|
No
war, no peace, life meanders on
Uneasy
hopes peer through
the scars of war |
A tank
destroyed at Elephant Pass and The still uncleared mine
fields of Elephant Pass
|
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Text
and photos by Amantha Perera in the Wanni
It
would not have been difficult for Norwegian Special Envoy Erik
Solheim to realise the brutal ferocity with which the Colombo
government and the LTTE have gone after each other. That is if
he had made a five minute stop at the board that reads
Elephant Pass at the location where the army once had the
brigade headquarters of the sprawling Elephant Pass camp. All
around him he would have found remnants of war, spent
cartridge shells, decayed body amour, destroyed bunker lines,
over turned tanks and if he looked really closely, skeletons
as well.
The
road that took Solheim from Jaffna to Kilinochchi last
Wednesday, September 15 has seen the fiercest of fighting
during the ethnic conflict
when the Tigers overran the Elephant Pass defence
complex in April 2000. Little over one and a half years later
the Norwegians were able to get a mutual ceasefire off the
ground in December 2001 and it has held to this date.
Change
in lives
Peace,
albeit uncertain and very fickle has changed the lives of
every one of us who live
in this country. In Kilinochchi it is on show on either
side of the A9 highway. There are three service stations,
three bars, four restaurants, call centres, an internet caf‚
plus a selection of LTTE offices. There is even a deluxe hotel
set side for VVIPs like Solheim named Tank View, just off the
A9.
Kilinochchi
Central College has seen a rise in the number of students
enrolling since 2001. That year there were only 662 students,
currently it has 1,585. "Children are now eager to come
to school," said Principal P. Muttaiah. At the last A/L's
the children came tops, they recorded pass rates of 80% in bio
science, 70% in physics and 65% in economics.
A
short distance away the Bank of Tamileelam, LTTE's central
bank of sorts is doing crisp business that would make any
Colombo banker green with envy. Customers throng the branch
and beaming manager Vivekanandan Jananadan is living in
bankers' heaven, despite his bank not being registered with
any internationally or locally reputed authority. The branch
stays open even at 8.30 p.m.
"Since
the ceasefire the customer base has grown by a big
number," he said. His branch serves 10,000 customers who
now clamour for loans, to pawn and to open new accounts.
"It
is like a finance company, they are doing everything now like
pawning, loans, etc. They are introducing everything,"
concedes Manager at the government owned National Savings Bank
(NSB) branch at Kilinochchi, Sompathan Thani- swaran. Not that
he has any reason to grieve. NSB is sitting on Rs. 14 million
out of Rs. 17 million earmarked for pawning and has given out
loans to the value of Rs. 8 million. It moved in to a new
premises in Kilinochchi in
October 2003.
Contradictions
Even
the Bank of Ceylon which was displaced to Vanerikulam in 1995
and was there till 2001 has moved in to the adjoining
premises. The post office now handles 3,000 letters a day and
according to postal workers who now daily travel back and
forth from Vavuniya to deliver the mail, sometimes they carry
70 sacks of post. Three years back, it was mostly the Sri
Lanka Red Cross that was doing that task and not that
regularly.
Thirty
year old N. Jeyalal originally from Negombo has invested Rs.
7.5 million in his new restaurant sitting pretty just across
the road from the Tiger run Kilinochchi court complex.
"This is our land, we have to do business here," he
told The Sunday Leader. He employs 30, the NSB 12, most of the
jobs were created after the ceasefire agreement.
At
the court complex that was opened after the ceasefire, lawyers
and citizens huddle discussing cases, like any other court
anywhere else. "After the ceasefire we have a lot of
problems," observed Head, LTTE Judicial System, E.
Parajasingham referring to the flood of land disputes that has
inundated the courts since the ceasefire. The reason,
returning refugees find that their former land is occupied by
others and resort to legal recourse.
But
there is no denying that the jewel in the Tiger crown,
Kilinochchi is full of contradictions. Take a turn off the
main road and life changes drastically. A drought in the Wanni
can be hundred times worse than in the south. Tanks have not
been renovated for years and the irrigation canals are no
better off.
