When a relative approached Mohamed Nafeek in 2005 to explore the possibility of sending his eldest daughter, Rizana, to the Middle East as a domestic worker, the family thought its luck had finally turned for the better.

Rizana Nafeek as she appears in her Sri Lankan passport. Credit: Adithya Alles/IPS

Poor, living in a ramshackle shack in Muttur, a coastal village in Trincomalee district 250 kilometres from the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, the family of six barely managed to survive from the meagre earnings Nafeek made as a wood collector. Rizana, according to the family, agreed to the job. The relative took her to a recruitment agency. She then underwent 10 days of training before leaving for Saudi Arabia in May 2005.

But instead of changing the family’s luck, Rizana’s life turned inside out in a foreign land.

Barely a month into her job, she was sitting in a jail charged with killing the four-month-old infant of her employers. She was later found guilty and sentenced to die by beheading. She appealed her sentence and has spent the last five years in a Saudi jail. In October, news reached Sri Lanka that her sentence had been confirmed and would thus be carried out.

That news has generated renewed focus on the case of Rizana Fathima Nafeek, and the issue of Asian migrant workers getting a fair hearing in a foreign justice system, both here and internationally.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has written to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdul Aziz seeking a pardon. Similar appeals have been made by Amnesty International, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and other Sri Lankan and international advocacy groups. The sentence is reviewed by an advisor to the Saudi king.

The AHRC says Rizana’s trial was skewed against her, citing factors like language issues and competent legal support that often make it hard for migrant workers to ensure that they get fair proceedings.

For example, the translator provided during Rizana’s confession, which the AHRC maintains was taken under duress, was not a professional one, AHRC director of policy and development Basil Fernando points out. “He was just someone from Karnataka (state) in India, who did not have any idea of the Tamil dialect that Nafeek spoke,” Fernando said. The translator has since left Saudi Arabia.

Evidence indicated that the infant choked while Rizana was feeding him, in what was an accident and not intentional murder, Fernando adds.

No legal aid was extended to Rizana during the trial. The Sri Lankan Embassy in Riyadh had contacted a lawyer only after her conviction. When it could not hire the lawyer due to government stipulations that prevent it from paying for legal services in a criminal case, the Hong-Kong based AHRC moved in. It has so far spent 30,000 U.S. dollars in legal fees for the appeal of Rizana’s verdict.

The case is complicated by the fact that Rizana was underage when she left for the Middle East. Some reports have suggested that she was 15, but her family told IPS she was 17 at the time of her departure. Either way, she was a minor below the age of employment when she left.

Rizana’s forged passport became pivotal to her conviction when the courts went by details contained in that, and did not consider her birth certificate. “The passport she used to enter Saudi Arabia gives her date of birth as February 1982 but according to her birth certificate she was born six years later, in February 1988,” Amnesty International said in an October appeal.

“This would make her 17 years old at the time of the murder for which she has been convicted. According to Amnesty International’s information, she was not allowed to present her birth certificate or other evidence of her age to the court, which relied instead on her passport and so considered her to be 23 years old at the time of the crime,” it added.

Advocates say that Rizana was a victim of recruitment agencies that send poor, untrained Sri Lankan women as unskilled domestic workers to the Middle East, including to countries like Saudi Arabia, which hosts some 500,000 migrant labourers from this South Asian island nation.

“We never heard from the agency (that sent Rizana to Saudi Arabia). We only got a letter from the (Sri Lankan) Embassy (in Riyadh) about the sentence,” her mother Razina said.

Rizana’s case came into the limelight after media reports highlighted her death sentence. AHRC officials told IPS that when Saudia Arabia’s Supreme Court upheld the verdict, they heard the news not through the Sri Lankan Embassy but through a well-wisher who had visited Rizana in jail.

They now fear that if Saudi Arabia’s king ratifies the sentence, there would no chance of pardon.

“There is every probability that the execution of Rizana might be carried out without warning in the very near future. Saudi Arabia has an infamous record of having one of the highest executions rates in the world with at least 69 executions carried out in 2009, 102 in 2008 and 158 in 2007, an average of almost 2 persons a week,” AHRC said in a statement.

Fernando adds that a two-track approach is needed to try to save Rizana from the executioner’s sword. One is to lobby the Saudi monarch through national and international campaigns. The second is for the family to use diplomatic means to seek a pardon under Saudi law. “The King is the last option, before that someone should speak to the family,” Fernando said.

Having to take care of eight teenage children is not an easy task for 70-year-old Yamunadevi (not her real name).

In peace, women bear a heavy load in looking for jobs and tending to their families. Credit: Adithya Alles/IPS

But these youngsters are her grandchildren, orphaned by Sri Lanka’s civil war of more than two decades. “I have no option. I have to take care of them, otherwise they don’t have anyone else,” said Yamunadevi, who hails from Alampiddi, Mullaithivu district in the north.

Four of her grandchildren lost their parents during the last phase of this South Asian country’s bloody war, which ended in 2009 with a military victory by the government. The other four are left with only their father, who is now the sole breadwinner.

“I am not sure how long I can keep sending all of them to school,” Yamunadevi remarked.

Her story is all too common in Sri Lanka’s former war zones. Women young and old are left to fend for themselves and their families because their male relatives have been killed or went missing during the last battles of the war, which was waged by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in its search for a separate homeland for minority Tamils.

Almost 300,000 people were forced to flee their homes during the last bout of fighting alone, between August 2006 and May 2009. Over 290,000 war- displaced citizens have since returned to their villages or live with host families. Their troubles, however, are far from over.

There are more than 89,000 widows in their early twenties and mid-thirties in the former conflict zones, government officials say.

The deputy minister of child development and women’s affairs, M A M Hizbullah, told a seminar here that some 49,000 widows — majority of whom are wives of Tiger rebels killed in action – live in the country’s east, and another 40,000 in the north.

In his native Batticaloa district, the deputy minister said, there are some 25,000 widows, of which 8,000 had three children each.

Hizbullah said that he had approached the Indian government – India has always kept a close watch on developments in its neighbouring country — for assistance to help the widows. But in some areas, programmes targeted toward their needs have already begun.

“We have plans to start a garment factory here,” said Roopavathi Ketheeswaran, a government official in Kilinochchi district, adding that women often find it hard to find regular work unless programmes are designed with their needs in mind.

Even when they find work, the pay is sometimes a pittance. Seventeen year- old Ravindranathan Valarmadu, who hails from Pillumalai village in eastern Batticaloa district, for example, earns about 17 U.S. dollars a month from working as a milk collector six days a week.

This kind of situation, when many expected the end of the conflict to bring about better lives, can make widows feel helpless.

“When you don’t have a husband, when you don’t have family and you are alone, it can be tough,” Rasanayagam Rahulanayani, the government agent for Vaharai division in eastern Sri Lanka, told IPS. “When assistance also slows down, the women can feel very vulnerable,” said the official, who revealed that she had lost her father in the conflict.

Even as Rahulanayani was speaking with IPS, more than half a dozen widows and women whose husbands had gone missing during the war waited patiently outside her office to apply for help in matters ranging from obtaining lost identity papers to documentation on deeds.

“Widows and single mothers still find it hard within a very male-dominated social system,” Rahulanayani explained. Traditionally, Tamil society dictates that men take the lead, and women are expected to follow, so that widows who now have to make all decisions, including taking care of the family business and dealing with private and public officials, may not always be fully comfortable with their new role.

Saroja Devi, a 27-year-old mother of two who was waiting to meet Rahulanayani, says her husband went missing while the family escaped the war in the north. “I don’t know where he is, or even if he is alive,” Devi said.

