Pillay repeats call for probe into war crimes allegations

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms. Navi Pillay, today, once again repeated her call for an independent investigation into war crimes allegations in Sri Lanka stating that human rights abuses in the country were damaging prospects of reconciliation after 25 years of the civil war.

“I am convinced that Sri Lanka should undertake a full reckoning of the grave violations committed by all sides during the war, and that the international community can be helpful in this regard,” she said in a speech presenting her annual report at the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva.

Last May, the council held a special session on Sri Lanka just after the end of the war against the LTTE, but the Sri Lankan government deflected criticism by introducing its own resolution praising its defeat of the Tigers, which was then passed, boosting the Colombo stock exchange.

© Daily Mirror

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China emerges as Sri Lanka's top lender in 2009

China has emerged as Sri Lanka's biggest single lender in 2009, overtaking the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, the treasury said Wednesday.

China lent 1.2 billion dollars to build roads, a coal power project and a port in the island's south last year, more than half the total of 2.2 billion dollars in foreign aid in 2009.

Project loans accounted for 1.9 billion dollars of the total, with another 279.6 million dollars in grants, the treasury said ahead of the 2010 budget.

Western donors have curbed aid to Sri Lanka over human rights issues and the government's handling of the final weeks of a 37-year-old conflict with Tamil Tiger separatists, which ended last May.

The US has scaled back military assistance to Colombo, while Germany and Britain have pruned their aid to Sri Lanka. The European Union is also set to withdraw trade concessions to Sri Lanka from August.

As ties with allies in the West have soured, President Mahinda Rajapakse has deepened ties with Japan, India, China and Myanmar, as well as Iran.

"The government of China, Asian Development Bank and the World Bank were the three main donors who accounted for 1.9 billion dollars or 84.3 percent of the total commitment in 2009," the report said.

Japan and the Manila-based Asian Development Bank have in the past been the biggest lenders to the island.

© AFP

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Sri Lanka probe army officers over editor's murder

Sri Lankan police are to question dozens of military intelligence officers in connection with the internationally condemned assassination of a senior editor, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Investigations into the January 2009 slaying of Lasantha Wickrematunga, chief editor of the anti-establishment Sunday Leader, had led them to military personnel, said police spokesman Prishantha Jayakody.

Sri Lanka's opposition and rights groups had blamed the government for the killing of Wickrematunga, a staunch critic of the military campaign that eventually led to the crushing of the Tamil Tiger rebels last year.

President Mahinda Rajapakse has denied that his administration was behind the murder, which was condemned by the US, the United Nations, European Union and both local and international rights groups.

The privately run Sinhala-language Divaina newspaper said the head of the military intelligence unit, a major general, was already in police custody and being questioned.

The military declined comment.

Wickrematunga was last month named one of the 60 World Press Freedom Heroes by the Austria-based International Press Institute (IPI).

The IPI said 17 journalists were killed in Sri Lanka because of their work over the last decade. Two were killed in 2009. No one has been brought to justice in connection with any of the killings.

© AFP

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SRI LANKA: NGOs brace for tighter Gov’t control

By Feizal Samath - Local and foreign non-governmental organisations have had a liberal existence in Sri Lanka, but this may not last for much longer under the government’s plans to amend a 1980 law that would tighten control over them.

But if activists have an ominous feeling about the proposed law, government officials like Newton Perera, additional secretary to the Ministry of Internal Administration that oversees non-government organisations (NGOs), says the amendment would just bring the country’s laws in line with modern developments.

Local and international NGOs have grown to several hundreds from a few dozens in this South Asian island nation, from the time fighting broke out between Tamil rebels and government troops in the early 1980s.

Government officials now say that the 1980 NGO Act does not allow them enough room to deal with accusations that some international NGOs, or INGOs, are involved in political work.

"It is inevitable that the government wants to control the activities of NGOs. But we knew this was going to happen eventually. We will lose our free hand," says Jehan Perera, executive director of the National Peace Council (NPC).

Last week, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake was quoted in the ‘Daily Mirror’ newspaper as saying new measures would rope in ‘errant’ agencies for lack of accountability and political involvement. The minister of Internal administration comes under the Prime Minister.

