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Peace Quest

"Sudu, Kalu, Saha, Alu" - a devastating
comment on the conflict, in the making

by Malini Govinnage

Snuffed out lives or property destroyed in war have a "price tag" attached to them. But, what about the psyche of those survivors of war, who belong neither to the living nor, to the dead, whose sap of life has been squeezed off ?

Sudath Mahadivulweva - Director

This is the theme of a story to be born on celluloid. The maiden film of a versatile tele film director, documentary maker, and a big name in the local advertising field - Sudath Mahadivulwewa.

Anyhow, pre-publicity for a work of art yet to be born always seemed absurd and somewhat naive to me, though it has become the trend. Pre-publicity and promotional writing instead of genuine reviews and critiques has become essential for the "success" of a work of art.

So, I had my qualms about "Sudu Kalu Saha Alu" (White black and ash) when the media was invited to be informed on this production - yet another film carrying the theme, after- effects of a long-drawn war.

Dilhani Ekanayake - “Komala”

There has been a gamut of works - films, dramas, operas, thousands of poems and hundreds of novels/short stories on the theme.

Just as much as the war was needed by many, including both warmongers and peacemongers, there have been 'artistes' thriving on it.

Another uneasy feeling in my mind was, 'what will be the plight of this film if it is going to be a "quality film", knowing very well the crisis of the Sri Lankan cinema at present. "Arumosam Vehi" by Priyantha Colombage a mediocre, but a family film which would have been enjoyed nevertheless by children as well as adults was taken off cinemas by the director himself in protest of the 'Cinema Mafia' allegedly operating in the film arena and obscene and vulgar films being recently released.

And, the mind-set and complaints about the local serious cinema being alien to popular tastes and are financial flops seem to have got established, refusing to go away. We may have a few outstanding film makers in Asia but they have become somewhat strangers to local cinema goers. Sri Lankan film enthusiasts, particularly in the periphery, hardly get an opportunity to enjoy their films, while they are compelled to view - cheap Western pornos, Hindi movies or celluloid technical marvels like 'Jurassic Park' or 'Titanic'.

Jayalath Manoratna -  “Kora Gramaya”

Sudath Mahadivulwewa seems to be well aware of the situation he is faced with. Making a master production on war and winning an international award is not his challenge. The challenge is here and now. Wining the local audience, awakening their mind with a message while giving them something that they can enjoy and keep the film running for some time, in a satisfactory number of cinemas in the country - this is the task.

Mahadivulwewa explaining the present predicament of the local film industry, said: "With the advent of Rupavahini in this country the fear of film makers was how to take people out of their drawing rooms, gathered round television to the cinema hall. Today, the threat is different. It is to save the cinema from those who try to destroy it by ganging-up and promoting local pornos and cheap foreign films. Film-makers have to get together and form a force against this sinister force and also the State mechanism too should be firm and powerful to protect the local film industry."

Why do people with talents such as he, sell off that talent in the advertising field? "It is because there is no film industry as such in the country, he justifies. How, while being engaged in the advertising field which he humorously calls "Kasippu brewing", he has set off to do something "decent" and serious. There is a team with a grand purpose with him. "Sudu, Kalu, Saha Alu" is going to be a product of this team Sine Silpa.

The script for the film has been mostly based on the very first scientific and comprehensive research done on the displaced persons by Dr. Krishan Deheragoda, a senior lecturer at Jayawardenepura University.

An interesting aspect to be noted here is that Krishan Deheregoda who has many achievements in regard to the economic and social uplift of the disadvantaged, is the producer and the international co-ordinator of "Sudu, Kalu, Saha Alu". He spoke of his part in his production with considerable empathy"

"Over 50,000 people have been killed and more than 800,000 displaced due to this war. While every third person among the displaced is a school-going age child, Rs. 15 million is spent per day to keep these displaced people alive and Rs. 178 million was spent per day to keep the war going. Though, certain physical elements of destruction caused by war can be estimated thus, the socio-cultural and spiritual damage done by it could never be estimated."

