Archive for the ‘IDPs and Refugees’

What is there to celebrate? Rumblings of a Jaffna Tamil

The question that I have been repeatedly asked by people outside Jaffna is whether we Tamils are not happy that the war is over. An immediate follow up question is whether we are not happy that the LTTE is defeated and the prescription that the defeat of the LTTE should not be considered a defeat of the Tamils, because as they say, clearly both are distinct. The first question is  one that is supposed to ‘trick us over’ (to solicit an affirmative response to the second question) and the second is an obvious political question asked to evaluate whether there are still “tiger sentiments” prevailing among the Tamil populace in Sri Lanka. I always refuse to answer these questions in a paradigm of a yes or a no – people are generally very adamant for a response in either of these solitary words. But like all political questions they just don’t have a one word answer. Let me then get…

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The end of war and Sri Lanka’s future: Videos from Vikalpa in Sinhala and English

Vikalpa, the sister site of Groundviews with citizen journalism in Sinhala, produced this mini-documentary on Jaffna a year after the war ended. Vikalpa also produced a series of interviews in Tamil, Sinhala and English on the end of war, that will be progressively made available on its YouTube channel, embedded below. Please leave your comments on Vikalpa’s post යුද්ධය අවසන් – ලංකාවේ අනාගතය (The war is over: Sri Lanka’s future).

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We Regret To Inform You That Your Condolences Cannot Be Accepted At This Time

We regret to inform you that your condolences cannot be accepted at this time. At present, both our pain and our hope defy that word, which has been offered and denied us, which we need and do not need, and which in any case we cannot accept, because they (your condolences) will not reach from what has happened to what will come. We find the word condolences stunning in its insufficiency for past and future. We evacuated our homes in the light; we vanished from our homes in the dark; we walked away from our families, toward the weapons, and wished that we could turn around. Our bodies entered the earth in places we cannot now identify, and so we are everywhere, blown to dust. By both dying in and surviving this place, we will live here long after your condolences become a ghost in your throat. We joined others’ battles, willingly and unwillingly; we walked forward on paths not…

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The end of war: Framed reflections by Deshan Tennekoon

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[Editors note: Deshan Tennekoon is one of Sri Lanka's best, young photographers. We are ardent fans, and requested Deshan to send photos that amongst the hundreds taken by him, resonated most with the end of war and the enduring challenges for peace in Sri Lanka.] December 01, 2006. A response to the failed attempt by the LTTE to assassinate Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse. The Ministry of Defence commissioned Triad Advertising to create the graffiti. It was removed in early January 2007 once the owners of the house repaired their wall. Feb 21, 2009. Tracers over Colombo. Two LTTE Air Tiger planes were shot down over Colombo and Katunayake. One plane crashed into the IRS building and the other crashed in a field near Katunayake Air Base. Below are some photos from a documentation of Swiss/Austrian Red Cross post-tsunami housing projects over 2006 and 2007. I coordinated the work of a writer and a photographer who were gathering data for a book,…

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I REMEMBER: 19 May 2010

As we come together to commemorate the anniversary of the end of Sri Lanka’s long and bloody civil war, these are some of the things I remember: I remember hearing reports in late January 2009 of UN workers and their families being shelled by government forces in the Vanni while hiding in bunkers and under UN trucks. I remember not quite believing these stories. I remember the hospitals and medical centres shelled, and the patients and medical staff killed and wounded in what the Sri Lankan government was calling no fire zones”.  I remember later on meeting some of those who survived and hearing their terrifying stories. I remember the extraordinary bravery and generosity of all the doctors, medical workers, and staff members of the International Committee of the Red Cross who served under terrifying conditions. I remember that some of them gave their lives saving others. I remember seeing Gotabaya Rajapaksa on TV in February 2009 telling an interviewer…

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Film premiere: The Truth That Wasn’t There

I am always wary of write-ups by filmmakers of their films. Labours of love often elicit painful diatribes. The messy, malleable margins of Sri Lanka has long been an issue that many would-be filmmakers have wrestled with yet fail to come to grips. Any attempt to filter its society and polity into a coherent hour and a half is destined to polarise and ultimately filmmakers find themselves lost within the country’s many contradictions, either seduced and tamed by its gorgeous mystery or reticent to its brutality. Films on Sri Lanka tend to be as taxing as its subject matter. This film was not a labour of love. This film was hard. Damn hard, to put together and to persevere with. The reasons why it has come this far has a great deal to do with the burden placed upon us by what we did, where we went and what we captured. Many of the people we met along the way…

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One Year On After the Guns Fell Silent at Vellamullivaikkal: Is There Foresight to Settle the Political Score?

