Expats - Part I

It’s rather ironic to talk to some of the expat colleagues, on the very anniversary of the earthquake, about what they see as injustices. We had a small gathering amongst the coordinators of all the projects, Haitians and expats alike, around our pristine, reverable palace, by the pool, gorging on grilled pork, stuffed aubergines, bacon-pecan-crusted potato salad, crevettes, saucisson, olives, too much wine, rum and béer, and a beetroot chocolaté gâteau. Not only did most expats not attempt to incorporate our Haitian friends in the discussions or joviality, but later they accused us of not knowing the local situation and how it is to live in want.

The expats’ -- maybe just to chalk it up to a select group of québécois expats, most of whom are on their first mission or work expérience abroad -- idea of want is to live sans internet and all the amenities they consider « normal » for a few days, as they have to make the transition to another résidence. The move has been one of many difficult negotiations : for the proprietor to finish all the réhabilitation work, thereby probably exploiting a labour force during the holiday season, in order to have hot showers, functioning electricity, gorgeously-made furniture procured, kitchen in function. The proprietor, of course, has many justifiable reasons for delays, in terms of obtaining permits and other bureaucratic necessities to do the work, as well as many excuses, invoking concerns of security from récent violent political manifestations (even tho there were none for the last month). Point is, there are reasons for delays, and why things don’t go so smoothly in Port-au-Prince.

But I find it hard to digest, at this dinner, when talking amonst our Haitian staff who participated in our fete, to find out that they do not have TV, radio, internet, running water, many friends nearby or with free time, access to alcohol to wash away their already congested malaise with the situation in Haiti . This is normal hère. So to impose any other perspective is completely luxurious and irrelevant. Instead, when telling aforementioned expat malakas, that they will be without internet or a few amenities for 1 or 2 days, I enter angry conflicts claiming how unfair it is, how they could possibly live like « nuns » ?

How they could possibly reflect on such a day of immense dévastation and incompréhensible human suffering, that their wants outweigh the dignity and essential needs of every fucking person around them. When just 50 feet away are tent cities, where people are forced to eek by, contining to do so one year after the earthquake. This disconnect and « otherness » is too sickening to describe. So don’t blame me if I don’t regularly partake in their célébrations and social activities, in a country that I can’t help think deserves sober commitment, gratitude, and opportunities upon which to learn more from folks who have come to know profoundly about life, death and aspiration, plus des autres places I’ve been fortunate enough to go.

Henceforth, I feel quite lost and disillusioned in terms of the fuckwits that we keep recruiting ; is it part of some sick québécois nationalist joke ? Why send people with no previous project management expérience to do the jobs of Haitians ? Why assert such rhetoric that we are in collaboration and capacity-building partnerships with our Cite Soleil comrades (true, we do have more established liasions and histories within our projects than some of the other foreign NGOs) when we turn around to burn our beneficiaries, through lack of communication, lack of trust, lack of consulation, lack of empathy.

Or am I just imagining such ego-centricism ? Even if my French is not perfect, I know an asshole when I see one.

So yeah, I am blown away that even though I had another violent argument with a lush, even in front of my Director General, that the favor goes to the megalomaniac, whinging blan -- that their needs are ultimately superior than every bloody person I see and meet during my day. These kinds of disparities, discrimination, ségrégation, subjugation, patriarchical attitudes, etc etc etc, that one sees in Haiti are at the very frontlines -- made more visible hère -- of the kinds we witness and absorb in our every day lives in other parts, perhaps more privileged regions of the Western Hemisphere.

I cannot write enough, or sufficiently express the rage I have, within this context…but hopefully this bequeaths some sort of knowledge that can transcend my anger into discussion, dissémination and action!

Premiers jours

Our business is treating the poorest of the sick. So when it rains, we have a lot of business. That’s because a huge portion of the sicknesses, like acute respiratory infection, diarrhea and fever of unknown origin, are coming from lots of damp, lots of standing water (which breeds mosquitoes), and inadequate living conditions overall. When you look at this pathology, you wonder what prevents folks here in Haiti from having solid shelters and functioning water/drainage systems. Even before the earthquake. But it’s quite clear, in-your-face, that the earthquake exacerbated, exponentially, the realities of poverty, bringing with it crises-level health cases.

Initial impressions of Port-au-Prince are confusing, especially when I am trying to formulate them in my foggy, coerced French. There are many similarities to Sri Lanka, the streams of people in every direction, small-scale vendors crowding the sidelines to earn a meager living, the random gestures, daily actions, and deeply scarred looks in people’s eyes that suggest that every breath and movement is for sheer survival. The earthquake certainly thrust together everyone but the uber-mega-nauseatingly rich. Yet you can still see class distinctions within the refugee population. Perhaps by those folks better dressed, or being able to send their children to school instead of fetching water, or seeing some women care for their hair and makeup, or braiding their girls’ hair with intricate patterns of bows and plastic clips, or men wearing freshly pressed suits when going to church. But why bother grooming at all?

To hold onto their dignity.

Which is continually eroding even after the earthquake. Not that over 200 years of occupation, internal conflict, really shitty governments (consorting with our own shitty governments) and absolute destitution hadn’t already kept the country and its people from catching a break. But somehow, after everything impoverished Haitians have been through, and knowing the unimaginably vast destruction of the earthquake, it is the continuation of the horror stories, maybe that are not visible in the media, that make this place even more difficult to work in and understand. It is these horror stories that really urge me to seek out or latch onto any behvioural nuance that suggests people are trying to make it better for themselves, and say ‘fuck off’ to the various international actors and corrupt government leeches, which take advantage of the plight of poverty to attain power and political ends.

So when I hear other NGO actors complain that Haitian authorities or health agents or other focal points are “difficult” to work with, I wonder if it isn’t really instead the presence of a boatload of foreign workers? The neo-colonial aspects of this kind of NGO work, indeed, has followed me, even been amplified. First, I must live in an immaculate villa with pristine pool overlooking the destitution below. I can’t complain, of course it’s comfortable, but I wonder how this separation and detachment is doing any good at understanding the needs just outside our compound. Our team consists of amazing people, all with good intentions, but for some this is their first experience working abroad and maybe they are already caught up in the privileged lifestyles, the ability to vacation, have bbqs, acquire cirrhosis of the liver, with beaucoup de disposable money. Of course, for security reasons (rampant attacks, thefts, rapes, kidnappings of Haitians and NGO workers) we abide by curfew laws and lock ourselves away after working hours. We must leave Cite Soleil by 330pm to avoid interceptions with gangs. But this quarantined lifestyle puts us in a position to look the other way, ignore extreme desperate requests for help (such as by panhandling children) and maybe not take back what we do in the field into our own personal lives.

With this, I have a problem. I am fresh-faced, eager and ready to attend to whatever is needed. And I know my limitations and privilege, as someone coming from the Miami area – a place already with some disconnect, or blind-sightedness to the plights and turmoil of Haiti. I know I cannot understand fully the degradation and continual hopelessness, nor the conditions of extreme poverty. I can only listen and hope to integrate some demands into our work, as a medical NGO worker, striving to provide primary healthcare services, with focuses on maternal/child health, HIV treatment and malnutrition, in an already overlooked part of Port-au-Prince --- the slums of Cite Soleil. Yet I still yearn for that connection outside my imposed palace walls. Maybe it is easier to be a “blan” man, with more mobility to ask these questions and manoevre through the city, maybe without as much confrontation by Haitian men?

