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From Bullets to Ballots: The Face of Sri Lanka’s Former War Zone
VAVUNIYA, Sri Lanka, Feb 3 2015 (IPS) - In four months’ time, Sri Lanka will mark the sixth anniversary of the end of its bloody civil conflict. Ever since government armed forces declared victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on May 19, 2009, the country has savored peace after a generation of war.
Suffocating security measures have given way to a sense of normalcy in most parts of the country, while steady growth has replaced patchy economic progress – averaging above six percent since 2009.
But these changes have largely eluded the area where the war was at its worst: the Vanni, a vast swath of land in the Northern Province that the LTTE ruled as a de facto state, together with the Jaffna Peninsular, for over a quarter of a century.
Home to over a million people, one-fourth of whom are war returnees, the Vanni has been in the doldrums since ballots replaced bullets.
“Peace should mean prosperity, but that is what we don’t have. What we have is a struggle to survive from one day to another,” Kajitha Shanmugadasan, an 18-year-old girl from the northern town of Pooneryn, told IPS.
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Powered by Cincopa Video Hosting for Business solution.New Gallery 2015/1/20 During Sri Lanka’s civil conflict, life in the war zone was dominated by the fighting. Thousands of youth either joined the Tigers or were conscripted into their units. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS flash 16 cameramake Minolta Co., Ltd. height 480 orientation 1 camerasoftware PictureProject 1.5 W originaldate 6/12/2004 1:20:08 AM width 640 cameramodel DiMAGE A1 A small child and a woman sit next to LTTE cadres training in a public playground in Kilinochchi. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS flash 16 cameramake Minolta Co., Ltd. height 480 orientation 1 camerasoftware PictureProject 1.5 W originaldate 6/12/2004 1:25:38 AM width 640 cameramodel DiMAGE A1 Now, young people have more freedom than they did under the Tigers, but many are frustrated by the lack of proper employment opportunities six years after being promised a peace dividend by the government in Colombo. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS cameramake NIKON CORPORATION height 2848 orientation 1 camerasoftware PictureProject 1.5 W originaldate 1/14/2015 5:51:50 PM width 4288 cameramodel NIKON D300S A youth who lost his leg during the conflict stands by his vegetable stall in the town of Mullaitivu in northern Sri Lanka. He has a small family to look after and says he finds it extremely hard to provide for them. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS cameramake NIKON CORPORATION height 2785 orientation 1 camerasoftware PictureProject 1.5 W originaldate 6/24/2014 5:14:01 PM width 3959 cameramodel NIKON D300S During Sri Lanka’s civil conflict, life in the war zone was dominated by the fighting. Thousands of youth either joined the Tigers or were conscripted into their units. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS cameramake NIKON CORPORATION height 2000 orientation 1 camerasoftware PictureProject 1.5 W originaldate 1/14/2015 10:27:28 PM width 3008 cameramodel NIKON D70s Women have been forced to take up the role of breadwinner, with aid agencies suggesting that single females – either widows or women whose partners went missing during the war – now head over 40000 households in the province.Credit:Amantha Perera/IPS cameramake NIKON CORPORATION height 2000 orientation 1 camerasoftware PictureProject 1.5 W originaldate 1/14/2015 10:41:39 PM width 3008 cameramodel NIKON D70s A woman stands in front of this small business she operates in Mullaitivu. The single mother was able to open the shop with the help of a grant she received from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS cameramake NIKON CORPORATION height 2848 orientation 1 camerasoftware PictureProject 1.5 W originaldate 6/24/2014 7:37:34 PM width 4288 cameramodel NIKON D300S The war left tens of thousands disabled, but six years on there are hardly any programmes or facilities that cater to this community. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS cameramake NIKON CORPORATION height 2848 orientation 1 camerasoftware PictureProject 1.5 W originaldate 6/24/2014 8:53:39 PM width 4288 cameramodel NIKON D300S This man, a former member of the LTTE who was blinded in one eye during the war, bicycles over 20 km each day in search of work. A father of one, he has found it hard to adjust to post-war life. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS cameramake NIKON CORPORATION height 2848 orientation 1 camerasoftware PictureProject 1.5 W originaldate 6/24/2014 5:32:11 PM width 4288 cameramodel NIKON D300S Here, a one-time militant attends to a client at his barber’s shop in the village of Mallavi in Sri Lanka’s north. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS cameramake NIKON CORPORATION height 2848 orientation 1 camerasoftware PictureProject 1.5 W originaldate 6/24/2014 3:49:24 PM width 4288 cameramodel NIKON D300S The immediate aftermath of the war saw thousands of tourists flocking to the region, gawking at the remnants of a bloody past. Their numbers have since dwindled and a war tourist trail now remains mostly deserted. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS cameramake NIKON CORPORATION height 2136 orientation 1 camerasoftware PictureProject 1.5 W originaldate 3/26/2010 5:54:13 PM width 3216 cameramodel NIKON D300 Many in the Vanni struggle due to a combination of poverty, war-related injuries and untreated trauma. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS cameramake NIKON CORPORATION height 2840 orientation 1 camerasoftware PictureProject 1.5 W originaldate 6/24/2014 5:21:08 PM width 3401 cameramodel NIKON D300S The election of a new president and the visit of Pope Francis to the former war zone have raised hopes in the north that real, lasting change is close at hand. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS cameramake NIKON CORPORATION height 2848 orientation 1 camerasoftware PictureProject 1.5 W originaldate 1/14/2015 8:38:26 PM width 4288 cameramodel NIKON D300S
Edited by Kanya D’Almeida