New govt woos Tamils through goodwill gestures
Among those heaving a collective sigh of relief are Colombo's Tamil minority. That is because Tamils, who account for about a third of the city's population, were likely to face harassing ordeals at the hands of the government's security forces manning these security installations.
''It is a great relief,'' says Chris Kamalendran, 40, a Tamil resident here. ''We have no fear being on the streets now, unlike before, where the moment you are identified as Tamil you face intimidating questions, and harassment.''
For some Tamils, the approach to the checkpoints were trying experiences, too, particularly if they did not have the required identification documents in their possession. Reports of them facing a tough grilling have been very common, unlike what members of the Sinhalese majority faced under the same circumstances.
''It was an uneven application of the rules,'' says Ketheshwaran Loganathan, a conflict and peace analyst at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo-based think-tank. ''There were Tamils who confined their movements to known areas out of fear. The worst off were Tamils who came to Colombo from the north and east, the conflict areas.''
Winning good will
The move to dismantle the barricades is one of the measures taken by Sri Lanka's new government to win goodwill among the country's Tamil minority. The recently elected United National Front (UNF) government also wants the changing ground reality to convey another message - that it is serious about striking a peace deal with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
''Before addressing the substantive issues, the government is interested in confidence-building measures,'' Constitutional Affairs Minister Gamini Peiris told IPS. ''These are some of the pledges we made during the last election (held on Dec 5).''
Equally significant is Colombo's decision to lift the economic embargo that had been imposed on people living in the LTTE-controlled areas, such as the Wanni region in the north.
''These are humanitarian issues that must be addressed,'' stressed Peiris. ''We want an easing of burdens in the Wanni, for goods to get to the people without restrictions and barriers.''
More than 300,000 Tamils are expected to benefit from this move, including easier access to dry rations like sugar, lentils and wheat flour. Likewise, these Tamils, who are the predominant ethnic group in the Wanni, have been promised a steady supply of drugs and medical needs by the UNF government.
This marks a noticeable shift from the policies pursued by the People's Alliance (PA) government, which lost the Dec 5 parliamentary elections.
Tough stance
During much of 2001, for instance, the PA government took a tough stance on food and medical supplies to the Wanni, saying that the amounts needed were cooked up by local bureaucrats and many items were siphoned off by the LTTE rebels.
According to one report on the humanitarian situation that IPS gained access to, the PA's policy had deprived nearly 173,000 people of dry rations. Local health workers had difficulty combating diseases like malaria, typhoid and cholera due to ''short supply of drugs and cuts imposed,'' it states.
''Free movement of food should have always been allowed,'' says a senior official at an international humanitarian agency. ''It was such a contradiction: the government trying to win the people's hearts but denying them food and medicine as part of a military policy.''
For this official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the UNF is displaying ''good intentions'' by relaxing the barriers placed on food and medical supplies. ''We expect more people in the Wanni to receive food and with greater frequency.''
Adding credibility to this humanitarian effort is another government gesture, also intended to show its sincerity to the Tamil minority - making life much easier for Tamils to travel south, from the Tiger-held areas.
''There are 17 different passes they need to travel, but that is being reduced to three,'' confirms Peiris, the government minister. The passes he alludes to are one among a series of tough measures that have been pursued by Sri Lankan governments to prevent LTTE rebels from slipping into the largely Sinhalese-dominated central and southern parts of the country to mount deadly attacks.
Cease-fire
These policy shifts have been made possible under the unilateral cease-fires announced by the Tamil Tigers and the new government on Christmas eve last month, and public statements by both sides to embark on the road to peace through talks.
Thus far, the Christmas eve truce has held on in a conflict that has, since fighting began in 1972, resulted in more than 60,000 deaths. Until 1972, leading Tamil politicians had charged the Sri Lankan state of favouring the majority Sinhalese community at the expense of the Tamils.
Since they took up arms, the Tigers have been battling the Sri Lankan government to create a separate state of Tamil Eelam in the north and eastern province of the country, both of which have sizeable Tamil communities.
But critics of the UNF government's open-arms policy toward the Tigers say they cannot be trusted.
They have the events of recent history on their side, where the Tigers used a similar relaxed stance by previous governments during peace talks to slip into the capital to kill political figures, including Tamils, and strengthen their cells in Colombo.
The barricades coming down and the absence of security checkpoints are among the central concerns of critics. ''This suicidal conduct of the UNF is irreconcilable with some of its recent policy statements and declarations,'' states the president of a pro-Sinhala lobby group in a recent newspaper commentary.
However, a leading defence analyst belittles such notions. ''The checkpoints have not stopped the Tigers from attacking the city. It is a myth to say that the barricades, the sandbagged bunkers, have prevented the LTTE from slipping into Colombo,'' affirms Iqbal Athas, defence columnist for the independent Sunday Times.
Tamils will feel more emancipated in the current climate, adds Athas. ''It is all part of the government's peace strategy. The UNF is placing a great deal of trust on the Tigers.''
