Disabled and discarded at the end of the war?

THE last days of the war in May 2009 in North Sri Lanka are just painful memories for M10, an injured ex-Tamil Tiger young woman combatant, who is now reunited with her sister’s family in Batticaloa district after spending 11 months in an army detention center. She recalls the heart-wrenching scenes of human suffering in Puthikkudiyiruppu, in the North’s Wanni region, as she fled the battlefield:

I saw babies, less than a year old, dying in indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas. The shells were propelled from multi-barrel rocket launchers and shrapnel hit lots of people. I saw a busload of civilians with children blown apart by a shell…As we were fleeing the shelling, together with the civilians, there were literally waves of people dying behind us…When I see my sister’s children, I think of the children in the last days of the war…

There is strong evidence gathered by the UN and international human rights organizations that international norms were violated by both the Government of Sri Lanka forces and the LTTE when they caused huge numbers of civilians to be trapped in the conflict zone, resulting in large-scale death and destruction (International Crisis Group 2010). The respected University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR) in Jaffna, quoting witnesses, documented that the strategy used by the LTTE in Puthikkudiyiruppu was to station disabled suicide cadres with explosives in civilian bunkers, with instructions to explode themselves when they spotted large groups of soldiers coming their way (University Teachers for Human Rights 2009, p. 81). According to UTHR, this prompted the Sri Lankan army to run their heavy vehicles over the bunkers without any regard for civilian lives, thus burying alive huge numbers of people. These gross violations of the Geneva Conventions in the concluding stages of the war have not gone unnoticed in the international community, which has pressured UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to appoint, in late June 2010, a panel of experts to advise him on possible violations of humanitarian law by the Sri Lankan military.

Not Objects of Charity

M10 – who lost her left leg in a 1995 battle in the Wanni region – surrendered herself at the Omantai military checkpoint in the closing days of the war after fleeing the heavy shelling on Puthikkudiyiruppu with civilians. There she was immediately taken to Pampaimadu Camp for interrogation by Sri Lankan army intelligence and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the police force. A year later, in late April 2010, M10 was released and recalled how she was sent back to Batticaloa:

After about one year of intense repetitive interrogation by army intelligence and the CID, I was told that I would be released. There were about 20 girls like me. We were asked to get in a military truck and after we all got in, the back of the truck was covered with a large tarpaulin. We could not see where we were being driven. After several hours the truck stopped and my name was called out. I knew I was in Batticaloa as the surroundings looked familiar. Then I saw my sister and her children run towards me. I shouted perria aka (big sister) and we all embraced and cried. There was a CID officer who accompanied us. He warned me not to talk to anyone, or else I would be in trouble.

The truck then drove off. I felt that I had just been dumped into uncertainty. My sister is poor; I am disabled; so how is she going to look after me? No NGO came to talk to me in my sister’s place, except for the police who drop by every week to check up on me.

M7, like M10, is an injured ex-Tamil Tiger young woman combatant who surrendered at the Omantai checkpoint in the closing days of the war. In April 2010 she was released after a year in Cheddikulam camp, where the CID interrogated her. She graphically explains how she was blinded in her left eye during a battle in Killinnochi in 1998: “I saw my eye-ball on the forest floor after I was hit by shrapnel and then passed out.” M7 recalls how she tried to look for a job in Batticaloa after the army left her in her mother’s house:

My father passed away when I was in the jungle. Now my mother has to look after my six younger sisters. I did not want to be an extra burden to my mother because of my disability, and so I traveled to Batticaloa town with my three disabled [ex-LTTE] friends. We registered ourselves at the IOM [International Organization for Migration] office and asked whether there were any jobs for disabled young women, like us. After taking our details the IOM officer told us that they would contact us if anything turned up, and then asked us not to come back to the office to make enquiries. We were hurt.

The IOM programme in Batticaloa and other parts of the East, funded by the US government, says it “provides information and counseling to former fighters, referring them to vocational training, psychosocial support and employment opportunities” (Embassy of the United States 2009). Some participants, with appropriate experience and skill sets, also receive small grants to help them start their own business in their local communities. Mehreteab (2007, p. 13) offers a word of caution for dealing with disabled ex-combatants when he points out that many have little education, few skills and poor health in societies where it is already difficult to start a small enterprise or find employment to generate adequate income to achieve a moderate standard of living.

