Trincomalee has always struck me as a magical place, and I have often wondered whether we might not all have been much better off had President Jayewardene moved the capital there rather than ten miles down the road from Colombo to a place that had no merit, even in his eyes, except for its name. And, even if that idea might be fanciful, our failure over nearly half a decade to develop decent communications, to improve connections between the different areas of Sri Lanka, has struck me as a mark of monumental foolishness, which certainly contributed to the spread of resentment and then terror.

The government now seems to have realized that, and its programme of connectivity is per

There has been so much interest about resettlement and rebuilding in the North that the East has been comparatively neglected. I had not been there for six months myself, which was sad for that was an area I had been in constantly from the eighties onward.

Way back then, I had persuaded the British Council to stage cultural events there, solo performances by Geraldine McEwan and Richard de Zoysa, and even an extraordinary Exhibition called ‘Painting the Town' which allowed me to stay nearly a week at the Batticaloa Resthouse. Then there had been a period in which we implemented a project to supply furniture to schools, part of British aid after the signing of the Indo-Lankan

Rajiva Wijesinha

One reason why I suspect reconciliation will be easier in Sri Lanka than in many places that have suffered conflict is the level of suffering inflicted by the LTTE on the Tamil people. There was also an extraordinary hierarchical system, which gave great advantages to the privileged whilst the others had to serve them unquestioningly.

One aspect of this tyranny was the manner in which everyone was forced to flee along with the Tigers into smaller and smaller areas in smaller and smaller modes of transport. One family described how they had loaded all their goods, including the roof materials of their house, into a lorry as they were forced

Rajiva Wijesinha

In the long hard haul that the process of resettlement has entailed, perhaps the most remarkable factor is the role played by the military. After the enormous effort involved in defeating the LTTE, there was no respite for the soldiers. Instead they have continued to work at a level of intensity that is sadly not recognized.

Indeed the opposite has been true, not only in terms of the relentless international pressure with regard to what are termed war crimes, but also through insidious opposition to any role at all for the military in the situation following the military conflict. This is astonishing, for in most countries the military has

Rajiva Wijesinha

The process of resettlement is proceeding apace now, with well over 120,000 persons having gone back to locations in the Northern Province. Of these the more complex returns were to areas previously under the control of the LTTE in sections of Mannar and Vavuniya and in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu.

Whilst I had anticipated that the first two areas would be resettled rapidly, I was not so sanguine some months ago about the other districts. However, with the three basic prerequisites for resettlement fulfilled, government was able to move swiftly in those areas too. It is likely then that almost all the remainder in the Welfare Centres, over 80,000, will also