Pilgrimage to Jaffna...

impressions of a revisit to the Northern citadel:

Palitha Pelpola

Twenty two years have gone by since my last visit to the northern capital of Sri Lanka, Jaffna. The Jayewardene-Gandhi accord was just signed and the then government was in a severe political crisis.

Its own cabinet divided over the signing of the accord; Ministers Gamani Jayasuriya and Cyril Mathew were highly critical of the accord. Prime Minister Premadasa and National Security Minister Lalith Athulathmudali did not pay even lip service to it. President Jayewardene was torn between strong political forces.

On the one side, the Sinhalese chauvinists led by Premadasa and Athulathmudali, while Gamini Dissanayake and Ronnie de Mel lending all-out support to President on the other side. The mass media was gagged and a very competent “Competent Authority” was appointed by President Jayewardene to overlook the daily dissemination of news and information. He was none other than Dr. Sarath Amunugama, the present Minister of Public Administration, the then Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

Dr. Amunugama asked me to accompany him to the first meeting he had with the Rupavahini Cooperation officials.

While issuing various instructions to the national television network as to how to render full coverage to the handing over of weapons by the LTTE, Dr. Amunugama hit a brainwave: he looked at me and asked if it was possible to take some Buddhist monks for an all-night “pirith” ceremony to Naga Vihara in the Jaffna peninsula on the coming poya day.

I replied it was certainly possible, but needed to get back to him with details later. That was how the first civilian voyage was undertaken to the peninsula after the accord was signed. We flew to Palaly Air Force base and then took a boat to Kytes.

There were seven monks in all in our contingent. The rest were from the Naga Vihara itself. The voyage was more symbolic than substantial; however, the reception we got at the northern end was more than encouraging. The devastation that we witnessed while flying over the war-torn terrain was very disheartening, to say the least.

There was no victor or vanquished; there was no winner or loser; no advance or retreat, for such contradictory forces are born only after a decisive battle.

On the contrary, the prevalent atmosphere at the time was one of conciliatory, one lending itself to settlement and mutual accommodation. And of course, the devastation and destruction were relatively small.

Almost exactly after a dozen years, I was privileged again to be in the party to visit Jaffna, this time on Saturday, June 6th, the day before Poson full moon day, on a real pilgrimage to the city that has been the center of attack and retreat, the city of guns and bombs, of siege and hostages, civilians and soldiers, the city of a dream and a nightmare-the city that saw many an army of advance and capture; of men and children on war front, making the same claim to a piece of land, the ancient cry of any human community from time immemorial, a cry for a homeland.

Man’s eternal struggle for community feeling, birth of nations and death of aspirations are all centered in one common dot - a piece of land.

We took off on Saturday morning at 7:20, flying over the western edge of Sri Lanka landing on the Pallay airport at 8:25.

What appeared below was nothing very spectacular, for empty spaces, bereft of human life, cannot be so spectacular. However, at the Pallay camp we were greeted by a cloud of dust and warm and assured stares of the friendly military personnel.

The objective of the trip was totally private: Honorable Navin Dissnayake wanted to perform certain poojas at the Nallur Kandswamy temple, Nallur Ganesh temple and Kirimale Nagulaeshwaran Temple. Navin’s father was killed by the LTTE in the 1994 presidential election campaign.

As such he had more than a cursory interest to visit Jaffna after its liberation from the killer of his father. Only one such parliamentarian has faced the same tragedy of an equal magnitude, and that is Hambantota district MP Sajith Premadasa, whose father, President Premadasa was killed on the May Day 1993 by the same assassins.

Our party consisted of Hon. Navin Dissanayke, Mrs. Srima Dissanayake, Mr. & Mrs. Mayantha Dissnayake and their son Kiran, Varuni Wijewardena (Gamini & Srima Dissanayake’s daughter), Hon. Navin Dissanayake’s Private Secretary Udaya Rupasinghe & Mrs. Rupasinghe and myself.

We were escorted to the Commander’s spacious and impeccably kept bungalow where refreshments were served. Thereafter, in three separate vehicles but in one single convoy, we proceeded to our first destination - Nallur Ganesh temple.

The path that led to the temple from the Base Commander’s bungalow was dotted with sentries almost at every hundred yards and barring these security personnel, one could hardly see any civilian life.

On either side of the road were shells of houses, with no windows or doors, abandoned long time ago to the whims and fancies of the elements and war machines, with tile-less, broken roofs and bare homesteads, staring at you like neglected children of a yester year.

