Valvettithurai (; ), sometimes shortened as VVT or Valvai, is a coastal town of Jaffna District on the northeast coast of the Jaffna Peninsula in Northern Province, Sri Lanka governed by an Urban Council of the same name. Valvettithurai was historically known for its seafaring traditions and olden transnational shipping trade.
The town is popularly known for being the birthplace of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or the Tamil Tigers, a seperatist group that waged a war for an independent state in the North and East. Valvettithurai is also the place of birth, of the leaders of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization, Kuttimani and Nadarajah Thangathurai, the founding fathers of the Tamil Eelam armed struggle.
Etymology
Valvettithurai in Tamil could mean "The port of the expanse of forest land/scrub jungle" or "The port of the raised stretch of open land". The word Valvettithurai seems to have been derived from the combination of Tamil words Vallai meaning a big forest or a raised stretch of land, Vedi which means expanse or open space, and Thurai which refers to seaport.
History
According to folk etymology, was the foundation of the village laid by a Maravar chieftain known as Valliathevan, who was given the land by the founder of the Jaffna Kingdom. The clans of the Maravars of southern Tamil Nadu and the Karaiyars of Valvetthithurai have long had coastal military alliances through trade and marriage. Both clans have long engaged in seatrade, with Valvettithurai being a prominent seaport in the northern Jaffna region.
The coastal clans of Valvettithurai were involved in warfare. The coastal chiefs of Valvettithurai fought under the leadership of Migapulle Arachchi and fought on the side of Jaffna king Cankili II in the Portuguese conquest of the Jaffna kingdom.
The population of the coastal town are predominantly Shaivites. The Kadalodiekal own the major temples such as the famous Vaitheeswaran Sivan kovil. The Kadalodikal (Tamil name for mariners) of Valvettithurai, the wealthier clan of the Karaiyars were specifically involved in the seatrade between Jaffna region and the Coromandel Coast, including up to the coasts of Myanmar. The Japanese occupation of Burma, hindered the seatrade of the Kadalodiekal. Their situation was deteriorated with the colonial independence of Sri Lanka, and many of the Kadalodiekal got engaged in large-scale smuggling between Sri Lanka and India. The town also produced the renowned brigantine known locally as Annapoorani Ammal. This native vessel known as thoni, built with a blend of Jaffna and European tradition, sailed from Valvettithurai to Gloucester in Massachusetts of United States in 1937. Built in 1930 by native traditional shipwrighters for the purpose of serving as a cargo ship in the Indian rice trade, the vessel was bought by an American known as William C. Robinson. Robinson, changing the name of the ship to Florence C. Robinson (after his wife), sailed to the U.S. with a crew of six natives from Valvettithurai including their Thandayal (Tamil for sea captain) known as Kanagaratnam Thambapillai.
As an effect of the 1958 anti-Tamil pogroms, severals students from Valvettithurai formed organisations based on Sri Lankan Tamil nationalism, such as the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO), founded by Kuttimani and Thangadurai of Valvettithurai. One of the earliest members of this organisation was Velupillai Prabhakaran of Valvettithurai, who later became the leader and founder of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Several chief commanders of the LTTE, such as Kittu, Radha, and Baby Subramaniam, were natives of Valvettithurai.
Geography
Valvettithuri is a coastal town bounded by the Indian Ocean to its north. It is situated at the tip of the northern province and is considered as a place of strategic importance due to the presence of the Palk Strait and its close proximity to the coast of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The northern coast of the island was severely impacted by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami which claimed several thousand lives.
It is also flourished by the Thondamannar lagoon which meets the sea through a long, narrow channel to the west of the town. The lagoon's water is brackish to saline. The lagoon has extensive mudflats, seagrass beds and mangrove swamps, particularly Avicennia. The lagoon attracts a wide variety of water birds including American Flamingoes, ducks, gulls, terns and other shorebirds.