Delay in provincial election keeps northern resentment alive

By Jehan Perera

It was past eight pm and most of the two to three hundred strong audience present at the open air theatre of the Centre for Performing Arts in Jaffna had not dispersed.  They had come to be part of the golden jubilee celebration of the CPArts founder, Fr N M Saveri. Most of the audience was composed of women and youth.  Despite the lateness of the hour there was no sign of uneasiness or tension.  This was unimaginable during the years of the war.  There was no visible presence of security forces.  The relaxed and peaceful environment can be taken as one of the positive features of the post-war period.

Every visit to Jaffna can be a learning experience to those who are outside of it.  Due to the long distances and travel time, life within Jaffna is not so well known to those who live in the south of the country.  The cost of coverage can be a deterrent.  Media reports that cover affairs of the north are sketchy in the national media, which is based in Colombo.  The journey from Colombo to Jaffna can take between nine to eleven hours depending on the willingness of the driver to take risks with the hawk-eyed traffic police waiting to catch their next victim.  The air fare is prohibitive, costing as much as international flights to South India.

One of the ways in which regular travelers to Jaffna seek to minimize the loss of working hours involved in the travel to Jaffna is to travel by night.  There are a large number of big buses that depart Colombo in the late evening and arrive in Jaffna at the crack of dawn, and vice versa.  On this occasion, I travelled along with colleagues from CPArts by van that travelled through the night.  It was a remarkably trouble free run and not once did the security forces ask us to disembark though they stopped our vehicle on several occasions to check on the driver’s documents and to peer inside.  There was a night life of sorts at the restaurants all along the way and at the temple in Murugandy where the bazaar was open for purchases of food, drink and fruits, all of which was very wholesome, and the night air was cool.

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