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Port of Call |
LAST UPDATE July 12, 2005
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| site design imagesparkle.com |
| July 30-31, 2004 |
Colombo, Sri Lanka – From Civil War to Civil Society |
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| A Muslim boy from Eluwan Kulam plays a stick game with a Peace Boat participant |
The name of Sri Lanka, the fourth port on Peace Boat's 46th voyage, means "Brightly Shining
Island" in Sinhalese, one of the island nation's official languages. Up until two years ago,
however, the future of Sri Lanka was dimmed by a civil war between the country's different ethnic
groups since 1983. In 2002, a cease-fire agreement between the Singhalese government and the Tamil
Tiger anti-government militia was the first step towards resolving a conflict that has lasted more
than twenty years. Once called "Ceylon" during the times of English colonial rule, Sri
Lanka is gradually building up the peace process with NGOs playing an important role. Sewalanka Foundation,
the largest NGO in the country and a Peace Boat partner, is helping to develop basic health and human
services in areas effected by the war. |
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| A new house in Eluwan Kulam |
Situated halfway up the eastern coast of Sri Lanka, Eluwan Kulam is one of many villages Sewalanka
is helping recover after being caught in the cross fires of the civil war. Around ten years ago 3,000
villagers, a mix of Muslims and Singhalese, lived together farming the land along the coastal jungles.
But after the Singhalese government created a base of several hundred soldiers in the village, it
became a prime target for the Tamil Tigers. Peace Boat participants visiting the village learned the
resulting fighting was so fierce that migrating birds began avoiding the area and the majority of
the residents fled. |
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| Village girls welcome Peace Boat with a dance |
The soldiers are now gone and former residents have began to return to their village. The refugees,
though, were hampered by some of the more than 1,000,000 landmines buried during the civil war. Now,
five years after the end of heavy fighting near Eluwan Kulam, 1,000 villagers have trickled back.
Although the remaining mines are largely in the jungle, villagers still struggle to make a living,
said Ajith Tennakoon, Agricultural Advisor for Sewalanka. Standing next to the shell of a building
pocked with bullet-holes, a new school and community center offer hope to the village. "They
need some assistance, but I think that within two years they will be self-sustaining," Tennakoon
said. |
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| Roshan (left) and his brother |
Some of that assistance came from Peace Boat volunteers who collected stationary and other materials
in Japan to help students in Eluwan Kulam. Welcoming the gift, a community leader recalled how Sri
Lanka supported Japan at the San Francisco Treaty talks, just after the atomic bombs had been dropped.
Highlighting their shared experience of indiscriminate destruction and suffering, he expressed hope
that they would form a long-lasting bond between the two people. Roshan, a 16-year old Eluwan Kulam
student, is obviously proud that despite their recent and traumatic war experience, villagers don't
blame other ethnic groups among them. Pointing at a boy next to him, he said "This is my best
friend - he's a Muslim and I have Tamil friends and I'm Christian and Singhalese." |
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| A cinderblock house in the refugee camp for a family of five |
The civil war didn't only effect farmers in rural parts of Sri Lanka, as Peace Boat participants witnessed
at a refugee camp an hour away from Eluwan Kulam. Tennakoon recounted how only 15 years before, the
residents of this camp had been well-off people from the northern city of Jafna - doctors, lawyers
and professors. One day, the Tamil Tigers told them to leave their houses and all their valuables
within two hours. Only allowed to take 500 rupees (about five US dollars) they walked more than 100
kilometers over three days to reach the salt plain near the ocean they now call home. "They were
chased here, they had to leave their houses, property, education and businesses behind," Tennakoon
said. The reason? They were Muslim and victims of ethnic cleansing that swept the northern reaches
of Sri Lanka. "The government still sees this place as temporary, so that's why they won't try
to fully help them," he said. Working as salt farmers or in small industry, Tennakoon says most
of them will probably live out the rest of their life in the refugee camp. "Some want to go back,
but others never want to go back because they lost everything." |
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| A camp boy plays with an airplane made by a Peace Boat volunteer |
Besides providing micro credit to refugees to build houses or start small businesses,
a big part of Sewalanka's work is raising the status of women. With camp families averaging six
to ten members, many find it impossible to live on already precious resources and their meager
income. Tennakoon says changing the role of women will help raise families standard of living simply
by learning about and using birth control.
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| A Muslim girl from the Salt Village refugee camp |
Already women's role in society has been changing in the past few years, as the civil war forced women
to earn money outside their home. But for Muslim women, this has largely meant working as a domestic
servant in the Middle East for several years. The social cost of this has been an increase in sexual
abuse and incest - a big problem across all the races, even before the civil war. "In Sri Lanka
the family is centered around the mother, so if she's gone the family starts to split," Tennakoon
said. Slowly Sewalanka has managed to overcome both religious and conservative social pressure to
educate and train women. "Those women don't have much openness, because of the religious factor. |
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| For more information please see the following link;
Sewalanka Foundation Sri Lanka
Kinsly Perera
Peace Coordinator of Sewa Lanka
Or contact the following people
for more information;
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