Subsequently, Devi moved back to the east, where she hails from and where she has some family near Vaharai. “He was detained by the Tigers for awhile when he refused to help,” Devi said. “We were running thorough shell fire when he went missing. There was shell fire all day and I don’t how we escaped.”

At this point, Devi’s search for her husband is one that is more hope than anything else. Meanwhile, she has to eke out a living for her family.

There are hardly any jobs available in Vaharai, which lies deep in the interior of Batticaloa district, and where the key occupations are fishing and farming.

“I’m not doing anything right now. I help out my family members in the fields and they give me some money,” Devi said, adding that she had no choice but to sell all her gold jewellery — or starve.

Standing next to Devi in the queue, 29-year-old Navunad Sudha no longer has jewellery — they had been long sold. Sudha’s story is similar to Devi’s. She hails from the Vaharai, married a man from the north, and was separated from her husband while fleeing the fighting.

But unlike Devi, Sudha believes that her husband, who disappeared in April 2009, is in government custody. “I will look for him till I get some proof,” Sudha said.

Meanwhile, the challenges of day-to-day existence press on Sudha, who is seeking help from government officials to buy a sewing machine. “I stitch clothes at home to make some money,” she said.

Ramaih Sathdiyapillai has had enough of life on the run. A native of Kilinochchi district – which was until not too long ago the stronghold of the separatist Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka’s north – she bore the brunt of the war along with tens of thousands of others.

Funds are needed to ensure that post-war reconstruction efforts in Sri Lanka continue. Credit: A Alles/IPS

As the war between government troops and the Tiger rebels escalated between mid-2008 and mid-2009, civilians like Sathdiyapillai found themselves trapped by the fighting. She escaped the conflict in March 2009, spent almost one and half years in a camp for the displaced and only returned to her native Kilinochchi in August.

Still, she cannot return to where her house is in Ponnagar, because the area has yet to be cleared of mines. “So we wait, till we get the all clear,” she says. For the time being, Sathdiyapillai lives in a tent. She says it is much better than running away from bombs and bullets, or living in a camp for the displaced. “At least we have some kind of privacy now.”

Her dream is to build a new house for her family, now that the almost three-decade-old war in this South Asian island nation is over. “This is like the end of a very bad, very long nightmare, to have a house and be sure that we don’t have to run away from it,” Sathdiyapillai said.

The United Nations has estimated that there is a need for at least 160,000 new houses in the Vanni, the region that was dominated by the Tigers until they were wiped out by government forces in May 2009.

According to U.N. estimates, about 3,200 houses have been built in the Vanni by mid-July while an additional 2,100 were in various stages of construction. Housing is the biggest need in the region – especially now that number of those displaced by war and staying in various camps has fallen below 30,000 as of August.

More than 280,000 people have left the camps, like Sathdiyapillai has. Close to 200,000 have reached their villages or live on their own, while the remainder lives with host families.

The returnees have been promised a grant of 325,000 Sri Lankan rupees (about 2,900 U.S. dollars) to build houses. “We are waiting for that,” Sathdiyapillai said. This amount, according to the U.N. core group on housing construction, is enough to build a 46.45-square metre house over a period of at least six months.

The government-operated Sri Lanka North East Housing Reconstruction Programme is to build over 10,000 such houses in the north-east. U.N. Habitat is to build 4,000. The Indian government has agreed to fund the reconstruction of 50,000 houses in the north and east.

But there could be delays in the reconstruction process, due to factors such as lack of assistance funds from the international community after the end of the war. The United Nations faces a funding gap of 165 million U.S. dollars in its targeted contributions for Sri Lanka this year. So far, it has received more than 120 million dollars for its post-war programmes. “There are shortfalls for all sectors, but the largest are for work on economic recovery and infrastructure, water and sanitation, agriculture and health,” said the U.N. donor appeal released on Aug. 26.

There remains much to be done in the Vanni, U.N. officials say. “The job is not yet done. It is still a critical period and we ask for your continued support to meet the remaining crucial needs,” Neil Buhne, the U.N. country head for Sri Lanka, said in an appeal to donors to stay the course.

Indeed, the list of needs is long. According to U.N. records, at least 96,000 toilets need repair, and over 60,000 have to be reconstructed. There is a need for 61,000 new wells. Roads and transport need major attention, especially in remote areas of the Vanni.

At the same time, sectors like education and health have recorded improvements. More than 240 schools have reopened and were functioning by end of July in the Vanni.

More than 25,000 households have also received assistance to restart farming in the Vanni. U.N. officials say they hope to see this number double soon and more than 60,702 hectares of farmland back in cultivation before the end of 2010.

Still, the success of many of these projects rests heavily on funds continuing to come in during the period of rehabilitation, long after the sounds of war have died down.

“All of us know there is much more to be done. Recently returned people are still vulnerable,” Buhne pointed out.

The United Nations has scaled down some of its operations in Sri Lanka, although officials say this is because the work has been completed. In the last nine months, it has closed the offices of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the country’s east.

Still, hearing news like these tends to make people like Sathdiyapillai worry. “We have suffered so much, for so long. At least now we have the chance the pick up the pieces and live in peace” if reconstruction efforts continue in the coming years, she said.

Traffic now flows around the U.N. compound here in the Sri Lankan capital, and the dozens of policemen visible last week are no longer there. It is business as usual, a far cry from a week back when an angry minister’s death fast just outside the main U.N. office made the area the focus of international attention.

Sri Lankan Minister Wimal Weeravansha in front of the U.N. compound where he went on hunger strike last week. Credit: S Gayashan/IPS

Minister of National Housing Wimal Weeravansha staged a hunger strike for two and half days starting Jul. 8 to protest U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s creation of an advisory panel on Sri Lanka, which has been under international scrutiny for human rights violations.

Weeravansha ended the fast only when President Mahinda Rajapaksa persuaded him to give it up.

Beyond hogging the international headlines for a few days, the four-day protest that started Jul. 6 highlighted what has been a trend for a while – of emotions that run high against what many perceive as unwelcome U.N. interest in Sri Lanka, and their hostility to criticism about the country’s human rights record in relation to the conduct of the last phase of the bloody civil war that ended last year.

Since May 2009, when government troops defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels, which for decades had fought for a separate homeland for minority Tamils, the country has received criticism about rights issues around the war, including displaced communities.

The government has refuted this, and fears of what is often called ‘unwarranted foreign intervention’ have been common here.

But the U.N. chief’s panel, formed to give him advice on Sri Lanka, does not have any mandate to initiate an inquiry into Sri Lanka, according to Ban himself. It also does not have the Security Council’s approval.

Still, many, especially those who support the President, fear that the panel is the first step toward an international inquiry into the conduct of the war.

Rajapaksa has gotten assurances that there would be no war crimes inquiry initiated by the United Nations, Weeravansha’s supporters said. “Eighty percent of our demands have been achieved,” Jayantha Samaraweera, a member of the National Freedom Front led by Weeravansha, said after the fast.

A heightening of the rhetoric since the end of the fast – and protests that at one point included the blocking of U.N. staff from entering the compound and its closure for one day – have drawn concerns from diplomatic circles and some activists alike.

Already, U.N. Resident Representative Neil Buhne, whom Ban has recalled for consultations, is unlikely to be sent back to Colombo.

Jehan Perera, executive director of the National Peace Council, a national advocacy body, said that the recall was a tough reaction by the United Nations, and showed that this protest could have far-reaching repercussions. “If the government expected the UN to back down in the face of domestic protests, the UN reacted in a totally different manner by recalling the representative,” he said.

