From the New York Times photo essay. Everything looks abandoned

The Times has an article on our charming little war. Sri Lankan Army Is Pushing for End to 25-Year War Against the Tamil Rebels. Headline makes me chagrin. I’m 26 years old. This fucking sucks. I do hope the war will end and the Tigers get defeated, even by these johnnies. However, there are caveats placed like mines throughout the article. For example, they note that we actually have no idea what’s really going on in the North and East. That cause independent reporters and monitors are not allowed. The government also has no plan for a political solution or how to effectively hold the land that we’re occupying. I dunno. I hope the thing ends but I really don’t trust the people in charge. I aspire to something more for this country than ‘no terrorism’. Perhaps something positive.

The article has a few points to quibble with,

It is clear that Mr. Rajapaksa’s drive to eliminate the Tamil Tigers has been no cakewalk for the military, either. In October, a suicide bombing killed more than two dozen people, including a retired army major general in Anuradhapura, an ancient Buddhist pilgrimage site in the heart of the island.

Er… the former general was a rising opposition leader, ostensibly opposed to the current prosecution of the war. His death was actually in the government’s political interest.

The same month, crudely made Tamil Tiger fighter planes bombed a power station, plunging the capital into darkness.

The power station sustained minor damage, and Colombo shut of its own power as a ‘defensive’ move. The Tigers have never blacked out Colombo, the government has blacked out Colombo in reaction to them flying around.

Besides the main thing is how we’re supposed to perceive this thing in an effective media blackout. Perhaps the ‘fuck it’ approach to our humanity will work as per the JVP. However, a lot of people are living in camps and the Army isn’t even letting tents or tarps in to shelter people through the rain and floods. There is a scale of human suffering that we simply do not hear about.

Sometimes, a small slice of life slips out. In the ground floor women’s ward of the main hospital in government-held Vavuniya town the other day sat a 65-year-old woman, with a mane of gray hair, wide stunned eyes and a tube through her side.

She had been hiding in a bunker in a rebel-held village, holding her baby grandson tightly to her chest, she said, when the bunker was shelled. A piece of shrapnel punctured her left side, perforating the left lung.

Her grandson lay in the pediatric ward next door. His mother had been killed in a previous bout of fighting, the old woman said.

Is this any life for our people? I dunno, maybe it’s worth it. I would really like this to end. But not like this.

Posted on Saturday, December 6th, 2008 in New York Times, Sri Lanka, war.