Blessed are those who can walk, and those on crutches too
It is now two years since the entire country was liberated from the
threat of terrorism. Slowly but surely, normalcy is returning to this
land. As is prudent in any society that is emerging from a 30-year long
conflict the government has adopted a strategy of phasing out security
mechanisms. ‘Prudent’ on account of the nature of the enemy and the fact
that thousands of people associated with the terrorist outfit mingled
with those who were not when the security forces finally rescued them.
One by one, however, the barricades have gone, checkpoints have
disappeared, and summary stops gave way to random checks which too
became less and less frequent. We are not completely free of these
security measures, but there is certainly reason to feel freer than we
were, less on account of the downgrading of these mechanisms than the
removal of principal threat.
Political outcomes
Conflicts leave scars, some visible and some not. There is greater
scar-visibility in places where the fighting was most intense, in our
case, the Northern and Eastern parts of the country. This conflict,
nevertheless, spilled over the relevant boundaries in many ways. First,
anything and anyone was ‘fair game’ to the LTTE. The Central Bank was
attacked, a President was assassinated, and therefore the point does not
require elaboration. It ‘spilled out’ because those who had to take out
the enemy and save fellow-citizens came from all parts of the country.
Economies depended on the salaries of the troops, and their death or
maiming caused grief. Yes, some scars are more visible than others.
Education facilities for IDP children. File photo |
We move on, though. As so we should. That which was damaged gets
rebuilt. The dead are remembered by those they left behind. Grief is not
a collective thing. It is personal, regardless of the identity of the
dead or the aggrieved; regardless of loyalties and preferred political
outcomes. If we lamented mass slaughter in greater degrees of
collectiveness then, we now focus, if at all, on our individual losses.
Here in Colombo, as the city becomes more beautiful by the day,
conflict-signs have all but disappeared.
Clear landmines
Invisible, however, does not mean ‘non-existent’. There are times,
for example, that we remember, if something triggers reflection. Today
is a day like that, as the second anniversary of war-end is celebrated.
Remembrance came to me in a different way, though. I saw a young man on
crutches. I immediately thought, ‘Johnny Batta’, the name given to the
anti-personnel mine that the LTTE buried in their thousands all over the
Vanni and which costs hundreds of soldiers their legs.
I remembered, then, the tireless and dangerous work carried out by
the security forces to clear the Vanni of landmines, one square inch at
a time, with no map or reliable information about location, those
responsible for burying being dead or (naturally) averse to offered
guide-services. My thoughts also went to a day in either April or May
2009.
At that time, the LTTE leadership had decided that it could no longer
depend on the support of Tamils living in areas under their control. The
days of volunteering were long gone. The retreat that began when the
LTTE lost Silavathura marked the beginning of comprehensive hostage
taking. All civilians had to flee with the LTTE leadership. As the
troops moved relentlessly forward, the LTTE had to increase the speed of
retreat. They were hampered by the slow. They knew they could only be as
fast as the slowest in the group. The slowest, naturally, were those who
had lost their legs to the very devices the LTTE had planted to stop or
delay their pursuers. There was an easy solution. ‘Easy’ because it was
the LTTE that had to come up with it and because the LTTE is what many
always knew believed it was.
Tamil civilians
Some 40 women, all on crutches since they had all lost at least one
leg, were ordered to get into a bus. Then they blew it up. They were all
Tamils; Tamil civilians injured by devices set by terrorists in the name
of liberating the Tamil people, terrorists supported by word, action and
funds by sections of the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora and whose crimes were
regularly whitewashed or responded to with silence by the Tamil National
Alliance. They were all, in one massive flash of fire and brutality
unburdened of all scars, visible and invisible.
We are told to be grateful for small mercies. We are told not to
complain about the lack of shoes, because some people don’t have feet.
These are ‘grin and bear’ recommendations. They are not always sourced
to a will to subjugate though.
Right now, I believe those who can walk and dance are blessed.
Thinking of the 40 plus women whose bodies were broken to pieces and who
were instantly robbed of the right to dream, I think even those without
legs, can feel blessed.
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