Disabled ex-combatants, more so female ex-combatants, are one of the most difficult to reintegrate in the absence of specific medical and psychosocial care in communities. Due to their disability they are unable to generate any income without intensive training and rehabilitation (Mehreteab 2007). The International Labour Organization (ILO) in its guidelines on disabled ex-combatants warns DDR planners against treating them as “objects of charity” and adds that these ex-combatants “do not want to depend on families and communities to sustain them…[and] wish to become economically and socially active in their civilian communities and avoid being a burden on society” (International Labour Organization 1997, p. 166).

Array of Ministries and Bureaucratic Entities

Sri Lanka’s National Action Plan for the community reintegration of ex-combatants – which is supported by donors – does include disabled fighters and states unequivocally “the equality of assistance…does not preclude the need to provide specialized interventions to specific needs groups like the disabled…” (Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights 2009, p. 4). But herein lies the problem. The responsibility for implementing the reintegration of ex-combatants is delegated to an ever-expanding array of ministries and bureaucratic bodies, ranging from the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights; four state institutions within the Ministry of Defence – namely Public Security, Law and Order, Terrorist Investigation Department and Military Intelligence Corps — to the Ministry of Justice and Law Reforms and the office of the Commissioner General for Rehabilitation, most of them acting independently of each other resulting in fragmentation of policy. At the provincial level DDR policy is implemented by under-funded provincial councils, which were formed following constitutional amendments in 1987.

To make matters worse, Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence (MOD) has the ability to ride roughshod over DDR plans and promotes the idea that DDR is only a security measure and should be limited to removing all dangerous elements from society. More to the point, the MOD requires that resettlement and reintegration must be interwoven with the elimination of the long-range offensive capabilities and disarmament of the LTTE (Muggah 2008, p. 154). If that is the case, then disabled enemy ex-combatants in the eyes of the MOD fall in the category of potentially less violent former troublemakers and will not receive the funds required to support their community reintegration.

But if disabled ex-combatants are given the opportunity, they can demonstrate resourcefulness and a commitment to a new life, as how M10 puts it:

I want to learn new skills and I want to learn English. I don’t want to think of the past. I’m now a civilian…and I want to make the best out of it.

Community Based Rehabilitation for Disabled Women LTTE Ex-Combatants?

The Association of Women with Disabilities is the only women’s organization in Sri Lanka addressing the needs of civilian women with disabilities. They are located in the North Central province and work with other women’s NGOs involved in development and human rights activities to promote inclusion, access and participation of women with disabilities in mainstream activities. However, this NGO does not work with disabled women ex-combatants. For disabled ex-service combatants and their families, the Rana Viru Seva Authority (RVSA) looks after their socio-economic integration. The RVSA is a semi government organization working under the Presidential secretariat in close collaboration with the private sector. Obviously none of these facilities will be made available to ex-LTTE combatants – sworn enemies of the Sri Lankan army servicemen and women.

Nonetheless, there is a protective mechanism in Batticaloa for disabled women ex-combatants through the female-kin-based matrilineal and matrilocal kinship organization that is discussed more in chapter six.

Twenty-one-year-old injured ex-Tamil Tiger woman combatant M9, who was blinded by shrapnel in a 2007 battle with the Sri Lankan army in the Wanni region, is an orphan adopted by her neighbour, whom she calls perria amah (eldest aunty). M9 talks of the kinship and care she receives:

My perria amah and her sisters in her family look after me. They cook for me and also help dress me. They look out for me when I go to the well and have my daily bath. To keep my mind active, they read me newspapers and books every day. I do not want to be a burden to them, but they keep assuring me that we are all sisters and need to help one another. My wish is that some NGO could help me learn some skills so that I can be independent financially. My perria amah’s family is poor and I would like to help them too.

Being in a literate society with nothing to do can give rise to idleness, uncertainty and despair from the lack of a horizon. A holistic rehabilitation approach is needed, including the important aspects of vocational training for the disabled, occupational therapy and psychosocial counseling or rehabilitation (Mehreteab 2007). Lessons can be learned from Nepal’s community based rehabilitation (CBR) interventions. This approach can enable the disabled ex-combatants to live with their families and work in their community while benefiting from their extended family networks. CBR interventions involve working with the sectors that provide support services to disabled ex-combatants and working within the community to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities in schools, training centers, work places, leisure and social activities (Mehreteab 2007).