Some initial observations include the immense strength and ability to survive by folks in Port-au-Prince. On my first day, I saw a girl barely over 12 carrying a huge oil barrel on her head. Even if it was empty, I have no idea how she could carry it. And the young boy, during school hours, fetching water from the public water pump. And the women cautiously entering the public showers, which are situated in the middle of a round-about intersection, immediately in front of a massive tent city existing in a public square, of sorts. These folks could be anyone that we know, if we were hit by an enormous quake, with 95% of the buildings crumbling and land-sliding down on top of each other. What would we do? Would we be able to survive in the amazingly strong way that Port-au-Prince folks have? Would we be able to have the same smiles, dancing and gyrating lasciviously to techno-ized Creole music at the public beaches, create magnificent art to sell in between all the small vendors, donkeys and chaos? Would we have the capacity to look after our neighbour and see them as comrades in this struggle?

So, indeed, these first days, there is a lot to adjust to, on top of struggling to work completely in French, but the most difficult thing is integrating again into the expat lifestyle with all its contradictions, privileges, and disconnect. But also I am persevering, knowing that we are providing essential medical services and that we have good relations with the folks we are serving.

Will keep sending my thoughts, as things evolve…

comme ca...in the Western Sahara

Hola companeros -

Greetings from the Sahara!

To give you an update about the recent transitions in my life:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=175241&l=23089&id=690080320

…After nearly 3 years of what felt like being embedded in hypocrisy, due to the disconnect from and esoteric representation of people living in poverty - facing hardships quite different than what is faced in the west where I was bred - I left one plush ivory tower in Colombo to pursue a more challenging mission.

This mission takes place among a people who have been surviving a ‘forgotten’ crisis, for 33 years, with the Western Saharan people, the Saharawis, also considered as part of the bedoin collectivity of Northern Africa. The first discussion I properly had - with Ali, director of the central pharmacy in Dakla - advised me not to write, document or project the experiences of the Saharawis, because as forever external, I can never know the torment of being illegally occupied by Morocco, perpetual fighting with arms and diplomacy, and forced into exile into one of the most desolate, barren, inhospitable places on our planet. But rather I should film, photograph, or try to reach people who have not heard about this immense struggle - for liberation, recognition by the international community and enjoyment of autonomy - through my emotions. Thus, as I write to you about my first experiences, I shall largely omit some of the political, social and historical details, quantification, bloody human development indices, and other norms that enraptured social scientists use – instead I refer you to Toby Shelley’s overview, Endgame in the Western Sahara.

This omission is my limitation to expanding maybe your own interest in this cause, but I have had to forget everything that I have read, heard about or learned through the Western Sahara liberation campaigns – because this reality is often so inexplicable, contradictory and challenging to the previous representations of the Saharawis.

I am supposing what would help get you up to speed are the following:

- illegal occupation by Morocco in Western Sahara Occidental since colonial Spain pulled out in 1975, leading to broken promises for resolving the plight and self-determination of the Saharawis, and to Mauritania and Morocco battling for the territory; later Mauritania withdrew from claims for the mineral, fish and natural resource-rich territory
- subsequent violent exile of the Saharawis to near Tindouf, Southwestern Algeria, as well as unknown numbers of Saharawis still residing in the W.S. territory occupied by Morocco
- numbers are political, which comes out later in the difficulties in knowing how to provide medicines to everyone (UN estimates are around 125.000 persons, but looking across each wilaya, or township, they could easily be over 200.000 persons in SW Algeria alone).
- there exists a sliver of ‘free zone’ between occupied Western Sahara and Algeria, lined by minefields on Morocco side
- still political tensions between Morocco and Algeria on this issue (not helping their war in 1980s and 1990s)
- Polisario are the political party in government ‘representing’ the Saharawis
- failed referendum (Baker Plan) by UN in 2003, so stagnation since then
- deadlock and stagnation over their self-determination by the international community – so put pressure on your government representative to push for a referendum!
- there is already loads of information, speculation, propaganda etc on the web and in media, so you can supplement my writing
- I am here because it is a humanitarian crisis – on many levels – and because I am capable, passionate, curious and hopefully convincing you to keep this cause in mind.

…I guess I don’t know where to begin on why I have been absent and impossible to reach – but let’s face it, I’m in the middle of the desert. The best advice on what I was told to prepare is to bring a sense of humour and that there are a lot of liquor shops in Algiers – whenever I pass through there…But with this medical NGO mission I have not had time to breathe. I am coordinating a mission to provide 80% of the pharmaceutical provisions to the long-term refugee population, as well as help construct a standardized health system and manage medical waste in all the health facilities for this nation – mostly in the 4 main camps (Dakla – the farthest, Smara, El Ayoun and Aousserd, named after the cities left behind in the occupied territories). So in some ways, I have been dropped in the desert, with limited support and financial security from headquarters in Athens, expected to swim and find my way through this quicksand.

Luckily, I have an amazing, close-knit team of 3 Algerian guys and an Italian chiquita – oddly no Greeks - who have made me feel immediately welcomed and shown me the ropes, especially with the language barriers. I am improving my French and Spanish, comprehending more than I can speak, and trying to pick up some Hassini Arabic.

Hamdu ‘lillah!

I live in the NGO Protocol, in Rabouni with about 25 permanent expats, and mucho ‘solidarity tourists’ who come for a few days or a week here and there, as part of official delegations, medical commissions or presumptuous researchers. We each have our objectives, which makes for a coordination debacle, and raises questions of impact and dependency creation - for everything - on the NGO industry…

It is like living in a rudimentary hostel, with a lot of cockroaches, flies and begging semi-domesticated cats, squalid squat latrines, cold bucket bathing (we have some underground water sources), creative uses for water conservation and recycling (we are even trying to sprout onions in our kitchen courtyard), disconnect from the world due to dodgy internet and mobile connections, and testing of one’s tolerance to megalomaniac, Spanish dominance in the field, and cartoonish neighbours. My narrow room that I share with our medical coordinator has very thin walls, which does little to muffle our large Italian elephant neighbour who consumes 30 eggs a day and snores/shags his girlfriend loudly. But there are some of the most beautiful, expansive starlit skies here – extremely dry, sometimes with scorching dry heat days, and chilly, windy evenings. Right now I am freezing in my poorly insulated room, waiting for massive sandstorm to pass…

Comme ca…

I try to keep tranquil and balanced with attempts at sunrise yoga and meditation and long sunset runs through the desert. It is amazing running through the Sahara, like flying, as the terrain is sometimes bouncy, sometimes rocky – like running on the moon! It can be quite shocking though as the first time I tried to find a good path I ended up running through what I learned was a camel abattoir – still fresh corpses rotting away. This makes it sometimes dangerous as there are also packs of famished, wild dogs that could easily hunt me down. The other sad thing is that I must pass by the camel ‘waiting room’, so the few camels I see each week, slowly wait their death and dwindle in numbers – thus I have fewer curious gazers as I run by.

Food is basic, unmentionable – a lot of lentils, pasta, potatoes with onions, and Friday lunch of couscous and camel – I have largely abandoned vegetarianism, especially if I am offered food from a family in their haima (tents attached to their adobe domiciles). I really do not feel comfortable discussing in detail about the private homelife among these families, except that they are some of the most hospitable, warmest, affectionate people I have met. In general though, I learned that Saharawis are largely matriarchal, with women largely participating in high professional jobs as well as in municipal governments and having considerable influence in the private sphere in some ways. I learned that when women marry, the husband comes to live in the wife’s family compound – and the land, assets, wealth are passed down to the brother-in-law to be kept for their daughters. Sons go to their wives’ families and there are some practices of bigamy, not to mention extramarital affairs. Perhaps this can be seen as attaining more wealth, status, etc through reliance on women as an economic medium.

