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Sri Lanka`s Scars Trace Lines of War Without End
Friday, 15 June 2007 - 11:59 PM SL Time
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The nights here are once again broken by artillery fire across the black lagoon. The road out of this peninsula has been closed since last August, making the area nearly inaccessible. Though food and fuel manage to arrive, shopkeepers are reluctant to keep stocks, not knowing when they may have to close up and run.
By 7 p.m., barely sundown, stray dogs have the run of Jaffna`s streets. The city`s people are indoors well before an 8 o`clock curfew. Soldiers linger at the edges of the alleys.
`Anytime, anything can happen,` said Ravindran Ramanathan, a tailor. `People are afraid of everything.` At least 15,000 are waiting to get on government ships to the relative safety of Colombo, the capital.
This is Jaffna, the picturesque prize of Sri Lanka`s ethnic civil war, girding for a new storm. The army commander for the area, Maj. Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri, said he expected a major battle for Jaffna before the August monsoon.
No other place in Sri Lanka is so scarred because no place carries Jaffna`s special curse: it is the heart of the homeland that the Tamil Tigers have fought to carve out, and the trophy that soldiers and rebels have fought over for nearly 25 years.
A 2002 cease-fire, which had stanched the bloodshed for a time, has collapsed. For a year, fighting has spread across the island between the Sri Lankan military, dominated by the ethnic Sinhalese majority, and the separatist force called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
According to the Defense Ministry, more than 4,800 people, civilians and fighters, have been killed since December 2005. Though the number is not entirely reliable, it points to a significantly lethal period even by the standards of this long, ugly war.
It is likely to continue. Peace talks are nowhere on the horizon. Gotabhaya Rajapakse, Sri Lanka`s influential defense secretary, says the military is under instructions to eliminate the rebel leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, and eradicate his organization once and for all.
`That`s our main aim, to destroy the leadership,` Mr. Rajapakse said in an interview in May. The job, he said, would take two to three years.
Pressure from abroad has done little to temper either side`s ambitions. The Tamil Tigers, banned in many countries, including the United States, upped the ante this spring by carrying out air raids with modified two-seater propeller planes. Britain and the United States, which extended a hand after the devastating tsunami of December 2004, have suspended aid.
Jaffna is no stranger to war. Its temples and churches bear the pockmarks of battles past. Its people are familiar with running and dying.
But today the weapons of war are dirtier than ever. Targeted killings and land-mine attacks in crowded civilian areas are common. The Tamil Tigers regularly deploy suicide bombers. Journalists, diplomats and aid workers face hostile scrutiny for any criticism of the security forces. On a Sunday morning in April, a young reporter for a Tamil-language newspaper in Jaffna was shot and killed as he rode his bicycle to work. In May, fliers appeared at Jaffna University, containing a hit list of people accused of being rebel sympathizers.
That is not all. A new fear also stalks Jaffna, more ominous than any its people recall from the past: mysterious abductions usually carried out during the curfew hours. No one is quite sure who is being taken, for what reason, by whom. Sometimes, bodies turn up on the street. More often, they do not turn up at all.
One night in early May, well into the curfew, C. Kuharajan`s son, Kanan, 18, was watching television on the floor of his parents` bedroom, when four armed men pushed open the front door of their house and demanded that Kanan come with them for questioning.
His captors refused to identify themselves ? ` `None of your business,` ` Kanan`s father recalled them saying. Nor would they explain where they were taking his son or why. The gunmen, all in civilian clothes and with pistols, promised to return him soon.
That was on May 4. Kanan, a high school senior, has not been heard from since.
According to his family, Kanan had been active in a high school group affiliated with the student union at Jaffna University, which security forces describe as a den of antigovernment activity. But Mr. Kuharajan said his son was under strict instructions to avoid anything political. He said he planned to send Kanan abroad to study next fall.
Full Story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/world/asia/15lanka.html?_r=3&ref=world
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BABA
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 2779
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15 Jun 2007 17:08:54 GMT Report for Abuse
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This liberation is promised by him who is hiding somewhere even followers dont know where.
Catch him to stop the war.
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punchipraba
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 78
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15 Jun 2007 17:18:53 GMT Report for Abuse
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War is sad indeed. To bad that civilians are getting affected. May be getting rid of the LTTE big shots who are against peace could be the solution. Sri Lankan politicians are not admirable. But Sri Lankans got bitten on their hand every time they extended their had to peace.
Think LTTE leadership is not for peace. Cos they have too much to loose. They would accept a separate state or a war.
I know a Sri Lankan got killed in the Pakistany ambassadors assassination attempt. But no dramatic stories nor poems were written about them. He was an Engineer and he was going to move to Australia with his wife and two year old daughter.
Point is not to de-sympathize the abductions. But person i knew had no connection to LTTE nor to the government nor to LTTE or govt sympathizing union. |
BABA
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 2779
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15 Jun 2007 17:20:24 GMT Report for Abuse
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Let Muslims and Sinhalese who were chased by force to settle back in their traditional lands in Jaffna.
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Priyanthy
Senior Member
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 8832
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15 Jun 2007 17:23:26 GMT Report for Abuse
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That was on May 4. Kanan, a high school senior, has not been heard from since.
Kannan is an active and brilliant student from St.John's College.
Poor guy, another scapegoat of war mongers. |
alwaysalion
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 342
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15 Jun 2007 17:26:19 GMT Report for Abuse
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This place is like hell for the people who live there.
Should not the GOSL protect them? Give them a place to stay in Colombo? These people are in between the LTTE
and GOSL fire.Both parties using people as human Shields.
SHAME! |
kankun
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 459
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15 Jun 2007 17:31:36 GMT Report for Abuse
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| I thought Praba going to protect his land and people. Why these people have to suffer? |
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