But NGO workers remain skeptical that a CBR approach for ex-LTTE combatants will ever be adopted in Sri Lanka. For one, the Ministry of Defence is only pre-occupied with those they still consider ‘dangerous’. An NGO worker in Batticaloa puts this succinctly:

The disabled ex-Tamil Tiger fighters no longer pose a threat to the government. So why would they want to spend money on them? They have their disabled ex-servicemen to worry about. It is the former active LTTE combatants that scare them. The disabled former LTTEs cannot create trouble and if their family networks cannot provide for them, the government will happily place these disabled ex-fighters in welfare homes. That is the reality and it is sad.

SRI LANKA: Innocent Victims of War

They are among the victims of Sri Lanka’s civil war living in camps funded by the United Nations. Now footages come to light showing how bad conditions are in the camps.

The mobile phone footage from the group War Without Witness was reportedly shot about 4 weeks ago in Vavuniya in North Sri Lanka where over a quarter of a million Tamils are still being held.

The concern now is that when the monsoon rains begin in October that camp will be flooded.

SRI LANKA: Case for War Crimes?

“Human rights issues are stubborn ones. They will not go away. They cannot be dealt with by denial, bravado, defiance, conspiracy theories or neglect. Moreover they are indubitably in the national interest and to the detriment of no one other than the perpetrators of violations. At the same time, foreign policy cannot be conducted through allegation and counter allegation, shrill incoherence and what increasingly looks like incomprehension and incompetence.

Most importantly governance cannot be served or sustained by conflict and conspiracy, fear, paranoia and insecurity. We are part of an international community. Human rights and the international community have to be dealt with maturely, responsibly, constructively. Surely this is not beyond a regime, which enjoys such unprecedented popularity?” — Dr Paikiasothy Sarvanamuttu, Center for Policy Alternatives

SRI LANKA: Peace Comes With a Price

IT’s a four-month-old story that keeps developing. Back in May the Sri Lankan government defeated the rebel Liberationa Tigers of Tamil Elam in a military push that killed 20,000 civilians in the last month of fighting.

The year 2009 will be remembered as when Sri Lanka’s 30-year-old civil war came to an end.

But as always peace has come with a price…

Keep Still And Observe

Overview is a time for composure and contemplation. As a result of profound introspection, a hidden force reveals itself, and may influence others without their being aware of it. Do not underestimate the power of such a subtle force.

Like the wind blowing across the treetops, its presence is perceived through the effect it has on everything it touches.

Shallow wells rarely strike water and shallow minds often come up empty. The ability to keep still and simply observe deepens resolve and attracts good fortune. Discern the difference between what is deep and what is surface within yourself — and you will be able to distinguish between the two in the world as well.

During a period between events, the practice of stillness with awareness is fruitful. Only by observing and absorbing the true nature of things — by apprehending the rhythms and cycles that guide all creation — can we discover the laws that apply to our own individual lives. Examine yourself and the overall situation — not just with the thought of discovering truth, but with the vision of concentrating your personal power.

The Dance of 17 Lives

 

Ogyen Trinley Dorje, the Karmapa Lama/Associated Press

DHARAMSALA, India – It is nearly 10 years since a 14-year-old Tibetan monk made a dramatic escape over the Himalayas to India, travelling over 1,500 kilometres from his monastery in Tibet, evading Chinese border troops and risking death by exposure to the cold.

 

The monk was the 17th Karmapa, one of Tibet’s most important religious leaders.

Every year, more than a thousand Tibetans continue to risk their lives, defying Chinese- imposed restrictions on travel by secretly making the arduous and dangerous Himalayan crossing into Nepal and India.

On Oct 7, 1950, as United Nations troops under the command of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur crossed the 38th parallel in Korea, 40,000 Chinese soldiers invaded Tibet following a military plan laid down by Deng Xiaoping. Thus began the death of a nation, with the 14th Dalai Lama himself escaping to India in 1959.

However, the Karmapa’s escape on Dec. 28, 1999 was different. He was communist China’s most prized stooge in Tibet, the highest reincarnate lama under Beijing’s control to have the Dalai Lama’s official recognition. The Karmapa is also the head of the Karma Kagyu school, one of the four sects of Tibetan Buddhism, and by tradition the third most important lama in Tibet’s religious hierarchy – after the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama.