I cannot write too much, in my naivete, about the complications within the gendered social structure – only that there are clear existing gendered inequalities and inequities: even though women do largely participate in public offices and decision-making bodies, often holding highly skilled jobs, they still carry double burdens of carrying the household responsibilities – preparing enormous servings of too-sweet tea, procreating in a context without contraception and family planning (government policy), and basically married in order to gratify the needs of the husband and parents.

Of course, economically, socially, politically, things have been changing dramatically this last decade and half, since permanent NGO interventions, increased migration (securing remittances from abroad) and the very odd Spanish vacation time given for every child each year…People are fairly progressive and liberal, and largely influenced by communist and socialist ideas; Che, Fidel and their own Polisario martyrs adorn the walls of schools, public institutions. Interestingly, as part of international aid schemes, the younger generation mostly have gone abroad to study, mostly in Cuba (termed ‘cubarawis’) and Spain, so there are a lot of doctors, pharmacists, psychiatrists, IT specialists, lawyers, judges, politicians, teachers (one of our drivers is a Spanish teacher who studied 14 years in Cuba – hopefully inclined enough to help me with courses) etc – but they often cannot find jobs in the countries of study, so must return to the camps for a life of interminable waiting. They are savvier about NGO work and our donor relations than perhaps we are. Hence, there is pervasive frustration and even a feeling of ‘what-to-do?’ among folks, which comes up later in terms of how we can carry out our work.

I guess this is a lot to digest for now…I hope to find more time to put thoughts down regarding the actual complications with implementing our project; badly constructed NGO approaches; the role of branding and consumerism as a manifestation of status among Saharawis (they mostly drive Mercedes, wear designer sunglasses…); projections of what folks like you can do – despite, I know, the current overbearing problems we all face; underlying and persistent new form of colonialism by Spain (e.g. sex tourism); lackadaisical UN structure here; etc.

For now just know that I am safe, energetic, dedicated, reawakened. I’ll try to keep things shorter in the next rambling I pass along…hopefully, these photos can also give you some food for thought!

Welcome to this (often forgotten) world –

Big hugs, enduring love and beauty in your lives,

Paz, paix, salaam!

3,500 Tamils arbitrarily detained in Colombo

On Sunday, check points and security measures were amped up to the point that all buses, pedestrians and other vehicles were stopped and searched. In the process the army and police detained about 3,500 Tamils (some of whom were also Singhalese or Muslims) including children as young as 7 years old. This is all under the pretense that all Tamils are terrorists. In cramped, squalid detention centres, sometimes with a 100 people to a room or 100 people to one toilet, people wait out their detention and hoping for release. Opposition leaders and representatives from Tamil parties have been outcrying to the president for the release of the civilians. After two days nothing has been done. No rule of law, no justice, only misery and fear.

Seeking solidarity from you....

War for Peace is like Shagging for Virginity

A war strange as fiction

Jun 7th 2007 | BATTICALOA, COLOMBO AND JAFFNA
From The Economist print edition

An opportunistic president and a dyed-in-the-wool rebel appear to have ended Sri Lanka's best-ever hope for peace


SITTING in a refugee camp outside Batticaloa, in eastern Sri Lanka, Radikhela, a skinny 21-year-old in a pink pinafore, softly describes how her father died. He had his hands cut off, his belly sliced open, and then was beaten in the dust until he expired. His crime was to have been forced into skivvying for Sri Lanka's rebels, a ruthless guerrilla army and suicide cult known as the Tamil Tigers. His killers were from another Tamil militant group, in the pay of Sri Lanka's democratically elected government. Radikhela knows this: her 13-year-old brother was forced to watch the murder, then join the murderers.

More typically, however, the refugees—of whom there are over 100,000 near Batticaloa—describe a less savage sort of warfare. They heard artillery shells exploding near their villages, and they ran. Sometimes the army, which, like the government, is almost entirely composed of Buddhist Sinhalese, a bullying majority, told them the bombardment was coming. At any rate, in nine months of almost constant artillery barrage, mostly by the army, which has depopulated much of Sri Lanka's formerly Tiger-held east, the shelling has killed only around 100 civilians.

As the refugees speak, crowding together on the blistering sand or under wilting plastic sheeting, a periodic ground-muffled boom resounds. From the roads and villages that it controls, every few minutes, the government is shelling the green jungle beyond.

The Conradian imagery is appropriate. There is something strange about Sri Lanka's 24-year ethnic war, a mismatch of high and low intensity, of first world and third, that almost savours of fiction. Horrors like that visited upon Radikhela and her family should not be happening in Sri Lanka. With an income per head of $1,350, almost twice India's, it is a bright star of South Asian development. Its economy grew by an average of 5% during the 1990s, even as the war raged. It grew by around 7% last year, when the war was re-ignited after an unprecedented three-year pause. And this growth also came despite the devastating tsunami of December 2004, in which 35,000 Sri Lankans died.

What is more, Sri Lanka is an unusually delightful war-torn country. Half a million tourists last year are a sign of that. It has well-watered hills, rolling green tea estates and miles of palm-fringed white sands. Sri Lanka's almost wholly literate inhabitants, 75% of them Sinhalese and 12% Sri Lankan Tamils, share an understandable pride in their island. Away from the war zone—despite a history of pogroms and other discrimination against the minority group—they seem to rub along reasonably well.

In fact, almost half of Colombo, the island's seaside capital of a million people, is Tamil or Tamil-speaking Muslim. More Tamils live peaceably in government-controlled areas than in the north-eastern enclave held by the rebels, whose full name is the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In the way of ambitious minorities, these Tamils thrive in business, as do Sri Lanka's Muslims.


Meanwhile an ugly war that has claimed over 70,000 lives flickers and, as currently, flares. Last year, according to official figures, more people died violently in Sri Lanka than in Afghanistan. In the past 18 months over 5,000 have been killed, compared with fewer than 200 in the previous three years. Sri Lankan pundits are calling this violence “Eelam War IV”: the fourth round in the struggle for an Eelam, or independent Tamil homeland. A ceasefire, brokered by Norway in 2002, is officially still in place. Yet government and Tigers are both preparing for bigger battles. A peaceful resolution to Sri Lanka's conflict may never have looked less possible.

As the shells rained around Batticaloa on June 2nd, the Tigers launched a fierce night attack along the front line near Omanthai, south of their northern fief. The Tigers say they killed 30 soldiers. The army says it killed 52 Tigers, including many of the child fighters that their leader, a tyrannical hermit called Velupillai Prabhakaran, prefers. Both sides are prone to lie. But on June 5th the Tigers handed over 13 army corpses to the Red Cross.

Strategies of terror

Yet many, perhaps most, of the war's victims did not fall in pitched battle. Guerrilla and terrorist attacks by the Tigers have cost hundreds of soldier and civilian lives. On May 28th seven soldiers and civilians were killed, and dozens wounded, by a Tiger roadside bomb in Colombo. On May 24th the Tigers claimed to have killed 32 sailors in an attack by their naval wing, the Sea Tigers, on an island off the isolated government-held Jaffna peninsula.

The government of President Maninda Rajapakse also uses terrorism. More than 300 Tamil civilians, including many with family links to the Tigers, have been murdered in Jaffna alone. Armed members of a Tamil political party, the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP), allegedly with close ties to army spies, have been accused of some of these killings.

In Jaffna, M.V. Kanamylnathan, editor of the leading Uthayan newspaper, has decorated his office walls with photographs of the bloodied corpses of his journalists. Last year, on Press Freedom Day as it happened, two of his staff were shot dead at their computers by masked men.

