01The anguished voice of the boy, arising out of tortures,
who breathed his last being in the midst of gory murders
is being heard incessantly.
First they arrested one and all
Blindfolded some
Handcuffed some
Eventually all of them were blindfolded and handcuffed
They were made to stand in a row and were
dragged along the green lawn and withered leaves and weeds
with the too well known sounds of torture resounding
In the land where demonic scenes of murder,
of mammoth proportion, were staged
Strewing flowers upon blood
the little girl who has identified her father keeps waiting
Again the sky lay frozen on those very same days
Melting, it pours down
wailing so loudly.
The hands were tied at the back
The guns keep conducting enquiry.
The undivided land has turned all dark.
In the land overflowing with corpses
In the blood of the Dream broken to pieces
In the delirium of the grossly unjust turning victorious
the continuance of the terrible murders
that left an ethnic group
writhing in agony untold
unfolded.
That blood-shed had to flow outside
Those gory scenes had to surface
Those wails and screams couldn’t be suppressed
With tortures of the worst order the Great Land was
reverberating so horribly.
They were made to stay in the land which had turned
all red, drenched in blood
Made to stay in the land where the soil was so cruelly
mauled and mutilated
The rain, terror-struck cries all the more.
02The attires of the troops turn greener still
They were honoured as troops that stand for the
honour of a nation;
honoured as ‘men in uniform’ who safeguard
the very humaneness;
As great lovers of guns they have retrieved many rusted ones.
From their ‘Smile of Arms’ the earth-quake of the ghosts’ dance
surface and move on.
They are the ones who fulfill the affectionate wish of the King
They are the ones who carry out the orders of the Generals
As the grand finale the troops feast the King and Generals
with blood-dripping flesh-pieces.
The General keeps on bloating further and further
The King too bloats more and more
The smile of the King too turns all bloated
The stars of the Generals keep bloating
The troops are fed with more and more devilish frenzy and so
grow on.
They are all eager to share the vile strategies of War
and the bare cruelties of Victory.
They are all too ready to explain any number of times
in minute details
about the genocide carried out
and the way they had butchered en masse
for achieving it.
As so valorous and brave-hearted
they are all eager to stand in front of the dead bodies
posing majestically
and to pile up the corpses in deep hollowness
03The white flags have become spies hiding murder within
They acted in sharp readiness and immense eagerness to
shoot at whoever happened to come across
Those who surrendered were gifted away to murder
Those arrested were chosen for torture
After butchering
they had covered the children with white flags
After raping
they had shrouded the women too with white flags
They had turned into handcuffs, the shirts worn outside
and the shirts worn inside
With ropes filled with the evil designs of homicide
they had the hands tied.
As each one of them was looking on
they witnessed their blood flowing out of them;
witnessed their blood streaming down
into the very depths of the soil turned muddy,
all mixed with blood.
Dead bodies of all sorts were shown to them.
The troops trained to butcher and torture and to root out
do not feel it fit to end it all with just standing in front of the corpses
and sharing their victory
but, they lie in wait to carry out orders afresh for more annihilation.
They only want to go on elongating and the dreams of blood.
The troops carried out all kinds of activities to retrieve the Land.
The troops died in order to annihilate the people.
So the troops killed the people.
So the troops killed the militants.
So the King killed the Land.
With blood and flesh the King has built his palace.
04What have you done to those eyes wherein
the fear of death remained frozen?
What have you done to those faces which keep agonizing,
looking at all the faces with their eyes so full
of miserable longing ?
What have you done to that boy who was caught all alone?
What have you done to that child which,
slipping from the hold, was left abandoned?
Why did the heavy boots come dangerously close?
Why did the demonic uniforms move dangerously close?
Why did the guns that are on a destruction spree
draw dangerously close?
Why did the dictates to finish off
hover so dangerously close?
The face of the boy, dying out of all too brutal tortures,
is still convulsing on all the Small Screens
Children keep hovering beneath the land.
______________________
19.05.2010
*Note: A Documentary on war-crimes comprising some more photographs showing
the way the Tamils were tortured and killed and information about the gory
scenes and incidents, including an interview of an Army commander giving
detailed account of the way the Army behaved in the final battle-zone has been
released recently in Channel 4 by Jonathan Miller.
A poem by Deebachelvan titled
கொலைக் காட்சிகளின் நிழல்
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan
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