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Observations by LAKSHMAN GUNASEKERA

'Six Mortar Bombs 81 mm. HEAT' says the large label stencilled across the battered, oblong metal box being used as the toolbox. From my seat on a low makeshift bench of planks I watch the three youth working away to 'patch' the tyre of the motorbike of my guide and transporter, Siva (an LTTE student organiser; not his real name). I guess that HEAT probably stands for 'High Explosive Anti-Tank' (or, maybe I got the acronym wrong).

In the North, it is a necessarily multi-dimensional schizophrenia of a bombed out, shattered homeland

I didn't need to see the toolbox to know that I am in a war zone (or, what has been, and could be again, a war zone). In fact, that was one of the last of the many things warlike that I noticed after many kilometres of bumpy motorbike riding through Chemmani and Navatkuli via a detour en route to Chavakachcheri. And after such a heavy dose of the effects of war along the way (and previously in Palaly and Jaffna city), it seemed quite logical to expect to see the mortar container as repair shop toolbox. It was the kind of detail that more or less completed the picture; 'topped up' the experience of Jaffna after almost a year of the 'peace'.

The repair shop itself, just a few kilometres from Navatkuly, the scene of many of the fiercest battles in decades of war, is no more than the empty shell of a small, shattered roadside house, a tarpaulin replacing the roof and one wall blasted away while another had holes which the locals explained were firing ports made by either LTTE or Army (or Indian Army this war has been long and many-sided) fighters. The mortar box-turned-toolbox seemed an apt metaphor for the schizophrenic 'peace' that the country is currently 'enjoying'.

Visiting Jaffna in mid-December, almost a year since the unilateral LTTE ceasefire on December 24th, 2001, was an opportunity to experience, all too briefly and partially, two dimensions of the 'peace' that currently reigns on our paradise isle or, 'Dharma Dveepa'.

The difference in the experience of the 'peace' began from the very moment of arrival in Palaly on a pleasant Sunday morning, courtesy of Lion Air, the longest serving (after Air Ceylon) civilian air operator to the North and the first airline to resume services to Jaffna. In fact the cushy Lion Air ground service at Ratmalana and comfortable flight (just like any international civilian flight on a smaller scale with engine noise a little more noticeable), actually helped in driving home the difference.

At Ratmalana, it is a typical civilian airline experience with air-conditioned departure lobbies (a separate one for Business Class), courteous ground hostesses and polite airport security officers, check-in counters, and automated baggage belts.

Descending into Palaly, too, is exhilarating at first. In the SLAF flights I've done during the war, the plane, in order to avoid LTTE anti-aircraft fire, must fly round the Peninsula and then approach Palaly over the sea, virtually diving down steeply to land.

This time we fly over the northern Peninsula and it looks greener than I'd ever seen it (I've been visiting Jaffna since a memorable YMCA athletics camp in 1969). It is only the occasional glimpse of ruined houses and other small buildings in the 'high security zone' around Palaly Base that reminds one of the war.

But then the touch-down is rough. The disembarking procedure is even rougher, as all those northerners who fly to Jaffna know full well.

There is no typical civilian disembarkation procedure. While it is lovely and fresh after the monsoonal rains, I have to worry about the mud on the runway while we stand uncertainly on the tarmac and watch our bags being unceremoniously dumped on the ground to await an SLAF truck.

And the surrounding stark scenery of the base with its familiar (to me) rings of ground defences, barbed wire entanglements, breastworks, watchtowers, alertly watching, combat ready soldiers, and the drone of a helicopter complete the warlike scene. The only difference is that we, the group of civilian passengers, all cling to our knowledge that there, indeed, is a ceasefire and that we have come in a civilian flight and are going about our civilian business.

The minibus takes us along a very rough road through two rings of continuous breastworks to reach a kind of staging area where we have to wait a good half-hour before the truck brings our baggage.

We then travel for kilometres through the large 'High Security Zone' around the base (big enough to keep LTTE long range artillery away from the all-important runway) with its further rings of defence lines ending, I suspect, with a minefield. The shattered and abandoned homes, farmsteads and roadside shops we pass indicate that the Zone was originally well populated and highly economically active country. As long as the threat of long range LTTE bombardment remains, however, it will remain de-populated and militarised. Such is the cruel logic of war.

The larger 'Welcome!' sign at the checkpoint leaving the Zone includes a warning that "Minimum force would be used against..." anyone entering without permission.

Even after leaving the High Security Zone, the level of militarization by the State armed forces is stark. It seems as great, if not greater than my last visit to Jaffna five years ago with the first batch of journalists brought in immediately after the re-capture of the city by the Army (my report published in the Sunday Observer was subsequently re-published in the LTTE's own Hot Springs newsmagazine issued from London but with the sections unfavourable to the LTTE censored!). Of course, I am aware that the militarization would have been at its height during fierce battles to defend Jaffna against the now famous LTTE offensive.

What surprises me is that, after nearly a year of the ceasefire and with steps toward 'normalisation' already seemingly progressing apace, there would be such an all-pervasive military presence.

