Latest news with #Jaffna
Times of Oman
6 days ago
- Times of Oman
Sri Lanka: Tamils hope for foreign help as mass graves open
Jaffna: Every time a mass grave is excavated in Sri Lanka, Thambirasa Selvarani can't sleep. "We don't know what happened to our relatives, and when they start digging, I feel panicked," Selvarani told DW. The 54-year-old has been searching for her husband, Muthulingam Gnanaselvam, since he disappeared in May 2009 after he surrendered to government forces at the end of the Sri Lankan civil war. After decades of fighting, the conflict ended with the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE),also known as the Tamil Tigers. Multiple mass graves have been uncovered since then. For the last three months, archaeologists have been excavating a mass grave in Chemmani, on the outskirts of Jaffna, the capital of Sri Lanka's Northern Province. The excavation has unearthed 140 skeletons so far, including children. Victims 'heaped together' in a shallow grave Chemmani has been suspected as a mass grave site since at least 1998. A former army corporal, who at the time was on trial for the rape and murder of schoolgirl Krishanthi Kumaraswamy, said there were hundreds of other bodies buried in the area alongside the young girl. Lawyer V. S. Niranchan told DW he was working with families whose relatives had disappeared from the area surrounding Chemmani in the 1990s. So far, the excavations have shown that bodies were buried "haphazardly, without any legal barriers, heaped together in a shallow, unmarked" fashion. "We think some of them could have been buried alive," he said, adding, "if they were already dead, the bodies wouldn't be bent," with some of them displaying twisted limbs. Several artifacts have been discovered at the site along with the skeletons, including slippers, a baby's milk bottle, and a child's school bag. Opening old wounds Anushani Alagarajah, executive director of the Jaffna-based Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research, said Chemmani had a "very painful, very traumatic history, particularly with people in Jaffna." "A lot of our friends' brothers and fathers and sisters disappeared at the time," Alagarajah told DW. "It's been over 25 years. It's opening up very old, deep wounds, not just for the families, but for the whole community, the whole of Jaffna. And it's a reminder that you can't really forget." The Chemmani excavation has become the most high-profile instance of a mass grave investigation in Sri Lanka to date. It has also triggered numerous calls for international oversight, especially from the country's Tamil community. Visiting the site in June, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk noted that "Sri Lanka has struggled to move forward with domestic accountability mechanisms that are credible and have the trust and confidence of victims. This is why Sri Lankans have looked outside for justice, through assistance at the international level." 'We don't know who they're going to find next' Tamil activists held a protest to coincide with Türk's visit. Thambirasa Selvarani attended the event and met Türk personally, telling him she had no faith in Sri Lankan justice mechanisms. Selvarani is the chairperson for the Association of Relatives of Enforced Disappearances (ARED) in Ampara District. She wants mass graves in her district to also be excavated. "We feel scared. We don't know who they're going to find next, who they're going to identify next," Selvarani told DW. "I keep thinking about it day and night and I can't sleep, I can't eat. I feel so disturbed." "For the last 17 years, as presidents keep changing, we've been asking them to tell us the truth about what happened to our children and loved ones," Selvarani said. The progress, however, has been slow. Selvarani says she still faces intimidation by officers from Sri Lanka's Criminal Investigation Department (CID) when attending protests.