After the Tiger attack near Omanthai, on June 5th, the army chief, Lieut-General Sarath Fonseka, said it was time for a new ceasefire. If he meant it, this would be a big strategic shift by the government. Earlier this year, after a visit to Sri Lanka's holiest Buddhist site, Sri Dalada Maligawa, General Fonseka promised to “annihilate” the Tigers.

Alas, there are reasons to doubt the general's change of heart. His comment this week looked suspiciously well-timed to coincide with a visit from Yasushi Akashi, a so-called “peace envoy” from Japan, Sri Lanka's biggest aid donor. Moreover, when the government has experienced setbacks, it tends to tone down its pugnacity. It did so after a disastrous attack launched from Jaffna last October, in which independent reports suggest that around 200 soldiers were killed and six tanks (nearly half of the army's total) were captured, with not a yard gained.

In an interview last week, General Fonseka seemed uncertain what strategy the government was pursuing. Asked if he would continue attacking the Tigers in the north, he said: “We don't have anything on the drawing-board...there will be a political solution, there will be peace talks.” Yet at the same time, “A political solution can never come while the LTTE is strong.”

In the east the army now holds more ground than it has for a decade. With 25,000 soldiers around Batticaloa, it is trying to drive an estimated 500 Tigers from their last two eastern hideouts, in thick jungle to the north-west and south-west of the town. General Fonseka says this will be done within two weeks. Yet whether the army can retain its ground as the refugees return, with Tigers hiding among them, is uncertain. Either way, it would be wrong to call this campaign a military triumph. It owes more to the defection in 2004 of the Tigers' eastern commander, Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan, who is known as Colonel Karuna.

Compliant in the way of other militias, Colonel Karuna demobilised 5,000-6,000 Tiger fighters ahead of the army's advance. He has since recruited a fresh militia, including, says the UN, over 200 children. This mob, which itself split last month, is being used by the government in time-honoured fashion: for intelligence, to rile the Tigers and to murder its opponents. The government, of course, denies this.

The north is a different case. As Colonel Karuna's defection suggests, the Tigers' grip on the east was always loose. The eastern population includes many Muslims and Sinhalese, and eastern Tamils consider themselves different from—and speak a different dialect to—the Jaffna Tamils who dominate the Tigers. In the north, however, Mr Prabhakaran runs a de facto state, with its own police force, justice system and tax regime. Penetrating the minefields and fortified trenches that encircle it, as the army has several times tried, would be bloody and perhaps impossible. Indeed, the Tigers' attack near Omanthai was retaliation for the army's latest half-dozen failed attempts. The government denies it; but a joint Norwegian-Icelandic monitoring mission says that around 200 soldiers were involved in each of these attacks, which were also near Omanthai. Up to a third of them were killed.

Ships and boats and planes

This is another oddity of Sri Lanka's war: the many-times proven ability of 10,000 self-trained guerrillas to defeat the government's 250,000 armed forces in conventional battles. A shimmering example of this is the Tigers' latest weapons system: a fleet of ten light aircraft, imported in pieces during the ceasefire and unveiled in two recent bombing raids on Colombo. One night in April, as the capital's air defences blazed wildly into the night sky, the flying Tigers dropped bombs on a gas installation and an air force base. The Czech-made planes are believed to have a top speed of 260kph. To shoot them down, the government is negotiating to buy five Russian MIG-29s, capable of a speed of 2,400kph. A top official suggested it would do better to buy a couple of second-world-war British Spitfires.

A main reason for the Tigers' success is their support base: a loyal and prosperous Tamil diaspora in America, Canada, Britain and Australia. Around 700,000 refugees from the current conflict are among them. The Tigers tax these exiles. Involvement in criminal schemes, notably credit-card fraud, also provides cash to buy arms. To bring in the guns, bought from South-East Asian arms dealers, the group has a merchant fleet of ten ocean-going vessels. In recent months the government claims to have sunk three of these ships, laden with guns bought in Indonesia. It seems, however, that these were different vessels, chartered for the task.

Whatever General Fonseka is planning, a military end to the war looks impossible. A pity, then, that Mr Rajapakse looks so incapable of peacemaking. He won election in November 2005 in part by promising the Sinhalese masses a less conciliatory approach to the Tigers than that shown by his opponent, Ranil Wickremesinghe, a former prime minister. By agreeing to a ceasefire, which recognised the Tigers' control of the north, Mr Wickremesinghe had riled many Sinhalese nationalists.

Those nationalists—led by a bigoted Buddhist clergy, whose small but shrill political party shares power with Mr Rajapakse's Sri Lanka Freedom Party—considered the ceasefire a precursor to splitting the country. Since in their view the Sinhalese are the sole owners of Sri Lanka, and all minorities are alien to it, this was unacceptable. Though the monks' orange-robed parliamentary leader, the Venerable Athuraliye Rathana, wants peace for most sentient beings, Tamil rebels are clearly excluded. “Day by day we are weakening them with our military force,” he says. “Talk can come later.”


The second secret to Mr Rajapakse's election was that, at the Tigers' command, north-eastern Tamils did not vote. Had they done so, most would have plumped for Mr Wickremesinghe, whose peacemaking delivered freedoms to travel and trade that they had not enjoyed in decades. This had represented a challenge to Mr Prabhakaran. Autocratic to his fingertips, incapable of sharing power even with trusted deputies such as Colonel Karuna, he wanted out of the peace process.

Mr Prabhakaran declared the election a Sinhalese affair, not for independence-seeking Tamils. A Sinhalese-chauvinist government suits Mr Prabhakaran, helping bolster Tamil support for the Tigers. Recent reports have even suggested that he struck a secret deal with the opportunistic Mr Rajapakse. In return for, in effect, delivering Mr Rajapakse to power, Mr Prabhakaran was promised cash, Colonel Karuna in chains and recognition of the Tigers' control of the east. Yet no sooner was Mr Rajapakse elected than both sides were shelling and murdering each other. Within six months, the war was back on.

Or rather, it had reverted to a different phase of what many Sri Lankans see as an endless cycle. On the government side, Mr Rajapakse's pledge to get tough on the Tigers has been heard from previous Sinhalese populists. Among southern Sinhalese this message is effective. In their pretty fishing villages and state-subsidised paddy-fields, most are too removed from the war to feel much urgency to end it. According to a poll in February by the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Sri Lankan think-tank, 59% of Sinhalese wanted a “military solution” to the conflict. Mr Wickremesinghe's predecessor, President Chandrika Kumaratunga, had also tried to please this majority. She waged a policy of “war for peace” against the Tigers—as unsuccessful as it was illogical.

But Mr Rajapakse has plunged further into the past. Though the Tigers demand independence for the north-east, most Tamils would settle for a decent measure of autonomy. At the last round of peace talks, in Oslo in 2004, even the Tigers seemed to accept this; they issued a demand for “internal self-determination”. Mr Rajapakse, however, has proposed as his solution a modest devolution at the village level. This idea, modelled on India's system of Panchayats, was aired, and discredited, in the early 1980s.

What Tamils want

It is hard to exaggerate how inadequate, and depressing, most Tamils considered this. Yet Mr Rajapakse perhaps need not care. He remains popular, and not only for waging war. Mr Wickremesinghe made himself unpopular by introducing liberal economic reforms. By cutting a ruinous subsidy on paddy fertiliser, for example, he lost the votes of many peasant farmers. Among other populist measures, Mr Rajapakse has restored the subsidy. He has also tightened his grip in even less admirable ways.

