A Tribute to our Unsung Heroes
Repost This ArticleThe teenage girls singing a Tamil song “Tomorrow is Ours” is interrupted by my wife Samantha and I walking in to the classroom. They giggled coyly as we looked around at them.  They were being trained to be Girl Guides and did not seem any different to any of the many young people I have encountered over the years.
One of the leaders, Deepa (fictitious name) walked up to us in curiosity and introduced by the Girl Guide trainer. She had a presence but seemed restless.
Deepa was abducted by the LTTE at age 16 from her Aunt’s home in the Wanni and was trained as a soldier.  She had not seen combat as she was found by the Army in a Wanni camp only three months after.   She has not heard about her parents since then and thinks they are in London. The other thirty odd girls had suffered similar fates. Another, Ramani (fictitious name) told us through the interpreter, the LTTE had come to her home and she was picked out of the three sisters as she looked the strongest.  She said, “They took children over thirteen and only one from a family”.  She had been trained for 25 days and had seen combat. When asked about the training and her time in the LTTE, she said, “I do not want this to ever happen again” and evaded the question.  This was the sentiment of the others too.
The Girl Guide trainers volunteering their time, one Sinhala and the other Tamil former teachers were volunteering their services for this camp administered by the Army. Â They were preparing for the Girl Guide and Scout Investiture ceremony planned for the next day. Â Â In addition to the girls there are about 40 boys in this camp.
The Guide trainers told us tales of how these children were distraught and disoriented when they were brought here seven months ago. Most would not smile or speak much as they were scared.  Obviously there has been a tremendous transformation through this programme as to us they seemed normal as normal can be.  Later when I was looking for a toilet, the Guide trainer asked one of the boys to show me. I suggested, I use theirs’ which was closer, but he very politely took me to the guest toilet on the other side of the compound.  He looked so innocent that I could not imagine him as a terrorist.
The Guide trainers were full of praise for the Army officer in charge and his staff who administers the camp for the way it is run.  They said that uniforms were not worn by officers when they visit the camp and that these young people were treated with dignity and respect. Both the boys and girls had made great friends with their warders too, the Police constables who guard the premises. I saw a few boys bantering and laughing with them as they drank tea together.
Deepa graciously invited Samantha and I to join them for tea.   She continued to engage Samantha in a conversation in a combination of Tamil, Sinhala and English asking about her personal life, who I was to her and then when she found out we had children of our own she backed off, as if she was hoping we would take her home with us. Later we found out, of all the girls, she was the only one without a family or extended family to go home to.
Another girl came to Samantha and spoke in Sinhala and told her in a matter of a few minutes that her father is Sinhala and mother Tamil and they had lived in the Wanni.  As she was relating her story, the girls were called to regroup to practice.
Watching these girls act and interact, I just could not fathom the fact that they were trained killers and I would have had no chance if I encountered them out there just over a year ago.
Later, we met the Army officer and his staff and I could see why all the children called him Appah.  He was indeed a father figure, a tall handsome man, gracious and well spoken.   He was there to go through a rehearsal  for the investiture and getting impatient as the children were trickling in when they should have been in their seats in the make shift campfire circle. He turned to me in exasperation, “They are behaving like civilians” and with a chuckle went on “I suppose that is a good thing”.
Indeed, undoing the combat discipline and violence out of these children would have been a tremendous challenge and what amazes me most is that it was spearheaded by the very army which was their enemy.
The Young Diaspora
In a conversation with the Army officer, I highlighted the irony of so many of the young Tamil Diaspora of a similar age group growing up in another world,  many who had never been to Sri Lanka, yet espouse hate, at times militantly, towards Sri Lanka and Sinhala people. He said, “We cannot blame them as that was their reality when they ran away from Sri Lanka at the time and sadly they have passed it onto their children too”.
Such are the contradictions of this complex situation, where a nation has shared its soil between these two communities for two thousand years, distinct in many ways, yet similar in so many and every so often like siblings drawing battle lines, fighting it out. This last battle of thirty years seemingly the most brutal, full of hatred for each other, spreading like wildfire, thanks to the information age and in this camp bringing them back to a life of dignity they deserve with love, compassion and a determination – this seeming side story has tremendous significance as we work towards peace one year after the war ended.
“After all these very girls are going to become Mothers some day and bring up children, so this is the least we could do to help them back to normal life” said the Guide trainer.  No doubt the scars will remain, but the nation has to come together, to heal the wounds, as we share a common karma.