Dr. Deheragoda who does not seem a patroniser of popular cinema had this also to say about the local films made today:

"Themes of our films hardly touch on the issues of the country such as corruption in government, police and among high officials in the administration, whereas even an allegedly cheap commercial film in India uses these themes boldly. Very often chief ministers, high-powered administrators, members in the judiciary and the police engaged in corruption, murders and robbery are focused on in these films.

Known as a national thinker and a prominent player in the corporate world, Ariyaseela Wickramanayake has undertaken to fund this film.

Sarathchandra Gamlath, the co-script writer of "Sudu Kalu Saha Alu," a frequent visitor to the war torn areas of the country, has mixed his experiences of the human tragedy of war with the research findings of Dr. Deheregoda in the script.

"We have already done the homework." says Sudath, the Director about the film yet to be born. A village has already been built close to a tank amid a Dry Zone jungles near Vilachchiya, Anuradhapura. The entire film will be shot at this location - a border village.

The concept of border village was created by the war itself. On either side of the village, the deadly tug-of-war for power is on, during which the villagers get massacred by the extremists or they flee for their lives. Then governments help resettle the villagers to establish their authority.

"Sudu Kalu Saha Alu" is going to be a film with thirteen main characters, the first ever film with such a large cast playing main roles.

"Gambara Attho", the village elder has been blinded by war, thus making him incapable of preserving the system of social and cultural values, symbolizing the system which has been rendered dormant by relentless war.

"Army Ajith" - the soldier represents the village youngsters joining the army to protect the unity and the territorial integrity of the country. But, ultimately, he becomes a slave to his salary and a destitute at the end. "Komala" is a young woman married to a solider who becomes a deserter. "Komala", who does not even enjoy her honeymoon due to exigencies of services of her husband, later becomes a destitute with an insane husband, a child and a blind father. Ultimately, she becomes a prostitute in the city to keep the family alive.

"Kokila" and "Ukkuwa" are two characters representing the children destroyed in war. "Ukkuwa" witnesses the brutal killing of his parents. A victim of a landmine, he later becomes a victim of sexual abuse.

"Kokila" too has seen her mother killed by an extremist. A woman from an NGO coaxes her to be rid of her virginity and later presents her with a gold chain.

The village headman nicknamed "Kora Gramaya", who has a lot of power is a cripple, who symbolizes a bureaucracy that exploits a war situation.

Head priest of the temple, the spiritual guide to the villagers, while faithfully assisting them in attending to their religious rituals, sells artefacts belonging to the temple to traders who come from the town. In fact, he is a criminal evading arrest and has taken refuge in the temple.

The only teacher in the village school happens to be there in school because his is a punishment transfer for being "anti-government". He is the sole teacher in a school with dilapidated desks and chairs and with no students except one, who is sexually abused by the teacher.

Among the other main characters are the boutique keeper, the bus driver NGO Nona, and the army officer who is involved in the village resettlement scheme. In addition, there are some 300 others in the cast. "Sudu, Kalu Saha, Alu" focuses on the human drama in a war devastated community, and it reaches many untouched boundaries of social agony and human trauma.

It talks about the living victims of war, the human ghosts, who have lost all life colours, but black, white and ash.

Can this human tragedy be compensated by the basket of relief aid and assistance of governments and non governmental organizations, be they local or international? The film may not answer any of these questions.

But, it may bring many more such questions to the surface, and make the audience ponder - only if it is a cinematic success. For, it to become a reality, several hurdles such as those faced by the "Arumosam-Vehi" director, need to be removed from its path.

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Reconciliation and peace in Sri Lanka

by Prof. Bertram Bastiampillai, Former Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (Ombudsman)

The absence of fighting alone does not signify that the island of Sri Lanka is experiencing peace. It is no doubt a good sign but for true peace to come so much has to be done.

