PUSH FACTORS:The caste system has been responsible for considerable covert violence throughout history. For many from the lower castes, joining the militant movement became a way out of this oppressive system. Similarly, for the younger women who experience widespread socio-cultural oppression against their sex, it is a means of escape and ‘liberation’ ___________________
by Daya Somasundaram
Social
(June 11, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) Jaffna Hindu society before the war was very much under the caste system and the lower castes were suppressed by the higher, mainly the Vellala caste who held the authority. The caste system has been responsible for considerable covert violence throughout history. For many from the lower castes, joining the militant movement became a way out of this oppressive system. Similarly, for the younger women who experience widespread socio-cultural oppression against their sex, it is a means of escape and ‘liberation’ (Trawick, 1999; Hellmann-Rajanayagam, 2008). The LTTE cadres, particularly the leader¬ship, have been drawn particularly from the Karaiyar caste (traditionally fish¬erman living along the coast but have a reputation of being seafarers, warriors, mercenaries and smugglers). It is noteworthy that the LTTE developed a fairly powerful naval wing, Sea Tigers, and suicide Black Sea Tigers who would ram their explosive laden crafts into the bigger Lankan Navy boats.
Economical
Many of the youth and children who joined the militant forces are from the lower socio-economical classes. Economical pressures within the family and lack of opportunities in the wider society drove many youth to join. Many youth felt their avenues for advancement blocked by the discriminatory acts of the state, with many not able to find employment, opportunity for higher education or vocational training, economical assistance in the form of loans or schemes, or other openings that they saw youths from the majority ethnic group exploiting to their benefit.
Under the dowry system, some parents having female children for whom they could not provide encouraged them to join. Thus, looking from a socio¬economic perspective, the vast majority of the youth who joined the mili¬tancy were from the lower disadvantaged socio-economic class. It is ironic that the vast majority of the state forces involved in the direct fighting were also from the same disadvantaged socio-economic class. However, there was a noticeable difference in their motivation, particularly under the duress of bat¬tle or rigours of training. This may well show that fanatical belief in a cause or perceived threat to group identity (to be discussed later) can override eco¬nomic motivations.
Food
Lack of food, especially nutritious food, is another important indirect stressor but perhaps not a direct motivating factor. Studies in the Jaffna General Hos¬pital show that there has been a statistically significant increase in Low Birth Weight (below 2.5 kg) babies from 19% in 1989 to 23% in 1991 and even 25% in 1992. The cause for this can be found in the malnutrition of preg¬nant mothers. In 1987, Theivendran3 found that all the pregnant mothers, as well as the lactating mothers, examined in 12 refugee camps within the Jaffna municipality, were anaemic. He also found that 41% of the infants and 73% 3 R. Theivendran, “Unpublished Study of Miscarriages among Refugees”, pers. comm.
"The LTTE could harness and direct this emotion against a perceived enemy through indoctrination and training to create the Black Tigers. The cynical manipulation of cadres by the LTTE leadership was seen in the final battle, where waves of suicide squads were sent to slow down the inevitable advance of the Lankan army while the leaders were looking and negotiating for terms of surrender." File Image: The LTTE Black tigers at battle front _____________
of the children of 1–5 years were below the 3rd percentile expected weight for their age, showing chronic 2nd to 3rd degree Protein Calorie Malnutri¬tion. Similar malnutrition (68% below the 3rd percentile in 1–5 year olds) was found in the Kotpali refugee camp by the SCF (Council of Non-Govern¬mental Organisations, 1992). Deprivation of food and chronic hunger are themselves stressors that cause apathy, listlessness, irritation and failure to thrive. Furthermore, low birth weight and malnourishment in infants increases the risk of immediate and long-term morbidity and mortality, including psychiatric disorders. Protein malnutrition in the critical period of development of the nervous system (that is, from conception to about two years after birth) leads to permanent brain damage causing Mental Subnor¬mality. According to the Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (1992) and Sivarajah (1993), the reasons for this widespread malnutrition are attributed to the shortage of protein due to the fall in the fishing and poultry industries and perhaps also due to poverty caused by unemployment, loss of working equipment, agricultural fields and savings; as well as shortages and high prices of food — all indirect effects of war.
Parents have been known to send one or more of their children to join when facing difficulties in feeding the family. They have expressed satisfaction that at least that child will have enough to eat. The LTTE has also used their ability to feed their cadres with good food in their propaganda for recruit-ment and were mindful of the regular diet of their cadres.