The True Unsung Heroes
The Girl Guide and Scout trainers volunteering their time tirelessly for the love of humanity, the Army personnel, the Police guards and the other volunteers, they are the true unsung heroes as the nation heals the wounds of war.
These are the stories that keep my spirit alive and that there is hope for humanity to someday overcome our selfish and fearful behaviors to understand that suffering is the default human condition, but we overcome by being centered, balanced and a middle path of compassion for self and others through our common humanity.  This is the message of the camp.
All these unsung heroes are the proof of this human spirit as they work selflessly to ensure that these children do not become a burden to society, but useful contributors to humanity.
The other heroes are certainly these youth who lost their childhood to a force beyond their control as they commit to become useful citizens again. Hopefully they will be champions of peace themselves as they grow and they rightfully said, “We do not ever want to face that again”.  This is our collective responsibility to prevent a war from ever happening in this beautiful land again as war brings out the worst in all of us.
If you say, “war is a necessary evil for human existence”, then I ask “have we not evolved?”
If you say, “guns are necessary to protect us”, then I ask “protect from whom?”
If you say, “fear, hate and conflict is being human”, then I ask “where is the love?”
If war is ugly then peace is beauty is then human!
1.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGhMIgnwZuA
The Changing face of Wesak in Colombo and Militarizing Sri Lanka, 15 May 2009
2.Respect for Diversity in Educational Publication – The Sri Lankan Experience, Ariya Wickrema and Peter Colenso, 2003:
‘’It is necessary to trace briefly the historical links between the development of the education system and the development of an ethnic -based politics, leading to armed conflict. ….
Tamils not involved in writing the textbooks – Textbooks written in Sinhala, and then translated into Tamil ….
the textbooks encourage children to develop “apartheid attitudes” ….
in studying art, the Tamil student only studies Sinhalese Buddhist aspects of art ….
the history of Sri Lanka is confined to a few selected Sinhala kings….
Tamils are portrayed as “aggressors”; forces of the Tamil kings are “mercenaries’ , whereas forces of the Sinhala kings are “soldiers”
the majority of Sinhala medium textbooks emphasize Sinhalese Buddhist attitudes; distorted maps under-represent North and Eastern Provinces;
War is shown as patriotic while peace is portrayed as cowardice”
3.The Two Faces of Education in Ethnic Conflict: Towards a Peacebuilding Education for Children – Kenneth D Bush and Diana Saltarelli(2000) – published by Innocenti Research Centre, UNICEF:
”…. A review of the textbooks used in the segregated schools of Sri Lanka in the 1970s and 1980s, for example, found Sinhalese textbooks scattered with images of Tamils as the historical enemies of the Sinhalese, while celebrating ethnic heroes who had vanquished Tamils in ethnic wars. Ignoring historical fact, these textbooks tended to portray Sinhalese Buddhists as the only true Sri Lankans, with Tamils, Muslims and Christians as non- indigenous and extraneous to Sri Lankan history. This version of national history according to one commentator, has been deeply divisive in the context of the wider state.”
When tens of thousands are languishing in camps and open prisons, when Northeast is getting more militarised,when journalists are still incarcerated for dissent, when abductions, disappearances and murders are still going on, schools are prevented from being opened by army presence, when UN aid agents are prevented from helping the destitute, when journalists are prevented from going freely, when Hindus and Christians are forced to celebrate Buddhist functions, when people battered by loss of kith and kin are forced to celebrate ”heroes”, when many children are even unable to go to schools for basic education because they are in the camps or because the schools are occupied by the army or by IDPs,
why are a chosen bunch of children trained as Guides?
The Tamil youth that lives in the west is angry at Sri Lankan Sinhala leaders for not treating Tamils as humans and as equals with freedom and dignity. The Tamil youth in Sri Lanka have long been denied those and those were the reasons their parents left their lost homeland.
”why are a chosen bunch of children trained as Guides?”
Showcase as reason why GSP+ should be granted by EU.
a refreshing article with all the anti srilankan NGO and tamil racist jargon that promote by this site!
A tribute to unsung heroes – is an eyeopener to the whole world. It tells of the most human way, the Sri Lanka government and the armed forces acted. LTTE and the Tamil Tiger brutality cannot be described in words. The amount of misery and havoc they inflicted upon Sri Lanka, its nation and especially their own Tamils is enormous. Even they shot their own Tamil people when fleeing to the govt controlled areas at the last moment. Now here many LTTE supporters, using Sinhala names as pseudonyms, have made comments criticising govt. helping Tamil child soldiers. We are not fooled by those Tiger terrorist comments.
