Sri Lanka is a strikingly beautiful country. Sadly its human rights record is anything but. Some parts of the country remind me of a shiny Christmas package with a big red bow on it...then you tear it open and find a lump of coal inside.
The contrast of natural beauty paired with a history of gross atrocities is not something new for me. Afghanistan,Yemen, Lebanon, Peru-all places making headlines in Western news outlets for some type of danger...all are places I have lived or visited and have found two truths in all...the people are friendly and the landscape is gorgeous. All juxtaposed with hidden images and histories tucked away just under the surface.
On Friday I traveled for a meeting to Trincomale (more commonly called Trinco) on the eastern coast of the island. White sand beaches were met with turquoise blue waters then stretching into the dark blue sea. Balmy breezes swept through lush palm trees bringing relief from the tropical sun and heat. People walked along the beaches near dive shops. It's a beach bum's Shangri La paradise.
Flashback to two years ago and it was better described as hell on earth. The LTTE were battling Sri Lankan forces for control of the north and east of the country. Those caught in the crossfire and who were unable to flee either by force or circumstance suffered unspeakable horror. Ethnic tensions in town resulted in the killing and maiming of civilians. Their bodies, both whole and dismembered, were dumped in the streets.The LTTE actively recruited militants by kidnapping children. There is an educational disparity in the country due to a generation of children who were kept at home by their parents from fear they would be abducted en route to school. LTTE guerrillas forced each family to give a family member for the cause. To be sure the LTTE got a member as ordered, they required each family to hang a family photo on the wall of their home. Men not in the photo were shot dead if by chance the LTTE did a surprise check on the house and found a man at the home not in the picture.
Simultaneously the Sri Lankan army shelled the areas of LTTE control-the same areas where innocent families were being terrorized for recruitment. There's an unwritten and undocumented history that goes with the counter offensive to the LTTE. One which has left entire villages of fatherless and with only single mother households. The census of the northern Vanni region prior to the conflict was roughly 50,000 males. Today, it's 30,000. Yet the official record here indicates that not one civilian was killed in the conflict between government forces and the LTTE. The discrepancy of 20,000 raises alarm bells as to how this could be true. My guess is the answer is waiting to be dug up in the north. Until then, 20,000 people can just 'disappear'-vanish into thin air overnight.
It all sounds so eerily familiar to tales told to me by Peruvians when I studied there in 2003. During the 1980's there had been a hunt for left wing Maoist guerrillas in Peru. The name of the organization was Sendero Luminoso or the Shining Path. They too, forced recruitment, more often by calling a community together, shooting the mayor and then saying men were to join or be shot as well. The Peruvian government responded by ransacking homes looking for anything that could indict a person as being a leftist--like books with Communist themes. As a result, many people disappeared and were never seen again. Even in 2003, nearly twenty years after the scare, my host mother was apprehensive to talk about Sendero for fear of being labeled a supporter.
Don't get me wrong in that Sri Lanka is a beautiful country and wonderful place to visit-it truly is and you should. It depends what you want to get out of it. You could come and visit the tourist areas and have an amazing beach holiday. I wish I could, but that's not my purpose for being here..It depends on how far you want to go to know the history. Some choose to ignore it and that's their choice. Others come an try to change it. I myself have come to learn from it and transfer the lessons learnt so that it hopefully doesn't happen again--here or elsewhere.
It's just that uncovering the country's dark history takes a bit of the joy out of the good food, white sand beaches, emerald tea fields, massive Buddha statues and stupas--along with the delight of seeing elephants roam free. This is precisely what I thought to myself when I experienced my first elephant sighting while driving home from Trinco to Batti this past Sunday. My driver was so excited for me he nearly caused an accident by swerving off the road so that I could watch the elephant standing on the side of the road chowing down on some ferns. My driver is named Arul and he is Sri Lankan of Tamil descent. He lived through the war, lived as an IDP and experienced more than I believe I could ever endure. Seeing him so excited about that damn elephant despite his having seen them so many times before made me smile. It drove home the fact that even though life can be so cruel to us we need to focus on the small things that can make us happy. And so I do.
