Apparently, Nason, the cook who worked for my landlady and ran away around the time of Hindu New Year, was involved in the Colombo suicide attack. While we idly chatted about Sri Lankan cuisine, whether you add turmeric or ground ‘katagum’ to lady finger curry, three or four women took up residence in Nason’s apartment in Pettah district, Colombo 01. While Nason claims he is from Kandy – near Hunas Falls – he has an Indian Tamil accent, according to the landlady.
The LTTE is well equipped, with imported, contraband weapons and military-related technologies. Skilled technicians can operate satellite-controlled weapons; they have warplanes and ships. They have the military might, jaded youth to comprise their army, funds extorted from the global Tamil diaspora, the immense corruption within Sri Lankan government to work to their advantage, and a thirst for bloodshed, but no state. Meanwhile the flaccid, malevolent, racist government that is recognised and supported by the international community, is losing ground in terms of its military capacity and definitions for a peaceful future. So the back alleyways and shady wheeling and dealings rule this country; be prepared to bribe your way through it. With economic development and job growth only concentrated in Colombo, disenfranchisement, abject poverty, hopelessness looms in the rest of the country. It’s an easy entry point for the LTTE to ‘swoop in’ to offer jobs, cold hard cash, and a glimpse of infamy to many people living in poverty, primarily to Tamils like Nason.
I do not know the whole story of Nason’s involvement, only that the military police frequently stop by the residence to question my landlady, as his former employer. It is believed that he harboured in his apartment three or four women, possibly former garment workers, who knew the pregnant suicide bomber. It is possible that these women helped to get her fake identity cards, or they could have monitored the Army Headquarters and Hospital to check when the head of the Army arrived to the compound after lunch. Nason evidently knew everything about attack, and has since vanished, along with the three or four women accomplices. His daughter, Wani, who I met on her birthday, still calls the landlady to find out where he is. If he is discovered in Sri Lanka he will likely be detained, questioned with torture, imprisoned and executed in the most inhumane, incomprehensible way – many of the ‘disappeared’ Tamils who ended up in government hands during the last 20 years were cut into pieces and their mark on history was erased from within their unmarked, mass graves.
The blast that occurred on 27 April, injured an high-ranking army general, and killed several people including his driver and bodyguard. A young woman, plotted with the LTTE to become pregnant in order to qualify for maternity services at the Army hospital. Her fake papers stated that her husband was a Singhalese officer. This meticulous plan was carried out over six or seven months, all throughout the peace talks, lowlighting that the LTTE was never really serious about securing, long-term, sustainable peace. And I’m just in awe to know what went through this young woman’s head, how was she convinced to become a part of this scheme? Am I too bold to believe that this is a blatant attempt by masculinised military institutions to play on women’s perceived roles as mother/nurturer/docile/obedient/subordinate in order to achieve archaic, dehumanizing, violent ends? These perceived gender roles are more pronounced here, so it is not surprising that this pregnant LTTE cadre was never searched or questioned when she entered the compound. Or is it a way for the LTTE to show that it is willing to sacrifice its people (and instead offer a childless future) until it gets what it wants – in a rather disgusting tantrum?
The folks in Colombo – particularly the foreigners - are still shaken by the immense violence that shrouds this talented, beautiful, glorious ‘pearl of the Indian Ocean’. And most people I talk to cannot wrap their heads around these events. But I wonder if by the LTTE using a young woman and unborn child to scaremonger the comparably rich denizens of Colombo into reacting, into giving land rights, recognition of state, sovereignty…if they do not just undermine their cause? If they do not just fit more easily into the rest of the world’s misguided, simplistic, dichotomous conceptions about terrorism, i.e. Hollywood ‘good’ vs. ‘evil.’ With no value for human life, how can this circle of so-called leftist intellectuals and foreign-educated elites pretend that they are fighting for the ‘dignity’ of Tamils in Sri Lanka? What about the Tamil tea pickers, completely fucked over by North and East Tamil communities, by Singhalese compatriots, and by foreign plantation owners, investors and probably the slough of foreign development workers? What about the Veddah indigenous peoples also absent in the discussions on how the former colony of Ceylon should operate, implement human rights, and grant access to basic services and profound freedoms? Hence the pernicious fight between zealous Buddhist nationalists and a corrupt circle of criminals claiming to represent the views of the marginalised Tamil communities, sees no end. One colleague described this war in everything but name, as the only way for the LTTE to assert its existence, because it could not face the arduous task of forming a separate state and all that entails.
We are all complicit in this Sri Lankan ‘uncivil’ war, (in all wars against humanity) moreso when we do nothing to speak out for peace, worldwide and at home. I am inconsolable about my complicity knowing that my connection to all of it is right under my nose and I can do little to prevent it from happening. Moreover, you really cannot trust anyone.
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