கருணாவும் குழந்தைகள் என்கிற கேள்வியும்Karuna and the Question of Children
On the third of March 2004 the LTTE's eastern command split from its northern leadership. The split changed who could be held responsible for what. The chronicle records the change.
The break was led by Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, known as Karuna, who had served as the LTTE commander in the eastern province. His political vehicle, after the break, became the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal — the TMVP — which would later be led, in the east, by Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, known as Pillayan. Both men are named here because both men are named, on the public record, by United Nations bodies, by the Sri Lankan courts, and by Tier-A international reporting. The chronicle's general rule is not to name; the named exception, in this case, is the exception that proves the rule.[karuna-split-2004-icg][tmvp-state-cooperation-record]
What changed at the moment of the split was a question with a forensic answer. Before 3 March 2004, child recruitment attributable to a Tamil armed actor in the eastern province was, in international monitoring, attributable to the LTTE under a unified command. After 3 March 2004 it was attributable, in many districts, to a separate faction that was already, on independent record, cooperating with the Sri Lankan security services. The attribution discipline is not a Tamil-protective dodge. It is a forensic one. The same United Nations monitors who recorded LTTE recruitment before the split recorded TMVP recruitment after it.[un-srt-srilanka-20][hrw-ltte-child-recruitment]
What the chronicle insists on, here as elsewhere, is that the children of the war were victims first. Whether they were taken to the Vanni or to the eastern bases or to the army's own 'rehabilitation' centres, the moral fact begins from them. The forensic question — by whom, when, under whose command — is a discipline owed to them, not a discipline that protects the actors. The case file holds the longer treatment; the dossier at /critical-research/attribution-karuna-split holds the deepest one.[tlte-dossier-07-karuna-split]
The hypothesis that the split was facilitated by the Sri Lankan security services as a calculated military move is, on the public record, a hypothesis with significant supporting evidence. It is not, here, asserted as a finding. The chronicle records it as a hypothesis, names it as one, and points to the standing desk where the evidence is held open.[tlte-attribution-desk]