The contrast of natural beauty paired with a history of gross atrocities is not something new for me. Afghanistan,Yemen, Lebanon, Peru-all places making headlines in Western news outlets for some type of danger...all are places I have lived or visited and have found two truths in all...the people are friendly and the landscape is gorgeous. All juxtaposed with hidden images and histories tucked away just under the surface.
On Friday I traveled for a meeting to Trincomale (more commonly called Trinco) on the eastern coast of the island. White sand beaches were met with turquoise blue waters then stretching into the dark blue sea. Balmy breezes swept through lush palm trees bringing relief from the tropical sun and heat. People walked along the beaches near dive shops. It's a beach bum's Shangri La paradise.
Flashback to two years ago and it was better described as hell on earth. The LTTE were battling Sri Lankan forces for control of the north and east of the country. Those caught in the crossfire and who were unable to flee either by force or circumstance suffered unspeakable horror. Ethnic tensions in town resulted in the killing and maiming of civilians. Their bodies, both whole and dismembered, were dumped in the streets.The LTTE actively recruited militants by kidnapping children. There is an educational disparity in the country due to a generation of children who were kept at home by their parents from fear they would be abducted en route to school. LTTE guerrillas forced each family to give a family member for the cause. To be sure the LTTE got a member as ordered, they required each family to hang a family photo on the wall of their home. Men not in the photo were shot dead if by chance the LTTE did a surprise check on the house and found a man at the home not in the picture.
Simultaneously the Sri Lankan army shelled the areas of LTTE control-the same areas where innocent families were being terrorized for recruitment. There's an unwritten and undocumented history that goes with the counter offensive to the LTTE. One which has left entire villages of fatherless and with only single mother households. The census of the northern Vanni region prior to the conflict was roughly 50,000 males. Today, it's 30,000. Yet the official record here indicates that not one civilian was killed in the conflict between government forces and the LTTE. The discrepancy of 20,000 raises alarm bells as to how this could be true. My guess is the answer is waiting to be dug up in the north. Until then, 20,000 people can just 'disappear'-vanish into thin air overnight.
It all sounds so eerily familiar to tales told to me by Peruvians when I studied there in 2003. During the 1980's there had been a hunt for left wing Maoist guerrillas in Peru. The name of the organization was Sendero Luminoso or the Shining Path. They too, forced recruitment, more often by calling a community together, shooting the mayor and then saying men were to join or be shot as well. The Peruvian government responded by ransacking homes looking for anything that could indict a person as being a leftist--like books with Communist themes. As a result, many people disappeared and were never seen again. Even in 2003, nearly twenty years after the scare, my host mother was apprehensive to talk about Sendero for fear of being labeled a supporter.
Don't get me wrong in that Sri Lanka is a beautiful country and wonderful place to visit-it truly is and you should. It depends what you want to get out of it. You could come and visit the tourist areas and have an amazing beach holiday. I wish I could, but that's not my purpose for being here..It depends on how far you want to go to know the history. Some choose to ignore it and that's their choice. Others come an try to change it. I myself have come to learn from it and transfer the lessons learnt so that it hopefully doesn't happen again--here or elsewhere.
It's just that uncovering the country's dark history takes a bit of the joy out of the good food, white sand beaches, emerald tea fields, massive Buddha statues and stupas--along with the delight of seeing elephants roam free. This is precisely what I thought to myself when I experienced my first elephant sighting while driving home from Trinco to Batti this past Sunday. My driver was so excited for me he nearly caused an accident by swerving off the road so that I could watch the elephant standing on the side of the road chowing down on some ferns. My driver is named Arul and he is Sri Lankan of Tamil descent. He lived through the war, lived as an IDP and experienced more than I believe I could ever endure. Seeing him so excited about that damn elephant despite his having seen them so many times before made me smile. It drove home the fact that even though life can be so cruel to us we need to focus on the small things that can make us happy. And so I do.
