Battered Sri Lanka Sees Hope for Peace

The way Thambaiya Pangayachchelvan sees it, the battering Sri Lankans suffered at the hands of a deadly tsunami has made it abundantly clear how essential peace is to this divided country. He just wonders when leaders on both sides of the long-simmering civil war will get the message.

“Enough is enough,” said the 44-year-old principal of the local school, who lost five relatives in Sunday’s calamity. “So many people have died. We desperately need to end the fighting and avoid still more killing.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by many people in Sri Lanka’s northeast, which is controlled by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Although people across the country have faced crushing losses this week, the deadly waves are only the latest in a flurry of blows to impoverished Tamils.

For almost two decades beginning in 1983, the civil war between the government and the rebels raged on Tamil doorsteps -- local houses were bombed, farmers were killed and rice fields turned into battlefields.

Gesturing toward the bullet-pocked walls, Pangayachchelvan described how his rural school became a military base, first for government soldiers, and then, as the line of control shifted, for Tamil Tiger forces. The area, about 15 miles southwest of Mullaittivu on the east coast, was hit by drought and then by floods. Crops failed, and farmers pulled their kids out of school. People went hungry, and the economy sputtered.

Residents were just starting to get back on their feet and establish some semblance of a normal life when the tsunami slammed into their homes. The Tamil-majority north was the worst hit, accounting for about half of the more than 28,000 reported killed nationwide and for many of the 1 million said to be displaced.

Once again, Pangayachchelvan’s school has been deployed, this time as a refugee camp.

“We really need peace,” said Suppaiya Raja, 38, a laborer living in the camp with his wife and five children after narrowly escaping death in Sunday’s massive waves. “My house was destroyed. I don’t have a job, and my family is back in a camp again. I’m losing hope.”

Experts believe that a narrow window for peace has opened with this week’s shared suffering, uniting people of various religions and ethnic groups.

“This disaster is so unfortunate, but it’s happened,” said Mahesh Senanayake, a political scientist at the University of Colombo and an expert on the separatist conflict. “We must try to turn this into a positive. It would be a great shame to miss this opportunity.”

There are some early signs of hope. Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has promised that her government will direct humanitarian aid equally to citizens on both sides of the divide and invited the rebels to join an aid coordination committee. Tamil leaders have said they will consider the offer, and any sort of dialogue would be considered a breakthrough.

In a rare gesture, Tamil Tiger commander Velupillai Prabhakaran this week extended his condolences to those in the predominantly Sinhalese south who lost loved ones. Government soldiers and police have donated blood for people injured in the north. There also has been an outpouring of support from southerners, many of whom have been raising money, collecting aid and ferrying it across in a bid to dispel long-standing distrust.

“The people on both sides need to pressure their leaders,” said A.T. Ariyaratne, president of the Sarvodaya Shramadana movement, a Sri Lankan civic group. “We’ve told both sides, violence can’t bring about a settlement to anything.”

Still, there’s enormous distrust to overcome, as seen in the suspicion, roadblocks and multiple identity checks that greet travelers crossing the no man’s land that separates the respective territories. “They’re all terrorists,” a senior police officer at the border of the rebel-held region said, requesting anonymity.

And even before the water receded, some Tamil leaders were accusing the government of playing favorites with people’s lives by routing more aid to southerners.

“Both sides are playing politics,” said Simone Pott, an aid worker with German Agro Action, a nongovernmental organization. “Colombo is undercounting the number of fatalities in the north so more international aid is channeled to the south. And rebel commanders are trying to make sure they get credit for all aid so their people will continue to support them. You often see this in civil war situations.”

A cease-fire brokered by Norway has been in place since February 2002, but it is unclear whether the Tamil Tigers will be amenable to resuming peace talks that broke down in 2003. Analysts say the rebel group is not in a particularly strong position right now, which could undercut its willingness to come to the table.

“Since they’re weak, they may hesitate to start negotiations, given that it’s harder to make demands,” said Senanayake, the political scientist. “Recently, the government has shown greater flexibility. Now we need similar flexibility on the other side as well. Ideally, the Tamil leadership needs to feel pressure from both the international community and Tamil civil society.”

The movement, branded a terrorist organization by the United States, has seen international sympathy for its separatist ambitions wane in recent years. A split in 2004 within the movement led by top military leader Karuna Amman has further weakened it. And the long-suffering Tamil population, which accounts for 17% of the country’s 20 million people, is much less supportive of a violent struggle than it used to be.

“Many in the northeast already lost hope with the war,” said Ranjith Mudalige, director-general of the Sri Lanka Red Cross. “Now the tidal wave. It’s a double burden.”

At the Ottusuttan refugee camp, hung with calendars of rebel leader Prabhakaran dressed in fatigues, residents say they are well fed and have basic amenities. The roads into and out of the region in recent days have been packed with trucks from the south bearing aid from international and Sri Lankan civic groups, interspersed with the camouflage-painted jeeps of Tamil Tiger forces, which have no license plates.

Several people said they were not angry with either side, but desperately wanted to regain their old lives.

Others, however, reported a different picture.

“Many Tamil people are very angry they’re not getting more government help,” said Kasinathar Vimalarajasingam, a Tamil employee with Arbeiter Samariter Bund, a German aid group. “There’s been no manpower, no vehicles sent, no helicopters. It’s only talk. The president is good, but lower officials do nothing.”

Another lingering problem for the northeast is the number of land mines in the region, which total 1 million by some estimates. Signs posted every few hundred yards along many secondary roads advise children not to play with any of the devices.

A key problem now, civic groups say, is that de-mining specialists have based their work on maps provided by the Tamil Tigers. But in coastal areas, the mines have been dislodged by the tsunami, and no one knows where they have landed.

“Now you can just dump those maps,” said Pott, the aid worker. “They could be anywhere.”

Ultimately, though, it’s the political land mines that pose the greatest impediments to peace and stability, analysts and residents say.

“Normal people on both sides aren’t the problem,” said Pangayachchelvan, the principal. “It’s the politicians on both sides. Breaking through is very vital for this country’s future.”