by Mark Fernando, Colombo
As Sri Lanka prepares to remember the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, another tragedy is unfolding in the North.
Thirteen Sri Lankan Navy sailors were killed in a bomb attack on their transport van two days ago in Mannar, a northern district of this small island. So far this month over 30 military personnel have been killed by forces opposing the Sri Lankan government.
Back in July 1983 – the killing of 13 soldiers in Jaffna saw brutal attacks on the Tamil population living in Colombo. Thousands were killed, their property destroyed. The militants who claimed to be figting for a separate home land were vindicated – and the Tamil Tigers grew strong – gaining new recruits and international support.
The conflict is about rights. It’s about people who live outside the South having the same rights as the people who live in the South. At the moment, being a Tamil is like being a second class citizen.
Over 100,000 people – including soldiers, cadres and civilians – have been killed in the wars since 1983. The ceasefire agreement signed in early 2002 renewed hopes of a peaceful solution to conflict. But 12 months after that other disaster – the tsunami – it looks like Sri Lanka is heading towards war.
The situation is this: the life of the Tamil people and in fact all the people living outside of the Sinhala dominated south – is terrible. There’s an imbalance of resources going to the North East, and the people there live under a military occupation – stopped and questioned regularly by police and soldiers who can’t speak their language.
Since early November, I have been travelling throughout Sri Lanka and speaking to many people. The views in this story are informed by those conversations.
Jaffna must have once been a beautiful city. Now there are solders everywhere, bunkers on street corners, and occupied houses. Bombed-out and shot-up buildings remain as reminders of recent battles. Despite this, the northern capital still has a sense of quiet pride about it.
Everyone I spoke to in Jaffna was quick to say the Sinhalese people aren’t the problem. The biggest complaint was the presence of the soldiers and high security zones – occupied areas where civilians could not enter despite the fact many still have houses in those areas.
I met with student union committee members at Jaffna University. They reminded me of friends back home who are involved in student politics – passionate, strong-talking and a little funny. But unlike back home – its bullets and not batons that will be used against them if they decide to protest too loudly.
The University doesn’t have adequate facilities, and the Government is blamed. It’s seen as another example of discrimination from the South. The heavy presence of soldiers along the road to the campus also concerns them. They ask me how people can study when there are so many guns around.
When I asked what they thought of the soldiers – one student replied “they don’t want to be here”. Looking at the young soldiers on the streets – it is clear they aren’t ready to fight. They are people from poor families, who enlisted for the small salary. A nod or smile is returned immediately with a grin – some times even a wave. Some of the cadres in Killinochchi will also smile back – but there’s strong determination in their faces. The LTTE’s armed forces didn’t join up for a salary.
The students say they want to live with the Sinhalese people in peace and as equals – but one of them indicates he is ready to fight for his rights, for justice, if he has to. Recently, there have been student led protests ending up in clashes with the army. Some of the reports in the Colombo papers say the students are being controlled by a ‘third hand’, while other reports simplify the situation – equating students with the LTTE.
In Colombo, I have found people simply don’t want to consider the fact that Tamils people are actually being discriminated against. They consider what is happening in the North as evidence that all Tamils are members of the LTTE.
From the South and perhaps from outside this island, it appears the LTTE’s strategy is to provoke the Government in to war. However, it is difficult to say this for sure. Sri Lanka’s politics is messy. There was a time when a Sri Lankan President gave the Tigers weapons to fight and force the Indian Peace Keeping Force off the island.
It could be that war is the last thing the LTTE wants. After all, it will destroy their international reputation as an organization fighting for Tamil rights.
The frequent killings in the North could be a message to the South to get serious about the peace talks – and a reminder of what the LTTE is capable of doing if there is a war. Nothing is black and white here.
Many people say that Prabhakaran, the leader of the LTTE, decided who became Sri Lanka’s President in the recent elections. The lack of Tamil participation in the North East ensured Mahinda Rajapaksa was voted in. Most Tamils would have voted for Ranil Wickremesinghe, a candidate who was happy to discuss power sharing-arrangements under a federal structure with the LTTE.
The LTTE claims everyone was free to vote but their message of boycotting the election was taken literally by the Tamils. In the Jaffna district, less than 2% voted.
One Jaffna man who didn’t vote said it wasn’t worth taking the risk. The Tigers may have taken him away if he had voted or he may have died in a grenade attack on a polling booth. Even though he would have liked to have voted, he expressed his lack of confidence in the Southern candidates to solve the problem.
The reasons why the LTTE called for the boycott is unclear. Many speculate that Ranil would have been more difficult to negotiate with than Mahinda. Others say the LTTE wanted to know how the Sinhala voters would vote.
Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s new President, is reported by the international media as being “hawkish”. Many people who know him describe Mahinda as a “nice guy”. It is his coalition partners – the Marxist exremist party, the JVP and the nationalist political monks, the JHU – that are protecting the highly centralised governance model. It is they who will claim that this island was given the Sinhalese, citing evidence in a 2,000 year old book called the Mahavamsa. But to sensible thinking Sri Lankans, the Mahavamsa was a story book, not to be taken so literally.
But as someone in Colombo described the situation - the JVP and the JHU are Mahinda’s jock-strap brigade. He may want to initiate peace talks with the LTTE in Norwary – but the JVP are insisting on an Asian country. The LTTE say they will only go to Oslo.
Back at Jaffna University I met an academic who complained that the town was going to become a place where only very dark people lived because all the sons of the Tamils who sought refuge in countries like Canada and Australia were coming back, marrying the fairest girls and taking them overseas. He laughed at his analysis. I enjoyed the conversations with the older men of Jaffna – many of who lived in the North during the bombings and the war. He then told me about his Sinhala friends: “They all understand our situation. Some of them even show empathy. But they don’t do anything about it.”
The people in the South who realise the situation tend to simply blame the politicians. The academic’s point was that until the Sinhala people take up the cause of the Tamils being discriminated against, nothing will change. And he is right.
“The Sinhala man is a good man but he is easily roused by politicians”, said another old Jaffna resident. He is also right.
There’s explosions outside my small flat in Colombo. But it’s only fire crackers. The city is decorated with lights and everyone has a dinner party to go to on Christmas night.
Who knows what will happen in the coming days. On the 26th of December, the politicians and representatives of aid organizations will have their photographs taken with victims they claim to have helped.
After that there’s three possibilities. One - there will be talks between the LTTE and the Government which should ease the tensions. Two – there will be an ongoing low-intensity fight in the North which may spread to other parts of the country. Or three – there will be a full scale war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Government. If this third possibility happens – it is unlikely Colombo will be spared.
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Mark Fernando is a freelance reporter living in Sri Lanka. This article can be published by not-for-profit mediia organizations. If other outlets wish to publish this, or commission him to write, please send an email to
mfernando2004@gmail.com 
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