- Venura Dias
My Dear Lalith,
Your article and insights are illuminating, yet excruciatingly disturbing when one factors in the contradictions and complexities of a group of our contry’s fellow citizens have to contend with for having perpetrated the most heinous collective crime of allowing the LTTE to grow up to be the monster that it turned out to be.
Living here in Toronto as I do, I have seen first hand how the LTTE trough their surrogates in the Tamil diaspora under different facades here still contnue the process of abomination of the tender minds of impetuous Tamil Youths here with impunity often helped by greedy Canadian politicians who depend on the Tamil diaspora votes to get elected to representative legislatures or Councils and Boards at Federal, Provincial and Municipal levels. The situation with reards to politicians is not very different from that of Sri Laanka where corrupt practices are tolerated country wide and people get used to a certain lackdaisical way of living amid the mire of corruption. But your article with its brilliant insights shows there’s hope for the future of our beloved country..Kudos to those decent and caring men and women in the Army, Navy, Air Force and the Police and in the administration who care enough to recognize the common humanity we all share. Their example and their compassionate work will not be in vain!
Your article ought to receive widest circulation among the international Tamil Diaspora and I’ll be copying it to as many as I can here in Toronto.
More importantly, the initiative you have taken should result in a concentrated youth focussed international campaign to enlighten the world of the realities of the post war Sri Lankan society and the prevailing peace throughout the nation – indeed a rare happening that provides a most wonderful environment and an opportunity to restore sanguine virtues of human unerstanding, respect and for fellow beings and respecting the dignity and worth of every individual.
Lalith’s article is very much like the e-mail I sent to my three children brought up in the West after I visited one of the two rehab centers for ex-child combatants in Sri Lanka. I was extremely impressed by the way Sri Lanka has handled the rehabilitation of these children. I found most of them to be victims of horror who had been forcibly removed from their homes and schools.
I had the privilege of spending some time with the children on two different days. I had a chance to listen to their stories and play games with them. I donated basket balls and several sets of scrabble for their English classes. I am grateful to the Montessori principal who was kind enough to arrange my visit to this center and giving me the chance to meet these beautiful children.
I was able to read my book, “A Little Book of Peace” to them. After I had read it to them, even the 17 and 18 year old boys wanted to hold the book and look at the beautiful water color illustrations . Even though it is a very basic children’s book, they passed the book from one to another and both boys and girls wanted to check it out for themselves. Later, the scout master who was present, remarked, ” Did you see the anticipation on their faces when you were just about to turn a page?”
Army personnel in civilian clothes and police men and women looked after these children as if they were their own. I can’t praise them enough. As a peace advocate for children who travels to many countries each year I have to say that the rehabilitation of these children is a huge success story. With the help of UNICEF, the military, police personnel, counselors and volunteers, Sri Lanka should be proud of this great humanitarian effort.
If I have one criticism, it is that the story was not shared with the rest of the world. Sri Lanka lost a golden opportunity.
A. http://www.groundviews.org/2010/05/26/vanni-in-the-year-after-war-tears-of-despair-and-fear/
B. http://www.peace-srilanka.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=1&Itemid=121
1 WINNING HEARTS AND MINDS IN JAFFNA Monday, 31 May 2010 Dr. Jehan Perera
2 INDIGENOUS REALITY AND THE PROSPECT OF RECONCILIATION WITHOUT DEVOLUTION Tuesday, 18 May 2010 Dr. Jehan Perera
3 STRENGTHENING THE CULTURE OF FEAR OR DEMOCRATIC PROBLEM SOLVING Monday, 10 May 2010 Dr. Jehan Perera
Dear Lalith,
Thank you foran excellent, unbiased article. As a ‘Sinhalese’ I look forward to the day when our Tamil brothers will look for a bright future in Sri Lanka alongside all of us.
Hi Lefti,
Good work fellow Homosapien. I strongly feel the day, we majority realizes the needs and desires of our fellow minority countrymen need not be necessarily as same as ours the trust will be bridged between all communities and ethnic harmony will prevail in the true spirit of “Live & Let Live”. My Very Best Wishes for your future humanatarien work. I too will contribute with word & deed to bring hrmony to our beautiful “Thambapani”.
Rajatha Piyatissa