During Weeravansha’s fast, Ban said in a statement: “The Secretary-General believes the strong reaction to his establishment of a Panel of Experts on accountability in Sri Lanka is not warranted.”

The protest drew concern from the Colombo-based diplomatic corps, including the United States, European Union (EU) and other western nations. Countries like Russia, China and India, which helped Sri Lanka stave off action at the United Nations in New York in the past, remained non- committal through the fast.

Ban’s statement also referred to an agreement between Rajapaksa and the U.N. secretary-general on May 23, 2009, just five days after the bloody war ended. He said that the panel was set up to achieve the aims of that May 2009 statement, issued after Ban visited Sri Lanka.

“These objectives include the further fostering of reconciliation and related issues as well as reflecting the commitment by Sri Lanka to the promotion and protection of human rights and the importance of accountability,” Ban’s statement last week said.

But “there was no mention of forming an advisory panel by the United Nations Secretary-General on Sri Lanka’s accountability issues during the war in the joint statement,” the foreign ministry said.

Still pursuing the line of rejecting a foreign role, Foreign Minister Gamini Peiris said that Sri Lankan government had set up a Lesson Learnt Reconciliation Commission in order to look into the conduct of the war. “The onus is passed on the government of Sri Lanka as this is purely an internal matter,” he later told the media.

The disagreement with the U.N. secretary general is not the only high-profile diplomatic row that the government is having– and using the argument of foreign intervention on.

The EU recently scrapped Sri Lanka off a list of nations included in a preferential trade scheme known as the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) Plus. The EU suspended the concessions worth at least 150 million U.S. dollars in 2008, arguing that Sri Lanka was in contravention of human rights covenants.

It later said that it was willing to restore the concession if Sri Lanka met a set of conditions, but the Rajapaksa government has rejected any agreement with EU conditions. “This is a sovereign government. The conditions are an insult to whole of Sri Lanka,” government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella had told IPS.

Peiris has met EU ambassadors on GSP Plus, but a breakthrough seems remote.

Perera says that continuing diplomatic rows could be harmful for the country and its economy, which is very dependent on external factors and perceptions. He explained: “Garment exports are affected by the removal of GSP Plus, and if events like what happened near the UN repeat, there will some impact on foreign investments and tourist arrivals.”

For a country that has had quite a few run-ins with global giants in the diplomatic arena, the last fortnight has witnessed somewhat of a turnaround for Sri Lanka.

The South Asian island state has received accolades from several diplomatic heavyweights and organisations for recent actions initiated by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Rajapaksa’s grant of a presidential pardon to journalist Jayaprakash Tissainayagam, who had been sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment, was quickly commended by the international community.

Tissainayagam, who belongs to the minority Tamil community, was convicted by the High Court of Colombo in August 2009 on charges of receiving funding from the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and instigating communal violence through his writings. The website editor and opinion writer’s arrest and subsequent conviction elicited wide international criticism.

Sri Lanka’s foreign minister Gamini Peiris said that the pardon – announced on World Press Freedom Day last week – showed that the new government of President Rajapaksa was committed to upholding civic rights.

The Tissainayagam pardon was specifically welcomed by the United States, France and several international media watchdogs.

“We, with our European partners, strongly condemned the sentence of 20 years in prison which had been passed against him last August and expressed our deep concern with the Sri Lankan authorities on several occasions,” the French foreign ministry said in a statement welcoming the pardon.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also welcomed the pardon, albeit cautiously. “While this is potentially very good news, our enthusiasm is muted until the details are made clear,” Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, said.

However, details of Tissainayagam’s pardon remain unclear. Neither he nor his lawyers have made any public comments since it was announced while sources briefed on the pardon told IPS that the lawyers were in discussion with the Attorney General’s Department on the technicalities of the pardon.

Notwithstanding his pardon, Tissainayagam’s passport remains with the government, raising questions on whether he is free to travel within and outside the country.

Still, local media rights groups said the President’s move should bode well for the future of the media. “It is a welcome move and we hope the current trend continues,” Chulavangsha Sirilal of the local media rights group Free Media Movement told IPS.

Three days after Tissainayagam was pardoned by the President, journalist Ruwan Weerakoon, who was on remand, was released on bail. Weerakoon was arrested on charges of collusion with Sarath Fonseka, the former army commander and defeated presidential candidate now facing charges of corruption and plotting to overthrow the government.

Within the same week of Tissainayagam’s pardon, the government also relaxed the emergency regulations that had been in place since 2006, when then foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was assassinated by the Tamil Tigers.

Some of the regulations that were removed included the provision on the imposition of curfews, those requiring households to give information about their members and the power of security forces to enter private property for searches.

Other provisions restricting the conduct of public meetings and printing of propaganda material were likewise eased, according to foreign minister Peiris.

He was quick to note, however, that the relaxation of the regulations had nothing to do with attempts at thawing icy relations, especially with the West.

“We do not believe that there is a need to continue with those particular regulations. The situation in the country is settled,” he told the media.

President Rajapaksa has also announced that he will set up a special commission to look into the final phase of the war against the Tamil Tigers that ended in May 2009. Sri Lanka has staved off international criticism and even attempts to initiate international inquiries on possible war crimes committed during the 25-year conflict with the LTTE. The planned commission will determine if any such violations took place, according to the President’s Office.

The government has also strongly objected to moves by the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to set up an advisory committee on Sri Lanka. It said that the country’s situation was fast returning to normal and development work had been accelerated now that the second Rajapaksa administration had taken office.

The Sri Lankan government has not been loath to lock horns with international big boys even in the face of financial losses. Earlier this year the European Union (EU) scrapped a preferential trade facility – the Generalized System of Preferences Plus (GSP+) tariff regime – that allowed exports from Sri Lanka to the EU to gain concession exceeding 100 million U.S. dollars in 2008.

The EU said Sri Lanka had violated international human rights conventions. Sri Lanka had objected to the EU sending a fact-finding mission to investigate the country’s human rights record. Suspending the concession, the EU said that if Sri Lanka fulfilled certain criteria, then the GSP+ concession would be reinstated.

Whether President Rajapaksa’s recent decisive actions – including the grant of a presidential pardon to journalist Tissainayagam – will help bring that about is well worth watching.

In the yard of the Javiz Arulanandam’s church here lies the top portion of a statue of Jesus Christ. Only the head remains of the statue, which would have been at least 20 feet tall.

Many buildings, like this church, are undergoing renovation in the war-battered north of Sri Lanka. Credit: Adithya Alles/IPS

No one knows how it got to the church compound but Arulanandam, the priest in charge of the church, thinks that Sri Lankan soldiers may have brought it over.

The torso-less Christ is a constant reminder of over two and half decades of bloodshed, he says. “The war did not spare anyone or anything. It made all of us suffer,” he told IPS while sitting in the church courtyard.

The front portion of his residential quarters will convince any sceptic who doubts the priest’s words. It is a mess of pockmarked walls, caved-in rafters and what was once a roof. There are signs that it was once some kind of a classroom in the rear portion of what looks like part of a church. That part is completely destroyed. A newer church stands close by, but that too has been damaged by the war.

Workers were busy working on the damage to the church facade, getting it ready for a new coat of paint. Inside, a more creative worker was drawing out the background of the altar.

Like most buildings in this former battle zone, Arulanandam’s church is undergoing major renovation.

A little more than 12 months ago, the church was in the middle of a conflict zone. Kilinochchi was the political and administrative nerve centre of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or the Tamil Tigers.

