KANKASANTURAI, Sri Lanka, 21 September 2006 — Firing artillery shells toward Tamil Tiger positions as fighting flares despite peace talk pledges, Sri Lankan gunner Herath Rajaratne longs for the day he can return to his family and civilian life.
Stationed in this militarized high-security zone in Sri Lanka’s besieged northern Jaffna Peninsula, cut off from the rest of the island by rebel lines, he and thousands of fellow troops live in ghost towns of buildings shelled to ruin during years of past fighting.
Churches and Hindu temples lie crumbled, once-thriving fields are overgrown with grasses and weeds. Troops live in houses whose displaced owners were long ago forced to flee, sandbag bunkers now dug into their gardens. Prisoners have been brought in from the south to grow their food.
“I would very much like peace to come, but since the Tigers are fighting against us, we have to take defensive action,” Rajaratne said, removing his ear protectors as swirling dust whipped up by volleys of shells roaring toward rebel territory cleared.
“I want to remain in the army until peace comes. Then I’ll be a good father to my children,” the 35-year-old from the north-central town of Anuradhapura added. “I have an idea for a business. I want to go into cultivation of vegetables and fruit.” Peace broker Norway says the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have agreed to meet for talks after weeks of the worst fighting since a 2002 truce killed hundreds of troops, civilians and rebels.
But sporadic exchanges of artillery and mortar fire continue on Jaffna Peninsula, the birthplace of many top Tiger fighters and regarded as the cradle of the island’s minority Tamil civilization. The rebels, driven out in the mid-1990s, want it back.
The army has captured Tiger territory on the southern tip of the strategic northeastern harbor of Trincomalee and says it has pushed the rebels back around a kilometer from their forward defense lines in Jaffna.
Emboldened by their successes after a string of failures before the truce, some troops and commanders increasingly feel it is time to take the fight to the Tigers - much to the alarm of the international community.
“Since they have given pressure, we should also give pressure,” said Maj. Upul Kodithuwakku of the artillery brigade. “Now it is proved that they are not strong. The more we press them, the more they will come to peace talks.” “I can’t go home while my people lie on the ground,” he added.