The Guardian
11-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Poem of the week: Autumn by Vidyan Ravinthiran
Autumn (after John Keats) The fallen yellow leaves now oftener flare red. Embers. Blown-up chilli-flakes. The burning of the library at Jaffna. Foreign dead about to break the spell of here and now. Phantasms steal into the peaceful lives we seem to have earned, telling tales about what happened to them, not us, and in a tongue I never learned. This is my garden, my spade of blood meal and from our kitchen the time-travelling smell of chicken curry floats to Walden Pond. – A swooping cardinal like a struck match. Above the fence mosquitoes eddy like opinion, crazed by a patch, of red-pink light into giddy scribbling on the air. There is no need to be ashamed. I see you there and keep alive the thought of meeting one day brightly after the next. Black mustard seed thrums in the sauce, the sky falls asleep; where feelings come from or may leap across and through and to no one can say. Tsunami-hit, shoved over at a tilt, they've left the bashed old kovil's god-thronged tower standing tallish, beyond the new one built to face, this time, becalm, the ocean's power … Our autumn clouds are a far-quarried rubble to which the changing light does spicy things. To sing, to fly, migrate, are curious verbs; beauty, like happiness, frailly reliable, has nothing to do with why there are wings, why birds build nests and sing their songs, or why barbed wire's besotted with its barbs. Contemporary poetry collections often fall into one of two dominant categories. One kind travels thoughtfully, claiming spaces in an unfamiliar elsewhere, the other stays at home, revisiting and refining material that's more familiar. Avidyā, Vidyan Ravinthiran's latest, represents for me the exploratory kind, a tour that skirts the flames of history in a relaxed almost self-effacing manner. This is especially true of Autumn. The subtitle's qualification after slyly denotes the time and distance between the two poems. Keats wrote his ode To Autumn on 19 September 1819. The England-born Sri Lankan poet is writing more than two centuries later; since Keats's time Sri Lanka has been colonised by the British, granted independence, endured civil war and seen terrible reprisals against the Tamil Tigers for their armed struggle for independence. The autumnal redness the poem evokes soon turns to fire. A rhythm of stops and starts underlines the threat: 'The fallen yellow leaves now oftener / flare red. Embers. Blown-up chilli-flakes. / The burning of the library at Jaffna.' Keats, reading over the poet's shoulder, might remember Peterloo (critics have found that massacre in his ode's possible subtext of 'surveillance') and realise that the 21st century poet is also witness to less than 'mellow fruitfulness'. Autumn soon reveals the violent biblioclasm of 1981 when Jaffna Public Library, one of the biggest libraries in Asia and a major Tamil cultural centre, was burned down by a mob that included police and paramilitaries. But it isn't books and buildings alone that have been destroyed. The shapes emerging from the poet's past become the 'foreign dead', the 'phantasms' that 'steal / into the peaceful lives we seem to have earned.' Those phantasms give their version of events ('telling tales'), further distancing the poet by speaking 'in a tongue I never learned'. The ensuing jump of imagery, from the 'garden' declared his own, to the necessary 'spade of blood meal' is effectively plotted. Danger is diffused by the magic, humour and resistance found in cookery. In many cultures, families and societies come together to eat 'grief food'. The instant 'chilli-flakes' evoked earlier are an acknowledgment of cultural compromises. Then a further unexpected move occurs: 'and from our kitchen the time-travelling smell / of chicken curry floats to Walden Pond'. There's no abruptness; the translation from the poet's garden where he now lives in the US to Thoreau's retreat is amused, peaceable, sensuous. Choosing, as Keats chose, the subversively 11-lined stanza, Ravinthiran further complicates its balance. A clearcut, almost emphatically rhymed ABAB quatrain evolves into the looser assembly of seven lines whose rhymes may sound out less distinctly. Stanza two introduces a brilliant short film of the cardinal's swoop and the responsive movement of mosquitoes that 'eddy / like opinion.' That nicely poised, concrete-abstract simile is followed by the rather more Keatsian image of the insects 'scribbling on the air'. Keats's poem always addresses Autumn. Who is Ravinthiran addressing with 'There is no need / to be ashamed'? The tone sounds loving, even lover-like, with its note of future expectation. But perhaps the 'you' is the poem, or the poet courting his muse? 'You' might also be the 'phantasms' who have helplessly spoken in a strange 'tongue'. Ravinthiran's poetic 'courtship' is oblique, questioning, almost shy: 'where feelings come from or may leap / across and through and to no one can say.' Those monosyllables form little uneven stepping stones in a swashing river. After that, the picture enlarges dramatically with the tsunami of 2004, the Dravidian temple, 'the old kovil's god-thronged tower' and the defensive new-build. These lines extend history and still find it dangerous. Conflict is suggested: the sunset's clouds are 'a far-quarried rubble' and there may be no comfort in the assertion that 'the light does spicy things' to them. Open-winged birds of possibility still circle. The conflation of truth and beauty is gently queried: the beauty of birds is mechanism, the poet says, as he hooks the reader sharply down to earth with the marriage of 'verbs' and 'barbs'. The personification of barbed wire as a narcissist fixes in a single line the worst of human nature. A tyrannical border splices the garden, its fragrances and reconciliations. Those barbs may presage a deeper colour of autumnal red.