The
Udayakathu tank was renovated by the LTTE with public help,
but two other important tanks, Iranamadu and Vavunathivu are
in desperate need of repairs. Years of war and zero
maintenance have taken their toll. The Kanagara- yamkulam tank
sits bone dry, its culvert broken and filled with sand. Cattle
happily graze within what was meant to hold irrigation water.
Hope
When
Kilinochchi wakes up, half an hour later than Vavuniya since
the LTTE still sticks to the time before the change over in
1996, early morning heavily armed LTTE cadres patrol in
vehicles painted in combat colours. While the town was
bustling, in the interior, LTTE leaders from all over the
north and the east were engaged in deep negotiations on how to
deal with the eastern situation and the overall peace process
last week. Ramesh who was appointed the eastern military
commander following the Karuna defection was removed during
these discussions. Col. Banu, the commander of the LTTE's
artillery units was sent to the east instead. Banu is one of
the most experienced combat commanders among the Tigers. He
was among the field commanders who led the attack on the
Elephant Pass camp. His induction to the east is indicative
that the LTTE has decided to take serious remedial measures to
increase the security of its cadres in the east, especially in
Batticaloa.
At
the Central College, despite the good results students still
study in dilapidated or half blown off buildings. The only new
building to come up after the ceasefire was constructed by an
international aid agency. It has only 42 permanent teachers
when in fact 59 are needed. Even among the 42, only two can
teach English. The two consecutive governments talking or
trying to talk peace with the Tigers have failed to provide
adequate English teachers to the school. No one has even
thought of teaching Sinhala.
While
the two sides have been trying to negotiate some kind of a
settlement, generations are growing up on either side without
any hope communicating with one another. The entire
Kilinochchi education division has only 12 English teachers.
The
post office in reality is a bombed out shell, where the back
half of the building has caved in during bombing raids. NGOs
do not get involved in repairing the building that is
frightening to look at from the rear, since the office falls
under the central government. An estimate was calculated to
repair the building in 2000, but so far no repairs have been
carried out and they do not look to be coming any time soon.
Transport
and the road network still remain a nightmare outside the
limits of Kilinochchi town and the A9. Public transport is
still limited and commuters wait for hours to catch a ride in
whatever that comes their way. The A9 that is in far better
condition that most main roads outside the north and east is
the exception. Off the main highway, roads still remain bumpy
dirt tracks and can give the spine a telling workout.
Banks
on the one hand may be doing comparatively well, but housing
and construction loans are pretty hard to get as insurance
companies are unwilling to provide insurance policies and
valuations for buildings or land. "The trade sector is
still in doubt, they do not want to take a risk,"
observed Manager, Bank of Ceylon, S. Thiruchelvam. But
construction is on a boom since the low interest rates are
driving customers to invest in other areas. There is
construction taking place from the new water tank to houses
being repaired or constructed by returning civilians along the
A9. The season has recorded a good harvest, but Thiruchelvam
complained that a lack of supporting infrastructure like
irrigation and the fear of an outbreak of war are dampening
growth expectations.
Fear
Growing
tension between the Tigers and the Chandrika Kumaratunga led
UPFA government is fuelling that fear. LTTE Political Wing
Head, S. P. Tamilselvan indicated during an interview last
week that notwithstanding
promises an all party consultative committee and a majority in
parliament, the UPFA government still has a long way to go to
gain the sort of acceptance its predecessor enjoyed and at
times still enjoys.
Despite
his considerable investment Jeyalan admitted that he feared an
outbreak of hostilities. "Hopefully, we will be able to
do business even if there is war," he says looking at the
best form of survival in the worst case scenario. Hopes of
peace spring internal among the civilians in the Wanni who
know intimately what it is like to be stuck in a combat zone
and when the sky opens up with falling shells.