The Karmapas were the first lamas to establish the practice of identifiable reincarnation – some 400 years before the advent of the Dalai Lamas. And the young boy represented an unbroken line of succession dating back to the 12th century.

British journalist Mick Brown, fascinated by this charismatic young monk travels to Dharamsala, the seat of the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile in the Himalayan foothills of northern India, to try to score an interview.

Nonetheless, the interviewee soon becomes the subject of a book.

But Brown’s ‘The Dance of 17 Lives’ is more than just the life of the 17th Karmapa. It’s also about intrigue surrounding the selection of the 17th incarnation, interlaced with stories of miracles and rumours of murder, political conspiracy and the settling of centuries-old scores.

As ‘The Dance of 17 Lives’ points out, due to a controversy the identity of the current 17th Karmapa is actively disputed. There are two claimants – Ogyen Trinley and Thaye Dorje – each supported by a number of important lamas from the Kagyu lineage; however, the majority of the main Karma Kagyu lamas, the Dalai Lama, and the Tibetans, inside and outside of Tibet, have supported Ogyen Trinley.

The current feud began in a Chicago cancer ward, with the 1981 death of a man named Ranjung Rigpe Dorje. After the 1950 occupation of Tibet by China, Ranjung Rigpe, the 16th Karmapa, had established a thriving exile community and engineered the Kagyu school’s current Western popularity. Yet he appeared to have left one task undone: leaving proper instructions for finding the traditional poem, penned by him, that would help his followers find his reincarnated self — and thus the next Karmapa.

Before Ogyen Trinley was found, the Dalai Lama, writes Brown, had a vision in which he saw green mountains covered with meadows and two streams, where the name ‘Karmapa’ – ‘movement of karma’ in Sanskrit — resounded in the air.

Later, when the search party came to Barkor, the community where the boy was born on Jun. 26, 1985, this is exactly what they found: Green meadowed mountains in an area sparsely populated with two rivers on each side of the valley.

In Tibet, great births come accompanied with great legends.

Three days after the birth of Ogyen Trinley, then known as Apo Gaga or ‘happy brother’, ”the sound of a conch shell – an omen of a great birth – resonated across the valley, astonishing all who heard it, for no one could be found blowing such a shell, and no conch shell could sound as loudly as this one,” writes Brown.

But the drama behind the second claimant to the throne of the 17th Karmapa centres on Shamar Rinpoche, from the Sharmapa clan and one of the four ‘heart sons’ of the 16th Karmapa.

The prize is a crown, about 20 centimetres high, said to be woven from the hair of holy women. The stakes: assets worth 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in the 16th Karmapa’s monastery in Rumtek, Sikkim, and the reverence of up to a million followers.

In September 1992 Ogyen Thinley was officially enthroned as the 17th Karmapa in Tibet’s Tsurphu Monastery.

But in March 1994 in New Delhi, a defiant Shamar Rinpoche also enthroned his own choice for the job: a bespectacled 10-year-old named Tenzin Chentse, whose parents he said were Tibetan refugees. The boy was later named Thaye Dorje.

Shamar Rinpoche’s welcoming ceremony for the new contender, however, turned into a melee, and the boy spent the next few weeks under the guard of 300 monks and 400 combat-ready Europeans from a militant Buddhist school run by a Danish ex- boxer.

Brown’s ‘The Dance of 17 Lives’ is frank about the centuries-old conflict between the Shamarpas and the dominant Gelugpa yellow-hat sect led by the Dalai Lama.

In 1791, the 10th Shamarpa incited King Prithi Narayanan Shah of Nepal to invade Tibet in order to secure a large quantity of gold from the Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigaste.

The Chinese who had long considered Tibet as their ‘protectorate’ decided to intervene.

Early in 1792, the Chinese emperor despatched 13,000 troops to join the 10,000 Tibetans already amassed against the Gurkha invaders. Together with the Tibetans, the Chinese managed to drive the Gurkhas across the border into Nepal.

The 10th Shamar Rinpoche then committed suicide. As a punishment for the betrayal, the ruling Gelugpa sect forbade any Shamar incarnations. The Shamar’s red crown was buried under the steps of the courthouse in Lhasa as a mark of disgrace.