Al Jazeera
16-06-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
New Sri Lanka mass grave discovery reopens old wounds for Tamils
Chemmani, Sri Lanka — Less than 100 metres (328 ft) from a busy road, policemen stand on watch behind a pair of rust coloured gates that lead to a cemetery in the outskirts of Jaffna, the capital of Sri Lanka's Northern Province. The officers are guarding Sri Lanka's most recently unearthed mass grave, which has so far led to the discovery of 19 bodies, including those of three babies. The discovery of the mass grave has reopened old wounds for Sri Lanka's Tamil community, which suffered the worst violence of the island's 26-year civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a group that was seeking a separate homeland for Tamils. Many Tamils were forcibly disappeared by the state, with a 2017 report by Amnesty International estimating that between 60,000 and 100,000 people have disappeared in Sri Lanka since the late 1980s. In the final stages of the war, which ended in 2009, the Tamil community alleges that nearly 170,000 people were killed, while United Nations estimates put the figure at 40,000. Chemmani, in particular, has gripped the public imagination for more than 25 years, since the case of Krishanthi Kumaraswamy, a schoolgirl who was gang-raped by members of the Sri Lankan Army in 1996 before being killed. Her mother, brother and family friend were also murdered and the four bodies were discovered in Chemmani in 1996. Former Army Corporal Somaratne Rajapakse, who was found guilty of Krishanthi's rape and murder, alleged during his trial in 1998 that between 300 and 400 people had been buried in mass graves in Chemmani. Fifteen bodies were discovered the following year based on information he provided, two of which were identified as men who had disappeared in 1996 after being arrested by the army. The discovery of the new mass grave has also revived an old question that has continued to haunt the Sri Lankan Tamil community in its quest for justice. Past excavations have not fully yielded answers to the questions about forced disappearances and killings during the war, in part because the government has not followed through on the findings, say archaeologists. Can mass graves like the one found in Chemmani really bring closure? In February, skeletal remains were discovered while a building was being constructed in Chemmani. A 10-day excavation began in mid-May. Raj Somadeva, the archaeologist leading the excavation, told Al Jazeera that the 19 bodies discovered so far include three 'neonatal' skeletons, or babies younger than 10 months old. He said the bodies would eventually be analysed by doctors to try and determine their cause of death, and that he would use artefacts, such as cellophane wrappers bearing dates or clothes, to try and date the burials. If artefactual material is unavailable, then radioactive dating could be employed as an alternative, he said. However, Somadeva told Al Jazeera that 'less than 40 percent' of the burial site had been excavated so far and that he had already identified a second probable burial site within the cemetery using satellite images and drones to take high-altitude photographs. 'I have submitted an interim report to the court, saying it can be identified as a mass grave and further investigation is needed,' Somadeva said. Ranitha Gnanarajah, a lawyer representing families of the disappeared, told Al Jazeera she was working with more than 600 people from the Jaffna area who were looking for their missing loved ones, the majority of whom went missing between 1995 and 2008. Many Tamils were displaced in 1995 from Jaffna, the capital of the Northern Province, the country's Tamil heartland. She said the families were 'fully participating' in the excavation process and wanted the identification efforts to be carried out properly, given that previous excavation efforts had not led to a final conclusion. Family members of missing people are also helping the police in ensuring the security of the site. However, the willingness on the part of the Tamil community to help excavators in unearthing clues from the Chemmani mass grave is tempered by past experiences. Recent excavations of other mass graves in Sri Lanka have failed to lead to meaningful answers, setting off allegations of coverups. Yogarasa Kanagaranjani, the president of the Association of Relatives of Enforced Disappearances (ARED), said she was fearful that Chemmani would follow the pattern of previous excavations in Mannar, Kokkuthoduvai and Thiruketheeswaram, all in the Northern Province. 'This could also be covered up like the other graves, with no justice or answers given,' said Kanagaranjani, whose son Amalan was part of the LTTE and disappeared in 2009 after she said he surrendered to the army. 'If you ask the killers to give you justice, will they?' The largest excavation of a mass grave was carried out in the northwestern region of Mannar. Starting in 2018, the digging was also led by Somadeva. In all, 346 skeletons were unearthed. The excavation was overseen by the Ministry of Justice and the Office of Missing Persons (OMP), established by the government in 2017. However, Somadeva criticised the state's handling of the Mannar excavation, saying he had received the artefacts unearthed only a week ago, three years after his initial request, and that he had still not been allocated a budget to analyse them. He also told Al Jazeera that he had still not been paid 'a single cent' for 14 months of work on the Mannar excavation, and had been forced to use his own money to cover his travel expenses. 'We can't work under this type of circumstances. Nobody takes responsibility,' Somadeva said, describing the OMP as a 'white elephant'. An OMP representative told Al Jazeera it was participating in the Chemmani excavation solely as an observer but that it had facilitated the Mannar excavation alongside the Ministry of Justice. The representative said he believed there were no outstanding payments but was not certain, and declined to comment further in the absence of a formal complaint. A 2024 report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said it 'remains concerned that there are insufficient financial, human and technical resources to conduct exhumations in line with international standards and encourages the Government to seek international support in this regard'. The Jaffna-based Adayaalam Centre for Policy Research said that 'the same defects that plagued the previous exhumations persist' in Chemmani, which it said was also 'being undertaken without international observation or expertise'. 