"There
should be peace," said Gnanapala Nagesweri, a grandmother
living at Paranthan just outside the former forward defences
of the Elephant Pass complex. Displaced during the war she and
her family have returned to their former homes and now live
side by side mine infected plots. Barely 100 yards from her
hut, red tape demarcates areas still infested with mines. In
front of them her grandchildren play. War is everywhere here,
even the dog pen is made out of spent ammunition cases and
secured by an artillery shell on one side.
"If
war breaks out all this would be lost," Muttaiah
expressed his fears while surveying his school with its
laughing children in the midst of bombed out buildings.
At
the Kilinochchi pola traders were fearful that war would break
out again. "There is fear that war will erupt
again," said Kandan a vegetable seller. His main fear was
that the stable market for products that had been created with
the ceasefire would be lost in the event of hostilities.
The
fears of a female trader in the same market were much more
close to life. "If war breaks out we will all be
dead."
No
breakthrough
The
lasting effects of almost three years of peace is however
indelibly written in the eyes of the traders. "Nobody is
going to live forever, not Pirapaharan, not the President and
this struggle is for land. Meanwhile, sons of innocent men and
women are dying. Since we are alive only for such a short
time, why can't we live together in peace?" questioned
Shanmugam Sivasam a coconut seller at the market. The struggle
for the land however is unlikely to be resolved that easily
though.
The
LTTE, given its brutality in the past and single-minded
leadership of Velupillai Pirapaharan still enjoys considerable
support among the populace. On record it is man to a man. The
grumblings of the east directed at the organisation is
surreally silent in the Wanni. Almost everyone admits that if
not for the LTTE taking it to the security forces and through
them to the Colombo government, Tamils in the north would have
very minimum negotiating power.
"You
have to understand that even if we don't agree with all the
policies of the LTTE, they are fighting for us. We have to be
given what was denied to us in the past," said P.
Kandasamy, a retired government servant living in Kilinochchi.
For the time being the LTTE is insisting that what was denied
could be recouped starting with the ISGA proposals. It is
almost an year since the Tigers released the proposals and the
organisation has steadfastly continued to stand by its
proposals while Colombo does not seem to have got its act
together, with several voices talking for and against in the
government regarding the Tiger proposal.
It
is with this kind of support at least in the Wanni that LTTE
Political Wing Head Tamilselvan welcomed Solheim to the LTTE
Peace Secretariat in Kilinochchi on September 16 morning.
The
meeting commenced at 11 a.m. Kilinochchi time and lasted
almost two hours. Solheim's initial reaction after the meeting
concluded was that the mediators felt a sense of frustration
among all the parties to the process, including the civilian
population. "What we sensed during this trip was a
certain frustration."
The
Norwegians did not carry any proposal from Colombo as was
expected and President Chandrika Kumaratunga had not presented
any counter proposals during her own meeting with Solheim that
night.
Solheim
made it clear that talks would not start any time soon and
that any breakthrough was no where in sight. "We see no
immediate breakthrough," Tamilselvan observed soon after.
Divided
island
The
Norwegians given the inability to get any sense of progress
were quick to comment on the value of the ceasefire and that
action and decisions have to originate from the two parties.
"We only take the messages," Solheim said.
"Everyone
should appreciate the enormous benefit of this no war, no
peace situation," he added. "If war had been here
may be 10 or 20,000 people would have been killed."
However, the Norwegians told both sides that the CFA should be
adhered to in full.
The
indication was that it was a long, long haul up ahead and not
accept any miracles. "Some people think that the
Norwegian facilitators are some kind of semi-gods or
magicians. I can tell you it will not happen. It will not be
over by one visit. Even if Jesus Christ or Lord Buddha came
they will not be able to do this easily," Solheim
observed at Kilinochchi before departing for Colombo on an air
force helicopter.
Tamilselvan
said that the LTTE had reiterated its concerns over the
non-implementation of Clause 1.8 of the CFA which stipulates
that illegal para-militaries would be disbanded. An LTTE
delegation would also be heading to Europe later in the month
to discuss with parties involved in the formulation of the
ISGA proposals on means to get them implemented. Tamilselvan
however said that the LTTE did not think the proposals needed
any alterations.
