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Nirupama Subramanian
COLOMBO, SEPT 20: Two communities, two different reactions - that about sums up the national response to last week's twin tragedies, one in which 21 Tamil civilians were killed in an air-raid, and the other in which 50 Sinhalese villagers were massacred by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The contrasting reactions are a reflection of how deep ethnic divisions run in Sri Lanka. They are also a reminder that if a political resolution of the country's ethnic conflict seems a far-off dream, reconciliation between the two communities -- the Sinhalese and the Tamils -- is even further away.
The Mullaithivu bombing last Wednesday, which was confirmed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), was ignored by the government except to stoutly deny it when questioned by foreign journalists.
Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte was willing to accept the possibility that it might have been an "accident", but only if the incident could be "proved".
There were no apologies to thevictims' families even for this outside chance, just a bland assertion by the minister that "such things happen in war".
The incident elicited no reaction from the leaders of the majority Sinhala community or even the main opposition United National Party (UNP).
Even though it was clear that a large number of civilians had been killed in the air-raid in a crowded population centre, it was not considered news enough to make the Sinhalese press, and barely made a few column inches in the inside pages of the English language press.
The government-run Daily News, which runs daily sermons on national reconciliation, made no mention of the incident, even to deny it.
It was left to Tamil politicians, and international organisations like the human rights watchdog Amnesty International (AI) and the ICRC to express outrage at the incident. But even their statements were ignored by almost all except Tamil newspapers.
In contrast to this self-censorship, graphic pictures and reports of the killings ofthe Sinhalese villagers by the Tamil Tigers last Saturday are still making headline news, splashed across the front pages of all the major newspapers in the country.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga condoled the deaths of the villagers and promised them compensation within a few hours of the news of the killings reaching here. Other religious and political leaders condemned the brutal killings.
Deputy Defence Minister Anuruddha Ratwatte swept impressively into Gonegala village of Ampara in south-eastern Sri Lanka in a helicopter accompanied by a large hack-pack to commiserate with the survivors.
But journalists who might have wished to write similar graphic eye-witness accounts of the aftermath of the bombing in Mullaithivu, would have been unable to, as the media is barred access to the north-east.
It was only after the massacre in Gonegala that the Mullaithivu air-strike made an appearance in the national press, that too only because of speculation that the killings were a tit-for-tat for thebombing.
But instead of raising questions about how the Air Force could target a place known to have a large civilian settlement, the newspapers sought to justify the casualties in Mullaithivu by blaming the LTTE for using civilian Tamils as "human shields".
The contrasting reactions did not go unnoticed by the Tamil community. In a letter to Kumaratunga last Saturday, Tamil parliamentarian Joseph Pararajasingham wrote: "The difference your excellency has shown in dealing with the two tragedies...has gone to reinforce in the minds of the Tamil people ...that you are not at all regarding them as part of this country's population."
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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