Colombo savours victory

By R Stephen Prins , May 22 2009, Asia Times Online

Even before Wednesday, which was declared a national holiday following Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa's official announcement that the 26-year war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was over, a mood of celebration had emerged in the capital.

pic: vikatan.com

There were sporadic bursts of firecrackers in various neighborhoods when news from the warfront indicated the war was in its final hours. Meanwhile, rumors were rife that Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was dead. Prabhakaran's death was confirmed only on Tuesday, hours after the president's address to the nation.

The lighting of firecrackers was well under way by Monday morning and continued with mounting intensity into the next two

days, accompanied by cheering, flag-waving citizens, triumphantly strolling the streets and criss-crossing the city in decorated vans and convoys of trishaws. The national flag was seen flying atop government buildings, religious institutions and homes, and fitted onto cars, buses and taxis.

At street corners and junctions, food stalls had come up overnight and well-wishers were inviting the crowds to partake of free sweets, bananas and kiribath - wedges of rice cooked in milk. Milk rice is a festive treat and served on special occasions, such as the Avurudu, or Sinhala and Tamil New Year.

The euphoria everywhere is palpable, but not everyone approves.

Gamini Chandrasoma is an ex-soldier who once worked as a clerk for General Sarath Fonseka, the army chief who is largely credited with the armed forces' triumph over the Tamil Tigers. From the tire-manufacturing factory where he now works as security supervisor, Chandrasoma has been listening to the firecrackers and cheers from the factory premises and outside and finds the exultation distasteful.

"I don't think we should get carried away with our victory," he said, speaking on the telephone from his factory in Ekala, a few kilometers outside Colombo. "There has been a lot of suffering on every side, over the years, and we should be observing this victory in a dignified, subdued way, without the fireworks."

Two policemen, Amal Bandara and Sampath Janaka, who were manning a crossroad in the Colombo suburb of Rajagiriya, said there was something very much of the "Big Match" spirit in the spectacle of schoolboys and young men waving flags, cheering and careering around in open-top vehicles (in cricket-mad Sri Lanka, the annual games between the top rival boys' schools are big events, as big as an international match).

A few minutes earlier, an open truck loaded with a particularly high-spirited group of youths had passed by: the "chief guest" among the crew was a well-padded dummy of the late Tiger leader Prabhakaran, complete with glasses and heavy moustache, "Tiger-striped" camouflage uniform and boots, and gripping a black water pistol in one plaster-of-Paris hand.

Bandara and Janaka, who both belong to the majority Sinhalese community, said the tension seemed to be finally gone, and that it would be a relief to get back full-time to regular police duties after being on high alert ever since joining the force. Both men are in their early twenties. They said the fear of bomb blasts was already receding.

"We would like to get back to our normal police work," Bandara said. "It's good to think there might not be any suicide bombers any more around the corner. We hope things will be normal - and cheerful."

On the other side of the road, at a saivara kade, a traditional middle-class restaurant that serves Indian-style food, Ranjan Kumar, a Tamil, said he was "overjoyed" that the war was over and the Tamil Tigers finally defeated. "There was never any question that the Tigers were a good thing for our community," he said. "We all felt the sooner they were out of the picture the better for everyone. I was waiting for this day."

At another Indian food restaurant, The Roti House, also in the suburb of Rajagiriya, a beaming Mr K Mahendran said he was no longer fearful of being harassed by the police for being a Tamil. "I was taken in by the police on two occasions, simply because I am Tamil, and even though I had all my documents in order, including my ID. I don't expect that humiliation to happen again, now that the war with the Tigers is over."

More cautious about expressing emotion over the historic moment was Neil Heenatigoda, the Sinhalese owner of a grocery shop two doors further down the road.

"It is a tragedy for the country that the Tamil Tigers did not realize sooner that theirs was a lost cause," he said. "There's been too much blood shed on both sides for us to make a big noise over this victory.

"As a Sinhalese, I feel it is important to reassure the Tamils of this country that we were waging a war on terrorists who used violence, and not on the Tamil community. I do feel the Sinhalese are basically a peaceable people, and we don't harbor grudges. The Tamil people should not feel threatened. In Colombo, the Sinhalese and the Tamils and all communities live side by side very happily."

Sasidaran Kandasamy, a 25-year-old web designer who works for a leading financial institution in Rajagiriya, said that as a Tamil he was "happy that it is all over". However, he wished the "celebrations" had been a tad more "sober".

"My family panics when we see mob reactions," he said. "Celebrations on a big scale can be scary because the mood can very easily tilt in another direction."

Kandasamy, whose father is Sri Lankan Tamil and his mother Indian Tamil, was one-year-old when the 1983 riots broke out. Tamils were killed and their homes looted and torched. The Kandasamys were among the many Tamil families that took flight. His father sent the rest of the family to India, while he stayed behind to sell his burnt-to-the-ground property, at a huge loss. He joined his family eventually, and six years later brought them all back to Sri Lanka.

"My father always gets worried when he hears crowds in the street shouting and getting excited. He has bad memories of '83. He knows that high spirits can turn dangerous."

But the younger Kandasamy sees 1983 as an exceptional case. He believes that Tamils living in Colombo are relatively safe, and that the city is a good example of communities living in harmony. "We do live and work together very well, I think," he said.

Kandasamy's colleague, Mario de Kauwe, is also a web designer. De Kauwe, who belongs to the minority Burgher community that traces its ancestry to the Portuguese and Dutch settlers who once occupied Sri Lanka, says the sooner the notion of minorities disappears the better.

"We have to start seeing ourselves as Sri Lankans and not as Sinhalese, Tamil, Malay, Muslim or Burgher. That was the way we were in school. All one family. Cultural or religious differences never entered our minds."

Kandasamy remarks that it had been a pleasant day, even though he and De Kauwe had to spend their national holiday in the office.
"It's quieter today than it was yesterday, and that's nice. The country has been through a kind of hell for 26 years, and now we want peace. We must let go of the past. It's now and the future that matters."

R Stephen Prins, who was born and educated in Sri Lanka, has worked for newspapers and magazines in his homeland and overseas. After 22 years in Hong Kong, attached to various publishing houses, he has returned to Sri Lanka, where he now works as a freelancer..

pic: vikatan.com