Like
Solheim, the rest of the country it seems is getting used to
living in uncertainty in the abstract no war, no peace
environment. Development work does continue in the LTTE held
areas as well as cross border cultural pollination efforts.
During the two weeks, two groups consisting of bhikkus and
journalists from the south have toured the north-east.
"They
are not worried about war, not worried about peace. They are
ready to face anything," Thaniswaran who hails from
Jaffna said of the peninsula's attitude towards the conflict.
It
could just as well be said of most of the population of this
divided island.
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We
are all people and we all need peace ...
 The
road from Kilinochchi to Elephant Pass is sparsely
inhabited, being a stretch of land that has long since
assumed significance in the conflict between the Sri
Lankan armed forces and the LTTE. First in 1991 and then
2000 when the Sri Lanka Army's Elephant Pass military
complex came under heavy fire, residents fled the area.
Today the destroyed base and surrounding area remains in
LTTE controlled territory. A few residents have returned
home following the signing of the ceasefire agreement
two years ago.
For
the inhabitants of Umayalpuram, Paranthan, about 10
kilometers from the site of the now abandoned Elephant
Pass base, the prospect of an outbreak of war remains a
very real fear. Their palmyrah thatched houses are
separated from each other by empty shells, dry branches
and enormous craters where mortars have fallen in
battles fought not so long ago.
Despite
the fact that the land is immensely vulnerable to attack
in the event of a resumption of hostilities, some of the
families that fled the area over a decade ago, appear to
have left their hearts behind in Paranthan, prompting
them to return as soon as hopes of peace dawned.
Gnanapala Nageswari is the matriarch of one such family.
They left Paranthan in 1990 at the height of the
conflict and took refuge in schools and homes in
Kandapuram. According to Nageswari, she and her family
had to keep moving constantly over the last 10 years,
until their return to Paranthan about a year ago.
And
the resettlement process was far from simple. Their
homes had been razed to the ground, wells had been
destroyed, mines had not been cleared and there was no
sign of civilisation in the area. A year later, after
having started to rebuild their lives from scratch, some
semblance of normalcy has resumed.
"Even
if we don't have enough to eat, we can be content
because this is our home," she says. Nageswari's
daughter Chandrani, 42, has seven children, aged between
23 and three years. Chandrani and her husband find
manual labour jobs in the towns nearby in order to make
ends meet.
Nageswari,
who has lived in this area all her life, remains the
only resident able to converse in Sinhalese. But she
remembers a time when all three communities, Sinhala,
Tamil and Muslim lived together peacefully in Parathan,
Elephant Pass and the surrounding areas. "There
were so many Sinhalese and Muslim people here before, it
was by interacting with them that I learnt to speak the
language. Now my Sinhalese is rusty because I so rarely
speak it," she says.
Paranthan's
battle scars indicate just how ferocious fighting has
been in the area. The roads are still lined with
uncleared mine zones, many of them not so very far from
where people have rebuilt their homes, not very far from
where the children play. Signs warning civilians to be
wary of mines stand less than a meter apart for several
kilometers at a time.
For
this family and many others just like it, peace is of
paramount importance. Their children have just begun to
go back to school, they are still painting their walls
and thatching their roofs. Lives so recently stabilised
will be easily uprooted if peace eludes the nation and
Elephant Pass becomes again the military focal point it
has been throughout the history of the ethnic conflict.
Today, only the ghosts of battle remain in Elephant Pass
and Paranthan; there is no sign of a military presence
and the area is hauntingly calm apart from the traffic
on the A9. For Nageswari who has just come back home,
the ghosts have to stay dead.
"Only
God knows whether the war will start again. We are all
people and we all need peace," she says.
-
DB
Ice
cream on the A9
 The
Kandy-Jaffna Road or the A9 as it is more popularly known is
probably one of the strangest highways in the country.
Starting in the sacred city of Kandy, the road runs through
several areas of the central hills, verdant and fertile, all
the way through to the dry zones of Anuradhapura,
Medawachchiya and Vavuniya and finally the Wanni region before
it connects the rest of the country to the northern Jaffna
peninsula.
