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VALAICHCHENAI (Sri Lanka): A dusty road lined with burned-out shops is the only thing that connects the Muslim and Tamil parts of Valaichchenai.
The east coast Sri Lankan town, the scene of clashes between the two groups over the past week in which at least 11 died, is almost completely divided. The Tamil community lives on one side of the road and the Muslims on the other.
The only place where the two sides mixed was a bazaar along the main street. This is now a deserted string of blackened shops watched over by dozens of heavily armed Sri Lankan soldiers.
Muslims blamed the clashes on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), saying they had pushed Tamils, who are mostly Hindu, to attack Muslim shops that refused to pay taxes to the guerrillas, fighting for a separate state in the north and east.
“The Tigers came and asked for tax money. The Tigers were behind the burning,” said Mohammed Jafry Al Fatha after he finished his afternoon prayers at a local mosque.
The Muslims also speak Tamil but view themselves as not only a religious but also a separate ethnic group.
The pro-rebel Tamilnet Web site blamed “extremists” for the violence that police said destroyed 61 Muslim and 35 Tamil businesses in Valaichchenai, just north of the major city of Batticaloa, about 220 kms east of Colombo.
At least nine Muslims and two Tamils were killed in the clashes that threw further into doubt how the two groups will live together under a ceasefire signed by the government and Tamil Tiger rebels in February.
PEACE TALKS: The clashes came as the LTTE and government try to hammer out details for direct peace talks — due to start this summer in Thailand — to end a two-decade civil war that has claimed more than 64,000 lives.
Government offices were also attacked, with just a bank and buildings that Muslims said were owned by Tamils spared.
“It is very sad to see this. We have to re-establish peace and the people must learn to live in peace again,” said village council administrator P. Kirupananthathasan, standing outside her ransacked office.
The split in the town is so pronounced that two district secretariats have been set up to handle the two sides, said C. Punniyamoorthy, head of the secretariat on the Tamil side.
He said there were about 24,000 Tamils in his district and 40,000 Muslims across the road.
Overall Tamils make up about 18 per cent of Sri Lanka’s 19 million people while Muslims number about eight per cent, but the two groups are about equal in the east of the island.
“The curfew has been lifted in the day but people are staying home because of the fear,” he said.
One end of the street was strewn with black video tape, left over from the looting of a video rental store.
Furniture stores, liquor shops and beauty salons were among the businesses ravaged, with some burned so badly that all that remained were two brick walls.
The road is such a dividing line that the town’s small community of 20 Burgher families — Sri Lankans of Dutch and Portuguese decent — live along it instead of in the Tamil or Muslim areas.
“We are neutral, we don’t know who started all of this,” said one Burgher, clad in a sarong, the traditional village attire.
He said even the local soccer fields were separate, with the one on the Tamil side of the road just for Tamils.
Because of the violence, changes may be needed to the truce agreement to protect Muslims, said Minister of Muslim Religious Affairs Rauf Hakeem.
“Incidents that were taking place in the eastern province...have put the future of Muslims living in the northeast into question,” said Hakeem, who also heads Sri Lanka’s largest Muslim political party.
There was no comment from the rebels, who under the ceasefire agreement have been able to set up political offices in areas under government control.
An LTTE flag showing a roaring Tiger in front of crossed machineguns flew over the rebel office in Valaichchenai which also had several posters of guerrilla leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
The Tigers, accused of ethnic cleansing in the past for such things as evicting about 100,000 Muslims from northern Jaffna peninsula 10 years ago, apologized in April for the mistreatment.
Hakeem signed an agreement with the LTTE less than three months ago to hammer out safeguards for Muslims. After the latest clashes began he said the rebels’ credibility was now at stake.—Reuters