"INGOs found to be conspiring against the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa will be banned once investigations are complete," Minister of Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services Rishard Bathiudeen also told the ‘Mirror’ on Feb. 22, without giving details.

While most NGO officials treat this as the usual cat-and-mouse, never-ending contest with governments, NPC’s Perera – whose NGO promotes peace as a means of solving ethnic conflict – believes the government is serious in seeking stricter control especially over international NGOs.

"This has nothing to do with the issues relating to defeated presidential opposition candidate General Sarath Fonseka. This concern (over NGOs) has been there for a while now," he said, dismissing speculation that political motives triggered the move to tighten control over NGOs. Most of the attempts to rein in NGOs happen after a political event and in this case, he was referring to the joint opposition backing of former army commander Sarath Fonseka at the Jan. 26 presidential poll, which he lost to incumbent Rajapaksa.

That had led to accusations by Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa that the United States and Norway had been involved in Fonseka’s campaign. The two countries vigorously rejected the claim.

Now and then, the western international community has been seen as extending its influence in Sri Lanka through the INGOs that it funds – although they have repeatedly denied this.

In February, the European Union suspended a crucial trade concession for Sri Lankan exports based on a report by a team of investigators that found the country had not fulfilled its obligations toward U.N. conventions on human and labour rights.

The government rejected the probe and did not allow any investigation in Sri Lanka, compelling the team to receive one-sided evidence and petitions from non-government sources including NGOs, some of which are funded by the U.S. government and other western countries.

Looking back, western governments have had a rocky relationship with Rajapaksa from the time he turned his back on repeated calls to suspend fighting with Tamil separatist rebels.

The U.S. and its allies urged the President and the rebels to call a ceasefire, as civilians deaths mounted in the fighting. But Rajapaksa shifted alliances to countries like India, China, Iran, Libya and Russia, and the armed forces – sans international pressure – crushed the rebels in May 2009 after two to three years of intensive fighting.

"Essentially accountability is about how these groups (NGOs) spend the money here. Our responsibility has been to ensure no one breaks the law," said Rajiva Wijesinhe, secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights and a critic of INGOs.

Wijesinhe, a former university teacher and politician, said guidelines were already brought in last year. "These are not new measures. Rather, they are an enforcement of what is already there to give us some control as to how money is being spent," he told IPS. "It is crystal clear that the government didn’t know how and where these (NGO) funds were being used ever since the 2002 peace process, when the rebels were having peace talks with the government," he said. "The LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels) wanted the international community to play a bigger role in the peace process and that’s when the troubles started."

In that peace process, the rebels and the then government agreed to a ceasefire and began talks aimed at ending the rebel campaign for an independent homeland for minority Tamils. But after a few years, the process broke down and the two sides returned to fighting each other.

During this time, many NGOs undertook different projects in the country, ranging from confidence-building activities to rehabilitation of conflict-affected areas. But the work of some groups drew suspicion from the government, which accused them of being sympathetic to the Tamil cause or the LTTE itself while working in areas the rebels controlled years ago.

Perera said that there has been no strict monitoring of his organisation by the government. "We are asked for quarterly reports and or work plans but there is no comeback on our reports," he said. "Sri Lankan authorities are liberal toward NGOs and this environment allows NGOs to criticise the government, which could stop if the government gets tough," he pointed out.

Firzan Hashim, deputy executive director of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies (CHA), believes the latest criticism of NGOs is the usual rhetoric. "So far, NGOS have not got any queries from the government or the state-run NGO Secretariat, which is responsible for all NGOs. We have also not been asked," he said.

The CHA is an umbrella group of dozens of INGOs and NGOs and acts as a liaison between the authorities and these organisations.

But over the last 18 months, he says, the monitoring of NGOs has become stricter.

Visas have been issued to foreign nationals based on a security clearance by the Defence Ministry. Foreign staff must be qualified, and explain why their jobs cannot be filled by local workers. Visas are generally given for three years and for U.N. agencies, four years.

"The government is generally not worried about NGO workers from Asian countries. It’s the west and particularly countries like Norway that is some concern," Hashim said.

Officials are particularly ‘hostile’ toward Norway, which facilitated the 2002 peace talks and which, they say, was partisan toward the Tamil rebels.