Those
who travel the full length of the A9 experience the cultural
hub of Kandy, the historic splendour of Anuradhapura, the
abject poverty of Medawachchiya and finally the Sri Lanka
Army's last point of control in Omanthai, Vavuniya and
no-man's land spanning a few hundred metres. From that point
on, the A9, while it may appear the same physically, runs
through LTTE controlled territory, including the Tigers'
administrative headquarters,
Kilinochchi.
The
main towns immediately preceding Kilinochchi-Mankulam,
Puliyankulam and Iranamadu look little less than war ravaged,
sparsely populated areas. Upon approaching the town of
Kilinochchi however the panorama undergoes a drastic change.
Shops and restaurants line the sides of the A9, interspersed
regularly by sprawling administrative centres of the LTTE
including the Tamil Eelam court complex and police
headquarters.
The
stretch could be literally boxed in if the LTTE decides to
close the two barriers on either side of Kilinochchi and
Paranthan.
Those
who have visited Kilinochchi soon after the signing of the
ceasefire agreement in 2002, say the development in the area
is astounding. The impression is one of extreme normalcy and
infrastructure development appears to be assuming pride of
place, with construction underway on a water tank which will
ensure that the town's water supply is regularised, and work
on a mobile communication tower is expected to be complete
within a month. The recent fears of a resumption of
hostilities notwithstanding, the last two and a half years of
peace has seen investment flowing back into Kilinochchi after
a long time, much of it by the local people themselves.
"This
is our hometown, this is where we should work and this is
where we should start our businesses," said N. Jeyalal,
who runs a popular eating house on the Kilinochchi-Jaffna
Road. Hotel Kilirassan is one of many such restaurants in
Kilinochchi town, open for breakfast, lunch and dinner and
also functioning as a retailer of confectionery items and
carbonated drinks. Jeyalal conducted his business activities
in Negombo during the years of conflict when commercial
operations were just not viable in the Wanni.
"We
can do business here now because electricity is supplied to
Kilinochchi via Pallai," Jeyalal says, adding that before
the peace process began the only shops in the town were petti
kades. Hotel Kilirassan employs 30 people, all hailing from
Kilinochchi itself. "There are new opportunities for
employment now, thanks to the various new enterprises that are
starting up here," Jeyalal said. His own endeavour was an
investment of about Rs. 7.5 million since he built the
restaurant space from scratch.
Jeyalal
confirmed that there was a fear among the residents of
Kilinochchi that war would erupt again, admitting that if that
happens, business would not be as good for them. "But we
should be able to do business even during the war," he
added.
Optimistic
as the approach may seem, it would be hard to envision as many
people on the streets of Kilinochchi, shopping and enjoying
their ice creams in the event that the Tiger stronghold
becomes again the target of attack and infiltration. It is
heartening however that in the current environment of
uncertainty on the peace front, there are people in areas
worst affected by the conflict, keeping hopes alive that the
semblance of normalcy currently being experienced will
continue. Whatever adverse effect the stalled negotiations
have had for foreign investment, traders, vendors and private
investors in conflict zones appear to have placed enough faith
in the future of the country's peace process to risk
investment and entrepreneurship in the regions that are home
to them. Perhaps many of them felt, as did Jeyalal that
despite all its shortcomings in terms of business
conduciveness, the people of Kilinochchi deserved to
experience some of the fruits of peace - "This is our own
place and our own people, that's why I wanted to invest
here."
-
DB
The
great divide
by
Dharisha Bastians In the Wanni
"Don't
you understand any Tamil at all?"
Akhilan
and Jeirubaharan, both students of Central College,
Kilinochchi looked almost as frustrated as I felt at their
inability to carry on a conversation. Bringing my forefinger
and thumb close together I gesture "only very
little" and explain that my vocabulary consists
exclusively of nandri (thank you), illai (no) and thayawasedu
(please).
"Do
you understand any English?" I ask them, speaking slowly
and using my hands to point and generally make myself
understood.