It was not until 1963 that the line of the Shamarpa was finally reinstated by the current Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile in Dharamsala – a regrettable move that would cause irreparable damage to the Kagyu school.

The return of the 17th Karmapa Orgyen Trinley, who is currently staying in Dharamsala, to the Rumtek monastery in Sikkim depends entirely on India. New Delhi, so far, has tried to avoid the issue, preferring the Karmapa to remain in the Gyuto monastery near the seat of the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile so that the Indian government would be able to keep an eye on both.

Politics is cruel and even Tibetan Buddhism is not free from it.

As Brown writes towards the end, ”I had been aware of a nagging doubt growing in my mind; the talk of politics, of disputation that somehow made me momentarily forget the essence of the Buddhist practice. It had dented my faith.”

ETHIOPIA: When Child Brides Become Social Outcasts

Fistula is prevalent throughout the developing world and women are susceptible to getting fistulas anywhere there is a breakdown in the health system. credit: Shaleece Haas

MESERET, from the Lalibela district in northern Ethiopia, was only 13 when she became pregnant. Married at 12, her underdeveloped body was not ready for the stress of giving birth. After six days of gruelling labour her child was finally born, but it was dead.

As a result of the long labour, Meseret suffered crippling injuries – including the ripping of internal tissue. This created a hole between her bladder, vagina and rectum, a condition that doctors term an “obstetric fistula”. As a result, Meseret became unable to control normal excretory functions – and urine and faeces started to drip down her legs constantly.

The girl’s husband quickly rejected her. She had given him a dead baby and now she smelled bad. He sent her home to her family.

If left untreated, Meseret’s condition would probably have led to infections, kidney failure – and eventually, death.

But fortunately, her mother heard of another girl in the village who had suffered from this ailment – and how she had successfully sought treatment in the capital, Addis Ababa.

The family then sold a cow to pay for the three-day bus journey to the capital and arrived at the gates of the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, with Meseret, penniless.

For the hospital’s founder, Dr. Catherine Hamlin, this was a common tale. Hamlin is an Australian gynecologist who has spent the last 44 years in the capital.

Her hospital treats 1,200 women annually. However, as the continent marks African Women’s Health and Rights Day today, health experts acknowledge that this is a fraction of the total number of fistula cases that occur in Ethiopia.

The World Health Organisation believes up to 8,500 women in the East Africa country develop the condition every year.

“In many developing countries, the role of women is limited to providing sexual satisfaction for their husbands, producing children and performing the hard labor associated with agrarian life,” says Hamlin.

“Fistula injuries destroy their ability to fulfil these roles, and with it their sense of self-worth. They become social outcasts from their community through no fault of their own.”

Fortunately, most fistulas can be corrected surgically, even after several years.

The cost of the operation ranges from $100 to $450. While this amount is far beyond what most patients can afford, the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital offers free surgery – and a free bed for the patient.

“If done properly, surgical repair can have a success rate as high as 90 per cent and women can usually have more children,” said Hamlin.

Reliable data on obstetric fistula are hard to come by for the whole of Africa, although the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 women may be affected.

“If obstetric fistula was something that happened to both men and women there would have been more efforts made to study it,” said Ruth Kennedy, the Addis Ababa hospital’s administrator.

But because of poverty and the stigma associated with their condition, most women living with fistulas remain invisible to policy makers both in their own countries and abroad.

“These are girls are illiterate, so they cannot communicate – they cannot write and say, ‘Look, I’ve got this problem, can you help me?’” notes Kennedy.

UNFPA began fistula prevention programmes in 2002. But President George Bush, alarmed by reports that the agency was supporting forced abortions in China, later withheld $34 million worth of funding for UNFPA. This has had a knock-on effect for the agency’s work in other parts of the world, including Ethiopia. The UNFPA denies the charge of endorsing forced abortions in China.

Postponing the age of marriage and delaying childbirth can significantly reduce the risk of subjecting young women to the arduous labour that induces fistulas. However, educating Ethiopian women about these facts is proving an uphill battle.

At present, the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital runs an awareness programme in conjunction with the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association.

“We have a women lawyer who gives talks to the girls, here in the hospital, about their rights: that they don’t need to be married early, and should be going to school instead,” says Hamlin.

