Curfew in Colombo

Well it's hot hot hot here, and I'm not speaking about the steadily rising fahrenheit.

Tempers are fraying, and being fanned by the appallingly one-sided local media coverage, as accusation and counter accusation are lobbed around. Our Programmes team spent yesterday at the Central Court in Colombo trying to secure the release of 3 poor students from Jaffna, who were unfortunate enough to come to a meeting about Livelihoods in Colombo on Tuesday. Their first trip to the big smoke - imagine their excitement! Then imagine their horror as as part of the post-bomb sweep they are picked up, made to take part in an identity parade (they are Tamils after all), then shoved in jail for 2 days. Cause: their id cards cite their home town as Jaffna.

Back to the drivel that passes for media coverage here - any Singhala civilians caught in cross-fire are portrayed as"victims", whereas Tamils are "casualties". LTTE are "terrorists", whereas the army is "our gallant defenders" - you get the drift. Unfortunately combine this "reporting" with limited empathy for the Tamil population amongst the majority Sinhala population, and lack of any form of independent broadcasting, the trash dished up here as "news" is particularly damaging.

Anyway, not my battle, but terrible witnessing a country rip itself asunder.

For us life continues largely as normal. Tuesday was hard to get home because of road closures; there is a nightly curfew which I miss, 'cos being such a granny I'm in bed about 3 hours before it starts! I'm paying more for my trishaw as those guys don't miss a trick and charge you extra for making a minor detour because of the road closures (good onya). Other than that it is definitely quieter on the streets, there is army EVERYWHERE, and generally people are subdued and worried.

No one wants full escalation, but according to a senior UN official here (off the record), that's probably where we're headed. He states that the LTTE intelligence are all over the army, but the army is playing a dirty game - they raid villages and kill locals - blame it on the LTTE, and then bombard them (heavily) - all the while publishing dirt in the papers and claiming that they haven't broken the ceasefire. Because the LTTE media arm isn't well developed (and because they're listed as a terrorist org. by the US and others), they don't often get any positive airtime.

These situations aren't simple or else no-one in their right mind would fight over them, but as well as everything else all the NGO's are having to pull their staff out of the conflict areas - so guess whose houses won't get built for another year??????