In advising political leaders the Italian historian and political advisor Machiavelli (1469-1527) offered the   following words which have a relevance to the current predicament of the Sinhala political leadership after the war victory. “But  when states are acquired  in a province differing in language, in customs, and in institutions, then difficulties  arise; and to hold them one must be very fortunate and very assiduous…He should also take precautions to check an invasion of the province by  a foreigner  as powerful as himself. Invariably, the invader will be brought in by those who are disaffected because of excessive ambition or because of fear” [1] The North and East could be said to broadly resemble the province that Machiavelli refers to here. When regions are dissimilar in language, customs and institutions any politically astute ruler needs to understand that unless these rights to differing language, customs and institutions are recognized and respected, the political price for the state will be huge. Machiavelli…

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Jaffna after the war: Observations by a visitor

Large crowds rush to Jaffna every day. Some of them have never been there before. The 30 years war is over and thanks to president Rajapakse, (General Fonseka is already forgotten), they are now at last free to visit those territories the Tigers once claimed as theirs. They are eager to visit the many places of worship including a few recently discovered ones. They are genuinely happy to be there, moving from Nallur to Mavattapuram, Keerimalai, Nagadeepa, Dambakola Pattuna and   Kandarodai. Dambakola Pattuna in Madagal is where Theri Sangamitha is said to have landed with the sacred Bo sapling. A new dagoba has been built there and a statue of bikkuni  Sangamitha has been installed in December 2009, by the first lady herself. Kandarodai where the mini dagobas are found has acquired a new Sinhala name. In all these places name boards and notices are found in Sinhala. Therefore the visitors from the South feel very homely and comfortable. The…

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The Muslim question and resettlement of Muslim IDPs in post-war Sri Lanka: Two comprehensive interviews

The question of Muslim identity, displacement and forcible evictions during war and their enduring socio-political impact in post-war Sri Lanka is often underplayed in the media and mainstream politics. Muslim IDPs in the East are amongst those who have been in IDP camps the longest, often in conditions no better than Tamils interned in Manik Farm. Their plight has been covered on Groundviews on a number of occasions including, Feature story: Cries for help from Puttalam The divide between Muslims and Tamils: Perspective of an IDP Forgotten IDPs from the North The voice of an IDP single mother in Puttlam Twenty years after the Muslims were evicted from the Jaffna peninsula by the LTTE, the scars of war still remain, resettlement continues to be vexed issue and concerns unique to the Muslim community even more marginal to mainstream politics than the fulfilment of legitimate Tamil aspirations. The following interviews, conducted in late 2009 and March 2010, look at these issues…

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Citizen’s Commission: Expulsion of the Northern Muslims by the LTTE in October 1990

Sri Lanka has been increasingly the scene of much ethnic violence. The Northern Muslims are the victims of the earliest large scale act of ethnic cleansing in our history. Close to 80,000 persons, constituting the entire Muslim population of the five Northern Districts of Jaffna, Mannar, Vavuniya, Mullaithivu and Kilinochchi were summarily expelled from the province by the LTTE on one fateful day in October 1990 at a few hours notice. The details of the constraints imposed on the victims varied from location to location depending on the degree of brutality of the local LTTE leadership, but nowhere were those evicted able to sell, transfer or otherwise secure or dispose of their property or to take with them cash or other moveable possessions. The operation was carried out so quickly and with such ruthless efficiency that there was little or no resistance. The state failed to intervene. Sadly, the protests of the national leadership, Tamil and non-Tamil, and of the…