A devastated building in the North

The history of discord in the island is long and studded with so many conflicts, so diverse. For true harmony to prevail and grow among the various peoples in Sri Lanka there should fundamentally precede, reconciliation and removal of the sense of hurt felt by so many.

No sooner than independence dawned in Sri Lanka in February 1948 those people in the hill country and their kind elsewhere suffered a loss of their citizenship and the right to exercise the franchise. This caused much grievous pain to the derogatorily so called "stateless". However, now they have in numbers been granted citizenship and the franchise and the trauma is largely healed. Nevertheless, there still are a few of them who need to be absorbed into society and above all those deprived peoples in the central highlands have to be granted so much more to transform them into equal beings with the people from the majority community in Sri Lanka.

The more immediate problem that is now posed to "statesmen" in Sri Lanka is the creation of a feeling of acceptance in society of the Sri Lankan Tamils, more so those from the North and East of the country who had suffered the rigorous consequences of a conflict that ravaged their lives and community for over twenty years.

They were subjected to discrimination that hurt them so hard when in 1956 with the elevation of Sinhalese alone as the island's official language these helpless Tamils received a major blow economically and socially.

Even today, though theoretically their language had been accorded the status of a national language, in practice they are relegated to be illiterate beings. Tamil is yet to be used in the public services and in many or most establishments of the State. Only making Tamil a language in use as much as Sinhalese will be a true remedy for a sad state of unequals living disadvantaged as citizens within the confines of the country. Discrimination in practice is as painful as Discrimination constitutionally.

Apart from this one grave damage, time and again, the Sri Lankan Tamils, numerically a smaller community, suffered in an administration that was weighted in favour of the largest community within Sri Lanka. There were recurrent riots that hurt mostly the Sri Lankan Tamils and drove into them a feeling of insecurity which only a small community forced to feel that they are surviving on sufferance can painfully feel. The law and order forces tolerated mayhem, murder, looting, dispossession and manhandling often of Tamil victims.

Then there was a measure of standardization in computing aggregates of marks to govern admission into "prestigious" courses of study in universities. The system of standardization favoured the candidates from the numerically bigger Sinhalese community and worked to retard admission of Tamil candidates with higher aggregate scores of marks. It was blatant discrimination and open partiality.

Recruitment of members to the public services witnessed a sharp decline in the numbers of Sri Lankan Tamils chosen into the public departments and State corporations. In more ways than one, the smaller group of Tamils was treated as unequal citizens, and left to lament being disadvantaged and deprived. They were forced to acknowledge majoritarian dominance and to accept the numerically larger group's claims to predominance in the public domain.

Administration did not lie in equity towards all peoples and the citizenry were unintegrated, and the majority disbursed what they conceded to the smaller communities in a multi-communal country. As the present Prime Minister courageously and candidly confessed to an international group of Chief Justices on 10 January 2003, Sri Lanka's judiciary had failed in their duty in enforcing the rights of citizens with regard to the Tamil population in Sri Lanka. As a result difference and discord festered.

Now as the guns are silent and the language of combat has yielded to saner discussion on the need for reaching peace by burying the hatchet, first there should be a tangible and clear reconciliation between the embittered and estranged Sri Lankan Sinhalese and Tamil communities. Wrongs whoever committed them should be acknowledged in a true contrite and repentant manner. Where is it due every endeavour needs to be made to compensate the smaller community and any other if it had suffered.

Beyond doubt, the Sri Lankan Tamils have suffered more than ever in the twenty years of ruthless conflict. The protracted violent strife showed that the worm had turned against a militarized partisan regime as the anti-Tamil riots had repeatedly demonstrated to a helpless lot. To the Tamils who were compelled to ensure their identity and rights in their area of domicile, reconciliation should mean first restoration in status as equal citizens with citizens from the majority. The elimination of Tamils from both the military and police should be now redressed by the recruitment of Tamils. It was only allowing enforcement of law and the administration of force to "be in the hands of those who would be largely Sinhala-Buddhists".