The group fought a bloody war with the Sri Lankan state since the early 1980s, demanding a separate independent state for minority Tamils. The war cost the country over 70,000 lives.

After failed peace talks with at least five Sri Lankan governments, the war ended in May 2009 when the Sri Lankan forces defeated the Tigers. The last bout of fighting left over 280,000 displaced, the bulk from Muliathivu and Kilinochchi districts that form a large part of the Vanni, the areas once under Tiger control.

At least 170,000 of those displaced have now returned to their homes. “It is a difficult thing. The war was everywhere, and for years everything was determined by the war. It is not easy to enjoy peace or to get used to it even,” the Catholic priest told IPS.

The army’s engineering corps, which is in charge of clearing mines with the help of civilian agencies, said that more than 690 square kilometres remain to be demined. More than 1,000 sq km have been cleared so far, said Maj Gen Udaya Nanayakkara, head of the corps.

Since demining efforts began last year, more than 15,689 anti-personnel mines, 37 tank mines and about 4,500 unexploded ordnance have been recovered. Just about everywhere, the red and white skull-and-bones sign warning of mines can be seen in the Vanni.

Civilians who have returned to their homes know that they have a real struggle in their hands. There are any hardly jobs in the region. Most of the returning families use part of the 25,000 rupees (220 U.S. dollars) they receive as cash grant to set up temporary living quarters to either start small businesses or get back to farming. Agriculture and fishing are the main means of livelihood here.

Still, many are willing to go through the hard grind. “If this is the price for peace, then we will pay it,” said Joseph Devasagayam, a resident of Omanthai in Mulaithivu district. He says finding jobs and staying off minefields are nothing compared to what he endured a year back. “My God, there were bombs from everywhere, we were running, there was no turning back. Imagine not being able to sleep for days because you were scared of dying,” he told IPS. For now, Nagaraja Kallaiamuda a 27-year-old mother of two young children, lives in a small mud hut in Puliyankulam, a village on the side of the main road near Kilinochchi. “I find some work by helping people who have returned, but it is difficult. Soon I hope there will be some way we can get more steady work.”

Her husband is in detention for suspected links with the Tigers. “I hope he will come out soon, so that we can plan our future,” she said. About 1,800 former Tigers have been released so far. More than 10,000 remain in detention centres, but the government has pledged to free them gradually.

The optimism is shared by civilians in the Jaffna Peninsula, the country’s northernmost part that was virtually cut off during the last phase of the war between late 2006 and mid-2009. Jaffna, the cultural and political heart of the Tamil minority, is now only coming back to life with the opening of land routes.

“You see people everywhere, there is no curfew, there are few checkpoints and there is more money now,” said Jegan (one name), a helper in one of the many large shops in Jaffna.

“It will be hard, there is no question about that,” Arulanandam said about going back to normalcy. “Years of trauma caused by war cannot be erased in days. It will take years. But now we can go to bed feeling sure that we don’t have run for our lives.”

Elephant Pass conjures up images of the deadliest battles in Sri Lanka’s conflict with the Tamil Tigers. But today, tens of thousands of local visitors have been to visit the former war zone.

Visitors walk past a war memorial in Elephant Pass. Credit: Adithya Alles/IPS

Elephant Pass was always a hotbed of confrontation between the military and Tiger rebels during the two and a half decades of separatist conflict that ended in this South Asian island nation in May 2009.

After all, the pass – the narrow isthmus that connects northern Jaffna Peninsula with the rest of the country – is the only such link between these areas.

The conflict had kept the north mostly out of bounds for the rest of Sri Lanka, and it was cut off from the rest of the country in the war’s last phase.

It took seven months for the A9 highway, the only land link to Jaffna, to be opened to the public. Since January, the crowds have been unstoppable.

“On a weekend at least 200,000 will come here,” says Sasthravedi Sri Vimala Thero, the chief incumbent monk of the Nagadeepa Vihare, a Buddhist temple located on an island just off Jaffna. Thousands of pilgrims take a 20-minute boat journey to visit the site.

The monk feels that interaction between ordinary citizens may well prove to be the best path to healing the wounds of war and dispersing the distrust between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils in the country.

“The war kept these two groups apart. Now they can come together, meet each other, like ordinary people,” he told IPS.

Catholic bishop for Jaffna Thomas Soudranayagam agrees. “Hundreds of thousands of people have visited the north during the last two months. This will definitely improve the relationship between the north (Tamils) and the south (Sinhalese),” he said.

Many visitors come to look at memorials of war that are publicly displayed on either side of the A9 highway.

On one side, a bulldozer with reinforced armour plating and gaping holes on its sides is set on a pedestal. The Tamil Tigers used it during a sustained attack on the Elephant Pass army camp in 1991. But before the Tigers could succeed, a Sri Lankan Army soldier climbed on to it and lobbed a grenade. He died in the process.

Now it is a war memorial to the hero soldier Hasalaka Gamini. Crowds throng around it and some hang garlands, while most stare in amazement.

On the other side of the road are two more vehicles, a tractor and a pick-up truck, that Tiger commanders had used close to the frontlines — much more recent relics of the war. The two are reinforced with heavy metal armour, but are riddled with bullet holes.

Together, these three vehicles are major photo opportunities for the visitors, the bulk of who are from the south and from the Sinhalese community.

Every weekend, Jaffna gets ready to play host to them. The few hotels in he area are booked for weeks ahead. Enterprising businesses have found a quick-fire method to make money from the crowds. They renovate uninhabited houses damaged by the war, and rent them out with bare facilities.

The eateries and the bazaar in the area do their best business over the weekends, when large Indian-made buses, some with their hood racks filled with cooking pots and firewood, stream into Jaffna one after the other.

But bridging the divide among ethnic groups will take a long time.

In the bazaar, for instance, many of the sellers cannot speak Sinhala, the main language of most of the buyers. The customers can hardly speak Tamil, the language of use in Jaffna. They communicate in a mix of Sinhala, Tamil and English, interspersed frequently by sign language.

“We have been kept apart for so long that it is like getting to know someone all over again,” said Sarath Rathnasiri, a visitor from Eppawala in north central Sri Lanka.

While some Tamil political parties have reservations about the influx of visitors, there appeared to be no animosity between the mostly Sinhalese visitors and the citizens of the peninsula.

“We are happy to see people coming from the south,” Pathmanathan Suyantheran, a Jaffna resident told IPS. “It makes things look normal.”

Many also see the influx of visitors as Jaffna’s best ticket to development after its devastation and its isolation.

While war-destroyed buildings are common in Jaffna, the situation is worse in the Vanni, the region just south of the peninsula, where hardly any standing structure escaped the last bout of fighting between 2006 and 2009.

Of the over 280,000 people displaced by the war, over 190,000 have returned to their home villages, according to the United Nations. It says that more than 160,000 houses need reconstruction or major repairs.

Overall, some 70,000 people died in the conflict, which the Tamil Tigers fought to demand a separate homeland for minority Tamils.

Compared to what they went through in the not-so distant past, no one in Jaffna is complaining.

“It is much better than what it was earlier. There are military personnel on the roads but the checking has been reduced to a great extent. Most of the signs of the war are being removed. Demilitarisation is slowly taking place,” Bishop Soudranayagam said.

Anger against the popular rap and hip-hop singer Akon, whose music video has footage of bikini-clad women dancing near a Buddha statue, may have been just a ruse used in this week’s attack on a private media house in Sri Lanka, media advocates fear.

