{"id":109710,"date":"2020-12-14T16:34:26","date_gmt":"2020-12-14T23:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=109710"},"modified":"2020-12-14T16:34:26","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T23:34:26","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-18c-pt-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/12\/14\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-18c-pt-3\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 18C Pt 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Visitors from\nthe South\u201d started to arrive in the North\u201d soon after Eelam War IV ended.  The Northern theatre of war, where the\nbloodiest battles between the Sri Lankan forces and the LTTE took place, is\ntoday a popular destination for Sinhalese tourists, observed commentators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitors have\nbeen coming in busloads to experience the newly opened North   and explore the former warzone, they said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After decades\nof civil war, the Sinhalese were finally free to visit the previously\ninaccessible northeast.  But they did not\nvisit out of simple curiosity. They came with a sense of ownership, the right\nto visit a part of their country which had been closed to them till now, said\nperceptive critics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commentators assumed that the visitors from the south came to look\nat the war sites, with a morbid curiosity in the defeated enemy\u201d.  It is\nfar more likely that they came to worship at Nagadeepa, one of the solosmastana\n, on long deferred pilgrimage,  and took\nin the war sites as well. One Eelamist  observing this trend, thought it was wrong of\nthe travelers to visit both Nagadipa as a solosmastana visit and also the battle\nsites in the same trip. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The battle\nzones were transformed  into tourist sites,\nby the army . These tourist\nsites were visited primarily by locals  and\nthe information at memorial sites was  in\nSinhala and English .There were no Tamil language explanations in any of the\nplaques, complained Eelamists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The army used\nthese visits to disseminate information on the war. Visitors were  given a map with the main military battles,\nalso  an itinerary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitors were\nshown the wreckage of the  train that\noperated on the Yaldevi line bound for Jaffna in the North. The train was\nbombed by the Tigers in 1985 leaving 11 civilians dead. After this incident the\nline was discontinued. There is  a sign\nthat reads in Sinhala: This is the place where the Yaldevi train was destroyed\nby the terrorists.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitors were\nshown the Water tower in Kilinochchi blasted by the LTTE, lying on its side by\nthe main road. This has become a full-fledged tourist site, it even has a\nsouvenir store manned by military personnel, commented Eelamists, crossly.  Open-air sites displayed an armored vehicle, a\nsubmarine, and Farah, a Jordanian ship that was seized by the LTTE in 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitors\nwere  shown Prabhakaran\u2019s bunker. The\nbunker had four floors. It had been specifically constructed for Prabha and his\nfamily. It was  under ground, with air\nconditioning,  exhaust system,  soundproof self contained power generation,\nsurveillance cameras, satellite technology, weapons storage. There was\nalso a conference room,  bathrooms,\nunderground vehicle park, bullet proof sentry post, a shooting range,  armor plated doors within the bunker.  . Army \nhad labeled the different sections to help visitors.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitors\nwere  shown the war monuments at Kilinochchi,\nElephant Pass, and Puthukkudiyiruppu. The Sri Lankan army maintains the\nmonuments and runs the kiosks that sell snacks and soft drinks there, said\nEelamists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 At the Elephant Pass, visitors were met by a soldier\nwho explained the significance of the various battles of Elephant Pass. At the war museum in Puthukkudiyiruppu, tourists\nwere  given a guided tour by   soldiers.  Youth were told, you should remember this\nhistory well. You are too young to understand it all, but  you should not forget. Many of our people\ndied trying to make this place safe.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is\nunavoidable that such explanations would emphasize the Sri Lankan military\nvictory whilst de-emphasizing the personal tragedy associated with the lost\nTamil Tiger cadets, said Eelamists. But\nthey diminish and even cancel out the significance of the Tamil struggle for\nethnic parity. The government\u2019s discourse around the war puts forward the image\nof triumphant Sinhala nationalism. The\nonly image of the Tigers permitted is one of a defeated terrorist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitors were not shown  refugee camps and bombed-out ruins. Houses\nwithout roofs, with bullet holes in walls, some houses had only the foundation\nleft. What the Eelamists\ndid not say was that these houses were without roofs because the LTTE  had ordered them to remove them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitors  are not encouraged to wonder what was the\nfate of thousands of people who were in this area when the war ended. The memorial\nto Gamini Kularatne celebrated his sacrifice but did not consider the sacrifice\nmade by the Tamil Tigers who died in the attack. LTTE were simply seen as the\nenemy not as someone\u2019s sons, daughter, father relative or friend, said\nEelamists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eelamist commentators have their own interpretation of the war. The\narmy was the aggressor., not the LTTE. These monuments    ignore the grief of the Northern Tamils who\nfaced the brutal Sri Lankan Army assault. Pudumathalan  monument is a symbol of the victory of the\nSinhalese state in what was once Tamil Tiger territory. It was illegal for the\nSri Lanka army to enter Tamil territory, they announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These\nmonuments  are oblivious to the grief of\nthe Northern Tamils who faced the brutal Sri Lankan Army assault. All these monuments at iconic locations send\na strong message of the complete Sinhalese takeover of the Tamil land. The defeated Tamils are excluded from that\nimagination, these pro-Eelam commentators said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no  mention of the civilians who died as they,\nalong with the LTTE, were progressively herded into a smaller and smaller\n\u2018no-fire zone\u2019 into which the army  repeatedly fired. There is no possibility of multiple\nnarratives, recognition of civilian suffering, apology or contrition, concluded\nthese writers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since  they were doing travel writing , not political\nreporting, writers have  felt free to\nfantasize. Victory Memorials were symbols of  \nBuddhist hegemony , over the Tamil parts of the island., they said.  (Hegemony means the dominance of one group over another). The\nzealous construction of Buddhist stupas after the war and the \u2018discovery\u2019 of\nnew Buddhist pilgrimage sites in the predominantly Hindu north  reveal much about contemporary imaginings of\nthe Sri Lankan nation, they said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tamil Tigers were not regarded just as a threat to the unity\nof the island, said these writers.  They\nwere  also regarded as a threat to the\nvery existence of Buddhism in the  island. When this is acknowledged it quickly\nbecomes clear that pilgrimage to these war sites is not only a pilgrimage to\nremember the Sri Lankan victory, it is a pilgrimage to acknowledge the victory\nof Buddhism on the island , they  continued, nonsensically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This religious aspect is especially important because Sinhala\nBuddhists favor one other kind of tourism more than anything else, religious\npilgrimage. Good Buddhists make a point of visiting the Temple of the Tooth in\nKandy or Adam\u2019s Peak. Now a new religious pilgrimage tradition has been\nestablished  for the Buddhists in the\nform of war tourism in the north. Where, celebration of the Buddhist victory\nover the Tamil Tigers is perhaps a more significant motivating force than simply\ngoing on pilgrimage, the writers concluded.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 To illustrate this, one\nwriter  invented a  fictional account where the tour leader fixed\na large national flag to his Tata bus,  put  a\nsticker inside the bus claiming that this was the land of Gautama, the  family piled in and  off they went to see  the north. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writers have commented on the War\nTourism which arose at the end of Eelam War IV. A\n\u2018tourist industry\u2019  developed  in the North, supported by the  army. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The army  constructed hotels for tourists. Lagoons end\u201d\n was a luxury  hotel run by the army   at\nNandikadal. It was  opened in September\n2012. Patrons are\nSinhala and foreigners. it is staffed by Sinhalese. Though situated deep in the\nTamil cultural heartland  it was opened\nwith Kandyan drummers and dancers, said \nSasanka Perera.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was the\nsmaller less glamorous  Green House also  at Nandikadal. Army handled\nadmissions to the two hotels. There was also Nature Park Holiday Resort in\nChundikulam opened in 2012. It is managed by the 55th <\/sup>division. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The food\nserved in these hotels as well as elsewhere, were Sinhala,  string hopper, pol sambol, or noodles, also a\nwestern breakfast   of fried eggs, no\nTamil food. Tamil hotels had got Sinhala speaking waiters to cater to the\nvisitors. There were\nalso kades for the Sinhala soldiers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the\nmeanwhile, Tamils were in flimsy tents as refugees, lacking food, lack food,\ninadequate shelters,  few jobs, little or\nno savings, no economy opportunities, said Frances  Harrison in Huffington Post <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jaffna  tourism has been bashed by Eelamists. A novel kind of tourism  arose as an outcome of war said critics.  Sri Lanka army \ntourism  initiatives, have\nbeen  identified and condemned as  unethical \ntourism by   organization such as\nSri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice. They do not generate local employment\neither, said Eelamist commentators. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nWar tourism is nothing new.  Poland (Auswitsch),\nJapan (Hiroshima) Vietnam and Cambodia encourage war tourism . War sites and monuments\nare  a part of their mainstream tourism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Tours in  Poland include Krakow, Wieliczka Salt Mines  and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Auschwitz-Birkenau is\n largest of the German Nazi concentration\ncamps.  One million Jews were killed there.\nThere are  guided  tours of the concentration camp. Photos of executions, torture  are displayed, also various gruesome items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nVietnam the following are included in the tour itineraries. the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi\nMinh City which  displays<\/strong>\nAmerican cruelties at war, Con Dao Prison,<\/strong> used\n by the US for torture and abuse of\nprisoners,  the  V\u1ecbnh M\u1ed1c tunnels where 300 people lived and\nworked in a multi-tiered system of tunnels for over six years and the C\u1ee7 Chi\nTunnels which were  used for military\npurposes.( continued) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS Visitors from the South\u201d started to arrive in the North\u201d soon after Eelam War IV ended.  The Northern theatre of war, where the bloodiest battles between the Sri Lankan forces and the LTTE took place, is today a popular destination for Sinhalese tourists, observed commentators. Visitors have been coming in busloads to experience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}