Tamil
Tiger Leader Velupillai Pirapaharan lives more than 40
ft. underground in a massive, well provided, and seemingly
impenetrable bunker complex hewn from rocks in the middle
of a thick jungle in northeast Sri Lanka.
Adele
Balasingham, the Australian-born wife of the late Anton
Balasingham, the LTTE's ideologue, describes Pirapaharan's
office cum residence in the Alampil jungles, in her book
The Will To Freedom.
"Our
cadres led us down the steps into a room about thirty
to forty feet underground. To our amazement, we could
see that this subterranean haven of tunnels and rooms
had been chiseled out of the underground rocks. Our room
had been carved out, high enough to stand up in and move
around comfortably."
"Mr.Pirapaharan's
room was even deeper underground than ours," she
writes.
"Low
lying roofs constructed over the bunkers, and banks to
divert water, prevented the monsoon rains from pouring
in and flooding the bunkers."
"Stronger
than concrete, this underground granite structure stood
up to the heavy downpour of the monsoon rains when the
entire jungle turned into a muddy quagmire."
"Since
we were deep into the earth, where the sun's heat has
no access, the room was absolutely freezing, particularly
at night. My bones ached from the cold and I wondered
how it could be endured over a sustained period of time.
But obviously it had been, and without any ill-effects,"
she notes.
The
expansive complex was more like a village than a camp.
It had been cleared of virgin jungle. The LTTE's cadres
had pulled out rocks and cleared the foliage except the
giant trees, which gave it good cover. Sixty to seventy
foot wells had been dug, only to find that there was no
water!
-
P.K. Balachandran (IANS)
Courtesy - LeN