There is also no targeted assistance to develop agro or fisheries industries in places like Killinocchi or Mullaitivu, which could have completely changed the poverty paradigm,” says Selvarasa. There is no structured assistance for entrepreneurial activities by the government or non-government entities. They are represented by the elite class in Colombo or Jaffna with little presence at the grassroots level. Although there are many NGOs in the Northern Province, their assistance is haphazard. “The government gave us zinc sheets and cement bags and expected us to build houses with those. The common feeling is that for reconciliation to be successful there should have been a genuine attempt to build trust between the state and the Tamils through rehabilitation, resettlement and assistance in wage earning for both former LTTE cadres and civilians. The building was taken over by the military, which returned it only recently | Getty Images Home truths: 18-year-old Kasthari Dayakumaran at what used to be her family home. Where do they have money for books?” he asks. “If I publish 500 copies of a book, I will be lucky to sell 200 in the whole of northeast. Moreover, Tamil authors in the north could hardly hope to reach the Sinhalese community because there is no support for translations, although it could go a long way in promoting reconciliation. Unfortunately for him, there is no market for books today in the province. He is today a poet and author, who leads a frugal life in a struggle to publish his works. “Reconciliation is a much hyped word, but very little has been done by the government and other entities to promote it to a level that could be felt by the people of the north,” says Selvarasa Karunakaran, a former member of the LTTE’s media unit. She could have been one of the hundreds of Tamil detainees, most of them held without charge. Yet, she knows that it could have been worse. Thrice a year, she has to present all security-related documentation to the army, which still reserves the authority to enter her house any time for investigation and surveillance.
Rajini’s past, however, continues to haunt her. Her new house was built with assistance from various well-wishers, including the chief minister of the Northern Provincial Council and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme. Rajini is now accustomed to the life of a widow, which is quite different from the life she led as an LTTE commander.
She now thinks that he is dead.Īfter the war, Rajini spent a year in the northern rehabilitation camp in Vavuniya where former Tamil rebels were given training in skills such as computer technology and sewing. But even after seven years, Rajini has no news about her husband. Sudhan surrendered to the army just a few days before the end of the war. A year later, she married Sudhan, also an LTTE member. Rajini joined the LTTE in 1987 and remained an active member till 2000. The hospitals were overflowing with people,” she says.
“Hundreds of people were lying covered in blood. But it was the little girl, who was just three then, who saved Rajini’s life by bringing her food, water and medical attention, when she was lying in a pool of blood in a hospital compound after suffering injuries from shelling in the final battle of May 2009. “This child does not remember anything of the war,” says Rajini, pointing towards the ten-year-old.
Her daughter sits next to her, listening to the story of her struggle. At times, she winces in pain, caused by the shrapnel still stuck in her body. The 46-year-old former company commander of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam breaks into tears as she recounts the tale of death and destruction. Sitting next to a small poultry farm that she maintains in a garden in her house in northern Killinocchi, Rajini talks about the death of her father, brother and husband in the Sri Lankan civil war, which lasted for almost 30 years.