‘Peace is founded not only on respect for human rights but also on respect for the rights of peoples, in particular the right to independence’ - Vatican’s Social Doctrine

I had a rare opportunity to come to know closely of the details of a Black Tiger Thurairathinam Kalairaj (Ilam Puli), who became a Martyr, when the Anuradhapura Air Base was attacked by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Ilama Puli was born on 13.10.1981 in a fishing village called Myliddy. His father was a prosperous fisherman, who owned a big motor boat. Ten people were employed by him and led a very comfortable life having his own stone built house, a motor cycle and all the other paraphernalia that go with prosperity. He had three children with Ilam Puli sandwiched between two sisters.

Based on field trip between 10 and 14 December 2007, the author continues to query the much heralded liberation of the East in this the second of a three part series.

Constant reports of widespread thieving are circulating in Sri Lanka, particularly around suburban town centers. This has gone so far as to affect even the dressing habits of women travelling in buses or three-wheeled vehicles.

It has been customary for women to wear gold chains or other valuables, but this habit is changing due to the widespread snatching of such items from commuters. Now women are wearing artificial bangles, and thousands have tales to tell of their unfortunate experiences with thieves.

Yet police inquiries are rare, and not even a handful of such cases have been resolved out of many complaints.

A thematic history of the causes of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lankan was set out in the Appendix to the 2003  report on Sri Lanka by the World Bank. This is reproduced below.


Background

In the year 1998, Joubert Gnanamuttu an engineer by profession (a slightly built, soft spoken and self effacing gentleman who had lived for more than twenty nine years in Colombo and who spoke with a slight stammer), was travelling in the bus to Borella when it was stopped at an Army check-point at Stanley Wijesundera Mawatha. Asked to show his identity, he produced his national identity card and a driving licence as well as a student identity card issued to him by the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies.

The fear that gripped the Tamil community in Colombo had only just begun to wane after a decline in the number of abductions when the indiscriminate arrests of over 2000 Tamils following the twin bombs in the city and a suburb, shook them to the core.

The cordon and search operations carried out last week in the city and the suburbs came as a surprise not only to the Tamils, but to people of other ethnicities as well.

The Tamils in the capital faced similar problems when bomb explosions were a part and parcel of Colombo life a few years ago.

The Tamils were therefore to heave a sigh of relief when the Ceasefire Agreement was signed five years back.

He lives on a suburban street in Ajax in a two-storey brick house with a double garage and fruit trees in the garden.

The quiet neighbourhood east of Toronto is worlds away from the civil war Raja Kasturiarachchi left behind when he moved to Canada after retiring from the Sri Lankan National Police.

But if he came to Canada to escape the past, he hasn't.

The Canada Border Services Agency says it intends to deport Mr. Kasturiarachchi because he was complicit in war crimes.

As a former Sri Lankan police chief, the CBSA says, Mr. Kasturiarachchi is to blame for “systematic” and “widespread” abuses committed by the force “on a regular ongoing basis.”

With both sides in Sri Lanka's civil war increasingly committed to military means, prospects for peace have all but evaporated.