Confronting the Complexity of Loss

Second, certain participants remained ambivalent about the actual necessity of the war,
but were grateful to the previous government for defeating the LTTE and ending the war.
One participant from Mahavilachchiya stated: ‘Actually, I’m very happy that the war has
ended because both my parents were killed because of the war. When I think of that, I
feel very happy that the war is over.’ Another from Pemaduwa remarked:
We have been able to live in peace because the war has ended. Now we can
spend time in the yard chatting like this because the war is no more. When the
war was there we often used to bundle some clothes and run into the forest to
hide.
Third, some participants felt that the war was completely unnecessary. In their view, the
war caused suffering that they did not experience before it began. Interestingly, these
sentiments focused mainly on the stage of the war that began in 2006 and ended in 2009.
Hence the participants’ interpretation of the word ‘war’ varied, with some treating it as a
30-year phenomenon and others as essentially taking place during the period between
2006 and 2009. One participant from Mannar expressed extreme bitterness about the
manner in which the final stages of the war were waged. From her perspective, ‘the army
killed as many people as they possibly could’. She commented that she and her family
were ‘merely the ones who escaped’. Another participant from Kilinochchi expressed
disenchantment with both the government and the LTTE for their actions during the final
stages of the war in 2008 and 2009. She stated:
When we were under the movement’s [LTTE’s] control, we lived well without
any problems. People started to hate them during the end stages of the war when
they tried to forcibly drag our children into the war. Now, it is only because of
the war that we are oppressed by the government. The final stage of the war is
the cause for everything.
The polarisation of opinion on the war, however, did not neatly fit into ethnic stereotypes.
Some Sinhalese participants did not hold the same view as others with respect to the
‘necessity’ or ‘inevitability’ of the war to defeat the LTTE. A male participant from
Medawachchiya, whose son was killed in action during the LTTE attack on the
Mullaitivu Army camp in 1996, observed:
War is not something that the poor need. War is something that is waged by
oppressing the poor in order to establish political power. Other than that, there
are no differences among the Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims of this country. All
these are false things created by the politicians in the name of racialism…in order
to safeguard their names and their political parties. It is good that the war has
come to an end, but it is politicians that are responsible for the eruption of such a
war.
The participant was a former member of the Civil Defence Force. The same participant
made the following poignant observation:
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