The tragic events of July 1983 contributed more than any others to protracted war in Sri Lanka, the exacerbation of a political problem into one of violence and unremitting hostility. In recognition of this, the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process will be publishing each day this week some of the creative writing about those events which depicts the collective response of Sri Lankans to the suffering of our Tamil fellow citizens.

Jean Arasanayagam
Nallur

       It’s there

       beneath the fallen fronds, dry crackling
piles of broken twigs abandoned wells of brackish
water lonely dunes

       it’s there

the shadows of long bodies shrunk in death
the leeching sun has drunk their blood and
bloated swells the piling clouds.

Reports from the North suggest that at long last there seems an end in sight to LTTE terrorism. This has to be said with circumspection, for the LTTE is a very capable outfit, its resources reaching far and wide. It could pull several rabbits out of its hat, and so it continues essential for the government to guard against assaults on all sides, offensives in the north, sniping in the East, large scale terror elsewhere, and also of course its most potent weapon at this stage, the evocation of massive sympathy from those elements in the international community that still do not understand how corrosive terror can be.

The tragic events of July 1983 contributed more than any others to protracted war in Sri Lanka, the exacerbation of a political problem into one of violence and unremitting hostility. In recognition of this, the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process will be publishing each day this week some of the creative writing about those events which depicts the collective response of Sri Lankans to the suffering of our Tamil fellow citizens.

The Lost One
Nirmali Hettiarachchi

I had seen him often, standing or sitting .on his side of the gate. handsome and majestic, proud and aware of himself. Sometimes, if he were sitting when I passed him, he would stand up and look at me inquiringly. There would be no suspicion in his look - he knew I was one of his neighbors - only curiosity at what I might be doing.

The tragic events of July 1983 contributed more than any others to protracted war in Sri Lanka, the exacerbation of a political problem into one of violence and unremitting hostility. In recognition of this, the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process will be publishing each day this week some of the creative writing about those events which depicts the collective response of Sri Lankans to the suffering of our Tamil fellow citizens.

Yasmine Gooneratne
Big Match, 1983

Glimpsing the headlines in the newspapers,
tourists scuttle for cover, cancel their options
on rooms with views of temple and holy mountain.
‘Flash point in Paradise.’ ‘Racial pot boils over.’
And even the gone away boy
who had hoped to find lost roots, lost lovers,
lost talent  even, out among the palms,
makes timely return giving  thanks
that Toronto is quite romantic enough
for his purposes.

The tragic events of July 1983 contributed more than any others to protracted war in Sri Lanka, the exacerbation of a political problem into one of violence and unremitting hostility. In recognition of this, the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process will be publishing each day this week some of the creative writing about those events which depicts the collective response of Sri Lankans to the suffering of our Tamil fellow citizens.

Animal Crackers
(For Dimitri, when he is old enough to understand)

‘Draw me a lion.’
So I set my pen
to work. Produce a lazy, kindly beast ………
Colour it yellow

‘Does it bite?’
‘Sometimes,
but only when it’s angry -
if you pull its tail
or say that it is just another cat …….’
But for the most part indolent, biddable
basking in the sun of ancient pride.

The Peace Secretariat views with concern the recent statement by the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum regarding the work of the Commission of Inquiry. Though some of the issues it raises are of general concern, and need to be addressed by government, there are inconsistencies in its approach which suggest that even positive efforts by government to deal with issues will not find favour.

“The conditions prevailing in the Eastern Province are much better now than one year ago seemed to be the consensus of representative sections of the community in Batticaloa” said Professor Rajiva Wijesinha, Secretary General, Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) at a press briefing held on Monday 7th July at (SCOPP). Mr. C.S. Poolokasingham, Deputy Secretary General of SCOPP, also participated in the briefing and addressed the media in Tamil and provided clarifications as needed.

The myth about bringing the two main parties together

Over the last year, I have been struck by the number of times I have been told that a political solution to our problems is not possible unless the two main parties get together. This argument is based on the historical record, inasmuch as two serious attempts at compromise, involving Regional Councils in the late fifties and then District Councils in the late sixties, were stymied because of forceful opposition by the main opposition party. Had the opposition in either case agreed to the compromise, it is held, our problems would have been solved.

In the first week of August 2006, 17 workers of the French Aid Agency Action Contre La Faim were killed in Muttur in the Trincomalee District of Sri Lanka. A number of questions concerning the incident still remain unanswered. Though it is vital to try to find out who was responsible for the killings, and why, there are other questions too as to the fuller reasons for the deaths of so many helpless youngsters. Sadly hardly any attention has been paid by those responsible to questions such as

a) why they went into Muttur, which was in a state of unrest at the time

b) why they remained there when all other aid workers were withdrawing

c) why they continued in their office despite government officials and religious leaders begging     them to take shelter elsewhere.

Our old friends Human Rights Watch are at it again. Last week saw a spate of releases targeting Sri Lanka, timed it seem to put the kybosh on what seem successes both internally and internationally in our struggle against terrorism.

It started with a release claiming that Sri Lanka should end what it termed internment of displaced persons. If the headline was the preferred choice of HRW, it is up to its old tactic of using sensationalistic language to draw attention to itself, even though this is not substantiated in the arguments it puts forward. Thus, though the body of the text suggests that HRW understands what internment means, and does not use it to describe what is happening in Sri Lanka, the hope is that the world will be taken in by words that might recall the excesses against say those of Japanese ancestry in America during the Second World War, or even the horrors of what happened to the Jews in so many countries in Europe under the Nazis.

The restoration of democracy in the East despite numerous obstacles and after a lapse of nearly twenty years is a cause for cheer and optimism. The recently concluded elections to the Batticaloa Pradeshiya Sabha and the Provincial Councils of the Eastern Province were a watershed in the contemporary political history of Sri Lanka.

There have been solid gains. Former ‘terrorists’ have joined mainstream democratic politics, dozens of child soldiers have been released, and there has been  renunciation of calls for secession from the mouths of those who not so long ago were attached to these aims.