Even the Sri lankan Tamils who had once called out the loudest for Eelam now want self-determination and autonomy, a third solution. They want it within Sri lanka, and not by breaking the island nation
After 25 years in journalism and within five minutes of filing a story on Sri lanka, I have come to expect knee-jerk comments from a certain breed of reader.
I was the longstanding former correspondent for Europe’s biggest news magazine. From 1998 onwards, I covered 14 of the 30 years of the Sri lankan civil war. In 2002, I was one of 150 reporters to be ‘invited’ by the liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to their de facto capital Killinochchi, to meet their chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran. I have interacted with Sri lankan Presidents, Prime Ministers, opposition politicians, diplomats, bureaucrats. I have discussed the war with Army chiefs, Air Force pilots and sailors, Tamil Tigers, former Tigers-turned-politicos and moderate Tamil politicos. I continue to record testimonies of those who never left Sri lanka, not even during the devastating conflict.
I have argued with liberals and extremists, Sinhala and Tamils. I have pursued Muslim unionists, Burghers, militant Buddhist monks. I have been in constant touch with the former Norwegian peace envoys and the Scandinavian ceasefire monitors in the Wanni. UN aid workers,the Red Cross and international development agencies working right in the midst of war, have always given me time.
Finally and across the war-zone, I have met hundreds of tear-streaked, poor Tamils appearing out of nowhere along dirt tracks, silently holding up pictures of their missing children who had been forcibly taken away by the lTTE.
I am neither Sinhala, nor Tamil and certainly not European. This has always made it easier to ask Sri lankans what they really think about their country, never mind the chorus around the globe. Did they, do they, really want two states in their small spaceIJ
No, say most, even those who had once shouted loudest for Eelam. We want self-determination, autonomy, a third solution. But within Sri lanka.
I have scrupulously kept away from junkets and freebies (though the odd pen in the Press release folder never fails to thrill me) and aimed for the rounded story. But experience has taught me to read between the lines of ‘evidence’ aggressively thrust under my nose.
There were too many international correspondents slurping sun-downers on the Galle Face verandah in Colombo. Most of them were ‘constrained’ by briefs from their news desks, behind which were financiers, political lobbies, etc — you know the score.
I was lucky with my editors. Despite being bombarded with phone calls from various European interest groups, they preferred to take my word.
last month and for the first time since the end of the war in May 2009, I returned to Sri lanka. Of course I could hear the drumbeats. The UNHRC, human rights bodies, Tamil Nadu politicians, the Sri lankan Tamil diaspora but even New Delhi drawing rooms: Everyone outside Sri lanka was caught in the throes of loud, vociferous rage.
“Damn Sri lanka, damn the Rajapaksas and damn the Sri lankan Army — all three for ‘genocide”, the Indian head of a US foundation in Delhi told me firmly. Did she mean all 2,00,000 casualties of the war were inflicted by the SlAIJ Or the reported 40,000 war refugees killed during the last two weeks of the civil war in MullaithivuIJ Did she know that the lTTE killed anyone who tried to surrender and pushed human shields ahead of them, firing as they retreated and prompting the Army — as any fighting force would do against armed terrorists — to retaliate IJ That those poor people who were killed may have been victims of ‘collateral damage’IJ Why didn’t the UN conduct its own forensic tests on the material provided by a private television channel as ‘evidence’ of human rights abuse by Sri lankan troops, instead of accepting it as the Gospel truthIJ Why didn’t the person who distribute the pictures do so to all those interested so we could conduct our own investigation and then commentIJ
Is the Geneva Convention only applicable to the Sri lankan army, because it happens to be the only one available, since Sri lanka is a signatory and the lTTE leadership is deadIJ What about the lTTE’s overseas support groups who funded its weaponsIJ Why not try themIJ For supporting a group which sent children into combat in suicide vests and with cyanide capsules around their necksIJ The lady had no clue. No, she had never set foot in Sri lanka but how did that matterIJ I should shut up.
My trip to Sri lanka last month was full of surprises. The North and Northeast are being developed at an astounding pace. My driver was a former SlA soldier. In the staff quarter of my Mannar hotel, he had to share a room with a former Tamil Tiger. Four years ago, the two boys would have killed each other without remorse. Now they played carrom, ate together and — awkwardly embraced, when we left.
In Jaffna, I caught up with Daya Master, the former lTTE spokesman and with many other Tamil acquaintances. I asked everyone about the Rajapaksas. Opinion was like in any other country: Some liked him, others didn’t. But all claimed “he deserved his second term because he had brought the war to an end.” Agree or disagree, it’s their country, their vote.
But what about the international Tamil diaspora’s dangerous persistence with EelamIJ
“All blah-blah”, said Daya Master dismissively, like the others I spoke to. “They have done nothing for us and neither has Tamil Nadu. They should leave us alone now.”
last month, I filed three stories for prominent Indian media houses. Two were interviews (with the Sri lankan Foreign Minister and Daya Master, who incidentally is a free bird). The third was an opinion.
Abuse flew. I am a ‘paid’ journalist, I was a ‘guest’ of the Rajapaksas (I wish! I am still reeling from my credit card bills in increasingly expensive Sri lanka), a Tamil-hater, a Sinhala-hater, etc.
An Indian publisher displayed great enthusiasm for a book on Sri lanka. I sent a proposal. The reaction was predictable. They only wanted one which did not ‘gloss over the truth’. (Read: A ‘truth’ that would ensure good international sales, never mind the small matter of veracity and what Sri lankans are thinking themselves).
The fact that many who slam or praise me are both Sinhalas and Tamils is, to me, a great compliment. As for the ‘independent-minded’ publishers and foundation chiefs whose hearts hemorrhage for a country they don’t know from Adam’s Peak, my knee hasn’t even twitched, so I guess they must be irrelevant.