Wary of political allies, Mr Rajapakse has appointed his three brothers to run important ministries. He has nabbed the ministries of finance, defence and public works for himself. Together, the brothers Rajapakse control over 70% of Sri Lanka's budget. The defence budget, which was increased by 40% this year, is being overseen by the unelected Gotabhaya Rajapakse. A former fire-eating army officer who spent 17 years in America, at one time managing a 7-Eleven store, Mr Rajapakse has proved as bellicose as Mr Prabhakaran and General Fonseka combined.

The government's profligacy and misrule is taking a toll. To sustain public expenditure, the governor of the central bank, another crony of Mr Rajapakse, has printed lots of new money. This has helped drive inflation to around 15%. Collapsing tourist revenues after the Tigers' blitz on Colombo augur more economic damage. Yet Mr Rajapakse may gamble that, with annual remittances of $2.5 billion from Sri Lankans working in the Middle East, the economy can ride this out. And he would probably be right.

All of which is good news for the appalling Mr Prabhakaran. Justified by the war, he has re-mobilised the north-east, demanding up to two child fighters from each family. War has also increased his opportunities to throttle dissent. Given little to hope for by the government, even Tamil moderates, who have no reason to love Mr Prabhakaran, are more likely to support, or at least suffer, him. “The Sinhalese authorities are not willing to talk to moderates,” says Suresh Premachandran, a parliamentary member of the Tamil National Alliance, who has several times escaped assassination attempts by the Tigers. “They only understand the LTTE.”

What could break the cycle? It is rather hard to imagine. As in other ethnic conflicts, from Palestine to Northern Ireland, the solution to Sri Lanka's conflict seems obvious. Tamils require an end to the discrimination that has virtually barred them from holding jobs in the army and police. After so long a struggle, they also require a fair apportioning of power to a united north-eastern province. Nothing less will bind them to Sri Lanka and diminish Mr Prabhakaran's brutish hold over them.

For their part, the Sinhalese need to understand that this is so. Mr Wickremesinghe, an uncharismatic sort, had the right vision but failed to sell it. If Mr Rajapakse were wiser than he is, he might have done better. But the current prospects for rallying the Sinhalese behind an accommodation with the Tigers appear little better than hopeless.

Supposing Mr Rajapakse even wanted this, he would need to shed his nationalist allies and seek an alliance with Mr Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP)—though the UNP, a score of whose MPs Mr Rajapakse has co-opted into his coalition, would probably have none of this. If Sri Lanka is to have peace, it may not be under Mr Rajapakse. And it may not be soon, with no general election due in Sri Lanka until 2010.

Making Tea, Honour Killing or Suicide?

Don't know where to begin but a couple weeks ago Susila, a young Tamil woman who comes to clean at the house, told me that her 'sister' had been in a terrible fire. Apparently, she had been making tea when some chemical was nearby and erupted in the gas-fed stove. She left gruesome photos of her sister in hospital, charred face and bandaged body. On Tuesday I talked with her over the phone to ask why she could not come to work this past week. She informed me that her sister had come home from the hospital so she was being with her family and providing care services. My ex-flatmate, who introduced me to her, also discussed with her on Monday about her absence at work. She had told us that we could visit her sister at the house later this week. Apparently, my Jaffna-born, London-bred ex-flatmate confused verbs in Tamil.

On Thursday I bought an exotic bouquet of wild purple orchids and planned to convene with my ex-flatmate and current Swedish flatmate in order to troop down to her house. Susila and family live in a good section of town, Cinnamon Gardens, but it is in cramped settlements. Her tiny 2-story, loft house is buried within a maze of other similar settlements, not quite a tenament, not quite a shanty. My ex-flatmate noted that they seem to be middle class. My ex-flatmate just got a Volkswagon Beetle, late 60s model which is vanilla coloured. Since he didn;t know the way he followed me in my regular three-wheeler, Zulfi's, tuk tuk. Upon arriving to her house, across from a decadent kovil, or Hindu temple, there was a massive funeral procession, with followers clad in white saris and kortas. Zulfi frankly exclaimed, "he's just died?! are we late?" (he and she are used interchangeably in many South Asian languages). The Swede and I burst out laughing in disbelief. It looked like a Buddhist funeral and Susila is Hindu. I realise now that Buddhist, Hindu and Christian funerals are very similar in Sri Lanka, only Muslim ones differ. The coffin with the charred young woman of 20, Rosemary, was carried down the road to the next door cemetary with the whole neighbourhood following. Zulfi managed to find the pint-sized Susila with huge dewey eyes in the crowd. All I could do was embrace her and explode with anger and grief, breaking into hysteria. It is contagious, when you are around so much emotion. My flatmates were completely numb and awestruck. The irony was too heavy to know what to do. We expected to be going to see Susila's sister recover, only to come to a full-on spectacle of grief. They sort of glumly looked at the ground, shuffling feet...I just tried whatever I could do to comfort this broken, already fragile young woman. It was earth shattering to hear her shrieking "Maaadam, whyyyyyyy?!! Why is she not here??!"

We followed Susila to the burial site, witnessing the hoopla - mothers, sisters, aunties throwing themselves on the body (which by then had been removed from the coffin and laid out on a wooden plank across the grave). The sobbing and wailing was nearly deafening! I tried to steady Susila and try to wrap my head around so much confusion. How did she get burned in the first place? Why weren't we directly told that she had died on Monday? What could we possible do for her? (Again, my ex-flatmate mixed up the two verbs in Tamil that mean to die - he didn't understand the verb that Susila had used. In conversations with both of us it was said that she had come home from the hospital, meaning the body had come). Everything had fallen away, watching someone's entire world shatter before me. I have no idea why she invited us hillbillies to something so solemn and personal. But it was clear that she wanted us there and appreciated our sympathy.

Not knowing the protocol for Sri Lankan funerals the three of us just stood around trying not to get in people's ways. After the performance of people trying to throw themselves on the body, and the subsequent near riot of relatives trying to calm others down, Susila invited me up to see the dead girl. You are supposed to put fragrant oil on the body and send it to the next world or next life with your wishes. Comically, I squatted down to get close to her, but I stepped on the back of my skirt. Then people said I should put the oil on her so I stood up only for my skirt to yank down, exposing my white ass! While trying to pour oil and hike up my skirt, my foot slipped down under the plank, the soft earth near sucking me into the open grave. All the while a cool breeze moving across my bum! Where's the video camera when you need one? It may remain as one of my most scarring memories, though, nearly being sucked down by the underworld, with the still body lying starkly above, swaddled in white dress and garlands, her scorched hands hidden in white, gauze gloves, her melted, charred face pancaked with makeup and covered by transparent gauze. Luckily people grabbed hold of me and I managed to embarassingly pull myself together.

When they started putting the exposed body into the ground and throwing dirt on her, most of the crowd lost it and another small riot nearly erupted. I learned later that at all funerals this is a ritual; the more wailing and chaos the more it is said that the person was loved. I found my flatmates in the crowd and in my chagrin we shuffled to the end of the funeral queue, in which we are supposed to press two hands together, bow heads and wish blessings or words of comfort. At the same time, out of the corner of my eye, I see Zulfi who had pulled up outside the cemetary. Like some kind of jester, he is waving his hands frantically with a grin on his face. In the initial ironic moments we forgot to say anything to him and left him waiting. So we met with him to release him, all the while he has a comical grin on his face, chuckling to himself at our utter stupidity.

