Days of the Jackal

On Saturday he did not even play President. He looked more like a traffic policeman, directing vehicles, directing the crowds, straightening banners, as the United National Party’s May Day procession got under way from the Sugathadasa Stadium in the late morning. It was a sea of green. Green huntings and green caps and banners as men, women and children joined the procession.

Sporting a green cap, with the words saying “victory” on it, the usual men in khaki seemed nowhere near him. If there were plainclothes security guarding him, and there must have been, they didn’t make themselves conspicuous.

He was very much part of the milling crowd, walking and talking with some, acknowledging the greetings ofothers. Anybody could have got him because he didn’t seem to have that security cordon around him.

Known for his organisational skills he seemed to have taken charge of the May Day procession so that the crowds would be on time at the Galle Face Promenade where a massive stage had been constructed, and from where he would have made his May Day speech.

But it was not to be. Nobody really seems to have seen how it happened. Only the remains of a twisted bicycle with the body nearby of a young man with his stomach ripped open, and a few wires near him, were the tell-tale evidence.

State Television was covering the event. But what the Sri Lankan public was shown was only the dismembered bodies of the eight civilians killed.As the news spread, the dismantling of the equipment and the amplifiers at the Galle Face Green was on. And some of the hundreds who chose to be at the green and not join the procession were told the May Day tamasha was off. Many didn’t know the reason why until much later.

(Reportedby Rita Sebastian)

COLOMBO, JULY 29, 1999: An LTTE suicide bomber today killed a prominent Tamil member of parliament, Neelan Thiruchelvam, who was a lawyer, intellectual, humanitarian, man of peace.

The 55-year-old moderate leaders, vice-president of the Tamil United Liberation Front, was killed instantly when the suicide bomber threw himself on his car while it was held up in a traffic jam not far from his home in a high-security neighbourhood of the Capital….

Eyewitnesses said the suicide bomber was riding pillion on a motorcycle which edged close to the car as it waited to turn at a busy intersection. The bomber got off the bike, ran to the car’s rear on the left where Thiruchelvam was seated and exploded himself.

The driver of the motorcycle, who sustained a gaping wound on his head in the explosion, rode off screaming in pain, an eyewitness said.

(Reported by Nirupama Subramanian)