SRI LANKA: Anxious Mothers Get Respite as Peace Process Unfolds

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

KANDY, Sri Lanka, May 29 2002 (IPS) - Visakha Dharmadasa dreads the knock on the door or the midnight telephone call. “Families like us shudder when a policeman comes to our doorstep or when there is a call at night. We fear it is about our sons. It is absolute trauma.”

Like thousands of Sri Lankan mothers, Dharmadasa has two sons in the army battling Tamil separatist rebels in the northern part of the country. And like dozens of mothers, her younger son has been missing in action since Sep. 28, 1998.

But the diminutive woman has a bigger job than most of those affected: she leads a campaign on behalf of some 2,000 women whose sons are missing in action.

“Whenever I meet the rebels to negotiate their release, I don’t talk about my son. I talk about the larger group that is missing and plead for their release,” Dharmadasa said at her home in the central hill town of Kandy.

A ceasefire between government troops and Tamil rebels since last December has brought immense relief to the families of soldiers in the frontlinees in the war-torn northern and eastern regions of Sri Lanka. Rural homes, where most of the soldiers come from, are no more greeted with the sight of soldiers coming home in body bags after being killed in combat.

“There is a sense of relief all around in rural homes, and in mine for that matter. The legs of women shake in fright and uncertainty whenever a policeman comes knocking at the door. Often it is to inform the family that a father or son has been killed in the war,” she said.

“The worry and uncertainty is over, at least for the time being. There is relief also on the LTTE (Tamil rebels) side. There is relief among civilians in conflict areas that they need not run away from army attacks, etc.”

Dharmadasa described how a Tamil mother told her that she was forced to leave her dying child when a village came under attack from government troops. “This incident shattered me and made me feel that this was probably worse that having a son missing in action.”

Dharmadasa is chairperson of two groups — Parents of Families of Soldiers Missing in Action and the Association of War-Affected Women — and is campaigning for much more than the concerns of soldiers and their families. She is also an activist for peace.

“She has a do-able personality and takes bold initiatives. She is an initiator and bridge-builder,” noted Jehan Perera, a well-known peace promoter and media director at the privately-funded National Peace Council.

Dharmadasa says that while there is a lot of talk of peace at grassroots level and support for the Norwegian-led peace process, there is no backing from the corridors of power in the capital of Colombo.

“The women in Colombo are more interested about cookery demonstrations or fashion shows. They are not bothered about peace because their sons or daughters don’t fight in the war.”

Dharmadasa’s group has been interacting with civic clubs “trying to persuade the ladies to join us in the quest for peace”.

“I say, if you want to fight, send you children,” she said, adding that she has been pushing for compulsory conscription to the armed forces for all able young persons as a way of ending the conflict. “If people are forced into war, they would put pressure on governments to stop it.”

On Nov. 11, 1999, Dharmadasa’s association organised a candlelight vigil at her ancestral village of Dantur, about 12 km off Kandy, to mark war heroes day. It was also the birthday of her missing soldier-son. Temple bells pealed in a message meant to “remind people that there is a war on”, she said. Her group has since organised similar events highlighting the plight of missing soldiers, families of the victims and the futility of the war.

Some 64,000 people have died in the conflict since 1983 when Tamil rebels stepped up their bloody campaign – after widespread attacks on the minority Tamil community by majority Sinhalese hooligans – for a separate homeland for the Tamils in the north and the east where most of them now live.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe’s United National Party (UNP)-led coalition has since winning parliamentary polls last December initiated a new peace process, triggering fresh hopes of a peaceful end to the conflict. The government is preparing for talks with the rebels aimed at a negotiated settlement of the conflict in late June in Thailand.

Dharmadasa is very emotional about the war and angry and frustrated over the fact that just a few people, mostly from the rural areas, are fighting it. “It is not fair. If people want war, they must get involved … not shout from the comfort of living rooms. A few people are fighting for the country on behalf of the others.”

Last week she was among civil society groups that met Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Vidar Helgesen, who is handling the peace process, in Colombo. The Norwegians wanted to ascertain the views of civil society on current peace initiatives.

Quoting government statistics, Dharmadasa says there are 4,000 MIAs (soldiers missing in action), but she believes, like many others, that most of them are dead. Tamil rebels have said they have seven soldiersr in their custody.

She believes her son is alive and in rebel custody, and resorts to ways to remind her constantly that he is among the living. “Whenever we eat chocolates, we keep my son’s share in a plastic container. It reminds us about him. This happens in every home of missing soldiers,” she said.

The association’s biggest mission is to make it compulsory for soldiers to wear an identification disc that the bearer and the enemy would respect. Identification discs are provided by the army but many soldiers don’t put them on.

“It is essential to wear it and enable proper identification in case of death. If you see a dead body and a disc, take it and hand it over to the authorities so they know the identity of the missing person. We need to know … so that we know they are dead,” she said.