We went back to Susila's or Rosemary's house where the funeral party gathered to drink juice and nibble biscuits. Oddly, women were not allowed to immediately surround the open grave or get too close to the body (maybe so they don;t fall in?), but then are forced to host the gathering and make tea and the dinner. We didn;t stay long, only to look at the glittered photo album of Rosemary's coming of age shindig and to try to get some of our burning questions answered. There are so many dodgy, puzzling aspects related to her death. First, Rosemary is not Susila's sister, but a cousin - in Tamil, they call cousins 'sisters/brothers' as it relates to patri or matrilineal descendents. I think on your father's side you can marry cousins, on your mother's side you cannot. Then, it was strange to see Susila's family more worked up about the death than Rosemary's immediate family. It is also weird that Rosemary supposedly threw turpentine into the flame while making tea. Sri Lanka has the highest rate of suicide in the world, apparently, and the most common forms of suicide are by hanging or by setting oneself on fire. So it is highly possible that she attempted suicide and the family politely tries to hide it, by calling it an accident, rather than dishonour the family.

However, there have also been cases of honour killing in Sri Lanka, even though the practice is more common in India and Bangladesh. When a woman is perceived of wrongdoing, such as looking at a married man, having love affair(s), having a child out of wedlock, essentially anything that a family perceives as dishonouring them, some form of hideous torture is inflicted on her. This can also be the case if a woman rejects a man;s advances. In Bangladesh it is a widespread practice to throw acid on the woman; in India they may be beaten or stoned to death or set on fire. It is unclear if there were any associated ill motives with Rosemary's tragic death. But there are too many discrepancies in the story and no one is telling the full details. Or perhaps it is another case of structural violence. If it was suicide perhaps this incredibly repressive, violent country with its little recognition for Tamils' human rights drove her to it. Or perhaps she had been waiting 3 weeks in the government run hospital with little or no sufficient treatment. After all in this country she is seen as just another beastly Tamil, in which case maybe she is better off dead...

...In other news, the bloody President has started to expel 'undesirable' Tamils from Colombo, sending them to the conflict-distraught North and East. Although a number of these families, who operate restaurants, hotels, shops, have lived in Colombo for decades they are forcibly removed and relocated to live in internally displaced peoples' (goddamit they are refugees! where is their state?) camps. It is a revolting, sobering policy that taps into how illogical this government and its profiteering, genocidal President is. Tamils have no rights here, no state, but are forced into territory as if the government is 'helping' them. As if sending them to a constantly redefined part of the country would lead to a new Tamil state, as if expelling Tamils would make Colombo safer. I am mortified more from the bumbling, irrational, right-wing, nationalist Singhalese.

***********************If there is a Sri Lankan embassy in your country, contact them or your government to say you disapprove of the ethnic cleansing that is taking place.

Thai AIDS patients suffer as drug squabble drags on

By Darren Schuettler

BANGKOK, May 22 (Reuters) - Each morning, Somying
waits on the canal near her Bangkok slum for the
iceboat that has become her lifeline.

"It's expensive but I need ice every day," the
33-year-old said of the 12 baht ($0.37) purchase that
keeps her lifesaving AIDS drug, Kaletra, from
perishing in hot season temperatures nearing 40
degrees centigrade (104 F)

A version that does not need refrigeration is
available in the United States, but not in Thailand
where the army-backed government is embroiled in a
patent dispute with its maker, U.S. pharmaceutical
giant Abbott Laboratories.

Abbott will not register the new version, Aluvia,
until Bangkok renounces its January decision to invoke
a compulsory licence under world trade rules which
allow governments to make or buy copycat versions of
drugs for public health measures.

Thailand, which has taken similar action on another
AIDS drug and a heart disease medicine in what it says
is a bid to widen access for its poor, wants Abbott to
cut its prices more.

The company is sticking to its last offer of $1,000
per patient a year, down from $2,200, but higher than
generic versions.

"The new pills would make it easier," said Somying,
whose monthly ice bill eats up nearly half the 800
baht she earns at home tying ribbons for a garland
maker.

"I wouldn't have to buy ice or carry around the cooler
anymore," she said outside the two-room shack she
shares with her two children, including a 13-year-old
son with AIDS.

Still, they are among the lucky ones.


WAITING FOR TREATMENT

Of the 8,000 Thais who need Kaletra, a so-called
second-line drug for people who develop resistance to
initial treatment, only 600 are receiving the drug --
and the older version at that.

Somying, who was forced to leave her cleaning job at a
sausage factory due to AIDS-related illnesses, still
pays 500 baht a month into an employee health plan to
receive Kaletra.

Without charitable donations, Somying, who lost her
husband to AIDS a decade ago, said her family would
not survive.

Her son, back in school six years after he walked out
when teachers tried to keep him away from other
children, receives the drug through the national
health scheme, which covers 80 percent of Thailand's
63 million people.

A former AIDS hotspot, Thailand has won praise for
reducing infections and expanding drug treatment to
100,000 of the 580,000 Thais living with AIDS. But it
now faces budget pressures as more people need
treatment, including expensive second-line drugs.

Somsit Tansuphaswadikul, a doctor at Bangkok's main
infectious disease hospital, said he has 30 patients
on Kaletra but could treat 70 more.

"There is a quota for second-line patients because of
the budget. Some patients may not get access because
it's not available, so they keep on with the old
regimen," he said.

The drug industry's defenders say Thailand, which is
spending $100 million on HIV-AIDS programmes this
year, is a middle-income nation that can afford higher
drug prices.

Bangkok says health care is already its second biggest
budget item after education, but it is worried about
the impact on trade relations with its major partner,
the United States.


"AXIS OF IP EVIL"

Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla is in Washington
this week to meet trade officials who put Thailand on
a "priority watch list", citing a "weakening of
respect for patents" which could open the country to
trade retaliation.

"We only want access to drugs for people who have no
access.

We can't let them down," Mongkol told Reuters before
the trip he said was aimed at countering "bad
information" about his policy.

Mongkol, who acted after a coup ousted pro-business
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra last year, said he
may target two more drugs, not the 20-30 some reports
have cited.

Mongkol has won support from health groups such as
Doctors Without Borders and former U.S. President Bill
Clinton, whose foundation brokers deals with generic
drug makers to provide lower-priced drugs for
developing nations.

"No company will live or die because of high price
premiums for AIDS drugs in middle-income countries,
but patients may,"

Clinton said in backing Thailand and Brazil, which has
followed Bangkok in overriding the patent on
Efavirenz, an AIDS drug made by U.S.-based Merck & Co
Inc.

Washington has urged the Thais and drug firms to
negotiate.

Its envoy in Bangkok has also criticised a campaign
waged by the lobby group USA for Innovation, which has
indirect links to the drug industry. It accuses
Bangkok of stealing American intellectual property for
military benefit and forming part of an "axis of IP
evil".

Thailand plans to hire a U.S. public relations firm to
counter the attacks, but some say the slanging match
should be replaced by a serious multilateral debate on
how to provide affordable medicines to the world's
poor.

"Drugs are not a tape or CD or something like that. We
need to think about the human right to receive
treatment. It's the same all over the world," Somsit
said.

Abduction of UN personnel in Sri Lanka

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama on Monday expressed to a United Nations official the Government's concern about the abduction and detention of two U.N. staff members by the LTTE in February.

The Acting U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator and Representative and Resident Director of the World Food Programme, Jeff Taft Dick, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in this regard. The Minister told Mr. Dick that the "failure" on the part of the U.N. to bring this matter to the notice of the Foreign Ministry until April 27 was "unacceptable".

Mr. Bogollagama maintained that the "failure" of the U.N. Office in Sri Lanka made it difficult for the Government to discharge its obligations under the 1994 U.N. Convention on the Safety of the U.N. and Associated Personnel, to which Sri Lanka is a party.

At a news conference here, the Minister said that Sri Lanka was surprised to note that the abduction and detention of these persons had not been brought to the notice of the U.N. Secretary-General, judging by statements made by the Secretary-General's spokesperson in New York on April 20.

