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| Sunday, 3 February 2002 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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On the road to peace by FRANCES BULATHSINGHALA
You need not be inordinately observant to notice, even in a brief instant, that their feet are not protected from the harsh ground. The richest will own a bicycle but not necessarily slippers. The bicycle, the only conveyance that can take them easily, compared to other heavy vehicles, through the parched, acutely unmotorable roads in the Vanni region is the family heirloom and the reason for the thriving rows of bicycle repair shops clustered in the region. The area of Malawi and Kilinochchi, the home town to nearly 400,000 Tamils living in the LTTE controlled area, is a quagmire of paucity. A world that is alien to southern comforts, where even the worst of impoverishment in the South look better in comparison with the lifestyle that war has bestowed upon these people who struggle against a fate that is beyond their control.
Finally, here and there one can detect a smile. A glimmer of hope in their eyes.. The 54th anniversary of Independence from colonial rule may have more than just passing interest to these long-suffering people. This year's Independence Day brings with it a fresh breeze of hope for everyone caught in the nightmare of war for the last two decades. The ceasefire presently in place may well turn out to be a permanent fixture and many of the banned items are now off the list, giving the Vanni population more reasons to be happy. But sometimes, having been through the trauma of collapsed hope before, peace is yet too fragile a dream and too distant a possibility. "This is an agricultural area but we are not in a position to cultivate. There is little land that is not 'war polluted', little chances of getting the ground to yield and little scope for getting a profitable market rate for our produce ", explains Sivapathi, a 30-year-old mother of four and resident of Periyapandivirichal; the village one comes across soon after passing the last Army check point in Vavuniya and arriving at the LTTE controlled region. "The eldest - the boy is eleven years. The girls are aged one, four and six", she says referring to her family.
" Over two hundred and fifty families live in these areas and most of them depend on the charity of foreign missions. A few, those who have academic qualifications, if luck favours them could get employment at these missions", says Sivapathi. For the others, a majority of whom who earn through cultivation, it is a lifetime of eternal battle - coaxing the parched Vanni ground to bear yield with the minimum of agricultural facilities. To earn his bread, her husband depends on those who own cultivation fields and earning a maximum of Rs. 1000 a month if he gets a sufficient amount of work, and spends every other spare time he has looking for employment as a casual labourer. "There are little or no labour jobs unless it is a construction or reconstruction undertaken by a foreign mission or NGO", says Sivapathi adding that a pack of cement which had been priced as exorbitant as Rs. 2000 made it impossible for an average civilian in the area to embark on any construction using cement. "Urea is the rarest of items in Vanni as it was until this month banned from being brought to the region. In a rare case where Urea packs were available for sale inside the Vanni region, it was then priced at a minimum of Rs. 2000. Now with the urea ban being lifted we expect the price to be a reasonable rate which we could afford". It is pointed out that the Ministry of Defence ban on Urea had been due to the belief that urea could be used to make explosives. Further away, passing the Madhu region one enters into the route which leads to Malawi where most of the LTTE head offices are based. It is on this route, on our way to the LTTE headquarters that we met the residents of kardana Marada Madhu, an area housing nearly 500- families categorised as 'internally displaced'. Living in huts (one do not see houses of the like found in the metropolis any where in the region except for the LTTE offices) these people live sans even the basic of facilities. "There are no hospitals. Once a month or so medical camps are conducted by Red Cross and other foreign missions. This is the only chance we get to obtain medical assistance", says 65-year-old Perumal, born in Theldeniya but who has been living in the Vanni region for the past forty years. A farmer by profession and having come to the area due to its high propensity for farming in the good old days, Perumal soon found his dreams of agricultural boon turned to a nightmare with the intensifying war. "I have on several occasions attempted to go back but there has been severe obstacles", says Perumal who does not specify whether the obstacles were from the LTTE or military. It is at the Mannar district rehabilitation orgarnisation, a NGO which where we met Prema, a young woman who was smilingly eager that we make note of the fact that she has a first name which is predominantly Sinhalese. Shy but girlishly keen to speak to the 'Sinhalese', she points out that she has never in her 22 years come in contact with a Sinhalese. For Prema, Colombo may be the 'big' dream but Vavuniya is the small one, never having visited either Colombo or Vavuniya. Having schooled at kardana Marada Madhu school - the building which looks like a cross between a crumbling edifice and a thatched hut, she managed to study up to her Ordinary Level examination with great difficulty. Having got through her exam, this qualification enabled her to join the Mannar district rehabilitation orgarnisation, as a office assistant, the job, earning her an amount of Rs. 2000, barely sufficient for her to fend for a school-going sister and her mother and father, living as refugees in the surrounding area. In Malawi - the distance from Madhu being five hours, we spoke to Vijayaraja, the gardener who attends to the fabulous rose garden at the premises of the LTTE bungalow where the LTTE conference hall is situated. "Are there many jobs for gardeners in Colombo?", he asks. His question which may sound naive, is not, if assessed in the light of reality. Paid rupees 2,500 a month by the LTTE, this money is the lifeline that sustains his mother and father and three younger brothers. According to S. Pulidevan, a political wing chief of the LTTE, there are over 400,000 residents in the entire Vanni. "Most of the schools which existed before the war have all been destroyed. Now huts act as makeshift schools", point out Pulidevan who adds that other than the education provided by the LTTE 'campuses' which specialises in teaching 'political science' mainly as a base for youth to join the LTTE cadre, there is little chance of the children in the region getting any substantial education and hence, little option. Pulidevan, asked by journalists as to how many camps for the internally displaced there are in the Malawi region, answers that the 'entire Vanni' is a refugee camp, the people being consistently blown away by the war winds from area to area within the Vanni precincts. As peace hovers in the horizon with the lifting of the embargo acting as the panacea to the ills of poverty caused by war, for the present, joining the LTTE or being an employee of the LTTE is the last straw for those drowning in poverty and destitution in the Vanni. |
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