"Konjum,
konjum," Akhilan replied, gesturing in turn. We stood
there, on a corridor filled with battle scars, reduced to
making incoherent noises and using some twisted version of
sign language in a vain attempt to bridge this huge gap
between our worlds.
Even
two years into a ceasefire agreement and the opening of the
main highway connecting the north and south of the island, the
people of the two parts remain poles apart. There has been
little southern influence in Kilinochchi, apart from the
presence of ubiquitous carbonated drinks and confectionary
items. At the Central College, there is not a single teacher
of Sinhala language and the standards of English teaching are
woefully inadequate.
Akhilan
and Jeirubaharan tell me what they can using their limited
English vocabulary. They are A/L students, due to sit for the
exam in 2006 and are studying Tamil Language, Hindu
Civilisation and Logic. What changes at the school because of
samadanam? "Change, no change. No attack,"
Jeirubaharan says.
Central
College, Kilinochchi bears greater war wounds than many other
buildings in the area. Or perhaps it seems like that because
there are school children moving about on the ground floor of
a building that has had its ceiling blown off. Big gaping
holes on either side of the second floor walls make it a
vantage point for photographs of the town. The school was
damaged during Operation Sathjaya in 1996, when the LTTE used
the corner of the school grounds to launch mortar attacks on
Sri Lanka Army positions. The retaliatory attacks caused
extensive damage to many of the school buildings.
Woundsbeing
tended
Still,
the wounds inflicted on school buildings at least are being
tended to. On the further corner, NECORD has erected a new two
storeyed class room complex and construction work is already
underway for a laboratory and second classroom wing.
Deputy
Principal P. Muttiah says that while the government maintains
some parts of the school, several needs go unmet in terms of
facilities. "The government should do everything for this
school, just like all other schools. Why the prejudice only
for Kilinochichi?" Muttiah asked.
According
to him, the school has only 42 permanent teachers when the
actual need is for 59 trained educators. A large portion of
the funding for the reconstruction of damaged school
structures came in from non-governmental organisations.
Muttiah says that even though the central government had
pledged Rs. 100 million for the same purpose, the funds have
not been flowing in. "So far there have been only
promises, nothing is being done," he said.
Interest
in learning
Muttiah
says that with the signing of the ceasefire agreement in 2002
and the resultant calm, children in the area have displayed a
greater interest in learning. The student population has
swelled to 1,585 today from 662 in 2001. The college also
boasts a good academic performance record, with above average
pass rates in Advanced Level science and maths subjects and
100 percent success rate in fine arts subjects offered at the
school, including dance and music.
"Since
the school was bombed earlier, the children are afraid that if
the war starts something will happen to them. But right now,
the sense of security is good," Muttiah said.
Vigneswari,
Oshalini and Sudharshini are 16 year old students sitting for
the Ordinary Level exam this year. We tried to strike up a
conversation, monkey fashion, beneath the shade of a young
margosa tree. They are neighbours and cycle to school together
each morning. Oshalini, who seemed to be able to understand my
every word, was unable to utter a syllable in English to
reply. Instead, she nodded in comprehension at me and
translated for Vigneswari, who tried her best to reply in
Tamil accompanied with several gesticulations.
What
was gathered during the conversation was that English was an
O/L subject they were studying, and very little else.
None
of the students appeared to be able to speak a word in
Sinhalese and since none among us were able to converse in
Tamil, we smiled and nodded a lot and went back a few steps in
the evolutionary process to try and communicate with each
other. We were two groups of people, born of the same soil,
torn apart first by the physical barriers of military conflict
and now, even as those boundaries appear to be blurring, by a
social divide that will ensure that very little will come of a
permanent peace, if and when it is achieved unless we are
willing to bridge it.
Without
an influx of southern people into areas in the north, like
Kilinochchi and a similar inflow of northern culture and
language to parts of the south, we will remain a nation
destined to be divided. Leaving the school, it was hard to
keep from thinking what the point of a peace process was if
after memorandums of understandings and historic cessations of
hostilities, I am still unable to turn to a fellow citizen and
ask, "how is peace treating you, sister?" |
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