A member of the Police Special Task Force outside the Capital Maharaja offices after the broadcaster was attacked by a mob. Credit: Adithya Alles/IPS

Some 200 people attacked and stoned the head office of MTV and Sirasa, two of the country’s popular privately owned television and radio networks, on Monday, in the wake of anger over the video of a song by the U.S.-based Akon, which has now been cancelled. MTV was one of the concert promoters.

While the attackers may have indicated that their anger was caused by the music video, media activists say that the attack has simply added to a long list of intimidation and harassment faced by journalists in this South Asian island nation.

A poster left behind by the mob gave a clue as to the motive behind the attack — or at least what those behind it wanted others to think had ignited their wrath. Written in clearly legible Sinhala, it said: ‘Don’t bring Akon to Sri Lanka’. Akon, a Senegalese American, was to perform in Sri Lanka in April.

Anger over the singer’s arrival in Sri Lanka grew in the last week over a music video for the song ‘Sexy Bitch’, which includes two women in bikinis dancing in front of a white Buddha statue.

Over 60 percent of Sri Lanka’s 20 million people are Buddhists and what they see as sacrilege easily generates anger.

Two Facebook groups against the Akon show have sprung up, getting more than 12,000 members. However, there was no indication that the protest campaign was going to turn violent. In fact, some group members have posted messages urging others not to allow extremists to take over their peaceful campaign.

A similar incident in 2004, though without the involvement of any Facebook groups, had ended in disastrous circumstances.

In December 2004, public anger broke out when Indian superstar Shahruk Khan was to hold a concert in Colombo that coincided with the death anniversary of a beloved Buddhist monk. Despite the protests, the concert went ahead and toward the end, a hand grenade explosion left two concertgoers dead. The culprits have never been indentified.

The Free Media Movement (FMM), the country’s foremost media rights group, believes that the mob attack was not a random event. “This cannot be taken as an isolated act. It is part and parcel of what has been taking place in the recent past,” FMM spokesman Sunil Jayasekera said in an interview.

Others say that the row over the Akon concert provided an effective veil for anyone who wanted to target the Sirasa broadcasting house, which has been known for its independent reporting during the civil war between the state and separatist Tamil rebels in the country.

“This (Akon) concert was just an excuse for this attack. There had been concerns over its safety even before this controversy over the concert,” said Susil Kidelepitiya, a former news director at Sirasa. Kidelepitiya is contesting the April general election as part of the opposition United National Party.

Media activists say that the long list of intimidations, arrests, assaults, abduction and even unsolved murders has already made journalists look over their shoulders all the time.

“This is not the first time MTV/Sirasa or their journalists have been attacked. Their studios were set on fire in January 2009. No one knows who did that,” Jayasekera said. The FMM official says the government needs to take action to assure the media community that it can safely do its job.

After that 2009 attack, Reporters Without Borders had said: “The attack seems to be because its coverage was not ‘patriotic’ enough. The network is one of the country’s few, and very popular, independent news sources. The incident recalls the November 2007 attack on the Leader Publication printing works, for which nobody has been punished.”

Reporters Without Borders had also noted that the MTV/Sirasa network has been criticised “for not giving enough air-time to recent government victories over the (Tamil Tiger) rebels,” which the government defeated militarily last year.

Officials of the Working Journalists’ Association agree that authorities have shown a lukewarm attitude in investigating such attacks.

“If there is a sense that these kinds of acts are tolerated, it does not augur well for the future,” Lasantha Ruhunge, the association secretary, told IPS. “Then more and more journalists will not feel safe enough to do their job — which would mean that less and less information would reach the public.”

This week’s attack had all the makings of a well laid-out plan rather than a spontaneous outburst of public anger.

The mob appeared in front of the office of Capital Maharaja, the holding company of MTV and Sirasa TV located here in the capital Colombo, without much fanfare. They arrived in two hired buses, alighted and started pelting the building with stones, clubs and anything they could grab hold of.

As stones rained on the glass facade of the Maharaja building, those inside retaliated. Some hurled the stones back at the attackers while others unwound a fire hose and opened the tap on the mob. A while later, police arrived at the scene with riot gear. The attackers dispersed and 16 were taken into custody, according to police. All were released on bail a day later.

The mob may have been doused before it could turn ugly, but it left the staff at Maharaja in shock. Staffers were seen wandering in the compound speaking on their mobile phones, gazing at the crowd that had gathered after the mob attack. They said that no one had the faintest idea of an attack before the stones started banging against the windows .

“Bringing down an artist (Akon) who has no respect for Buddhism cannot be condoned, but so is this act. Going and stoning the office is not the answer,” Hegodda Vippassi Thero, a Buddhist monk, told IPS. He had urged organisers to reconsider going ahead with the concert in view of the controversial video.

Whether the mob really wanted to take the anti-Akon sentiment to a violent level will never be known, but it has achieved what was written on the poster it left behind. The Sri Lankan government has said that it would not be issuing a visa to Akon because he was “defaming Buddhism”.

In a statement, Akon said: “I would never set out to offend or desecrate anyone’s religion or religious beliefs.”

All that, however, does not address the worries of the FMM and the Working Journalists’ Association – that being the messenger makes the media very much a target in this country.

Sri Lanka’s bruising presidential election ended less than a month ago on Jan. 26, but the island nation is now caught up in protests that threaten to spiral into public agitation across the country.

Tension mounts in Sri Lanka after the arrest of former Army commander Fonseka. Credit: Adithya Alles/IPS

If the populace felt it could breathe easy after incumbent president Mahinda Rajapaksa defeated his main challenger, former Army commander Sarath Fonseka, by a margin of 1.8 million votes in the January vote, that calm was short-lived.

On the night of Feb. 8, after two weeks of trading charges, Fonseka was taken into custody by the military police on accusations of corruption and trying to topple the government while he was in public office.

Fonseka’s detention has sparked clashes in different areas. Protests are planned across the island by his supporters as well as by other groups such as lawyers and the influential Buddhist clergy in the mainly Buddhist country.

Just 48 hours after Fonseka’s arrest, clashes broke out between Fonseka supporters, pro-government gangs and police in at least three towns, including the capital Colombo.

In Colombo, a group of around 2,500 Fonseka supporters chased down pro-government supporters who blocked their path as they were holding the first protest demanding the Fonseka’s release.

In the next 24 hours, at least three more such protests were tear-gassed by police, including one in the Colombo suburb of Maharagama on Feb. 11.

The rallying point for the protestors has been the wife of the arrested general, Anoma Fonseka.

Anoma remained in her husband’s shadow through his 40-year military career. She maintained that posture when her husband led the Army in its final and crushing assault on the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) last year.

The Tigers were defeated in May 2009, ending two and half decades of deadly civil war that killed over 70,000.

Fonseka was feted as a hero, but soon fell out with the Rajapaksa government. That fallout led to his coming forward as the opposition candidate challenging the president in the January vote.

“He is good spirits, he is mentally strong,” Anoma told reporters early this week, soon after visiting her husband, who is being detained at an undisclosed location. “He requests every one of his supporters to be calm and not to resort to unlawful activities or break the law.”

Anoma has found herself at the centre of the opposition campaign ever since she addressed the media tearfully the morning after her husband was arrested. She has regained her composure thereafter, but there is no denying that it is her presence that has rejuvenated the pro-Fonseka protestors.

Opposition parties that endorsed Fonseka’s unsuccessful presidential bid have rallied together to launch protests against his arrest.

“This (the arrest) was a blatant violation of fundamental rights, there is no rule of law,” said, Rauf Hakeem the leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress. Hakeem was meeting with Fonseka along with four other leaders from political parties when military police arrested him on Feb. 8.

