Rumblings in Jaffna: War was won, not yet the hearts and minds of the people

Sunday, August 02, 2015

• Govt. needs to act more pro-actively to maintain normalcy
• TNA and other parties playing hardline politics while Wigneswaran avoids meetings and plays different card

JAFFNA – The crowded restaurant of a luxury hotel in town tells the story of the ever changing social scene nearly six years after the military defeat of Tiger guerrillas. The tables are full. Bottles of red and white wine are emptied by men in fancy T-shirts and jeans. Their female counterparts also in jeans and different tops are a contrast to their local friends or relatives. The locals are mostly in sarong and shirt whilst the women folk are in colourful salwar kameez. They drink fruit juice. Children play hide and seek. With school holidays in some European countries, for these Tamil expatriates, it is family reunion in the northern peninsula.

The wealthy among them are also having it good. They have chosen the luxury of the Sri Lanka Army’s picturesque Thal Sevana holiday resort, only a few steps away from the seas of the Palk Strait. For fine dining, there is even a Chinese-built railway compartment on rails, converted into an air conditioned restaurant. A specially-built appendage on one end is the kitchen. The time when the expatriates were accused of funding and helping separatism in Sri Lanka seems mostly gone. Now, they have found safe haven in the heart of the nerve centre of military activity in the north — the Security Forces Headquarters complex in Jaffna. It incorporates establishments of the Army, Navy and the Air Force in a swathe of land that borders the sea.

Rumblings in Jaffna War Was Won, Not Yet the Hearts and Minds of the People by Thavam Ratna