In Jaffna city this pervasive State military presence is over-powering and, I have no doubt, unbearable to the citizenry. I found it quite unnerving to find, even in the seemingly most un-important, small, street junction, that almost always, one of the shattered, empty houses is actually a State military strongpoint. In the cool, dark interior one would suddenly see a helmeted head and rifle barrel or, one would suddenly realise that among the bushes of the overgrown front garden was a defence bunker with a light machine-gun.

Staying at the Uthayan newspaper guest house helps one gather one's wits in somewhat familiar professional surroundings. It is here that a grizzled journalist (veteran of many battles, no doubt) sarcastically brushes aside my innocent appreciation of the 'greenness' of Jaffna from the air. "Nothing to do with the damn monsoon!" is his retort. "It is simply because all the buildings are flattened and the vegetation has grown over them!"

Too true, I reflect, recalling my subsequent ground-level view of the kilometres of destroyed and abandoned buildings lying under the greenery.

But watching the hit film 'Villain' at the venerable Rajah Cinema on Kasturiar Road from a balcony seat one evening I am again reminded of the twin dimensions of war and peace that configure this loved and reviled, adorned and battered, yet proud capital of the North. The balcony, during the late night show, is crowded with middle class (I think the Tamil upper class yet remains in the South) Jaffna families, babies and all, enjoying the hip song-and-dance scenes and drama. The good stereo sound actually reminded me of the cinema in distant, more genuinely 'peaceful', Chennai where I recently saw 'American Desi'. The stereophonic 'normalcy' inside the Rajah (only real cinema currently functioning in Jaffna) contrasts sharply with militarised reality outside.

The nightly monsoon drizzle after the film, however, does not dampen the spirit of the crowd nor has it discouraged other people from the numerous bars that dot the city seemingly far more than in the past. A Government administrator I speak with on Sunday afternoon is quite philosophical about his experience and role as a Tamil and also as a veteran State administrator.

A man who has suffered much personally even physically - due to ethnic hatred and rioting, political manipulations, war and guerrilla attacks, he (I will not name him since it was an informal dialogue) places service to society above everything. In serving the State, he says simply, he makes sure that he is serving his people where he is now posted. Looking into those frank but alert eyes that have seen many things, I am sure that he can fulfil his Public Servant role best and be personally best fulfilled, in his post in Jaffna.

Even if the war has caused much bitterness, suffering and hatred, I also find some evidence of elements of a new inter-ethnic understanding. People, while expressing much uncertainty arising from previous lost expectations, are, nevertheless, quietly confident of finding a new political identity. The very presence of LTTE civilian-political offices inside Jaffna is seen as the precursor to that new identity.

While some of them (only a few, among the middle class) felt that the LTTE had betrayed the ideal of a fully separate and independent Tamil State, a much greater number looked toward a new political dignity based on a successful, hard struggle. The actual contours of their polity may be yet unclear, but that a new polity will emerge, many seemed certain. It was not total secession that seemed important, but some form of social autonomy and dignity, and for the first time, I felt that people had a greater confidence of its possibility.

While they would not admit it, to me, that confidence signalled an end to the need for secessionist insurgency.

While I, with my Southerner's perspective, felt that the Tamil people's struggle for self-determination was now beginning to come to fruition, my friends in Jaffna preferred to remain cautious about the future, while acknowledging the possibilities and even agreeing to the impossibilities. It was a caution brought about by sheer pragmatism based on decades, even life-long experiences of ethnic suspicion, hatred, betrayals and duplicity; of the failure of previous peace efforts and the complexity of the current, most successful one.

Actually I felt more concern for the personnel of the State forces yet necessarily maintaining a very powerful presence in the city and the rest of the Peninsula.

It was clear that despite the possible misgivings those uniformed young women and men (almost all Sinhala) have about the Ceasefire and its implications, they were not only keen on maintaining good relations with the Tamil people, but were compelled to do so, given their long term stay among the Jaffna community. Leaving aside my sense of getting old(!), I could not but feel the poignancy to see young Tamil airline officers flirt (in Sinhala) with young Sinhala policewomen and young Sinhala troopers (battle-hardened, no doubt) courting young Tamil ground hostesses whom they probably meet daily to process airline passengers.

Even more interesting was the fact that I met a number of young Tamil people (including my LTTE student organiser guide to Chavakachcheri) who had been compelled to move South during the war and positively appreciated their first hand experience of the Sinhala community. In fact more people seemed to know some element of Sinhala language than it seemed they did in the now distant peaceful past of about 25 years ago. Paradoxically, being locked in a fierce life-and-death struggle, may have drawn the two communities closer, at least in some ways.

For the moment, however, Jaffna is on the other side of a 'peace' that is largely enjoyed in the South (what with peace concerts and 'Season' debauchery). In the North, it is a necessarily multi-dimensional schizophrenia of a bombed out, shattered homeland, silent guns and a fading terror, the quiet of a ceasefire enriched with occasional movies and many videos, constant power failures and the lack of quality consumer items, the lack of music and TV but the solace of Doordarshan, the reality of military occupation and the new proximity of LTTE leaders, the sorrow of identities and people and things lost, but the hope of a new political identity and a new social dawn.

The constant cloud cover of the life-bringing monsoon also seemed to complement that sense of lack of easy contrasts. Waiting in the late afternoon gloom of the monsoon at Palaly for my return flight I felt that, right now, Jaffna was experiencing neither sunset nor sunrise.

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