“But it is very difficult to alter the culture when you’re sitting in Addis Ababa, unless it comes from the people in the village,” she adds.

“So we have to go to the villages, I reckon, to talk to the people there, if we want to see change.”

SRI LANKA: Breaking Down Ethnic Barriers

 

KALAIVANI: Learnt to forgive...

Forgiveness was a difficult word for Kalaivani Saravani when she was growing up as a war orphan in Sri Lanka. But recently the 18-year-old Tamil university student, almost by accident, discovered personal healing.

 

 This happened when she was selected to participate as a trainee radio producer in a weeklong Internews cross-production workshop in early May that brought together 15, mostly young, Tamil, Sinhalese and Muslim journalists to cover stories that affect the lives of local communities.

 Kalaivani, who grew up in the troubled Batticaloa district in Sri Lanka’s east coast, related, “In 1994, there was heavy fighting in my village in Batticaloa between the Sri Lankan armed forces and Tamil Tiger (LTTE) rebels. My father was killed by the Sri Lankan army and my mother went missing.’’

 Her voice hoarse with emotion, she continued, “My eight siblings and I were in an IDP camp for a while and then we were transferred to an orphanage. Till today I don’t know whether my mother is alive or dead.”

 Since 1983, the people of Batticaloa district have suffered the consequences of the war between the Sri Lankan forces and the Tamil Tigers. Until December 2006, 80 percent of Batticaloa district was under rebel control and 20 percent under the Sri Lankan government. After five months of intense fighting, the whole district is now under Sri Lankan government control and administration.

 While Kalaivani excelled in her studies in the orphanage and managed to get entrance into the Open University, she confessed that she had extreme hatred for all Sinhalese.

 ‘’The Sinhalese form the majority of the Sri Lankan forces that killed my father,’’ she explained with pain in her eyes.

 ‘’But I realized that hatred was destroying me. While I was good in Tamil language and English, I refused to even learn a word of Sinhala and avoided coming into contact with Sinhalese people. I was killing myself with this burning anger,’’ she said.

 Little did Kalaivani realize that she would be undergoing a personal transformation when she was selected by Internews for a journalism training workshop. As part of the workshop, she joined a group of Tamil and Muslim journalists traveling from the east to the predominately Sinhalese-dominated southern coast in the cross-production workshop.

 She was assigned to report and produce a radio story in Tamil on communities displaced by the construction of a superhighway from Colombo to Matara. To produce her story, she had to talk to Sinhalese villagers in Akmeemana village, near the tourist resort of Galle. An interpreter was available to help her.

 “My initial nervousness all proved to be just a bit too stupid,’’ she admitted. “The Sinhalese people in Akmeemana village opened their hearts out to me even when they knew I was a Tamil and couldn’t speak Sinhala. They made me feel so welcome.’’

 “I was touched when they wanted to tell me their problems. They wanted their sufferings to be heard by Tamil listeners of the radio stations. They, too, were trying to reach out to their Tamil brothers and sisters to say that all poor people have the same problems, regardless of whether you are Sinhalese, Tamil or Muslim.’’

 At the end of the cross-production workshop in Ampara, a city 200 kilometers from the capital, Colombo, on Sri Lanka’s east coast, Kalaivani shared with all the 15 Tamil, Sinhalese and Muslim trainees the story of her personal transformation.

 “The people in Akmeemana village made me realize that my anger and hatred were all just misplaced. I’ve been conscientiously trying to learn Sinhala this week and will continue to do so when I return to Batticaloa,’’ she said in halting Sinhala, to a round of hearty applause.

 Stimulating community dialogue and raising community awareness of youth issues are an essential part of Internews’ Real Voices Radio program, which creates a space for common voices in the mainstream media, regardless of ethnicity. Through four cross-production series since the 2006 inception of the USAID-funded Regional Media Houses in the east and south of Sri Lanka, Internews trainers have managed to introduce empathy, nonviolence and creativity into stories done in the conflict areas with Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim reporters.

 These reporters are trained to understand conflict partners from the inside and recognize in all parties their joint creativity in finding ways to transcend the incompatibilities. This in turn is reflected in their stories, which are broadcast by four radio stations transmitting the Real Voices programs in East and South Sri Lanka. Two of the radio stations – Ruhunu Sevaya FM and Uva Radio – are popular with young Sinhalese listeners.