Conflict has been sustained for long in Sri Lanka mostly by the greatest profiteers, the arms dealers who metamorphose into patriots to gain their ends. In the moments of reconciliation which should precede and accompany true peace the hollow patriots, the profiteers from war should be pointed out their folly, and made to accept it. In Sri Lanka many were the untrained who were led to war and lives were wasted. One has to remember them in a time of reconciliation.

As Benjamin Franklin admitted there never was a good war or bad peace. But for durable peace to be assured hostile parties have to be properly reconciled and harmony should grow with confidence in one another. The orphans, the dead and the homeless are the residue of the conflict and in each case whoever has suffered should receive compensation, relief and rehabilitation as tokens of reconciliation.

It is then that peace can be a nursing mother to the torn land. In contributing toward reconciliation many of the responsible leaders have an onerous obligation because while often fought and died it was the mistaken policies of the leaders, especially of the mature ones, that accounted for the senseless conflict. They were insured against ill effects, others suffered.

The sincerity and honesty in making peace is best borne out in the process of reconciliation which should indispensably accompany the quest for peace. There are the material and physical losses that have adversely affected many - mainly civilians - during the merciless violence of the conflict. Somehow wherever possible these losses must be recompensed. A section of the same citizens of the same island should not be left to feel that they have been unnecessarily punished by the majority people in the same society.

For years, military and arbitrary action has hurt the citizens in the Northern and Eastern areas of the country. They were deprived of their livelihood when farming and fishing were restrained or banned. They who fished or farmed for their living were deprived. There was an embargo on the conveyance of several types of articles to the North and East and the inhabitants were disadvantaged.

They could not get essential medicines, food Items needed even for patients, they had no way of providing power to work water pumps for house gardens, a feature in North-East Sri Lanka. Naturally, as a consequence, the inhabitants felt that the successive governments have treated them as not co-citizens but as a lot that had to be punished. The imperative need just now when peace is being seriously discussed is to disabuse the minds of the hurt and humiliated inhabitants who feel that they are strangers. Only convincing measures of reconciliation can create in the minds of the Northeastern people that they belong to this land as much as the majoritarian beings.

A dispensation that would ensure to the smaller groups of Sri Lankan Tamils and other communities equality with those of the major group should essentially be an element in the making of peace. But to effect true reconciliation between the major community and those like the Sri Lankan Tamils in a pluralist country there should remain better understanding and appreciation by the big community of the smaller communities. It is then that a healing process will take place between groups left embittered by a severe conflict. The State, always under the command of the majority peoples should guarantee to the smaller community like that of the Sri Lankan Tamils sincere rapprochement.

This would follow if due equality and dignity as citizens are conferred on the Tamil peoples, and they are considered no different as citizens. The youth and employable persons from among the Tamils should receive a genuinely fair and reasonable chance of being able to attain public sector employment. There should be no suspicion or animus toward the members of the Sri Lankan Tamil community and they should be eligible to secure on legitimate and just grounds employment in the law and order enforcement machinery and in the security services, or in any other public sector office or service.

Reconciliation and peace are absolutely needed in Sri Lanka. The conflict had cost so much that it is unbearable and yielded in return no gain worth reckoning. The victims of the conflict and its instruments were human beings who got murdered or maimed often in a futile violent conflict.

There should be no fear to negotiate a peace after all this ravaging experience but peace, to be honest, needs to be grounded in reconciliation. And effecting true reconciliation can mean expense and sacrifice but this is unavoidable. All civilian victims of the conflict irrespective of communal origins should be adequately compensated where possible. It is then alone that peace can be built upon on a firm foundation and rehabilitation, reconstruction and relief could be reasonably dispensed to those unfortunate victims of a wasteful conflict irrespective of creed, caste or community.

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