Health
Another stressor, again not a direct motivating cause, is ill health due to reduced resistance as a consequence of malnourishment and psychological stress, poor sanitation and overcrowding in the refugee camps, epidemic spread of communicable diseases, poor health services, shortage of drugs, and uncontrolled multiplication of disease vectors, like mosquitoes, due to a lack of spraying. Diseases on the increase in children included respiratory tract infections, gastroenteritis, dysentery, typhoid, resistant cerebral malaria, tuberculosis, rheumatic fever and craditis, and the so-called fatal ‘septicaemia.’
Lack of quality healthcare in the North and East is appalling (Somasun¬daram, 2005a). The lack of access to health and malnutrition may produce a milieu of deprivation, a perception of inequity that could turn into a direct motivating factor.
Displacement
Displacement is the source of several stresses, as described by Prof. Raphael (1986): The loss of home, a strange environment, the breakdown of family ritual, separation from parents, from familiar neighbourhood and environment, and from school and friends, the loss of toys and treasures, and crowded and strange accommodation are all likely to be stressful for the child.
Almost all families were displaced during the 1995 exodus (UTHR-J, 1995b), and a high proportion had been displaced at other times, particularly during the Indian intervention in October of 1987 (Hoole et al. 1988). All the indices of psychological disturbances are more marked in the displaced students (Arunagirinathan et al., 1993). Refugee camps become breeding grounds for recruitment.
Education
Disruption in regular schooling and education has been a prominent stressor in this war (inability to attend schools due to: displacements; unavailability of schools due to destruction or use as camps); indefiniteness about national exams; lack of a secure, calm, lighted (no electricity), quiet environment for learning; irregular attendance due to transport difficulties and disturbed situ¬ation, students being detained, conscripted, indoctrinated or forced to par¬take in political activities; seeing the emigration of fellow students; lack of opportunity to continue their education (refugee children being unable to go to school due to a lack of uniforms, exercise books and the like); and short¬ages and delays in receiving school text books and materials; etc.
The beginnings of Tamil militancy were a reaction to the discriminatory state policy in education, particularly changes in university admission procedures favouring the majority community. Unfortunately, recent developments in the educational system have turned this once cherished endeavour into an area of deprivation. The non-attendance and dropout rates increased dramatically in the North in the late 1990’s, becoming the highest on the island (Save the Children, 1998). A recent study of the performance of students in basic skills, such as in language and mathematics, shows the north-east coming last in the island (National Education Research and Evaluation Centre, 2004). Ironically, what started out as a struggle for better educational opportunities has had the opposite effect, even to point of being classified as a ‘deprived’ district. Under these circumstances, militancy has become an alluring alternative to education.
Death of Parent(s) and/or Relatives
Death or disappearance of one or both parents have left many children orphaned or as members of one-parent families. Some left to join when they directly witnessed the brutal killing of their parent(s) by the state, others left later when pressures built up in the family. Some reported a burning desire for revenge as a reason for joining.
Destruction
During the fighting, many structures were destroyed, including homes, schools, temples, churches and other social institutions. Seeing the destruction of a till then permanent structure, his or her home, and/or social and religious institutions can be the collapse of everything secure and strong of the child’s known world, creating a vacuum that can never be filled. A variety of emo¬tions can result: From anger, resentment and devastation, to hopelessness and indignation.
Humiliation, Harassment, Detention, Death Tamil youth are specifically targeted by the state security forces in their checking, and cordon and search operations, and generally detained for inter¬rogation, detention, torture, execution or even rape. During the so-called ‘Operation Liberation’ in 1987, the youth were either summarily shot (Hoole et al., 1988) or shipped off in chains to the Boosa camp in the South by the army en mass. So, when faced with the possible entry of the army, many youth will rather join than face, in their eyes, certain detention and death. Fifteen per cent of the 600 disappearances in 1996 within Jaffna were chil¬dren. In a more recent example of direct cause-and-effect, in May 1999, a senior school prefect of a leading school in Jaffna was detained when his par¬ents had taken him to the camp. When he was not released in the subsequent days, all the schools in the Jaffna district went on strike. Finally, he was released without any charges. Contusions and abrasions were found on his body. While he was in detention, five other students from the same area left to join the movement.
