Archive for the ‘Mannar’

Madhu Feast 2009: Another opportunity or obstacle for peace and reconciliation?

“We used to live very close to the Madhu Shrine and we long to go and pray at the feat of Our Lady of Madhu as we used to. But we are prisoners in this camp, and not allowed to go out freely” is what a father of two children, the youngest of whom is an infant of about one month, told me, when I met the family at the Sirukkandal camp, in Mannar last week. This family is from Pandivirichan, the parish adjoining Madhu Shrine. Hundreds of Tamils, including infants, pregnant mothers are being detained in this camp, some for more than a year. Thousands more are detained in other camps situated in the Diocese of Mannar, where the Madhu Shrine is located. I also heard of a plea by a Tamil family detained at Menik Far. The appeal was sent to the Bishop of Mannar. I’m not sure why the appeal was not made to the Government and…

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Fate of the Displaced – Mannar

As soon as the security forces arrived at Arrippu, in September 2007, we were escorted out of our villages, some with personal belongings many with only what they were wearing. We sheltered at Nanattan School for 15 days. We made a request to the area commander through our GA Mn & DS Nananattan to resettle us in our native place. First they said that they would allow us to go to our village with in a month. Then they said after 06 months. Finally they said that they would resettle us when The Defense Ministry would give an order only they would allow us to go. We still remain IDPs unable to go back to our villages. Since we engage in fishing at Achankullam Nannattan, we temporarily settled down there. On 22.04.08 our sons Mr. Rongalin age 20 & Mr.Sutherson Peries age 22, went to Nannattan to take photo graphs for navy identity cards around 3.30 pm. While they were…

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Doesn’t she have the right to live with her daughter?

My mother in law, age 55 is from Kalliyaddy, Mannar, (an LTTE controlled area) came to live with her daughter, who is married to me in Sinnakarishal, Pesalai on 15.01.08. Kalliyady is in LTTE controlled area with around 500 families. Life there has been extremely difficult for her and during the latter stages even more difficult. It is mandatory that a member of a family join the LTTE in their struggle. However, my mother in law managed to get her daughter out of the LTTE controlled area and gave her in marriage to me.  She was adamant that she will not give her other daughter to join the LTTE and thought it was best to flee Kalliyaddy with her 25 year old daughter. During the last six months in Kalliyaddy it had been at a risk that she was able to hide her daughter and to avoid enlistment. Since the LTTE too was forcing more people to join, she thought…

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Current ground situation in Mannar, Sri Lanka

View Larger Map Ruki Fernando of the Law and Society Trust speaks about the present situation in Mannar, Sri Lanka. Click here for the video in Sinhala and here for more videos from Vikalpa Video. For more articles by Ruki on the embattled North and East of Sri Lanka, click here.

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My abducted brother found in Colombo National Hospital

An armed group abducted my younger brother this month. He was 25 years old. They came in a van in early February at around 8.30 in the night. I am the eldest son in my family and I returned to Mannar after my marriage. After one year I told my parents to come down to Sri Lanka since a ceasefire agreement was signed between LTTE and the government. They returned to Mannar after 12 years from India. As soon as he was abducted I informed the ICRC, FCE, Citizen Committees and CHA. My abducted brother is the youngest in our family. He neither knows nor has any connection with any militant group. Yet he was abducted. We searched all over but we could not find him. In early March I suddenly got an anonymous call. The person one who spoke to me over the phone did not tell me his name or address. He just said, “Your brother is in…

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A narrow escape and a great tragedy

I am the director of a convent in Madhu. Our convent was shifted from Adampan to Madhu at the end of January this year due to the heavy shelling & aerial attacks by the security forces. There were 25 school children with me in the convent in Madhu including 300 families also sheltered at the Church compound. The students at the Madhu Church used to travel in the bus that used to set off at Madhu at 7.30am toward Thadchanamadhu School. On 28th January this year, I had to go to Killinochchi to get a pass. I told the convent children not to go to school in my absence. Only one student from my convent went for basketball practice. On the way from Killinochchi to Mannar, I heard that there was a claymore mine blast on a passenger bus in Thatchanamadhu. This news was shook my heart. We rushed to Vellankullam hospital where I found dead bodies of schoolboys, most…

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  • 6 Dec, 2007
  • 12 Comments
  • IDPs and Refugees,
    Mannar,
    Peace and Conflict

Civilian cost of a humanitarian operation: miseries of liberated peoples of Musali and Naanatan divisions in Mannar waiting to go home

“We were not poor, we had our own house, we earned a reasonable income to feed ourselves and our children, but now, we have been forced to be poor and depend on others to feed our children and ourselves, and have no place to stay, our village is occupied by the Sri Lankan armed forces” was the comment of one women who was amongst the thousands forced to vacate their homes and livelihoods by Sri Lankan armed forces in their quest to seek control of land. When I visited Mannar with some friends and colleagues more than a month after yet another “humanitarian operation” by Sri Lankan armed forces, this time in Mannar, it became clear that civilians remains the only causality, with at least 12 having being killed and 1 disappeared. From what we heard from displaced people and church leaders, it was clear that militants associated with the LTTE had left long before government forces advanced, and the…

