No Peace, No War

போஸ்டன் ரிவியு இல் வந்த நீண்ட இந்த கட்டுரை ஈழப்பிரச்சனையின் சாராம்சத்தை என் அறிவுக்கு எட்டியவகையில் ஓரளவு சரியாக சொல்கிறது போல் தெரிகிறது.

No Peace, No War
Have international donors failed Sri Lanka’s most vulnerable?
Alan Keenan

8 When I arrived last summer at the burial ceremony the ten crude wooden coffins were lined up on the concrete floor. A bare-chested Hindu priest was chanting Sanskrit verses and preparing the offerings, an assortment of freshly chopped coconuts, leaves and flowers, oil, water, and brightly colored pastes for family members to place on the coffins bearing the remains of their loved ones. As the rain gently beat on the roof of the small open-sided structure, oil lanterns of chopped coconut shells were set in front of each casket. Families began circling the coffins, sometimes joining in on the prayers, mostly remaining silent. The tears were few, though one mother broke down every time it was her turn to anoint the coffin of her son.

A hundred yards away workers had just finished digging the graves. The families followed the coffins as the sarong-clad workers carted them unceremoniously across the muddy grounds. After the burial the families boarded two white vans provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross and began their journey home to the Tamil areas in the north and east of Sri Lanka.

Colombo’s Borella Public Cemetery is filled with ornate tombstones, Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu, some inlaid with photographs of the deceased. The newly dug graves, however, are likely to remain unmarked. They contain the badly decomposed remains of ten young Tamil men, victims of Sri Lanka’s long civil war between the Sinhalese-dominated government and the separatist Tamil Tigers. The men were murdered almost four years earlier in one of Sri Lanka’s most celebrated—if now largely forgotten—massacres.

On the morning of October 25, 2000, in the quiet central hill-country village of Bindunuwewa, a mob of Sinhalese villagers and residents from the nearby town of Bandarawela stormed the government “rehabilitation” center. The minimum-security center housed 41 young Tamil men who had either surrendered to the army after being involved with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or been arrested on suspicion of involvement with the Tigers. While none detained at the Bindunuwewa camp were considered serious security risks, the stigma alone of being associated with the Tigers can inflame tensions in Sinhalese areas of Sri Lanka. An altercation in the camp one evening between some inmates and Sinhalese officers launched a rumor that spread quickly with help from local police: “The Tigers are attacking.” Early the next morning a crowd of hundreds, perhaps thousands, had assembled. Armed with knives and poles and gasoline, the mob hacked and burned to death 27 of the Tamil inmates. Some 60 police officers sent the previous evening and earlier that morning to guard the camp made no effort to stop the attack. Instead, some fired on inmates trying to escape, killing one and injuring two others. No one was arrested.

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இது நீண்ட கட்டுரை மிகுதியை இந்த இணைப்பில் சென்று படிக்கலாம்