Saturday, August 06, 2011

Lifting a veil on the macabre final months of Sri Lanka’s civil war



By Vanessa Dougnac | Worldcrunch
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May 18, 2009 was a momentous day in Sri Lanka’s civil war, but it did not – as many claim – completely turn the page on the country’s drawn-out bloody conflict.

That day, the government’s Sinhalese soldiers waved their flag on Mullivaikal beach to hail their victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who had fought for three decades to create an independent territory for the Tamil ethic group. The rebel army was decimated. One man turned the victory into his own: President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who led the three-year military conquest of LITE-controlled territory in northern Sri Lanka.


But what the official story doesn’t mention is the Kilinochchi district, the former center of the rebellion, where residents continue to live under strict military control. Nor does it include an honest assessment of the devastation that was rained down on residents in the Tamil territory.

Signs of massive destruction are everywhere in the district’s villages: demolished houses, walls riddled with bullets, bombed-out buildings. Two years later, families still live in tents or shelters. “No house was spared,” says K.D Saran, the Kilinochchi governor.

The army and government blame the LITE. “Before fleeing, the terrorists destroyed everything,” says Ubaya Medawala, the division general and army spokesman. “It was a way to discredit us.”

But many in Kilinochchi tell another story. “The army destroyed everything,” says one resident named Prashan.

Inside the shelters, families bear the marks of the brutal conflict. Many of the women are widows. Children live with pieces of shrapnel buried in their skin. Many people are disabled or wounded. An old man has lost his mind. A little girl no longer speaks.

“I still have two bullets in my belly,” says one wheelchair-bound Tamil man. “My wife and my two sons died while we were running during the bombings.”

A woman named Meera, her newborn in tow, traveled in 2009 to Puthukkudiyiruppu, in the Mullaitivu District. “The LTTE fired, but the army fired back at us. The Tigers used us as human shields, but the strategy didn’t stop the army,” she recalls.

On Feb. 7, Meera crossed the front line with a small group of people. She managed to escape, but many of her companions did not. More than 200,000 civilians went on to join the Tigers. In the camps they dug trenches that for many would later become their graves. “I begged my husband to leave with our kids but he didn’t want to,” says Anandhi Sasitharan, the wife of Elilan, a LTTE political leader.

The rebels recruited young Tamil. A man named Amirdelingam recalls that he was powerless when the LITE seized his two teenage sons. He will never see them again.

“At the beginning of February, the army said on the radio there was a secure zone for the civilians where there wouldn’t be any shooting. They pushed us to go there. But once we arrived, the massacres continued,” says Prashan.

© Worldcrunch

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