The Feeling Of Tragedy
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I see things I cannot show and I hear things I cannot say. There are children in Sri Lanka with the distended bellies and skinny legs of famine. There are children without legs at all. There are elders dying of starvation. The LTTE prevented these people from voting for their lives in 2004. The LTTE herded them from one coast to another as a human offering to the media gods. And our government, led by zealots, is willing to cruely and inhumanly kill them anyways. I stand for the future, but I know I stand for only a chance now. The die was cast, and people are dead.
Vavuniya now is like the biggest refugee camp in the world, with over 177,000 people, officially. I think one of the last record holders was 210,000 fleeing the Somalian War. And we do have Somalian type scenes now, of hunger, infection, death and despair.
It is important to remember that this is orchestrated in every possible way by the LTTE. Though the blood is ultimately on Sri Lankan hands. They banned the Wanni people from voting for their lives, enabling Mahinda to win by about 181,000 votes. Now about the same number they disenfranchised are made voiceless cannon and camera fodder, again by the LTTE. The international media swoops in and sees the result, but they do not see the reason, the bitter calculation. The LTTE set up this crucible, or crucifix as it were.
Yet the blood is on our hands. Regardless of the situation. The Sri Lankan government is choosing to kill its way through the LTTE’s bluff. The LTTE may be some of the biggest bastards the world has ever seen, but so are we. Not equal by any sense, Sri Lanka did not set this tragedy up. But the blood is still on our hands.
Me, I try to wash it off in charity, in relief. I still wake up in the morning and feel this gnawing tension. I think something has to be wrong with you karmically to not feel thousands of people slipping and clawing off the edge of your island. Colombo is running, but I can still feel that something is terribly wrong.
I understand all the reasons. I can see the historical context. But all I feel is the pain.
Indi, isn’t there anyone who does stage plays and sessions for kids in the camps? Just for psychological relief?
we aren’t killing our way through, read this
Indi, don’t you think it’s a bit of an exaggeration to say that “we are killing our way through”? You yourself say that you’ve been there and seen it. Certainly we don’t “kill our way through”?
As you said in one of your own recent posts, war brings death whether we like it or not. At least SLA is trying to minimize the deaths. I’m not saying that those innocent Tamils’ lives are any less important than ours, it’s just that the GoSL has reached a no-turning-back point.
At least it is good that there are people like you who do what they can within their limits to help them. Hope everyone will put their hands up and do what they can do…
Indi, the remaining LTTE area is about 4 km, the approx. distance from Bambalapitiya to Fort. The Sri Lankan army can overrun it in a couple of hours, but it’s avoiding that. The civilian deaths are sadly for the most part collateral, from artillery fire into LTTE defenses which the LTTE have tactically surrounded with human shields…
@Dee access to the camps is very limited. They literally don’t have enough food now, though from what I hear all the hotels and chefs in Colombo as well as local villagers are pitching in. I suppose psychosocial is another time and place.
@Malik I understand full well how skilled our Army is right now and I’ve heard from them that they could occupy the place in a day if they weren’t concerned about civilians. However, occupying it even slowly means an effective siege whence people are starving, dying of simple wounds in there and being killed in the crossfire. This is war and our army is killing.
I understand why these things are happening, but they’re still horrible. You can say we’re killing for this and that reason, but it’s still killing. I know how those people got there, but on a very human level they are dying and getting injured in pretty large numbers right now and I agonize deeply over it.
even your grieving is all about “I” — yourself
[...] actlanka I learned about ACT through Indi’s posts like toy drive, Tragic feelings and work he did with them. Even before the war ended, these people were working to get medicines to [...]
Sad.