Keeping a war on hold?
A rare visit to rebel Tamil Tigers territory in Sri Lanka following the tsunami's carnage
KALLADY, SRI LANKA--The cease-fire has held for almost three years, but here in the sandy courtyard of the Ramakrishna Mission Girls' School, a Sri Lankan Army officer and a Tamil Tiger rebel are fighting--albeit over a package of milk. Lieutenant Alwis, 25, glowers at 20-year-old Kalairasan. "I am in charge of this camp!" he shouts in Sinhalese, which a policeman then translates into Tamil. Kalairasan turns away, frowning. Though the officer instituted a food distribution system when he took charge of the camp three days ago, a Tamil woman had come to Kalairasan, the Tiger representative, asking for some milk beyond her ration amount. He got it for her from the camp's central supply. "If we let that guy [Alwis] distribute everything, people will think all the food is from the Army!" the rebel grumbles.
On the island nation of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean, the December 26 tsunami may have swept away families and homes, but the hostilities and distrust brought on by 20 years of civil war remain. Since the disaster struck these shores, leaving at least 30,000 dead and over 100,000 homeless, the Sri Lankan government and the rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, have been jockeying over the delivery of aid and control of the refugee camps. The Tigers initially tried to channel all relief in Tamil areas of the north and east through their own aid organization, denouncing the government for favoring areas under its control in the south. The government, citing the need to provide security, decreed that the military would run the hundreds of refugee camps, including those in Tamil areas. "This type of action of the government . . . would tend to make the rift widen, rather than make the space more available for understanding and confidence to be built," says S. P. Thamilchelvam, head of the political wing of the Tamil Tigers.
As his comments suggest, any political opening to resolve one of the world's most enduring civil wars may be fleeting at best. "We have to have huge political leadership to make this an opportunity for reconciliation, but I don't see that happening," says Kumar Rupesinghe of the Foundation for Coexistence, an independent think tank. "The worst-case scenario is that there is huge mismanagement and corruption, and the Tamils are alienated. There could be a lot of pressure on the [Tigers] to start military engagements again."
Entering "the Vanee," as the Tamil Tigers-controlled north is known, is like crossing into another country. A series of government checkpoints leads to a 200-meter no man's land monitored by the International Committee of the Red Cross and lined with colorful UNICEF signs warning of land mines. The Tigers have their own customs area, where posters of smiling rebel leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran line the walls. As a cadre videotapes each new visitor, bags are thoroughly searched by female customs agents whose braided hair and uniforms make them look disconcertingly like schoolgirls as they confiscate CDs they fear might contain pornography. As with all the Tigers, hanging from their necks is a small glass vial, the size of a cigarette, filled with cyanide--to avoid their being captured alive in war with the Sri Lankan Army.
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