“We have to fight to gain our rights, our freedom. This government is not behaving as one that has just won an election with a 1.8 million majority, it is acting like one that is nervous,” he said.

“This is just the beginning. We will carry on till the general is freed,” said Somawansha Amarasinghe, the leader of National Liberation Front, a pro- nationalist party that was instrumental in getting Fonseka to contest the election.

The opposition threatens to launch all-out protests if the general does not get a fair trial. “You will see people coming on to the streets spontaneously, this will become a people’s movement,” observed Mangala Samaraweera, a former Rajapaksa Cabinet minister that has since turned foe.

The arrest has galvanised the opposition, which was in disarray soon after the election defeat. It was emboldened even more after a fundamental rights applications filed by the general’s wife, challenging the arrest, was given leave to proceed by the Supreme Court on Feb. 12.

“We have sought the assistance of Buddhist priests to help us,” said Karu Jayasuriya, the deputy leader of United National Party (UNP), one of the main political parties supporting Fonseka.

UNP leader and leader of the opposition Ranil Wickremasinghe met with President Rajapaksa on Feb. 12 to discuss the arrest. The UNP later said that Rajapaksa had informed Wickremasinghe that the government will abide by the Supreme Court’s decision on the fundamental rights application.

The government maintains that Fonseka is not being persecuted for his politics and that the correct procedure was followed in his arrest. Media Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeyawardena said that he was taken into custody under Section 57 of the armed forces act. The minister added that Fonseka was to be charged with attempting to topple the government, abuse of power and corruption when he was still holding office. The charges pre- date Fonseka’s retirement date of Nov.12, 2009.

“I beseech the opposition not to put innocent civilians in front to achieve their political end,” the minister said.

But the protests over Fonseka’s arrest have spread to the provinces as well. Injuries were reported when police tried to break up a protest in the north central town of Anuradhapura, about 200 km from Colombo, on Feb.12.

More protests are likely in the coming days. Shrilal Lakthilaka, a lawyer affiliated to the UNP, has announced that he will start a fast on Feb. 15 in support of Fonseka. “If he does not get justice, I am willing to go a hunger strike,” the lawyer said.

The National Bhikku Front, the powerful body made up of Buddhist priests, has also come out in support of Fonseka. “A decorated war hero has been arrested. This is not democracy, we will fight for his freedom,” NBF head Ven Dambara Amila Thero said.

Sri Lankans witnessed one of the country’s most contentious elections ever when President Mahinda Rajapaksa staved off the challenge posed by his former Army commander, Sarath Fonseka, and clinched more than 1.8 million majority votes during the Jan. 26 poll.

Both presidential contenders gained popularity after the Sri Lankan military successfully wiped out the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) last May, ending a civil war that spanned more than two decades and cost over 70,000 lives.

Rajapaksa’s new term, set to begin this November, will be full of challenges, as the charismatic leader tries to grapple with the economy and fast-track development. He has promised to develop the war-ravaged north and open a dialogue with minority Tamil political parties, promising to seek a political solution to their long-running grievances.

Since his re-election, Rajapaksa has maintained a reconciliatory tone despite the overwhelming majority of the Tamil votes going to his rival Fonseka. “I am the president of those who voted for me and those who did not,” he said at the Election Commissioner’s Department a day after the election, or within minutes of the announcement of the highly anticipated results.

The road head, however, will not be easy. Rajapaksa will have to make some tough decision that will not please his nationalist Sinhala voter base if he is to come up with a viable solution to the Tamil problem, a leading academic told IPS.

“He will have to bring in the Tamil minority into a position of political power. To do that he will have to take decisions that could be interpreted as concessions,” Terrence Purasinghe, a lecturer at the Sri Jayawardenapura University, told IPS.

Purasinghe believes that Rajapaksa has the best chance to pursue such bold moves. “He is in his second term,” he said, adding that the Constitution forbids him from seeking another term. Being “very popular,” he is in the best position to make such decisions and not worry too much about the political fallout.”

Other observers feel that the newly re-elected president’s decisive victory also strengthens his hand even more. “Rajapaksa’s decisive re-election as president of Sri Lanka gives him an opportunity to move the country forward on multiple fronts: political reform, economic renewal, and reengagement with international players,” the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies said in a paper on the Sri Lankan election written by Uttara Dukkipati, research assistant with the Center’s South Asia Program.

Rajapaksa has indicated that he is not shifting attention from the minority issues. “It is necessary that we give equal priority to the tasks of national reconciliation and the building of trust among all sections of our people, as well as to development that will take us to our rightful place in the community of nations,” he said in his message on the commemoration of the country’s 62nd independence on Feb. 4, his first to the nation since his re- election.

Tamil political parties who backed Rajapaksa during the election think he is their best bet. “If he was not elected, all the development plans, some already implemented, would have been disrupted. He understands the issues facing the Tamils and he will deal with them,” said Vinayagamurthi Muralitharan alias Karuna, a former Tiger eastern military commander who broke ranks with the LTTE command in 2004. He is now the Minister of National Integration in the Rajapaksa administration.

Rajapaksa, however, could not gain the support of the largest Tamil party represented in parliament, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). The alliance did hold several discussions with the president before the election and before coming forth with a decision to support Fonseka instead.

“The current government has not shown any interest in solving the issues of the Tamils. The President did not give satisfactory responses (during the discussions),” TNA member of parliament Mavi Senathiraja said. Post-election the TNA indicated that it was willing to reopen talks with the President.

Rajapaksa also said that he was willing to consider giving more political powers to the Tamil minority. “I am certain that the people in the north and east could stand on their own feet through a solution wrought by devolving powers to the villages and empowering them in the entire country,” he said in his speech on Independence Day.

But only time will tell how far he is willing to go in devolving power from the centre.

For the tens of thousands of Tamil minorities who fled the fighting between government troops and the LTTE, the more pressing need is getting back to normal life than being granted more political power.

As the fighting wound down in May 2009, over 280,000 civilians fled areas in northern Sri Lanka known as the Vanni, which were held by the Tigers. Of these, more than 150,000 have returned to their home villages while a little above 105,000 still remain at welfare camps.

For those who have returned to their homes like Angela Croos from the village of Arippu in southern Vanni, the immediate need is development. “What we need is permanent peace. We do have peace in the country, but we are still struggling to get back on our feet once again,” she told IPS.

“We have problems when it comes to basic facilities such as toilets, transport and medicine. The nearest hospital is around six miles away. We have to cross a river. The road is not in good condition. We hope that these problems will be addressed now that the election is over.”

Rajapaksa allayed these concerns when he declared national development and the economy were also high on his agenda.

“Our country, which fell back in progress because of the war, needs to be advanced swiftly. Peace alone is not enough,” Rajapaksa declared in his Independence Day address. “One country, one people, one law. That is our way, the only way.”

Said Croos: “We can only believe and hope that things will be better now; we have been through hell.”

The string of events involving the Sri Lankan press over the past week has once again brought the embattled Fourth Estate into the limelight. This comes into sharp focus as the country eagerly awaits the upcoming presidential elections.

On Jan. 8, the media community held vigils to commemorate the first death anniversary of pioneering editor Lasantha Wickremathunge, killed by still unidentified assassins in 2009.

Four days later, on Tuesday, Dayaselle Liynagee, a senior reporter at the Lankadeepa, one of the country’s widely circulated, privately owned vernacular newspapers, resigned, reportedly under pressure from some political forces over a controversial report she wrote.