One can empathize with the one-time dwellers of these beautiful residences whose dilapidated condition reminds one of the brutality and ruthlessness of armed conflict between human communities.

These houses have no race, creed or religion. They only served to provide shelter to those who once occupied them with pride and self-respect. Now they serve as pathetic symbols of neglect, waste and inattention. The rest of the landscape is even more eerie.

Overgrown shrub is swaying to the gusty winds, responding only to the cycles of rain and drought. But the rich and red soil of the land is striking even in its abandoned state. This reminds one of the rich harvests that these lands reaped in the past.

When we approached the junction, alas, there was real civilian life, properly attired school girls on bicycles, an old woman sitting by her shack of a house, staring listlessly at the open skies, a boutique owner selling day to day groceries, hoardings announcing the availability of various household products.

But I was even more stricken by what was not there - a man tilling the land, a woman drawing water from a well, small children playing on an open field, the usual aspects of community life in a civilized society were totally in short supply. Where are all these elements of human and civilized life?

Where have all the flowers gone? Vanished into thin air, would be one’s answer. A community totally destroyed by war, a people misled by a megalomaniac killer, a community that once dreamt of a separate state for their people is now finding existence in refugee camps.

A community that once enriched the higher echelons of civil administration in this country, who once ruled the bureaucratic fields of every sector in civil administration, from land development to irrigation to finance to banking to medicine to law, looks almost extinct.

They have either fled the country altogether, or they joined the demonic forces of Prabhakaran or may be, they are in the refugee camps, or perhaps dead!

Such is the sad saga of a fight for a separate state and flight of a cruel and inhuman leader’s imagination. Thirty years of waste, thirty years of blood, thirty years of tears, glaring at you like dense occupants of an orphanage.

The ride from our second destination, Nallur Kandsway Kovil to Kiri Male was even more chilling, for the road ran through a jungle of dilapidated homes and neglected landscape. The only human movement came from the vehicle that we were driving. But here and there was some cultivation of onions and cabbage, standing like proud monuments to the richness of the soil and the indefatigable labour of the men and women who tilled it.

Nevertheless, the recurring phenomenon was the total absence of civilian life. A land ravaged by the mindless instruments of war, a people anguished by the loss of loved ones, buildings abandoned by their occupants, these are all part of today’s life in the peninsular.

Thanks to the brilliant planning and execution of a war fought by Sri Lankan military forces, ably led by Secretary of Defense, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, against a well supplied terrorist army, peace has dawned on a land without people, but that peace is no more than that prevails in a cemetery and if we are to make any meaningful effort to translate that peace into something more lasting and valuable, something more desirable and constructive, we need to arm ourselves to fight another war.

Bringing civilian life back to Jaffna is no mean task. It requires meticulous planning and clockwork precision in execution, above all basic human kindness and magnanimity. What was defeated on the battlefield was the terrorist army led by Prabhakaran and his cronies, not the ordinary people of Jaffna.

With the defeat of the terror that engulfed the whole of the peninsular, was also lost the pride and self-respect of those who thought that they would one day live in Elam. Nevertheless, if our efforts achieve the desired results, they will live in a free land, not as second-class citizens but as individuals who will be judged, in the words of the late Martin Luther King, “not by the color of their skin or the language they speak but by the content of their character”.

The task ahead is extraordinary. Nations were not built in one day or one year, they were built in hundreds of years, by enormous sacrifice and dedication, by grit and guts, I am sure, with the exemplary leadership displayed by our President, and the same single-minded dedication and determination he unleashed towards the conclusion of the war, this nation-building task will become very achievable.

His followers must be equally up to it. For failure after this is not an option; we as a nation must refuse to accept defeat and mediocrity. That should be our motto. We must be thankful that we are blessed with such stuff that surpasses mere ordinary at the helm of our state - President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

When we finally boarded the aircraft to leave for Colombo, I could not help but reflect on our immediate past; I could not help but lament what we have lost, and I could not help but think of what Rodney King of Los Angeles in the early nineties said when everything settled after his fracas with the Los Angeles police department. Rodney King was brutally assaulted by the Los Angeles police and the entire episode of the assault was video recorded.

When the video got telecast over the media, the entire country cried foul, for Rodney King was black and the police officers who assaulted him were white. The chaos ended with the resignation of the LA Police Chief Darryl Gates and a huge compensation package to Rodney King. However, after the final settlement of the case, Rodney in his own simple way said: “why can’t we all get along?” Time and time again, this statement of Rodney King kept attacking my consciousness on my flight back to Colombo.

Why can’t we all get along?