'If the government wants the Tamil community in general and families of the disappeared in particular to believe in the transparency and genuineness of the exhumation process, it must first adopt without undue delay a clear and comprehensive exhumation policy with adequate funding allocation, allow international participation, actively seek international expertise, and permit the families of the disappeared to participate and have a legal representation in the exhumation process,' Adayaalam said in a written statement to Al Jazeera. The election of leftist President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in September had sparked hopes among Sri Lankan Tamils that he might support their search for justice. But Kanagaranjani, the ARED president, said that, so far, Dissanayake had failed to deliver. 'It's now been more than eight months since the president has been in power, but he hasn't taken the slightest notice of our problems,' she said. 'Rulers change, but reality stays the same.' Kanagaranjani told Al Jazeera that answers were vital for the families of the disappeared as would lead to 'clarity'. Like the Adayaalam centre, she too said that the excavation needed 'international oversight' and that 'investigations [needed] to be carried out in accordance with international standards'. Thyagi Ruwanpathirana, a South Asia researcher at Amnesty International, said calls for international oversight were 'entirely legitimate' given that 'there's not been a single instance where exhumations have been seen through to the end – where remains found in mass graves have been identified and returned to family members for a dignified burial.' Ruwanpathirana reiterated Amnesty's call for 'transparency' and said that as a signatory to the International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance, 'Sri Lanka has an international obligation to provide the truth to families of the disappeared'.
Malay Mail
03-06-2025
- General
- Malay Mail
A beacon amidst the bleeding: What Jaffna's doctors taught me about life — Abbi Kanthasamy
JUNE 3 — I've spent most of my adult life building things. Businesses, brands, homes, arguments. Always chasing — the next goal, the next deal, the next piece of validation in a world that measures worth by margins and milestones. But this past week, watching my mother fight for her life in a small hospital in northern Sri Lanka, I was reminded of something I had forgotten: not all heroes chase. It began in Kumulamunai. A heart attack. A real one. Silent but severe. My mother — diabetic, hypertensive, and until that moment, unstoppable — suffered what doctors later described as a near-total occlusion. A 99 per cent block in the right circumflex artery. She had been slipping quietly into danger for days. No textbook symptoms. No drama. Just a quiet march toward a cliff. We may have built a world that worships money. But in those fluorescent-lit hospital wards, I met people who worship life. — Picture courtesy of Abby Kanthasamy The team at Mullaitivu Hospital moved with speed and certainty. They administered a thrombolytic agent — what the rest of us call a 'clot buster' — and bought her precious time. She was then transferred across district lines to Jaffna, where a team of doctors and nurses, in a system with barely enough gloves to go around, performed a high-stakes angioplasty and placed a stent that saved her life. Not once did I hear the word 'payment'. Not once did I feel we were anything but in capable hands. Now here's the part that truly knocked the wind out of me: they didn't have to do any of it. Two thousand doctors have left Sri Lanka in the past three years. They've gone to the UK, Australia, the Middle East — anywhere that offers better pay, better hours, better everything. The doctors who stayed behind? They're the outliers. The stubborn. The selfless. The ones who choose purpose over perks. I spent time with them. I watched them scrub in and out without a pause, without fanfare, without complaint. I saw a cardiologist explain a procedure to an elderly villager in fluent Tamil, without condescension. I watched a nurse adjust a patient's pillow like she was tucking in her own child. I saw joy in the act of healing — real joy, not performative compassion. And I realised something quietly devastating: these people are happier than most of us. There is peace in purpose. A kind of wealth that isn't counted in digits but in dignity. And it is abundant here. My mother was in the ER in Canada just weeks before this trip. High blood pressure. Worrying signs. But the system — hamstrung by protocol and overregulation — missed the looming heart attack. The very thing that a government hospital in war-scarred, budget-strapped northern Sri Lanka caught and treated with surgical precision. I don't say this to score points. I say it because it humbled me. We often talk about what's broken in Sri Lanka. We talk about corruption, collapse, and crisis. And there's truth in that. But somewhere amid the bureaucracy and broken roads is a public healthcare system that works. That shines. That makes you proud. And sometimes, it takes a stent in your mother's heart to see it clearly. Somewhere amid the bureaucracy in Sri Lanka is a public healthcare system that works. — Picture courtesy of Abby Kanthasamy To those doctors in Jaffna and Mullaitivu — to the nurses, the orderlies, the drivers who transported her between towns and hope — I owe more than gratitude. I owe perspective. We may have built a world that worships money. But in those fluorescent-lit hospital wards, I met people who worship life. And they are the richer for it. * This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
