How important is peace to you?

After two decades of conflict, there finally seems to be hope of a lasting solution. Laila Nasry speaks to young people who have been directly and indirectly affected by the war on how they view the peace process

Peace: Its importance to a country, which has suffered more than a decade of war and destruction cannot but be described in words alone. A wishful thought to a generation, which grew up immune to a ruthless, unrelenting and bloody war, is today a reality. Peace is on the horizon. And it is more than just scrambling to sun oneself on the balmy beaches of Trincomalee, taking a safari in the re-opened Wilpattu Park or satisfying one's curiosity, visiting the country's new 'ruins' in the now trouble-free north.
Peace is everything. It's about not having to kill another human being, fear that a father may not come home, the end of waiting in fear for the next bomb. It's about normalcy and peace of mind.

"I love peace"
"I love peace because I have never known anything other than war in my entire career," says Major Sujeewa* attached to the Sinha Regiment in the Army. For a good part of his 17 years of service, posted at the battlefront, he saw first hand the futility of war. "How many people died. Some of them were my own batch mates. Strong men, very qualified and capable. Colleagues I had trained with."

"It was a battle to protect our country and we fought hard and with a lot of motivation. But war is such that even success brings no satisfaction. We see all the killing, the devastation and destruction and we are left with only bad memories."

"If anybody needs peace more it would be those of us who are physically attached to the war. Not the hierarchy or the politicians but us soldiers who fight day in day out at the front."

He wished peace came earlier. " We would have avoided the number of KIA (killed in Action), WIA (wounded in action) and MIA (missing in action) personnel. There would have been development and progress in the country," he says.

However he voices anxiety and reservations as to whether peace would last. "I know we may have to start fighting again, and that would be harder.

And that's why the little breaches we hear of are worrying."

"But we want peace more than anything. It's not just me, but I speak for all the soldiers when I say that everybody everyday prays for lasting peace."

"I miss my father"
Shehan* is the only son of an Air Force officer. "When I was young I used to be so proud that my father was in the Air Force, I loved telling people that fact because it sounded so brave and courageous."

But the glamour wore off. As the war intensified in the North Shehan began to see his father less frequently. "I began to miss him terribly. He would call and speak to us often but it wasn't the same."

"The war robbed me of time with my father," he says adding that while growing up, he felt his father's absence the most when it came to doing the guy stuff. "While all the other boys had their fathers watching and encouraging them at cricket practices I had my mum accompany me and she hadn't the faintest clue of what a reverse sweep or googly was."

Shehan recalled attending the funeral of one of his father's colleagues. "I'll never forget how at the end of the funeral they handed over the cap, the medal and the flag to the son. It struck me then that I could be in that same position and it really scared me."
When he knew his father was engaged in an Operation he was inevitably worried. "After hearing ambulance sirens wailing all day, when the phone rings you get this awful sinking feeling. I used to still rush and pick it up because in case it was bad news I didn't want my mother to hear it first."

For a person like Shehan peace is an answered prayer - a dream come true. "I thought peace would never come. And now since it has I really, really hope it lasts so that I can have my father back."

An anti-climax
As 22-year-old Ashani* very candidly put it her generation was born into war. "Peace was this beautiful idealistic thing which we always wanted."

Although peace has finally dawned, Ashani who has had the fortune of being far removed from the realties of war is left feeling sceptical and unsure. " Peace has come as such an anti-climax. Because it seems like it's peace at all costs."

She welcomes the idea and finds it a good goal to work towards. "But I think we have got ourselves into a situation where we are compromising too much. I don't see it as a harmonious existence where two sides meet half way. Here we are doing all the giving in while the other side seems to be calling the shots."

"Maybe I'm disillusioned and I thinks it's the circumstances that have made me so." She agrees that maybe the fact that she has never been affected by the war has a bearing on her ideas for peace.

"War has not been earth shattering in my life. In fact it never affected or changed my life at all. I guess when war was never a reality obviously peace isn't."

"I have faith".
Having lived in Colombo all her life for Romaine* the war was far away...only in the battlefields of the North. But on that fateful Wednesday of January 31 1996 she felt its cruel, indiscriminate and unforgiving presence.

"At precisely 10.50 a.m. I lost my father to the Central Bank bomb," she recalled. "It still feels like yesterday," she says adding, "I don't think the devastation and trauma will ever leave me. It has denied me the opportunity of having my father give me away on my wedding day."

At the time it made her wonder for what sort of separatist state the LTTE are fighting for. "If they are really fighting for all the Tamils they vehemently claim they are trying to protect then how come my father who was also a Tamil got killed? I think it's just one man's vision and quest for a dream," she says.

"War is hopeless," says Romaine simply. "Nothing justifies it."

Romaine feels the war should have been stopped long ago. "Successive governments didn't do much. We sent our poor and jobless youth to the front without flinching while the bigwigs and war vultures were busy making money out of the war."

Having experienced the brutality and violence of war Romaine is all for peace and hopes against hope that those who claim the peace process will not last will be proven wrong. "Of course I'm weary when I read of the LTTE amassing weapons and recruiting and strengthening their forces. Come to think of it, it's very frightening."

"But I have faith. This time around there seems to be a genuine effort. Already I feel safe going around the city."

She is hoping peace will be a permanent solution. So that unlike her there will be children growing up not knowing what a bomb is or who a terrorist is. Not be exposed to gruesome scenes of death and devastation on the television and in the newspapers.

"Peace would mean that no more would anyone have to go through the heart break of losing a loved one, to the war like I did."

*names have been changed.

Back to Top

Back to Mirror Magazine

Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Webmaster