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Going beyond Sarath Fonseka in achieving democracy for people

A visibly shaken wife in tears, Anoma Fonseka told the media “this is the gift my husband got for finishing a 30 year war”. Gen Sarath Fonseka was arrested, or detained, or taken into custody or may have been even abducted by a military group late in the evening on Monday from his office, in Colombo. What ever label one gives for such exercises, they eventually end up as legal arrests in Sri Lanka, as was earlier proved in the case of Uthayan and Sudar Oli editor N. Vidyadaran’s abduction, on 26 February, 2009 while the war was on and Gen Fonseka was the army commander. Apparently the end of the war has not changed it to be any better. As for what’s now happening, the reading was on the wall. Quite plain and clear while the two opposing candidates fought their battle for presidency with rhetoric sans politics. Accusing each other, of plotting to kill each other. The presidential…

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The loud and clear message from the voter turnout and the voters in the North and East

Aachcharya writing from Jaffna I wrote on the 30th of December in a post to Groundviews (and republished in the Daily Mirror) that the assertion that the Tamil people would be deciders in the Presidential election would be a myth. There was nothing brilliant or extraordinary about what I said at that time, but it was contrary to public perception that was prevalent all over the country and in international media circles. What I suggested was that for the Tamil people to be deciders two conditions have to be fulfilled. I wrote: “For the Tamils to be the deciders in the election (like they could have been in the last) they have to vote as a whole, to one candidate and the Sinhala votes to both candidates should be almost equal.” A lot of people thought it would be close in the South. I feared a good lead for Mahinda Rajapaksha in the rural south. I told my friends that…

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Breaking the Piper’s charm

“Of all the pleasant sights they see, which the Piper also promised me. For he led us, he said, to a joyous land, joining the town and just at hand, where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew, and flowers put forth a fairer hue, and everything was strange and new.” – The Pied Piper by Robert Browning Political commentators seem to have run out of superlatives when attempting to describe the leadership of President Mahinda Rajapakse. Academics have joined the fray, falling over themselves to award him honorary degrees while Business Schools have attempted to analyse the crucial elements of his leadership style. All are in agreement that his leadership is unprecedented in history and has no parallel elsewhere. Even for keen observers of history it is difficult to identify a suitable mould from which, it may be assumed, the President may have been cast. It is only if we delve into the realm of fable that we find a parallel – that…

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We can believe in NO candidate in 2010. What’s new though, right?

The big day is fast approaching, and every water-cooler, tea/cigarette break, meeting intermission is a hive of discussion on the latest thoughts on the election. But the whole run up to the election seems familiar, ridiculous and sad. For Sri Lanka there will never be change we can truly believe in. It will always be politics as usual. Sarath Fonseka (SF) has said he will abolish the executive presidency, but is now flip-flopping on that too, and said the country may need it for a while longer, and may decide to hold some key powers if he wins, including keeping some key ministries for himself. After the war ended it was SF who said we need to keep the IDPs locked up in camps longer without release. During the war it was SF who said that this country belongs to the Sinhalese. Minorities should learn to deal with it, and not make undue demands. Now he is positioning himself as…

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“Believable Change” with unbelievable evasiveness: Sarath Fonseka’s manifesto

Part 1 The presidential election manifesto of the opposition Common Candidate General (Rtd) Sarath Fonseka was released on 7 January, 2009 at a media launch in Colombo, titled “Believable Change”.  He says “I am different. I am change. I will bring about believable change” writing for himself, in the manifesto in which he tries to spell out his vision. Why this manifesto of Gen (rtd) Fonska is singled out for this short dissection, with no comparison with the “Mahinda Chintanaya” of President Rajapaksa or with what he keeps blurting out at dinners and luncheons, at public rallies and public gatherings, is because of just one reason. There was consensus among democratic forces that Rajapaksa needs to be opposed, long before elections were declared. Opposed for his anti democratic and anti rights, arrogant governance and for his very chauvinistic rule that left Sri Lanka ethnically divided, despite his claim for war victory. There was consensus among most opposition political parties and…

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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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