President Anurakumara Dissanayake during his recent visit to Jaffna , had toured in Velvettiturai and his presence in the historically significant port city was considered as a first visit to be carried out by a head of state of Sri Lanka. Since Velvettiturai is the birth place of several hardcore Tamil militants such as LTTE leader V.Prabhakaran, Kuttimani, Thangathurai, Kittu, Soosai and Jegan, the port city, which is popularly known in short as VVT remained a nightmare when the North and East civil war continued for nearly four decades. However Velvettiturai (VVT) historically an important port city from the days of sail ships and the name derived from Velvet, a woven fabric of silk which was traded in the `silk route’ via South Asian land and waters by Arabian, Indian and Chinese traders. Therefore Velvettiturai in the good old days of the sail ships was mainly a port city and the state of the art sail ships were even built by the people in Velvettiturai.

Foremost among the sail ships built in Velvettiturai was `Annapoorani Ammal’ and the ship was built in 1930. Later the ship was brought by an American millionire William Albert Robinson whose life later became intertwined with the seafarers of Velvettiturai. The magnificently designed sail ship Annapoorani Amma was 90 feet in length and 19 feet in width. The wooden ship was built from the locally found neem trees. The elegant ship which was entirely built by Velvettiturai ship builders was considered to be the first Sri Lankan ship built in Velvettiturai to successfully sail from South East Asia, via Suez canal, Meditarian sea and finally sailing through Atlantic Ocean to reach its final destination in the port city of Gloucester, Massachusetts in America.

The Boston Globe newspaper also glorified the adventurous voyage of Annapoorani Ammal and praising the ship builders of Velvettiturai (VVT). The newspaper had even mentioned `that brilliantly designed Annapoorani Amma could be the last sail ship of her kind in all probability to cross the Western Ocean under canvas alone’. Six ship builders from VVT who sailed with William Albert Robinson from VVT had reached Gloucester, Massachusetts after two years.

Among those six VVT sailors who reached America in Annapoorani Ammal sail ship, two had returned to Sri Lanka and four others had stayed back in America. Several of the young men from VVT even qualified as merchant ship skippers and had successfully followed Marine engineering studies in the good old days before the civil war. In 1954 Murugupillai Navaratnaswami who hailed from Velvettiturai was the first to cross the Palk Strait. He swam the distance of 59 km at a time of 26 hours and 50 minutes from VVT Sri Lanka to Point Calimere in India.

Several years later his relative `Alikumaran’ Anandan hailing from VVT swam and crossed the Palk Strait. Anandan who was a lawyer by profession was an adventurous person and died while he was attempting to cross the English canal between England and France in the late eighties. There are even stories about VVT sea goers on their sea faring as well as their smuggling activities. The affluent Jaffna people were purchasing Indian clothes particularly the wedding sarees which were smuggled into Northern waters from India. Some of the houses of big time smugglers were located on the coastal areas of VVT and their speed boats which were used for smuggling activities were went inside their houses where a portion of their houses meticulously connected with sea through a canal for the speed boats to enter safely with smuggled items.

Therefore VVT being the birth place of Tamil militancy, the area even devastated to a greater extent during the first military operation code named `Operation liberation’ carried out against the LTTE in 1987. From the very beginning of Tamil militancy in the North, people from VVT were considered as hardcore Tamil extremists. The previous leaders of Sri Lanka even kept away from touring in VVT for security reason. However President Anurakumara Dissanayake became the first high profile Lankan leader to tour in VVT to a warm welcome. From the time the civil war in North and East came to an end, plenty of things have been spoken about peace and reconciliation. Whereas President Anurakumara Dissanayake by travelling to VVT has proved that he was truly stand by stabilizing peace and reconciliation in the country. His visit to VVT has also highlighted that he had lived up to the Japanese proverb, which goes as “If you don’t enter the Tiger’s cave you don’t catch its cubs.”