By Our Defence Correspondent
The frightening efficiency and infinite patience of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were demonstrated with ruthlessness and brutality yet again, to the whole world, with the calculated killing of Jaffna Mayor Ponnudurai Sivapalan last Friday. Experts from the Government Analyst's Department are still poring over the scene of devastation in Nallur, together with army personnel, and have confirmed that the blast was caused by a modified Claymore mine which had been hidden on top of the asbestos ceiling of the mayor’s office in the Jaffna Municipal building. Since the building is always guarded, it is believed that the only way that the Tigers could have placed the bomb was during renovations to the building which were done in June, shortly after the new mayor took office.

The investigation is now focussing on the method by which the mine was triggered off. Claymore mines are extremely powerful weapons, since their blast is directional, blowing up everything in one direction, unlike a conventional bomb, which explodes in all directions, and is thus less specialized. Claymorescan be modified to be triggered by a variety of methods. The main possibility is that some type of timer was used. It is impossible to set a timer three months in advance, since there is no way that a bomber could no that far in advance when the mayor would be sitting in his office. So this possibility is already discounted. This means that the timer was set a few hours or days before the meeting. Iwould have been impossible for an LTTE cadre to set the timer while the meeting was in progress in the office.

The search has been narrowed to all those who knew in advance that there would be a top level meeting, attended by the mayor, Jaffna Brigade Commander Brigadier Susantha Mendis, and Jaffna SSP Chandra Perera. It is unlikely that the news leaked from the brigadier’s staff, or the police, so the hunt is now on for an infiltrator among the municipal workers and officials, including those who were wounded. Since this was a meeting to discuss traffic arrangements in the city, the majority of those in the room were police officers, namely ASP Sarath Fernando and HQI Mohan Das.

A constable named Gerard was present to assist the SSP.A member of the brigadier’s staff, Captain Prasanna Ramanayake, was present totake notes and assist Brig. Mendis. The civilians in the room, apart from the mayor, were Additional Municipal Commissioner Pathmanathan and Municipal Engineer Eswaran. A typist, Mallika Rajaratnam, who knew shorthand and sometimes did secretarial work for the mayor, was taking notes for records purposes. Another method the blast could have been triggered off is by remote control, from anywhere within a few hundred yards. Experts are poring over the scene piece by piece to see if there are any fragments of the bomb left which will indicate this.

In any event, police are searching for the contractors who did the renovation to the municipal office, since the person who actually planted the mine in the ceiling is likely to have been one of the workmen. The hunt is on for the LTTE cadre who has clearly infiltrated the staff of the Municipal Office, to prepare the bomb. Detectives are going through the histories of all the workers and their families, to find out who it was. Meanwhile, the government is considering issuing a warning to its top-level officials in the northeast and Colombo, to report if they have had any renovations done to their offices during the last few months, in case this method of attack is repeated.

These include Cabinet Ministers, and Provincial Council VIP’s. However, incredibly, this has not yet been done, since top officials in the Ministry of Defence feel that this would be an admission that no-one is secure,even in their own offices. Meanwhile, the TULF has begun considering who should replace Sivapalan as mayor.

The party is determined to fill the spot, despite the fact that the next mayorwill be the most likely person to be assassinated anywhere in this country. The TULF, which considers its handsome win of the Jaffna MC in January elections, to be a clear sign of confidence in the party from the northern people, is determined not to be driven out of the crucial post. It is only one of two councils in the north, which the TULF contested, since a court order,allowing the party to contest came only a few days before the poll. The party won both councils.

The TULF’s Vice President, V. Anandasangari, has already sworn that the post will be filled, despite what happened to the 46-year-old Sivapalan. The LTTE has clearly shown that it will not allow any civil administration in,Jaffna, after it was thrown out bodily from the city by the armed forces on December 5, 1995. It will especially not allow any Tamil party to rule there and win the hearts of the Tamil people; something the government desperately wants. Sivapalan knew the risk he was taking when he took the job. His predecessor,Mrs. Sarojini Yogeswaran, had shunned security, saying that she must live among the people, despite her husband having been killed by the Tigers a decade ago. She was gunned down in her home on May 17.

Sivapalan insisted on the most stringent of security measures, never travelling without a strong escort of army personnel. Yet, the LTTE’s was cunning enough, and patient enough, to get him. It may seem remarkable that the LTTE would plant a bomb and wait three months for its chance to detonate it. But one must remember that this is the organization which managed to get one of its people into the household of President Ranasinghe Premadasa, and wait for years before he struck on May 1, 1993. Babu, the president’s killer, befriended not only the president’s staff, but the president himself, for years, before he calmly wheeled a bicycle laden with explosives to Armour Street and blew up everyone in the vicinity, including the president, and himself.

If the TULF fills the mayor’s seat once again, it is only a matter of time before the LTTE tries to kill the next mayor. Although the army and police can do their best to foil such attempts, it can be expected that the Tigers will keep trying until the war is over. And the way things are going on the battlefield, it doesn’t look like it will end in this century. This definitely makes the mayor’s job a candidate for the dubious title of being the most dangerous job on earth.

Although President Chandrika Kumaratunga, Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte, and a few other top officials in the government and armed forces are higher on the Tigers’ hit list than the mayor of Jaffna, none of the others has to live in Jaffna, the lion’s den itself.