CHAPTER 1

Hari

Hari was not among those who were killed on May 21, 1991, whenthe suicide bomber got her target. They found only his camera andsurmised that he too had died in the blast that killed the formerprime minister and all those thronging around him. Since that fatefulday, it was the sixth time that he was making the narrow crossingacross the Palk Straits, which separates the Indian mainland fromSri Lanka. Each time it had felt like the last.

His mission was to frustrate the voyage of the ship MV Akbar,which was carrying the first load of Tamil refugees back to SriLanka. He had considered two options. The softer one was to createdissension among the refugees on board upon the ship's arrivalto an insecure homecoming and to force the captain to abort thevoyage. The harder one was to detonate an on-board explosion, whichwould force the same result. He had been told repeatedly that themission was crucial to restore the prestige of the Tamil Tigers, toembarrass the governments of Sri Lanka and India, and to convincethe international community that conditions in northeast Sri Lankadid not warrant the return of the Tamil refugees.

The mission was even more important to Hari personally.His standing in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE,the richest and most ruthless of international terrorist groupsoperating in Sri Lanka, had suffered after his perceived failure inthe assassination attempt; the loss of his camera had left valuableclues for the perpetrators of that terrible act. Under the field nameof Kandeepan, which he was given when he joined the LTTE, Hariwas considered by the LTTE rank and file to be endowed with theaura of Gandiva—the mythological unbreakable bow of Arjuna, thehero of the renowned Hindu text, the Mahabharata. There was afeeling in the organization that he had gone soft with the creaturecomforts of the European bases, such as Geneva and Nicosia, thathe had operated out of. In every sense, this was his last throw of thedice, for all he had come to believe in—even for his life.

In the organization, the failure of a mission cost an operativehis or her life; indeed, even success could mean the same, shouldit become necessary to bite the cyanide capsule all field operativescarried round their necks to leave no possibility of capture.

CHAPTER 2

The Palk Straits

After a number of false starts, the meeting between the Indian primeminister and the Sri Lankan president took place in Colombo onDecember 21, 1991, on the occasion of the Summit of the SouthAsian Association for Regional Cooperation. It was the first meetingbetween the two leaders after a period of bitterness and acrimonyfollowing the virtually forced withdrawal of the Indian Peace KeepingForce from Sri Lanka in March 1990. It had followed the assassinationon May 31, 1991, of Rajiv Gandhi, who was on the cusp of winningthe general elections that would have made him prime minister ofIndia once again. The assassin was allegedly part of the dreaded SriLankan terrorist organization LTTE, which was fighting a war withthe Sri Lankan government, aiming to create a separate state of TamilEelam, carved out from north and east Sri Lanka and parts of theIndian state of Tamil Nadu.

Both leaders were keen to rekindle the traditional warmth andfriendship between the two peoples that had been lost after thedisastrous withdrawal of the Indian Peace Keeping Force from theisland. The decision to start the return of the Sri Lankan Tamilrefugees from India was the most significant result of their encounter.This was the first time in the nearly ten years, since the anti-Tamilethnic riots of July 1983, that the two governments had decidedto reverse the steady stream of Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka tothe southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, despite the continuinginsecurity for the Tamil population in north and east Sri Lanka.While the Indian government wanted to reduce political pressure onTamil Nadu, the Sri Lankan government wanted to project a veneerof normalcy to the international community. Both governmentsaimed to reinforce their relationship and isolate the LTTE. Neitherminimized the difficulties of logistics and maritime security inmoving a large number of refugees at night on a slow-moving shipcrossing the treacherous waters of the Palk Straits. They were acutelyaware that a failure would rebound politically and lose them prestigeinternationally. The plan had to succeed.

The Palk Straits, which separated the two countries, consistedof no more than thirty kilometers of shoal-ridden shallow passageacross the sea and had become the safety valve for a beleagueredcommunity in the north of the island to move to Tamil Nadu eachtime the people felt unsafe at home. A pogrom in July 1983 againstthe minority Tamil community by the majority Sinhalese communityhad unleashed a civil war on that beautiful island. The refugee inflowhad then reached a crescendo after increasing military hostilitybetween the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government. Expectedly, oncethe decision became public, there was an outcry, in part orchestratedby the LTTE, and in part due to the genuine misgivings of some reliefand humanitarian organizations that feared that the refugees werebeing sent back against their will only to further a political imperativefor both governments.

The first voyage of the MV Akbar was fixed for January 13, 1992.It was scheduled to leave Madras harbor at six in the morning andreach Trincomalee by seven that evening.

A letter from his parents had conveyed to Hari rumors amongthe Sri Lankan Tamil community of the Indian government's likelydecision to send the refugees back. He could not believe his eyes. Hewondered what had provoked such a cruel decision. He could notimagine his Tamil compatriots who had fled to India leaving all theirworldly possessions behind not feeling extreme agony in having toreturn to a country still in the throes of ethnic tension and insecurity.

Hari was aghast when he learned that the decision was to bemade at a summit meeting in Colombo between the Indian primeminister and the Sri Lankan president. The political decision wouldsuit not only both the governments, but also the United NationsHigh Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR. For the Sri Lankangovernment, the return of the refugees was expected to strengthenthe government's claim to Western donors as a sign of the return tonormalcy. It also hoped that the return of the Tamil refugees wouldprovide the bonus of lessening Indian interest in Sri Lanka's internalsituation. For the Indian government, the return of the Sri Lankanrefugees would reduce the LTTE's unbridled political and economicaccess in Tamil Nadu that had resulted from the presence of the largenumber of refugees. The UNHCR issued a statement expressing thehope that the proposed movement would be voluntary and conveyingits readiness to help. It hoped that this "positive" attitude would removethe Indian government's resistance to allowing the organization anyfoothold on the Indian side of the Sri Lankan refugee story.

Hari wondered what would happen to the nearly two hundredthousand refugees, some of whom had been in India since July1983, spread out over Tamil Nadu and its neighboring states andhaving made their homes in little villages and in refugee camps. Itseemed inhuman, especially since the security situation in northeastSri Lanka was bad and individual safety could not be assured. Themajority of refugees were from the Jaffna and Mannar districts,...