The Minister, who noted that the Government was also concerned by the reference in the U.N. statement to this `abduction' as an `arrest', said the circumstances relating to this incident could be perceived as an attempt by the U.N. authorities in Sri Lanka to shield the LTTE's criminal actions.

The Minister said that since the continued abduction of one of the U.N. staff was officially reported to the Government on April 27, the authorities concerned would proceed to take action in this matter.

Mr. Dick told the Minister that of the two staff members, one had already been released and that S.P. Thamilchelvan, head of the political wing of the LTTE, had agreed that the matter relating to the other would be reviewed further.

To inform U.N.

He reportedly told the Minister that the use of terminology of `arrest' was a mistake, and that the United Nations classified this as abduction. He said that he would convey the concerns of the Sri Lanka Government to the United Nations.

The military said that a soldier was injured when the LTTE cadres opened fire at a group of army soldiers at Neelapola in Trincomalee on Monday evening. The attack took place around 7.15 p.m. as the Army was conducting a foot patrol in the area.

In another incident, troops conducting clearing operations in the Pankulam area in Trincomalee, found stocks of ammunition. They included ammunition for 12.7mm machine guns, multi-purpose machine guns and T-56 rifles.

The military further reported that in Jaffna, civilians continue their cooperation with the Sri Lanka security forces by providing valuable information on hidden terror arms in the area.

pride in colombo

it's hard to imagine that a place as lovely, complex, diverse and friendly as sri lanka has banned homosexuality and queer spirits. the laws still prohibit people from being open about their Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgendered-Queer (LGBTQ - did i cover most non-hetero sexualities?) sexuality, to the point of intimidation, humiliation, harassment, even imprisonment and torture. while the country promotes tourism and does little about the rampant prostitution, sex trade, paedophilia and human trafficking it seizes LGBTQ people from the lives they should lead, depriving them of essential human rights. for instance in the mid-1990s a lesbian conference here was shut down with participants being socially persecuted, even subjected to death threats. it's not an isolated incident but occurs quite often throughout asia and the developing South. it seems countries which preach uber-masculinity and patriarchy, a system with impossible ideals, stereotypes, practices and networks of power, is most conducive to threatening and masking people who live as multiply gendered. what is this lunatic normative system? how and why does this system prevail? how and why does it coincide with systems of violence, and why are the historically most violent countries, particulary in this region (afghanistan, bhutan, china, fiji, indonesia, iran, nepal, pakistan, samoa, to name a few), also the most irrational and unaccepting of LGBTQ sexualities?

perhaps people who are seen as outside the mainstream, just through their existence, question and rupture the very foundations of what is the staus quo, what is pushed as 'normal', what derives itself from the subjugation of a select, special group of people. it is the same seething system and political process that attempts to control men and women's bodies and minds, to put them into dichotomous categories, to blame the victim, and to maintain the administration of haves and have nots. it is the same system whereby women are seen as property, only as baby-producing machines who can then clean up after she is raped and tortured. if people were freer to live their lives in ways that do not hurt anyone or themselves i guess it would create too much compassion, happiness, tolerance, diversity and overall wellbeing...no? i cannot understand any partiarchal-hetero-ethnocentric system that perpetuates and thrives on the unhappiness and torment of any group of people, seen as a minority, deemed as outcasts and threats to 'morality'. how we define these values is completely subjective not to mention utterly irrelevant when we live in an age of accelerated globalisation and exchange of ideas/information/cusoms. how are we supposed to move ahead and get past differences in order to achieve full on human rights and wellbeing enhancement? eh?

this week is pride week in sri lanka (mainly with events in colombo), which celebrates when the World Health Organisation removed homosexuality as a defined mental disorder and which highlights the living experiences of LGBTQ people. not many people have come out in sri lanka, even friends who are gay do not come out to everyone, not even to their family. as a straight person living, working, breathing, existing among many different people, i can support the cause to abolish ignorance on LGBTQ issues. it is an area where even human rights advocates with whom i work, do not even address the rights of LGBTQ nor sex workers nor people living with HIV. it;s a complete paradox to separate causes like that when one should be working to achieve humanism in a holistic manner.

one film i saw during the pride extravaganza, 'dangerous lives: coming out in the developing world', narrated by janeane garofolo, addressed the volatility and discrimination for LGBTQ people in the south. one shocking case, that i remember amnesty international and other human rights groups worked on around the turn of the millennium, was the cairo 52. cairo had become a gay mecca in recent times, like a bangkok, miami, kuala lumpur, but faced a massive legislative crackdown on gay culture, classifying LGBTQ, particularly men, as sodomists and sons of the devil. it is extremely difficult to experience queer life in muslim countries because it is seen as religious blasphemy, going against god's will, jilting the status quo. in this case, police cracked down on a queer nile river cruise, arresting 52 guys and subjecting them to unjustifed detainment, lack of access to legal resources, corrupt trials, abusive and squalid imprisonment for several years, immense torture and other injustices. after LGBTQ activists from around the world erupted a large scale campaign, the imprisoned were eventually liberated. an odd thing is that, with all the gay activists in the US lobbying, the liberation came after the US senate bullied egypt and threatened economic or trade barriers (and prevented the sale of its weapons to egypt, which goes to fight the kinds of people that US wanted to liberate) due to their violation of human rights. so is the arms and free trade, with such political and economic leverage, actually beneficial to gay people in developing countries? still trying to wrap my head around this one.

despite being freed from prison, the GTBQ guys were still subjected to discrimination, threats and harassment in their daily lives, forcing them to closet their existence. many of the 52 were able to seek political asylum in the north, and although they could connect with gay communities there they were forced into exile and to be away from the people and countries they love. in other circumstances, such as in sri lanka, lesbians are often thought to be mentally unstable and that they can be 'cured'. there are numerous cases around the world (e.g. colombia) where lesbians have been raped, tortured and killed by police and armed forces, with their families also subjected to violence, with the belief that men can fuck the lesbianism out of them. they are seen as contrary to what hetero men believe to be about women, that they should be made inferior and under their control. a lesbian with a happy partner, child, family and friends is a more powerful person who does not need the utility of men, who can manage their lives based on functionality better than how the status quo dictates. truly saddening and unfathomable. wot more can we do to eradicate these brutal hierarchies? who determines what is fair, just, moral, 'norml'?

one unfortunate aspect that is not discussed enough within this movement, at least from the developing countries' perspectives, is HIV and AIDS. sex and sexuality remain taboo subjects in the much of the south, so the promotion of safe sex and preventative methods against spreading HIV is generally absent from discussion and advocacy. you do see some HIV discussion within LGBTQ movements but most people in sri lanka, for instance, do not address the health concerns of this sexually and fluids-transmitting virus. LGBTQ and HIV do not necessarily go hand in hand, but there is so much misconception and ignorance about both and when talking about one it is important to raise the other. for instance, in another documentary about male sex workers in india, i suppose because the nature of their work and the taboo of being GBTQ, most sex workers do not think or discuss about HIV. some men are not tested, despite the proactive measures to make affordable testing available. many sex workers have wives, children, families to support and do not want their families to know about their work. so they may face stigma in getting tested. many sex workers think that HIV is only a disease from westerners, the poor, or that if they get HIV it is god's will/karma. or they think that if they only sleep with rich or upper caste men they will not get it. there are so many myths that these sex workers believe or follow in order to convince themselves that their means of work and economic prospects are not dangerous, wrong or risky. it may be easier to believe they are impervious because they are already crusading for awareness about homosexuality. but it can be seen as a falseity if you are open to yourself about one aspect of your sexuality by masking other risky, underground aspects, such as the vulnerability to HIV. again, it seems to be that it would disrupt their way of existence and job prospects, their means of survival. a really devastating, contradictory tragedy.