Projects in the north and the east, where the Tamil rebels were most active, need the approval of a new presidential task force headed by Basil Rajapaksa, a younger brother of the President, which has overseen those two regions after the war ended last year.

© Inter Press Service

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Sri Lanka: Complaints on 17 missing persons

The Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission says that it has received 17 complaints about missing persons within a period of one month and three weeks between January this year and February 23.

Of the complaints eights had been received during the month of January and the rest in three weeks of February.

An official at the commission said that most of the complaints were from the North and East and that some of the missing persons may have been found in relative’s houses.

The 17 complaints also include the cases of journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda and NGO activist Razik from Puttalam.

The official also said that complaints have been received on the irregularities that had taken place when admitting students in to Grade 1 in national schools and appointments and promotions made in state institutions in violation of election laws.

© Lanka News Web

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Sri Lanka to call back parliament to extend emergency

Sri Lanka's president Mahinda Rajapaksa will reconvene the island nation's dissolved parliament on March 9 to extend an emergency law by another month ahead of parliamentary polls in April, officials said on Tuesday.

The government has yet to lift the powerful wartime emergency regulations that give it wide powers of arrest and detention without trial despite an end to the 25-year war against Tamil Tiger rebels last May.

Opposition parties have complained the government is using the emergency law to suppress them politically, but the administration of President Mahinda Rajapaksa says it is needed to mop up remnants of the Tamil rebel network.

Susil Premajayantha, the general secretary of president Rajapaksa's ruling coalition confirmed the move to extend the law, which was extended for a month on Feb. 5.

The president, who can use his executive power to extend the emergency law, has to ratify it within 10 days of his announcement through a vote in parliament.

Rajapaksa dissolved parliament last month and called for legislative polls on April 8 after winning the presidential election in January.

© Reuters

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Sri Lanka: A new lie

Basil Fernando - Peter Mountford who returned from a visit to Sri Lanka writes in an article ‘Sri Lanka’s hr and free speech problems need international attention’ (Seattle Times Editorial 27th February):

At the core of Sri Lanka’s problems is a rotten constitution, which gives the president near dictatorial power. Opposition members in parliament are easily bought through cushy ministerial appointments, and the chief justice of the Supreme Court is appointed by the president.

This core problem about the constitution is no secret or mystery to anybody except for some people in the so-called Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights who claim that they are writing a human rights plan for Sri Lanka. In that plan there is nothing that deals with the ‘rotten constitution’ that creates the all the human rights problems in the country. In fact, the rotten constitution is the real disaster that the country is faced with. Trying to make a plan to deal with the disastrous situation of human rights in the country without dealing with the rotten constitution is of course, a big lie. But for people who have become accustomed living with that big lie the inconsistency between a plan for human rights and a rotten constitution is not a big problem.

Of course in practical terms such a human rights plan is merely eye wash and meant to deceive only some foreign experts who may be willing to throw some money to create the pretext that they are doing something about human rights in Sri Lanka. One lie begets another and a chain of lies is created to the point where the creators can no longer tell the difference between truth and fabrication. That too is part of the human rights disaster in Sri Lanka.

One of the big lies in that plan is that Sri Lanka’s policing problems, such as the failure to investigate human rights abuses and the widespread torture that constantly manifests itself in incidents such as the drowning of Ballawarnum Sivarkumar at Bambilipitya Sea, the killing of Thilakasari at Inginiagala at the Senanayake Water Reserve and a host of custodial killings that are heard of frequently, is due to the defects of police training. That the rotten constitution has destroyed the command responsibility within the policing institution and thereby deprived if of the capacity to function rationally, does not enter into the analysis of the authors of this great human rights plan.

The impression that is created is that the failure to investigate into the assassination of Lasantha Wickrematunge or the abduction and disappearance of Prageeth Ekaniliagoda and the brutal attack on Poddala Jayantha are all due to defects of police training. However, for the average citizen these failures appear to be caused by the very planners and executors of these brutal acts. The very nature of these acts is such that nobody is allowed to investigate into these incidents. When there are politically designed acts of repression against opponents of the government, whether they be journalists, independent lawyers or opposition politicians, or other political activists, part of that design is also to prevent any real investigations by law enforcement agencies. Thus, the paralysis in investigations is part of the pattern of repression.

