Picking up the Tamil Tigers’ scent
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A former female Tamil Tiger rebel dressed in bridal attire looks on as others dress up another bride during a mass wedding ceremony at a government rehabilitation camp near Vavuniya in northern Sri Lanka in June. Eranga Jayawardena/AP. From Christian Science Monitor.
“The people have used ballots instead of bullets, that’s a great victory for us”, said Sri Lankan Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena last Sunday, even though the ruling party he represents suffered a heavy defeat at the polls in the war-torn north and east of the island-nation.
By RNW’s International Justice Desk in Sri Lanka
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), formerly controlled by the LTTE (Tamil Tigers), won control of three quarters of the councils in the Tamil majority region.
Premature
The government’s optimism may be premature though. RNW recently visited Sri Lanka to interview former Tamil Tigers fighters. They still sound determined, even though the Tamil war has ended. “Yes, if life doesn’t improve here then I would fight again”, said one of them, named Madu. “I don’t want war again but we need basic rights.” RNW interviewed nine former Tiger fighters in the walled compound of an NGO which is keen to remain anonymous, in the eastern town of Batticaloa. Six men and three women sat and spoke openly to RNW about the war and their lives today. Despite government proclamations of racial harmony peace, many Tamils in the east and north of Sri Lanka still live in fear of the police. They complain they do not enjoy equal rights with Sinhalese citizens.
A state of rehabilitation
Looking around the table the former guerilla fighters are unassuming and meek. But look a little closer and you notice scars from the war – both physical and emotional. All nine joined the Tamil Tigers during the 30-year civil war, most voluntarily, two were coerced. Some surrendered in the war’s denouement in the Spring of 2009, others were captured afterwards. All were sent to so-called ‘rehabilitation camps’, effectively prisons, where at first many experienced maltreatment and shortages of food and medicine.
Reintegration
Later with the help of NGOs their experience of the camps became more positive as they were taught skills and received ID cards, ready to attempt reintegration into post-conflict life. The three women, in their twenties and thirties, spoke of the anxiety of uncertainty – unsure if they were in prison, if and when they would be released, and whether they would be allowed proper contact with loved ones. ‘Actually the most important question was: what will happen tomorrow?’ said Parinita. Most of all, they wanted their freedom back.
Freedom, but not as we know it
‘But once we were released, we still had no freedom,’ said Abi, referring to the many military checkpoints that Tamils still have to go through every day. Police are suspicious and oblige former Tigers to sign a ‘Good behavior paper’ every month. ‘We don’t have equal rights here. Last month the police suddenly arrived and searched my house. I don’t know what they wanted.’, Abi said.
Jobs
Many Tamils claim that it is harder for them to find work than it is for Sinhalese. The group points out that no Tamils are allowed to join the police force, and that even in Tamil-majority districts local government jobs are difficult to get without speaking fluent Sinhala. The former Tigers complained of ‘Sinhalese colonization’ of the north and east of the island. Colombo offers incentives to Sinhalese people to move to the former Tamil strongholds. Tamil ‘rehabilitation’ sometimes involves Hindu Tamils being made to take part in traditional Sinhalese Buddhist rituals.
Speaking in tongues
Even the police and military in Sri Lanka’s north and east don’t speak, or refuse to speak, Tamil. RNW experienced this first hand when witnessing a Tamil being questioned in Sinhala by police – when the man asked to be addressed in English as his Sinhala was poor, he was ignored.
Violence
In the West the image of Sri Lanka as being free from oppression and violence has taken root. Recent investigations by Britain’s Channel 4 and the UN have focused on atrocities committed during the civil war. Human rights issues existing today in the north and east are being overlooked. These are the same rights issues that helped lead the country into one of the world’s bloodiest civil conflicts in the 1980s.
Battle for peace
Former Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunga now urges her successor Mahinda Rajapaksa to work towards an ‘inclusive society’ and share political power with minority Tamils. ”I too, am glad, extremely happy that the war has ended and terrorism defeated”, she says. “But, I cannot blind myself to the fact that although we have won the civil war, we have not even begun the battle for peace.”
Take up arms?
Closing the interviews with the nine Tiger fighters, RNW returned to the question of long-term peace – with the Tamil Tiger leadership dead and the infrastructure supporting their cause all but wiped out, could they imagine picking up arms again? “If we don’t feel our rights being respected in the coming years then yes, I can imagine I would,” said Saathuryan.