so i guess one way to bridge these two issues more successfully in the developing south would be to tackle the stigma permeating from religious and zealous nationalistic beliefs. in many cases throughout african countries and india HIV educators have used depictions from religion and spiritual cosmologies to get the point across about how to protect oneself from HIV and STI by using condoms and by being cautious about sexual encounters. by bringing up issues related to sexuality, that it is not just a tool for procreation, and getting people talking about sex more openly (in a non-exploitative, non-objectifying way) it can close the gap of ignorance to a better informed, healthy, happy, sexually satiated public. praps. in addition, people need to get off their arse and become activated on human rights and social justice causes!!! even if it just means writing a letter or calling your respectful bastard parliamentarian.

louder than bombs

hey

there are power shortages so i want to get across a few things, frantically and as fast as i can, in the distance i can hear the practicing of SL forces for its missile attacks; my house is shaking; there is curfew:

no, things have worsened. long story, but i went to watch the cricket match world cup final at a big cricket grounds last nite, which was mad in itself. luck and intuition made me leave right at half-time around 130am. when my flatmate, her beau who is visiting since yesterday from sweden, and i went back to our flat to find the power cut off. then the bombing started. ltte now has over 5 aircrafts with good pilots who bombed the main fuel station supplier (near the international airport), parts of the international airport, the harbour and some other areas in colombo. so fighting has started in colombo. about 2 weeks ago the bombing took place 8km from the international airport, so my friends who arrived/departed were ok, but shaken up.

now in SL there is very weak surveillance and military strategy. so after these mysterious attacks, during the match when the whole country was watching cricket, crowdedly gathered, the confused SL forces shot back into complete darkness...so they were firing at anything, often hitting buildings, residences, businesses in colombo, alot of 'collateral damage'. i dont think anyone was hurt or killed. it looked like fireworks. but the first time i heard bombs right in my sweet little neighbourhood in Colpetty.

there were 2 main attacks by ltte, from 130-140 am, then again at 330am or so. the counter attacks by SL forces went on until 5am. i was receiving security calls and calls from friends (luckily cell phone working during this time - even tho they are dastardly evil machines) all through the nite. we are all tired and distraught, but coping and relatively safe, showered by rain this sunday not bombs. we are not sure what will happen next. most likely there will not be another attack for at least a week, as tigers have to prepare. but there is a curfew and i cannot go long distances.

i have been hanging out most of the day, drinking tea, arrack (a coconut whisky) and smoking fiendishly with my greek friend in his guesthouse garden. he is one of the lucky few who will leave this country on thurs. so sad to see a good friend leave - even tho he's only been here a few months...the president of this fukt up country and 70 parliament ministers have rightfully fukt off but done so by using state funds to go on an excursion to support the cricket team in barbados. i hope he is having a nice time drinking coconut rum while his country is being bombed to bits. maybe he will suddenly mysteriously be disappeared or have committed suicide, like the pakistani cricket coach who was strangled after losing the match.

the priorities are fukt here. not sure what un will do and if we have to be evacuated. hard to say. hard to get any info from them. now it is the vesak holiday, where normally everyone celebrates "lord' buddha's birthday, day of enlightment, and deathdate. they decorate houses and streets with paper lanterns, give out free food, and have massive lit up billboards of plastic shaped buddhas. tacky is the thing for sri lanka, in all aspects of life. there are no political or surveillance strategies, only hideous cheeky teledramas, embarassing crotch grabbing and pissing into the wind with sarongs flapping. i was talking all day with some ex-pat sri lankans living in singapore who sell everything from solar panels to arms to aircrafts. their company has sold second hand helicopters and airplanes from soviet russia to SL govt, because govt wants it cheap. (whereas tigers are getting trained by thais and getting top notch crafts from pakistan, india etc who knows).

now the president, after losing the cricket match to Australia, is prolly pandering to US to get more funds and arms from them to blindly w.a.s.t.e. and shoot at anything here, including its own civilians. so the sri lankans in singapore were saying that they tried to warn the govt to invest in surveillance and intelligence technology, but govt does not want and says there is no need....yet they cannot even find the 3 planes that attacked last nite. it takes about 45 min to get back to the north to safely land so i dont know how they could not track these planes and cannot find tiger aircrafts nor runways. priorities are fukt. the govt knows what is going on and know more than what they are revealing, as usual, but costing and risking many people's lives. this is a sick game for them, a test of strength and brutal masculinity. on both sides. at least, thus far, the ltte has made very strategic targets, to bomb military bases, fuel and power stations, harbours etc, whereas the govt is blindly shooting at orphanages, internally displaced peoples, any civilians and they are even suspected of planting the bombs on buses (near vavuniya and hikkaduwa in previous months) in order to get more funding from the west in order to fight the so-called terrorism. no one remembers that the jvp party who has a stronghold in the govt parliament, was once a terrorist group massacring everyone suspected of not supporting them. and many sri lankans are too ignorant and daft to critically analyse the situtation. oddly, there was no mention of the attacks in the papers today nor on the news, only about sri lanka losing the world cup. for fuck sakes! so if it not printed in the media or on tv no one knows in the rest of the country. even tho most ppl in colombo felt it and saw it last nite. i am strangely tranquil and i will leave the country if my intuition, which is usually strong, tells me to leave. even my greek friend says that his ngo back in greece could help me find job to work in eco-tourism...so i am waiting to see what opportunities or circumstances arise. i do not feel too threatened yet, despite seeing shrapnel and bits from buildings falling into my lovely courtyard, under my lime tree which is dropping mad, massive limes. so no good news to report. it is a week long buddhist holiday, yet i have lots of work to do and keep busy. today is a day of reflection and attempt to make sense of what i am doing here.

let's see what happens these coming weeks/months. take care of yourselves. the world that we grew up with, its comforts and privilege has fallen apart. even water and power shortages are felt in the us. so we are slowly waking from our coccoons to a reality that is a nightmare in which we have already too much fukt up any plan for getting out of it. i wish i could be more optimistic. hope you and your families are safe. there is only a few more years left of oil so enjoy the commodities and conveniences that we have and keep spreading the word. missing you and hope to see you again very soon!

a bit of a ramble...but trying to take advantage of my access to internet/power. shit another bomb just went off as i post this....it feels like an earthquake or when a subway is about to arrive at a platform or when your intestines and bowels cut loose. not sure if this will turn into riots. cheers.

lots of love

b

Grand Palace Bangkok

Peace Haven villa

Some friends and I have found a villa that rents for $120/nite so with 8 people it is a very cheap place to stay. The best part is that the cook there can make anything, so long as we go with him to market to select the fish or vegetables. Very tranquil and perched on clifftop, overlooking the rough sea. We have to walk 10-mintues to get to a suitable swimmable bay but the walk takes us past natural blowholes, water buffalo, cow-herders, capsized boats, and tiny seaside shacks that sell toddy (moonshine made from coconuts). Well worth the long 6-hour drive on dusty, dodgy roads.

Tangalle

What is unusual about Sri Lanka is how you wouldn’t actually think there was a war given the pockets of peace and lovely quiet towns. In Tangalle there are the liveliest markets, water buffaloes grazing on clifftops, and hypnotic, paradisical sunsets!

At the port some friends and I discussed with the fishermen about the day’s catches. It is definitely noticeable these past few months how the impact of the rising oil prices, inflation rates and devalued currency have affected the fishermen, saying that have to charge higher prices to cover the cost of fuel and other operational costs.