The crisis of policing in Sri Lanka is part of the crisis of the rotten constitution. When the constitutional safeguards on the rights of citizens are removed by political design there is nothing that the police can do. The will to investigate will return only when such investigations are made possible politically. Until that happens the human rights disaster in Sri Lanka will continue and of course, all kinds of plans like the human rights plan for Sri Lanka will be created by those who are paid for creating such big lies.

© Sri Lanka Guardian

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Sri Lanka: Court orders State TV probe

By Susitha R. Fernando - The Supreme Court today ordered an inquiry into the alleged political victimization and interdiction of eight media personnel of state run Rupavahini by its chairman and others.

The court appointed a former Judicial Officer to conduct the inquiry and directed to file the outcome within two weeks.

Filing the application, Kanchana Marasinghe and seven other media personnel attached to Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC) claimed they were abused and arbitrary interdicted following the Presidential election. They complained this was done by the SLRC Chairman for demanding to adhere to Election Commissioner’s guidelines with regard to telecasting of election related programmes prior to last Presidential Election.

Eight media personnel complained following the Presidential Election, SLRC Chairman Ariyaratne Athugala allegedly abused them in a filthy language claiming that the President and he would not care about the Supreme Court orders and there he had compared five member Supreme Court bench which had directed Rupavahini to follow Election Commissioner’s guidelines to stupid people with mental aberration.

© Daily Mirror

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Sri Lanka: After the "War on Terror"

By J. Sri Raman - Just four months ago, the rulers of Sri Lanka were the toast of the "anti-terror" fraternity in the region and the rest of the world. They were supposed to have attempted and achieved what others made of less-stern stuff had abandoned as unattainable: a military solution to the problem of terrorism.

With the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) now an extinct species, it was said, the island-nation had become a safe sanctuary for democracy. The end of the armed ethnic conflict was expected to usher in a new era of national reconciliation and unity.

What has followed the war, however, has proven both these hopes false.

Democracy in Sri Lanka only faces new threats after the defeat of Tamil "terrorism." The first major event to follow the war was the presidential election of January 26, pitting the two "anti-terror" heroes in a titanic struggle against each other. As noted in these columns (Sri Lanka: The Battle After the War, January 25, 2019), the contest between President Mahinda Rajapaksa and army chief Sarath Fonseka started on an extremely confrontational note. And it has not ended with the election.

Fonseka had started his campaign, even while in uniform, with the charge that, during the final phase of the war, the president feared an army coup attempt and asked for India's assistance in such an eventuality. The charge was denied, and the challenger was allowed to contest the election as the candidate of an opposition coalition. Rajapaksa, declared the winner on January 27, has revived the controversy by proceeding for Fonseka's military trial for "treason."

The president was not the picture of a confident victor, with a claimed vote of 67 percent, when Fonseka was arrested on February 8 at his office in Colombo. The general has not been seen in public, and not even in private by his political allies, ever since. The arrest has prevented his re-emergence as the rallying point for the opposition in the parliamentary elections to be held on April 8.

All this has not dealt a postwar blow for democracy. As academician and political activist Dayan Jayatilleka, Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the United Nations until July 2009, puts it in a recent newspaper article: "No enemy of Sri Lanka could have matched the damage done to the image of the country and the Presidency by our own Government's recent actions ...That clumsy melodrama ... permitted a different story line to emerge in and through the international media, obscuring the clear, conclusive electoral victory handed to Mahinda Rajapaksa by the masses ..."

Jayatilleka adds: "If there are serious allegations of a criminal nature, then all the more reason that he should be tried in a civil court and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. There should be no attempt to do both, i.e. to try him in a military and then a civil court, because the opaque character of a military court undermines the social legitimacy of the findings and could have an adverse effect on the public perception of the criminal proceedings themselves."

Many other observers agree. Jehan Perera, executive director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka, says: "It was reasonable to expect the aftermath of Sri Lanka's presidential election to usher in a period of political stability. The large majority of votes secured by ... Rajapaksa was impressive on its face and promised benevolence in his decisions after the elections. His unchallenged command over the levers of state power made it unlikely that there would be any viable opposition to his rule."