Click here to read the first story in this series of three from the RNW team in Sri Lanka
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Content from Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) is republished with permission on Groundviews for further debate and discussion, under a content sharing agreement between this site and RNW’s South Asia Wired programme.
This article drives a point which I fervently pray will someday resonate with Sri Lanka’s Sinhala population as well as its Diaspora. The spark of Tamil nationalism and statehood does not lie in terrorist ideology; it is rooted only in a need for safety, equality, and care. If this were present within the framework of a united Sri Lanka, the ethnic tension which exists today would be free to dissipate.
there are over 25,000 unemployed graduates in this country, most are sinhala. Unemployment is not a problem experienced by Tamils alone in this country.
I live in colombo and have to go through security checkpoints. although not very often now. I remember just over two years ago, they emptied entire buses and checked our bags and IDs. There is a reason for this, and people who live in this country understand.
I would expect those who fought against the government and targeted civilians with weapons to be kept an eye on, after all it was just two years ago. it’s a restriction on the freedom of those who have committed crimes but have been given a very generous pardon by the president.
Rajapaksa promised successful reintegration into the society for former Tamil Tigers… but none has happened so far. As always, more of the same …empty promises, broken promises
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Kumarasamy Muralitharan is an ex-LTTE doctor who was trained in the militants’ medical colleges and served for 20 years in their medical wing. When I met him in October he wondered nervously whether his qualifications would get him a job as a doctor in post-war Sri Lanka, and whether he would be accepted by society.
Neither has happened. Sinhalese officials have told him they only recognise him as a person released from custody, not as someone medically trained. He would love the chance to sit a government medical exam but he has been given no guidance or encouragement to do so.
“There are more than 15 [former LTTE doctors] like me who’ve completed MBBS [Bachelor of Medicine]-level qualifications here,” he says in English. All would happily do government jobs, he says. “I’m ready to face any exam by the government if there is any chance given.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14331595
In another instance the 130 jobs were promised 13 months ago and these promises have not been fulfilled so far.
Ex-Tiger, Kumar has no job 13 months after being freed from a tough detention camp.
“I’ve tried so many places to find a job,” he says. ” There were 130 driving jobs allotted to us in the transport board, but Pro-Rajapaksa Group of Douglas Devananda gave those jobs to other people and none went to the Ex-Tigers as promised .”
This is a big joke. there is a thing called the Sri Lanka Medical Council. It is not part of the government. nor is it controlled by the government. In fact they are against the government and fighting against the private medical college established in Colombo.
SLMC alone decides which medical qualifications are recognised. when Chinese, Russian medical degrees from very prestigious universities are not recognised, why the heck would they recognise one from the university of LTTE.
The Language is major difference,it can influence thoughts and values even people have similar culture,color,religion.Thats why India is seperated linguitically.India is still one nation, even some tensions exist within it.If Tamils had Statehood to protect their rights from the 1948,Sri lanka would be war free one nation.I dont know why Sinhalse can’t understand the root causes of terrorism and slove this problem politically?Everyone wants to live happy life,why not everyone from Sri lanka?
If Tamils had Statehood to protect their rights from the 1948
\\Yes the British should have made Tamil Eelam as an independent sovereign state ,just as it was before they conquered it and merged it with the sinhala states as 1 sovereign state
It seems the objective of this article from a handful of Dutch journalists was to find any “dirt” that they possibly could to undermine Sri Lanka’s unitary status. This is demonstrated by their willingness to repeat what they were told as if it were fact without taking the elementary professional journalist safeguard if checking with others.
For example: “No Tamils are allowed to join the police force.” (That was only true when the Tamil Tigers would murder Tamils if they did.)
“‘Sinhala colonization of the north and east of the island.” (As if the Sinhalese were from a different country. And they don’t use the term ‘colonization’ when referring to Sri Lankan Tamils moving to Colombo or elsewhere on the island.)
“Hindu Tamils being made to take part in traditional Sinhalese Buddhist rituals.” (Not a shred of evidence is cited to justify this allegation.)
Our friends from Holland seem to forget that their parents & grand-parents fought a brutal war themselves against German Nazi occupation 70 years ago and it took years for Dutch hatred of Germans to subside.
”Live and let live” takes such a long time to take root in this ”sovereign” country ????