Rehabilitated, yet....

by Tharidu Jayawardana, Idunil Ussgoddarachchi, Udaya Karthikan and R Indumathi

The war may be over, but for former LTTE cadres living is a daily battle, as they try to fit into a society that is yet to accept post war realities

She gave up the T-56, her constant companion for over three years when the bloody war ended in 2009. Selvi wanted a clean break.

When she walked into a government run rehabilitation camp in mid-2009, Selvi, harboured faint hopes of a better life. When she left the rehabilitation camp a year and half later, those hopes had galvanised into something concrete.

She returned to Killinochchi, her home town, like a teenager, not like a 24-year-old rehabilitated former combatant. She was giddy with new hopes, new dreams - of a home, a husband, children.

But she was in for a rude shock. Her own villagers rejected her, likening her to 'used commodity'. For some she was a former cadre with the Tamil Tigers, sullied by blood and gore. For others she was a woman brainwashed by the government. All of them rejected her. Some even called her a whore.

"In my life, the life that we have known, a woman's life is not complete without marriage, without children, but everyone looks at me with suspicion," Selvi says, her eyes blank, dreams doused, hope snuffed out.

She joined the LTTE in 2006. She was 19 years old, and had been compelled to join the Tigers as her brother who was a cadre had died in battle. Then onwards her life became the Tigers. That was until the war ended.

"People have a lot of suspicions about us. Nothing like that happened. We were taken care of really well during rehabilitation," she claims.

Selvi's plight is not unique; unfortunately it is the common refrain among over 12,000 former Tigers who have gone through government sponsored rehabilitation.

Manimekala's plight

"We had lots of food during rehabilitation, but nothing else of use to us," says Manimekala, from Jayanthi Nagar in Killinochchi. "During the time we were with the Tiger, we were not jobless, we had something to do. Now nothing, no jobs, how can we live like this?" asks the 34-year-old woman who spent several years as a cadre and surrendered during the final stages.

Manimekala says there was some talk of jobs with the Civil Defence Force but that too never materialised. Her husband has left for the Middle East, but she says he is still unemployed there. She does have a small job that pays her Rs 7000 a month. "But what can you do with Rs 7000?" she asks.

Despite the gloom, Manimekala is sure of one thing, she does not want to go back to her past. "If we can live in peace that is enough," she says.

Sathyan's shackle

Peace is enough for Sathyan as well, a disabled former cadre. He was with the Tigers since 1993, but lost his right limb in 1996 in a mine blast in Jaffna. He surrendered after the war and went through one year of rehabilitation.

"When I was released I got Rs 250, I got off in Killinochchi and paid Rs 250 for the three-wheeler to get home. I entered home penniless," he says.

Sathyan claims the Tiger badge is hard to shake off, that it's stamped on the former cadres like a branding. He wants to apply to get a prosthetic, but to obtain the Rs 50,000 grant, he needs certification from his village government representative. But the form has a line that required him to vouch that the applicant has at no time worked against the Sri Lanka Government or the Army.

With Sathyan's background, the government official is reluctant to sign the form.

Since his return to Killinochchi, Sathyan has been doing odd jobs to look after his wife and three daughters. He has started to build a house but is not sure when it will be completed.

He also hires a three-wheeler. But he cannot afford the special vehicle that is tailor-made for disabled. That is too expensive.

Dinesh hard-done

"I like to get involved in activities in the village, but I can't. The moment I get involved, the Tiger label is pasted on me," he laments.

These rehabilitees feel that the villages they returned to were never sensitised to accommodate former combatants.

Dinesh is yet another man who feels hard-done. He is 30, and joined the Tigers after his marriage in 2008. "The Tigers said married men would not be sent to the frontline, but would only be involved in support work. I got seven days of weapons training and was in the front."

He says when he was taken in for rehabilitation, because of his short stint with the Tigers, authorities promised to release him in six months. He spent two and half years in rehabilitation.

One of his sisters was also killed in battle in Mannar in 2008, his father died in 2007 from cancer. His father's illness forced him to give up studies in 2003 and seek work to look after his seven siblings.

All the former cadres say the Vanni they returned to is much more chaotic and undisciplined than what it was during the war.

"Then no one was doing anti-social activities, they were all scared of Prabhakaran. Now a girl cannot walk on the road after six in the evening," they claim.

Dinesh feels that if a factory is set up in the area and the youth provided with employment, lot of the youth related issues could be controlled.

Vadivel's sacrifice

Vadivel served in the LTTE for 13 years and lost his eyesight on April 17, 2009, a month before the war came to an end. His final task was providing security to top ranked LTTEers.

"We were treated well in the rehabilitation camp. But we did not get any vocational training. After my release, I learned to stitch door mats through the help of a NGO. A coir mat will sell for about Rs.250, but what are in demand are the mats made of cloth. So I got trained as a cook, and now I run a small catering service. But there are newcomers who spend a lot of money and get into the business; it is difficult to compete with them."

Soon after his release, he met a woman who happened to call his mobile phone by accident. They are now married and Vadivel is the father of a one-year-old. The struggle to make ends meet is acute for him.

Main concerns

He says he harbours no animosity towards the military. He wants to be on friendly terms with them. "But the attention from the government towards the disabled like us is not very much. I don't want to be branded as a former Tiger. Everybody has the feeling of race, be they Sinhala or Tamil. We did what we had to or that then, now all that is finished. I will not go back to that; I will not get into politics. We don't want another war," he declares.

According to social workers and civic leaders in the region, rehabilitees face mounting problems.

"There are three main concerns, one, they get rejected as agents of the armed forces and get segregated as being spies, two, during the time of the Tigers, cadres were recruited following home visits, and if such a recruit died in the war and the recruiter survived, the latter will face rejection from the deceased's family and relatives. Third is that people feel women who have been through rehabilitation are sullied, there is no looking into their position, they are rejected automatically," explains Rev S K Daniel, from Killinochchi.

Rev Daniel is also critical of misguided interventions. "Sewing machines are distributed to those engaged in farming; no one teaches them how to stitch. There is no use. About 2,000 (rehabilitees) were absorbed to Civil Defence Force, others are still looking for work," he points out.

He also recounts the difficulties faced by former cadres because of their past affiliations.

"A teacher who served in a school for eight years before she joined the LTTE went to the school to get an employment certificate, the principal refused because she served with the Tigers. On another occasion, when another wanted to leave for India for a yoga course, there were all kinds of issues when his passport number was entered. It came back that he was a former cadre."

Six years after the war ended, the rehabilitees are fighting new battles. The biggest issue they have right now is acceptance, to be accepted as ordinary people.

"We lost a lot of things to war, both sides did. There should not be a war again. It really does not matter what you call us, but please don't desert us," sums up one rehabilitee.

(Some names have been changed on request. The production of this story was an outcome of the Journalist Sprint initiative supported by Internews Network)