Then on Jan. 13, two journalists at ‘The Sunday Leader’ reported getting mailed death threats, after which the weekly newspaper’s premises were searched by police. On this day, too, albeit on a positive note, Jayaprakash Tissainayagam, a Tamil journalist, incarcerated since March 2008, was released on bail. He had been found guilty of endangering national security and sentenced to 20 years in jail in August 2009.

If the Tissainayagam bailout was cause to celebrate, the other incidents were not.

“Justice has been served, after so long,” Sunil Jayasekera of the Free Media Movement, a national media rights body, told IPS. The Tissainayagam case had gained international attention, as he was the first journalist to be tried under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).

The PTA provides wide powers to law enforcements officers to detain and question suspects without charges. It was enacted to curb activities by Tamil separatists, but rights groups have continuously charged that its draconian provisions are prone to abuse.

“It was the first time that the PTA had been used to try someone on what he had expressed,” Jayasekera said. “It was a really dangerous precedent.” Amnesty International (AI), which has been agitating against the conviction, also welcomed the release.

“We are thrilled that Tissa is finally free to rejoin his family, but he should have never been jailed in the first place,” Yolanda Foster, the human rights lobby group’s Sri Lanka researcher, said in a statement. “His sentence was a gross miscarriage of justice and a violation of his human rights.”

AI has urged the Sri Lankan government to squash the conviction all together.

Tissainayagam’s lawyer expressed confidence that a pending appeal against his conviction would be decided in his client’s favour. “He left prison with his moral strengthened. And as we have good grounds for the appeal, I am fairly optimistic,” counsel Mathiyabaranam Sumanthiran told the media rights group ‘Reporters Without Borders’ soon after Tissainayagam’s release.

Investigation into the murder of Wickremathunge, the editor of The ‘Sunday Leader’ who was shot while on his way to work, has not progressed beyond the recovery of his mobile phone and the arrest of the man who had it. It had gone missing after the editor was brought to a hospital with fatal head injuries.

“After a 10-month investigation, the case was transferred to the criminal investigation department, but since then they have not taken any serious statements,” Lal Wickremathunge, the brother of the slain editor who assumed the leadership of the newspaper, said on the murder anniversary.

“They called me once, but not again. The examination of the case before the courts has been postponed 24 times. Each time, the police said they did not have enough evidence. And the only eye witness has been missing for months,” he recounted.

‘The Sunday Leader’, on the other hand, generated controversy following publication last Dec. 13 of an interview with the opposition presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka, alleging that he heard reports of top government officials giving orders to shoot senior members of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam trying to surrender during the last phase of the war.

The Tigers were defeated in May last year. Fonseka, as commander of the Army, was credited with leading it to victory along with the President in his capacity as commander in chief of the armed forces.

The opposition presidential candidate, who had since fallen out with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, denied the newspaper report, which created a political furore in the run-up to what is dubbed the closest presidential contest in Sri Lanka’s history.

Following police search of ‘The Sunday Leader’ premises on Wednesday, police officials said that they had received information that political posters were being printed at the press. None were found during the search. Liyangee’s resignation was widely believed to have been triggered by a story she wrote on the rumoured agreement between Fonseka and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the largest Tamil party in parliament.

The article, which sparked a political fireball, claimed that Fonseka had agreed to several controversial and politically sensitive demands by the TNA. The Fonseka camp promptly denied the story.

Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremasinghe, a key backer of the Fonseka campaign, complained to the Lankadeepa management over the article. After the conduct of an internal inquiry, the reporter tendered her resignation. Now the government is accusing the opposition of high-handed intimidation tactics against the media. The reporter said she also received threats over the phone.

Amid heightened political tensions, on the same day, a local reporter for the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Sinhala service, Sandeshaya, Thakshila Dilrukshi Jayasena suffered head injuries when she was attacked by a mob in the north central town of Polonaruwa, about 215 kilometres from the capital, Colombo, as opposition and government supporters clashed. The incident left five others injured and four vehicles damaged.

As the country gears up for the crucial election on Jan. 26, the media landscape appears to be lurching toward uncertainties.

Media activists and observers had initially felt that the reporting climate in Sri Lanka had improved. Reporters, after all, had begun travelling to some areas that used to be restricted during the war, and filing stories. But recent events have cast a pall of gloom over the fate of the media.

“The reporting climate has improved in the past few months, but there is still a lot of tension,” Lakshman Gunesekera, the president of the Sri Lanka chapter of the South Asia Free Media Association, told IPS.

Tissainayagam, free after almost two years behind bars, declined to comment on anything else but his relief. “I want to thank the media colleagues and others who helped me,” he said as he left the court.

Only time will tell whether the sense of calm that appeared to have descended on the media was a mere façade or the tide has turned for the newshounds after a temporary relief.

Despite the recent accelerated return of tens of thousands of war-displaced civilians to their former villages in northern Sri Lanka and the impending relaxation of further restrictions, aid agencies say far more efforts are needed to help the civilian population regain normalcy lost to decades of conflict.

U.N. humanitarian head John Holmes: "The (resettlement) process is going to be a difficult one." Credit: U.N.

Faced with international criticism over the state of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the island state, the Sri Lankan government has accelerated the resettlement process in the last two months. Since October 108,000 IDPs have returned to their villages in the former conflict area in the country’s north, known as the Vanni, based on government data.

United Nations humanitarian head John Holmes, who visited the IDP centres and at least one resettlement area last week, said the number of IDPs remaining in welfare camps was around 135,000, down from almost 280,000 IDPs in the camps situated in the districts of Vavuniya, Mannar, Jaffna and Trincomalee immediately after the two-and-half-decade-old bloody civil conflict ended in May.

Sources who visited the resettlement areas earlier this month said that the situation of the returnees varied from area to area, depending on the intensity of the fighting. For instance, returnees to the Kilinochchi district in central Vanni were relatively more satisfied about their condition compared to those in the Mannar district to the west, where the returning IDPs complained of lack basic infrastructure, since the area was heavily damaged at the height of war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

“We also witnessed many families reduced to women, very young children and old people,” said a report compiled by a group of local civic workers who visited the areas. “Without any basic facilities (proper shelter, hospitals, transport, schools, drinking water, electricity and access to any form of livelihood activities) and basic right to freedom of movement, one has to wonder what it means to these IDPs to come back home.”

The report, a copy of which was made available to IPS, also said that returning families were coping as best as they could.

“There was one mother who was standing on top of these piled-up tin sheets and trying to tie a knot onto the nearby tree branch with a long piece of cloth to make a cradle for her baby so that she could venture into the jungle to gather some materials for her hut,” recounted the report.

“Women complained that since they don’t have a toilet or private place to bathe, they have to go to the jungle in the night despite the fear of being harmed by snakes and elephants,” said the report of a group of returnees in the Mannar district.

On returning to their villages, the IDPs receive 50,000 rupees (437 U.S. dollars) from the government and U.N. agencies. They also receive dry rations enough to tide them over for the next six months, along with roofing sheets, kitchen utensils and agricultural equipment, according to an official statement released by the government on Nov. 21.

Holmes, who was on his fifth visit to Sri Lanka since 2007, commended the recent accelerated resettlements. Yet he reiterated persisting U.N. concerns on the lack of consultation on the resettlement process as well as the lack of information among the IDPs on when and where the returns would take place. He said the U.N. also expected increased consultation with the relevant government agencies after the return.

“The process is going to be a difficult one,” Holmes said, referring to efforts to restore normalcy in the areas where, just six months back, bullets and shells were daily staples of village life.

