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, …

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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 …

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Whilst it is not clear as to whether we would be voting in both the presidential and general elections on the same day, it is clear that we will be voting in at least one of them in the next three months, followed soon thereafter by the other.  Most likely it will be the presidential elections since it is the president who has to decide and since he is much more popular than his party. Moreover, we have been told that he is willing to sacrifice, if necessary, two years of his first term in order to secure a second and a parliamentary majority nearest to the heart’s desire.

All elections are important and these will be no exception. It is worth …

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Less that a kilometre away from a cluster of government offices in Puttalam dedicated to the welfare of Muslim IDPs is the home of thirty one year old Madeena, her jobless husband and six children.

The small, completely cadjan thatched hut, teeters upon the mercy of the weather. It is one of the temporary shelters in the string of camps for the DPs, which dot Puttalam.

Madeena’s camp, a vast barren land which faces the Puttalam Saltern, is known as Saltern 01 and houses 120 families.  It has the most difficult living conditions and is adjacent to the camp, called Saltern 2, which has 65 families. In both the camps the houses are made of either wood or cadjan. In Madeena’s home …

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Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai

“We lack road, water, and housing facilities. Our children are unable to attend school regularly as there is no proper transport service. We don’t have any facility and leading the same life even now as same as 18 years ago”.

This is a cry of an Internally Displaced single mother from Jaffna, A. Shahula who chewed betel and shared her agony. She is living with her two kids in Saltern 2 welfare camp in Puttlam.

Most of them are still leading their lives in welfare camps, and lack the normal living standard of a person. A large number of internally displaced persons from Jaffna are living in Thillaiyady, which is called “Little Jaffna”. These Internally Displaced Persons feel that, there is …

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‘Cries from Puttalam’
For those familiar with the fairytales of the Grimm Brothers, the story of the young girl who equals her love for her father to her love for salt is no doubt a resounding one. Banished from her home by a wounded father who assumes her love for him to be trivial, she later gains grace when he realises the true depth of her love for him.

However, for the Muslim refugees of Puttalam, life is no fairytale. The situation is certainly grim, and the taste of salt is now bitter.

For these Muslims, who once led peaceful and productive lives in the north of the country, their lives were shattered when they were ordered to leave their homes in just …

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Opinion of Fathima, 24 and mother of one child from Karambe camp in Puttlam

“I was eight year -old, when we were forced out of Jaffna. I was crying throughout the journey from Jaffna to Puttlam. We came to Puliyankulam, Vavuniya and Puttalam. It took three days for us to reach Puttlam. Initially I was in a camp along with the others. Food and immediate needs were met by various organizations. My other family members bring to my reluctant memory even now. I forgot every sweet memories of my mother town in Jaffna. I don’t know the present situation our house or the surroundings in Jaffna. The unbearable issues is that we lost our culture. I will not go back to …

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Channel 4′s recent programme on Sri Lanka broadcast recently in England. As noted here,

… the team making a documentary for Channel 4 was ordered to leave Sri Lanka’s embattled Jaffna peninsula on the orders of the country’s military [even though] reporter Sandra Jordan, camerawoman Siobhan Sinnerton and producer Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai had received permission from defence authorities in Colombo before flying into Jaffna.

It was not clear why the Channel 4 crew were made to leave, but the private Daily Mirror newspaper quoted a military official as saying they were sent back for their own safety.

“Around 100,000 British tourists holiday in Sri Lanka every year, but thanks to a clampdown on the international media, few realise …

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12 Sep 2007 12:31:03 GMT
Source: Reuters

COLOMBO, Sept 12 (Reuters) – Sri Lanka issued a tsunami alert on Wednesday for its north, south and eastern districts following a major earthquake in Indonesia, the National Disaster Management Centre said.
“We have issued a warning for the south, north and east after the quake,” Keerthi Ekanayake, an official at the centre told Reuters. Sri Lanka was battered by the 2004 tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean rim.

- Reuters story ends -

Update #1 (7.00pm): Read the alerts issued on JNW and also visit their site for updates.