What followed, however, only provided "evidence of presidential insecurity already manifested in the dramatic events that unfolded even as the votes were being counted." Perera warns: "... the erosion of faith in the democratic process has transformed into violence in the past."

As for national reconciliation and unity, the war has only led to a major conflict within Sri Lanka's establishment and the Sinhala-majority camp. This finds a striking illustration in the statement issued by senior Buddhist monks (to whom both Rajapaksa and Fonseka paid obeisance during their election campaigns), calling for the release of the retired army chief. The monks said: "We wish to stress that we do not under any circumstance approve of the arrest of former army commander Gen. Sarath Fonseka, who risked his life for the country's unity."

The powerful clergy's statement held out no prospect of ethnic rapprochement, either. It charged that ex-LTTE leaders were being given high posts and were protected, while Fonseka was not.

The prelates said: "We urge you (the president) to release and also provide the necessary security to persons including ... Fonseka who laid their lives on line for the protection of the motherland the way that the government does to (ex-LTTE) Vinayaangamoorthi Muralitharan (Karuna) and Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan (Pilleyan) who are being provided all facilities and security after being taken into the government side."" Muralitharan is now the national integration minister in Colombo and Chandrakanthan the chief minister of the Tamil-majority Eastern Province.

Fonseka's removal as the rallying point for the opposition has ended the coalition, where the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the pro-Sinhala Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) or the People's Liberation Front, coexisted. The general's arrest has thus freed the president considerably from pressures to follow up on his promise to attempt a solution to the ethnic problem.

Looking at it all in a larger perspective, many analysts have noted the militarization of politics that the quest for a "military solution" to the problem of terrorism has spelt. Harim Peiris, adviser to former President Chandrika Kumaratunga (2001-05), for example, points out: "Using the quantitative yardstick of per-capita number of security personnel or, in other words, the number of security forces divided by the population, Sri Lanka is by far the most militarized society in South Asia."

He adds: "Our armed forces, including the auxiliaries and volunteer forces, are slightly bigger than the British armed forces and the Brits deployed around the world, including to Iraq and Afghanistan." This is not a tailor-made situation for a democracy-driven war on terror in a developing country.

It is even less so, if one looks at the mega-economic cost of Sri Lanka's militarization. Left-wing analyst K. Ratnayake says: "Political tensions in Colombo illustrate broader international processes in an acute form. The island was embroiled in a savage communal war for 26 years.... Rajapaksa, who had restarted the war in 2006 and conducted it with particular ruthlessness, declared that he would now bring "peace and prosperity" to the island. The opposite has been the case."

Ratnayake adds: "The end of the fighting solved none of the underlying problems. Having mortgaged the country to pay for his criminal war, Rajapaksa was compelled to take out a $2.6 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to prevent a major balance of payments crisis. Now with the IMF calling the tune, the government is preparing to make major inroads into the living standards of the working people ..."

As elsewhere, it is the masses who are compelled to pay the price of the "military solution" to the problem of terrorism.

© Truth Out

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Sri Lanka: Calling it as you see it – the shooters’ tale

Photo Credit: http://indi.ca

It generally starts with a text message.

Someone sends a message saying that there is heavy police presence. Then phones are picked up and calls are made. “Barricades are being brought in. Student protest, apparently”. A few calls later, we have a rough idea of where it’s going to be. We change plans of heading back to office, and tell the tuk-tuk driver to take us to Colpetty.

Lots of Police can be seen, but no sign of a protest. No students, no placards. We talk to a few Police officers. “We don’t know where they plan to go.” Confusion ensues.

A few more phone calls are made to photographers. Then we finally track it down to Town Hall. Students, monks, student monks. Slowly the crowd gathers, and they start marching.

The marching is brisk. The trail moves with the speed and agility of Colombo’s tuk-tuks. Only a few people at the front of the march are aware of the final destination that the march is headed to, and the directions they will be taking. Everyone else, including the police, are confused.

We walk in front of it, occasionally slowing down to shoot, and then running up to overtake it. We stop at junctions, and try to guess where they are heading. Police guess along with us. Sudden turns and twists, and some police officer or another is seen screaming into a walkie talkie.

