who stand by the road are notorious for handing out heavy fines on the spot. And there’s no arguing or a quick bribe.
This is the headquarters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels, one of the most disciplined and ruthless guerrilla armies in the world, and the capital of their de facto state covering a large swathe of northern Sri Lanka. The heavily armed guerrillas and their police don’t like talking to outsiders. One woman constable, offered water on a sweltering hot day, briefly smiled but then said in English: “No, thank you. Move on.”
Coming in from Colombo in the south, visitors to the area need to pass customs and get an entry pass, in effect a visa. Kilinochchi has the LTTE’s own bank, court, hospital and taxi service and is in a separate time zone — half an hour off Sri Lanka time. The town is linked to Sri Lanka’s electricity grid, which the Tigers pay for, and to its landline telephones. There is no mobile coverage.
Computers are becoming a craze, although the Tigers ban homes from having Internet connections. Only offices and Internet cafes are permitted. “There are more than 1,000 computers in the area,” said Nishanthan Aloysius, who has been running a computer shop and an adjacent Internet cafe in the town for more than two years. “Everybody has electricity now, so there is good demand.”
His display counter has USB hubs, DVD disc drives, motherboards and other hardware. Sales, he says, are brisk, amounting to 300,000 rupees (about $3,000) a month. Asked why the Tigers banned private Internet use, Aloysius said: “The LTTE wants to protect moral standards, so they do not allow homes to have connections. We can monitor traffic here through our server.”
Indeed, the Tigers and their writ seem all pervasive in the town. Not too many people smoke here, although cigarettes are sold freely, probably because Tiger cadres are forbidden to smoke or drink. One or two bars selling mostly beer and the local arrack are popular with outsiders, but few locals frequent them. Kilinochchi was badly shelled during the two-decade civil war, especially in the 1990s when the military pushed toward the nearby Wanni jungles where the Tigers have their main base.