Update #2 (7.15pm): Reuters news alert SMS thru Dialog says “Small tsunami hit Indonesia’s Padang, Sri Lanka expects small tsunami by 7.30 – Disaster Management Centre”

Update #3: (7.34pm): …

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“If humanitarian intervention is indeed an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica – to gross and systematic violations of human rights that affect every precept of our common humanity?”
Kofi Anan, former UN Secretary General

At the time of writing, news of the liberation of the East and the resulting celebrations have captured headlines and the public imagination in Sri Lanka. Not much analysis though as to what it all means and answers to questions such as what now, and whether the fall of Thoppigala is any guarantee of animating a hitherto non-existent capacity of this government to articulate an enlightened approach to the ethnic question. Careful to not arouse the wrath of those …

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Interview with Mrs. Alisa S. Mirza, Palaviya, Puttlam

This camp occupies approx. 70 families evicted from Jaffna in 1990. For the past 17 years we have been completely ignored. If I am to talk about the plight of many families, a book could be composed on this behalf.

In Jaffna we had self employment and there were many resources, but here almost all men are laborers and even the small children have become bread winners trying to make ends meet in many families. There aren’t enough toilets for the site, same with the shelters; you would find cases of 4 to 5 families living under one small roof. The sanitary facilities and the hygienic conditions are at a very sad situation. …

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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 …

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The 28 minute documentary “Wars and Waves: Sri Lanka’s internally displaced” that was produced by COHRE, and directed and written by me, is available online.

There was a small private launch a week ago in Colombo. COHRE plans to do a larger public screening followed by a discussion in the coming weeks.

The purpose of the film is to highlight Sri Lanka’s IDP issue. The film will be used by COHRE as an advocacy tool, and by its network partners to provoke discussion about the issue. It’s primarily aimed at an international audience.

Description of film:
In Sri Lanka, a natural disaster and ongoing conflict have displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

Those who lost everything to …

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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.

My article is based on an encounter with two Sinhalese youth in Puttlam recently. Both had served in the Army. Both had lost limbs, though we didn’t find this out till much later. We listened silently as we sat on the bund and they recounted their stories of war, and their aspirations for peace.

When so many are clamouring for war and violence in Colombo, these two youth offered us a different viewpoint. Instead of hatred and violence, having seen enough of both perhaps, they told us they were sick of war and just wanted to live in peace.

It’s a simple message, but are we listening?

Read my article in Sinhala here.

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 …

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In my recent contribution in Sinhala to Mawbima, I explore the murder of Thillainayagam Theeban as first reported by Nalaka Gunawardene in this forum. An interesting footnote is that not a single one of the 3 Police Stations or 7 Policemen I spoke to in order to find out more information about Theeban was aware of any developments in the hunt for his killers.

Sadly, he is just another number for them – and the numbers just keep piling up in Sri Lanka.

I also translate into Sinhala a particularly important excerpt from the recent UTHR(J) Information Bulletin No. 44, “The Race for Infamy in Sri Lanka’s North-East“.

Read the full article here.

A post here points to a powerful new report on the dangers on humanitarian aid work in Sri Lanka and elsewhere.

Reports in Groundviews, both from Citizen Journalists as well as news snippets from JNW featured on the site, clearly indicate growing concerns about the security and safety of aid workers, increasingly assaulting, vilified and killed for being perceived to be partial to non-state actors, biased towards operations of terrorists and / or acting to undermine the “national security” of the State.

This is the first report I’ve read that comprehensively debunks the myth that local INGO / NGO / staff and humanitarian aid workers are any less vulnerable to attacks. As it notes:
Humanitarian organisations …

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Communication rights remain for most of the world’s people a vision and an aspiration. They are not a reality on the ground. On the contrary, they are frequently and systematically violated. Governments must be constantly reminded that they are legally required under the human rights treaties they have ratified to implement, promote and protect communication rights. Communication rights are the expression of fundamental needs. The satisfaction of these needs requires a strong political will and the allocation of substantial resources. Lack of commitment to such resources serves only to deepen the global distrust of political institutions.

News that mobile phone users in the North & East of Sri Lanka are once again cut off is a disturbing trend in the …

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From Morning Leader – 10th January 2007

Last week this column ended with the statement that there was a lot to be learnt and unlearnt in 2007. The new year is now with us and with it the unfolding of an endgame. As to who will be left standing and how and as to how long it will take remains to be seen. The point about the learning and unlearning remains, however.

Last year saw an escalation of violence resulting in civilian misery through death, displacement and abduction that put us down there in the catalogue of human suffering with Darfur, Palestine and Lebanon. Presidential commissions, international eminent persons, food consignments from Colombo and Chennai, pseudo –patriotic vitriol …

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