In his latest visit to Sri Lanka (Nov. 17 to 19), Holmes said that the U.N. had been calling on the government for speedy resettlement and expressed satisfaction over the current phase of resettlement. “We were frustrated for a long time by the lack of returns,” he said in Colombo at the conclusion of his trip.

Holmes also raised continuing U.N. concerns over the lack of freedom of movement for the over 130,000 IDPs who remain in the welfare camps. He said he had brought up this specific issue in his meeting with top government officials, including President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

“The fundamental point for us is the freedom of movement,” Holmes said. “We don’t have a problem if people still remain in Menik Farm (the largest IDP centre in northern Sri Lanka) after the end of January (2010), if they have freedom of movement, if they have freedom of choice.”

Relief agencies were quick to point out that the return of normalcy in the war-affected zones would be only possible if they had access to the sites. “Humanitarian agencies must now be allowed to give them [the civilians] the help they need in all the places that they return to,” British International Development Minister Mike Foster said.

U.N. country head in Sri Lanka Neil Buhne told IPS that U.N. agencies had satisfactory access to the areas of return, but many other international non- government organisations had yet to gain entry. “There are major challenges in the areas of resettlement,” he said. Highest on the list was ridding the Vanni of 1.4 million landmines and unexploded ordnance that litter the region. “It is a big issue,” Buhne said.

Amnesty International (AI) also welcomed the civilians’ return but said access to relief agencies was now more pivotal than ever.

AI deputy director for Asia-Pacific programme Madhu Malhotra said humanitarian and human rights organisations needed “unimpeded access” to the displaced people being resettled to ensure their safety and well-being, that their needs were being met and that they were “protected against further human rights violations.”

Two days after the Holmes visit, the Sri Lankan government announced on Nov. 21 that from Dec. 1, it would relax restrictions on movement placed on the IDPs remaining in camps. The government said the IDPs would be free to move in the region.

The decision to allow more freedom drew immediate praise from the international community. “These are steps which the United Nations has long been pressing for in its intensive engagement with the authorities in Sri Lanka,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said.

“Granting genuine freedom to decide their own future will be a major relief for those still trapped in the camps. The UK has repeatedly called for civilians to be freed and allowed the choice to return home,” Foster said.

To many IDPs, however, who have borne the brunt of the fighting, only time will tell how soon they can regain a normal life.

The two double-decker buses were a rarity on the Avissawella-Colombo road. One usually does not see slow-moving old English buses on the highway about 50 kilometres out of the capital Colombo.

If the buses were a rarity, their bubbly travellers – children and youth ages two to 20 – waving and straining their necks out of the top decks were even more rare. Not anymore. These children of war had witnessed the most horrible effects of a seemingly endless strife. Late last month, they finally had the chance to celebrate the World Children’s Day – and savour peace. It was an elusive dream come true.

“It is like coming out of a nightmare and walking into a dream,” 15-year-old Predeepa Kulasekeram said.

Less than five months back, riding huge buses, flying balloons in the air and waiving at passersby were stuff only in their imaginations. Back then they were more intent in staying alive while running away from bullets, shells and artillery fire.

Living in the Vanni, the large swath of land in northern Sri Lanka that was once under the control of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the children and youth in the double deckers now snaking leisurely through the highway were among the over quarter of a million civilians who fled the fighting.

As the conflict intensified in mid-2008, more than 280,000 civilians, mostly from the minority Tamil community, fled the conflict, first deeper into Tiger-held areas after being prevented by the militants from crossing into areas held by government forces.

As the fighting reached its feverish pitch in the final hours, cornered into a narrow coastal area, the civilians, risking injury and death, crossed the frontlines into government-held areas. At least 260,000 of them now remain at sprawling welfare camps for the internally displaced.

The story of the young bus riders was far worse than that of the ordinary civilians who had fled. Enduring life in a bloody war that offered no escape, they suffered extreme loneliness and separation in the war zone. Every one of them who finally had the chance to ride those buses was an orphan from the Vanni.

Some had lost both parents in the war, others had been abandoned by parents who found it difficult to bring them up and care for them in the war zone. They lived in orphanages functioning in the areas formerly held by the Tigers.

During the last weeks of the war, between late April and early May, they were forced to flee yet again, this time into the safety of government lines. The long-drawn-out battle between Sri Lankan government troops and the LTTE finally ended on May 19, when the former killed the Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. By then it had claimed over 70,000 lives, and left tens of thousands homeless.

The children of war are now under the care of the Varaliyakulam Siriliya Foster Home in the northern town of Vavuniya, located right next to the former combat areas. In the last week of September, they visited Colombo for the first time and were taken to an amusement park, the zoo and on a sightseeing tour of the city and its suburbs.

Coming from the ravages of the decades-long war, it was their first taste of the capital and of any type of excursion. The tour had been organised by the office of the First Lady Shiranthi Rajapakasa to coincide with the international day for children.

As the buses closed in on Leisure World, an amusement park at Avissawella, the lower decks of the two buses were almost empty. All the curious young visitors were on the top decks, looking out on all the passersby while waving their hands at them, their eyes open wide, savouring every moment of their first taste of freedom.

“We never knew anything else about Sri Lanka. We lived in the Vanni, in orphanages. No one told us anything about the country; we did not have TV, no radio, not even a newspaper,” 18-year-old Supriya Thirunawel told IPS. She had lived the last 12 years of her life as an orphan in a combat zone.

The buses rolled to a slow stop and the visitors, each with a name tag on them, disembarked and got into pairs and lined up. They moved first nervously through the various attractions and were first a bit reluctant to get into the rides.

When ride operators requested them to put on the seatbelts before the merry-go-round could start, most did not know what the contraption was or what to do with it. When the carousel began moving slowly, the children, eyes nervously flitting and wide open, broke into a smile. But as they gained speed, there was a palpable fear on their faces while some of the younger children screamed as they held onto their older peers.

“When it was gaining speed, it was scary, but I got used to it. It is fun,” a beaming Kulasekeram said. She then made a dash for the electric train, a major hit with the excited bunch of youngsters.

As the day wore on at Leisure World, usually full of families from Colombo and the suburbs, the park echoed with shouts and gleeful screams. The same scenes had played out the day before, when the group visited the famous zoo just outside Colombo.

As they walked through a large aquarium with its darkened corridors winding through the brightly lit fish tanks, some of the orphans could not believe that the aquatic species were real and not plastic imitations. They had been removed from the real world for so long that everything else seemed unreal to them.

“It was a totally different world out there. In the Vanni, we were living in a world where there was no escape; we were totally helpless,” Thirunawel, one of the oldest in the group, said.

“Other kids at least had parents to protect them and families that they could feel safe with. We had no one like that,” she said. The mental strain of her past proved more unbearable for her than for the younger ones, though they shared her experiences of the war. Yet, the 18-year-old’s younger companions became just as fearful as the war drew closer, forcing them to leave their foster home and flee like thousands of others.

Five months after they fled, their lives have changed more dramatically than any one of them could have ever imagined. They now have the facilities to study and dream of becoming doctors and lawyers. “I want to be a doctor,” said Kulamsekeram.

“We go to school just like any other kid. There is no fear of bombs or anything like that,” said nine-year-old Nilawendaran Dilani.

Perhaps no one symbolised the newfound hope of these children more than two-year-old Sandya. She was born on Sep. 27, 2007, surrounded by bombs, mayhem and the stench of war. Left orphaned, the better part of her first two years was spent on surviving. At Leisure World, she celebrated her second birthday, this time surrounded by smiling and jubilant companions.

The ride to peace may have been long and turbulent for Sandya and all the other children of war, but now they can hop on double deckers — and dream without fear.