The march comes to a junction, and there is a lone soldier with an assault rifle on his shoulder. Sanka Vidanagama and I stop for a moment. To try and juxtapose the saffron of the robes and the peace that it signifies, with the greens and browns of jungle camouflage and the violence that’s attached to it.

“I started as a hobby” says Sanka, who’s father is the legendary news photographer Sena Vidanagama, who took the picture of Rajiv Gandhi being hit over the shoulder with a rifle butt. Sena was an inspiration to many a young photographer.

But somewhere along the way the hobby turned into a profession. He talks about what he does, and the reasons behind it, with the same enthusiasm and cool that is trademark Sanka Vidanagama, laid back, all calm. “It’s probably the rebellious nature and the drive that comes with the age as well, which makes us want to go where we go” he adds. Even though young, he’s a veteran in the arts of urban warfare that is tear gas and water cannons. “I’ve faces tear gas about ten fifteen times” he says, but his initiation to violence was when he was recently at the receiving end of a stone that was thrown, when supporters of Gen. Sarath Fonseka and President Mahinda Rajapaksa clashed outside the supreme court complex.

Eranga Jayawardena, who is a Photographer for the Associated Press in Sri Lanka talks about the Hulfstdorp clashes in a different context. “There are two kinds of trouble that you can get into as a photographer. One is when you shoot in situations where there can be incidents that can physically harm you”, says Eranga.

The veteran photographer also talks of his days when he was covering the conflict, which ravaged the country for decades. “The conflict had an ethnic base, and I come from a specific ethnicity which was a party to that conflict. Even though I call it as I see it, by doing photographic reportage – and only reportage, persons with different agendas can twist the information that flows from to for their gain”. The gain for others, Eranga says, comes at a hefty price. “Whenever someone else gains, reporters become victims of targeted and premeditated harassment.”

Eranga follows the same philosophy that all good photographers do – snap what you see, and let the viewer come to conclusions. “I’m a reporter. I report. And then I hope for the best.”

In Colpetty, the march is now confronted with a barricade stopping it’s way. Photographers and reporters manage to squeeze through the barricade before it closes up. They are now on the side of the Police. We talk to them to find the action plan. A police officer takes a megaphone and asks the crowd to disburse. The crowd erects a stage and start making speeches.

Three photographers from local newspapers climb atop a telephone wire box to get a better look. A videographer manages to climb onto a roof. I get onto my colleague’s back. A police officer looks at my colleague and I can almost hear him mutter “psychos”. I smile.

The photographers reunite behind the barricades and take a few more shots of the assembled riot squads. One truck with a water cannon mounted starts to leak water. A few jokes are made at the truck’s expense. When things cool down, pow-wows happen and the people who are lugging heavy equipment around jest and rest. And memories are shared.

Chamila Karunaratna is a news photographer, who started when he was in school. He entered the sphere of photo journalism when he was twenty, and now contributes to a leading weekend paper, as well as freelancing for the Associated Press. Chamila relates an incident at a student protest a few years back, where he was the only photographer on the scene. “This was the days of film. I heard of a protest happening outside Kelaniya University. Since there were violent clashes between the police and students immediately before this, all the photographers were back at their bases”, he recalls.

“I was taking pictures for a long time, and by the time other camera crews got to the scene, the tempers has disappeared.” After filing the shots with his own paper, he went on to hand over copies to the others who missed the incident. A brotherhood which is still shared by many.

The first to arrive at the scene, will almost always give some shots to the others who couldn’t make it on time.

That camaraderie is treasured by those who share it, knowing that the guy next you is not going to leave you in danger, is partly one reason why the shooters cover dangerous events in groups. Ironically, while the individual friendships are cast in iron, they are also members of a community that has failed to forge a united front, that however is a another story. It is more to do with the faults of those who manage the outlets than the foot soldiers.

Today however, everybody is here, and there is time to shoot.

The protest also catches the eye of a passerby. A member of Sri Lanka’s extremely small orthodox Jewish community walks his son towards the protest. The telephone wire box which earlier gave a platform for the photographers, is instantly transformed into a viewing stage for the little boy. The photographer from Reuters walks over and shoots. We watch.

Phone calls and texts are sent to the bases. “Things are calm. They are speaking. No sign of clashes. We have the shots. Shall we come back?”

What started with a text message, also ends with one.

© Perambara

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