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“I pray God that no one in this world should face the hardships, faced by my child and me”

“registration” Eachchilampattai, Trincomalee Sri Lanka. IDP registration point. this young girl and her family had to flee from their village. They had to walk 36 km to reach this school where hundereds other families are accommodated following escalation of violence last month in Trincomalee district. Photo credit: Agron The story of Mrs. Mathivathanan Ponmalar, IDP in Eachchilampattu Following the suicide attack at Army Head Quarters, Colombo, our village in Eechalampattu was shelled with mortars and multi barrel rockets. We evacuated the village immediately at midnight without our belongings in the pitch dark amidst the deafening sounds of the artillery and mortar fearing for our lives and those of our children. We trekked through the jungle not knowing where we would go. We reached Killiveddy in the morning hours. We left more than 150 gunny bags of paddy, furniture, house hold items, agricultural equipment and all related documents to prove our birth and citizenship. We left our source of income which…

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The Indo-Lanka Accord – Some reflections 20 years hence

ඉන්දු ලංකා ගිවිසුම (1987 ජූලි- 2007 ජූලි): අවස්ථාවක්ද? බලහත්කාරයක් ද? “ඉන්දු ලංකා ගිවිසුමෙහි දසවන සංවත්සරය අවස්ථාව පෙන්නුම් කරන්නේ එහි අරමුණ වු ජනවාර්ගික ගැටළුවට දේශපාලන විසඳුමක් සොයා ගැනීමෙහි ලා ශී‍්‍ර ලංකාව ඇදහිය නොහැකි තරම් ආපස්සට ගමන් කර ඇති අන්දම ය.” In this article I go back in time and look at the Indo-Lanka Accord the the dynamics of State power against the LTTE that was the lasting result of it. I speak of the battles that followed, examine the constitutional dynamics of the Acoord and the resulting system of governance, the political regimes in the South who variously interpreted the 13th Amendment, the way the Accord influenced war and peace in Sri Lanka and finally, a series of lost opportunities in the past two decades alone to bring about a transformation of violence and an end to violent conflict in Sri Lanka. Please read my article in full here.

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Homeless in one’s homeland

Photo credit: Agron, from Portraits of Displacement Worldwide, those rendered homeless and destitute by violent conflict is growing. According to UNHCR statistics, the figure of Internally Displaced Persons stood at over 32 million at the end of 2006. In Sri Lanka’s case, many of those displaced by the tsunami were communities already displaced by war. This double displacement exacerbated their trauma and continues to date. My article end with impressions of a photo exhibition of refugees and IDPs by Gemunu Amarasinghe. Read my article here.

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The flipside of Islamic fundamentalism in Sri Lanka

Reproduced with the kind permission of the author, and first published in the Hindustan Times. The flipside of Islamic fundamentalism in Sri Lanka PK Balachandran Kattankudy (Eastern Sri Lanka), April 24, 2007 Islamic fundamentalism in Kattankudy in the Eastern Sri Lankan district of Batticaloa, is multifaceted. It has both regressive and progressive aspects, though to the naked eye of the fleeting visitor, only the former is visible. Fundamentalism has united previously disparate entities while creating new barriers. It has infused intolerance of some types, but at the same time, liberated sections of society from the thraldom of traditional practices and ideas described as “outdated”, “un-Islamic” or “superstitious”. Strange though it may seem to outsiders fed on Afghanistan’s medieval Talibani fundamentalism, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Kattankudy has given a boost to women’s education and empowerment and narrowed the man-woman gap. Opportunities in West Asia for employment and the impoverishment of the Tamils due to militancy and war from the…

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Crossover and Mixed Public Reaction

The latest survey conducted by the Social Indicator, the survey research unit of the Centre for Policy Alternatives reveals that Sri Lankans express mixed opinion on the recent crossover by the 18 UNP parliamentarians along with 6 Muslim Congress MPs. 37% of people approve of this move while the same percentage disapproves. Interestingly, a quarter of Sri Lankans are either unaware of the crossover or do not have an opinion on whether to approve or disapprove of it; despite the chaos it has triggered in many corners that is yet to be settled. In the wake of numerous interpretations and reinterpretation of the present political situation as a result of the recent crossover by the political elites, the authors of this article attempt to discuss how citizens perceive the crossover. The results of the latest poll, that was conducted by Social Indicator – Centre for Policy Alternatives are used to discuss the public views in this article. This survey was…

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The wages of passivity

Sri Lanka’s Muslims have long kept quiet while Tamil militancy has made its own demands. Now they are becoming restive, fearing that silence may have cost them too much. By | Dilrukshi Handunnetti If you were to go by the international headlines, the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict appears to engage only the two main communities, the Sinhalese and the Tamils. Yet when the conflict exploded into war in 1983, and in the more than two decades following, it was not just the two communities locked in battle that suffered. The impact of the internal war on the island’s Muslim community has been massive – and severely overlooked. In Colombo, when issues of politics or peace deliberations arise, the ‘Muslim question’ has long been confined to intellectual debates and dinner-table discussions. This continues to this day, despite the fact that representatives of the Muslim community have for decades worked with the country’s majority-led governments. This has included the premier Muslim party,…

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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