In addition to the pogrom of 1983 against the Tamil minority ethnic group (Piyadasa, 1984; Roberts, 2003), it was the continuing deaths, destruc¬tion and violence by the state that was perceived as being directed against the Tamils that lent legitimacy to the militancy that attracted the allegiance and blind loyalty to whichever movement that was at hand. Many were humili¬ated in the way they or their families were treated at check-points, search opera¬tions, or in dealings with state officials. This left a burning resentment just below the surface. In some drama workshops in the North, skilled practitioners of the Theatre Action Group (TAC) brought out these emotions from disgrun¬tled youth and paved the way for their easiy recruitment into the militancy.
Once recruited, the LTTE could harness and direct this emotion against a perceived enemy through indoctrination and training to create the Black Tigers. The cynical manipulation of cadres by the LTTE leadership was seen in the final battle, where waves of suicide squads were sent to slow down the inevitable advance of the Lankan army while the leaders were looking and negotiating for terms of surrender (UTHR-J, 2009).
Traumatisation
In the civil war that has been in progress in north-east Sri Lanka for almost two decades, children have been traumatised by such common experiences as frequent shelling, bombing, helicopter strafing, round-ups, cordoning-off and search operations, deaths, injury, destruction, mass arrests, detention, shootings, grenade explosions and landmines. A recent study in the Vanni found that over 90% of the students have undergone a direct war experience (VIVO, 2003). Studies focusing on children in war situations, for example, in Mozambique (Richman et al., 1988) and the Philippines (Children’s Reha¬bilitation Center, 1986) report considerable psychological sequelae. A detailed Canadian study of children in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka, in addition to their studies in Yugoslavia, Palestine and Iraq, found considerable more expo¬sure to war trauma and psychological sequelae in the ethnic minority Tamil children (Health Reach, 1996). In northern Sri Lanka, extensive epidemiologi¬cal surveys in 1993 of 12 Vaddukoddai cluster schools (Arunakirinathan et al., 1993), adolescents in Jaffna (Geevathasan, 1993), and Killinochchi schools (Somasundaram, 1998) showed widespread war stressors (Table 2).
The impact of the war on their growing minds (Tables 3 and 4) and the resulting raumatisation and brutalisation will be the primary motivating factors for their future militancy.Future (Employment and Education)
As mentioned, opportunities for and access to further education, sports, for¬eign scholarships, or jobs in the state sector (Table 5) have been progressively restricted by successive Sinhalese governments, despite the lip-service paid to maintaining ethnic ratios.
Political
One example of an outstanding grievance, the use of the Tamil language, remains unimplemented. The Report on the Abused Child and the Legal Process of Sri Lanka submitted to the National Monitoring Committee on the Chil¬dren’s Charter by Samaraweera (1997), says, ‘The legal process operates virtu¬ally entirely, certainly in the texts we examined, in Sinhala or in Sinhala and English. When a child who speaks only Tamil encounters the law, as we were able to observe on numerous occasions during our research, s/he is at a con¬siderable disadvantage, and may even be completely shut out. The Tamil-only speakers are dealt with by the legal process very much on an ad hoc basis . . .’ What is true for the legal system is similar to all other areas of public func¬tioning in Sri Lanka today: S/he invariably faces humiliation. When a Tamil youth is checked or detained, they are often harassed, beaten or tortured. In a study of former detainees in Vavuniya, all were found to have been tortured (Doney, 1998).
In addition, there are the cumulative effects of chronic civil violence and suppression on a community, described as a ‘repressive ecology’ (Baykai et al., 2004), that cause a break-up off social capital, resources, struc¬tures and functioning, called ‘collective trauma’ (Somasundaram, 2007). The greatest impact of this kind of structural violence and oppression is on the younger generation. Over time the discrimination and violence against the minority Tamils have become institutionalised, entrenched within the system, so much so that the state terror and oppression are hardly conspicuous (Somasundaram, 2005b). In these circumstances, it would be easy to under¬stand why youth and children join. It would be much more effective in the long-term and a more permanent solution to bring pressure on the state to dismantle the socio-economic and political oppression that the particular group faces. Ultimately, militancy and dying as a Black Tiger is a political message, a signal of frustration from those without access to power; a method, however misguided, that is resorted to when other alternates appear to fail; and a message about perceived injustice and inequity.
Previous Part: Part One
(Source: Asian Journal of Social Science 38 (2010) 416–441)
To be continued...
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