Tsunami disaster hasn't mended Sri Lankan divide

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, N.J. — In Sri Lanka, the Tamils live mostly in the northeast, where they have their own schools and worship freely in Hindu temples. They also have their own army.

Until recent decades, Tamils kept a peaceful distance from the island's Buddhist Sinhalese majority for centuries. In the days after the Dec. 26 tsunami, there was hopeful talk that the disaster might help to finally bring the two warring ethnic groups together.

Instead, two groups that inhabit the island remain worlds apart — and the antipathy spreads everywhere they migrate.

In New Jersey, home to about 1,100 Sri Lankan expatriates, the Sri Lankan relief effort is a case of Tamil and Sinhalese taking care of their own.

"We are doing it our way and they are doing it their way, that is all," said Ram Ranjan, state coordinator for the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization, a long-standing international aid group that raised funds nationwide and sent $650,000 to the northeast of the island. The TRO's goal for immediate relief is $1 million — all headed for Tamil regions.

In Sri Lanka, Tamils number about 4 million in a country of 20 million.

"There is no enmity, we are not in conflict with each other," Ranjan said, "but we are not collaborating. We have nothing against the Sinhalese people. They are trying their best to help their people; we are helping ours."

At the New Jersey Buddhist Vihara in Franklin Township, the temple's Sinhalese members already have sent two 40-foot-long ship containers of relief supplies to Sri Lanka, and two more are planned. But temple members did not reach out to any Tamil organizations to take part in the effort. Nobody really knows why.

"We welcome them and they welcome us," said resident monk Badulle Kondanna, a Sinhalese. "We still don't know each other — that may be the problem."

"As a community, there is a fairly clear separation," said Mani Vannan, a TRO volunteer. "The credibility and the trust is not there now. ... We help people who we are most familiar with. There is nothing wrong with that."

Tension between Tamils and Sinhalese began in 1948, after Sri Lanka — then more widely known as Ceylon — gained independence from England. Tamils criticized what they believed was a Sinhalese nationalist agenda and said they were beginning to feel like second-class citizens.

In 1983, the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ambushed a group of government Sinhalese soldiers in the northern district of Jaffna. In retaliation, rioters nationwide sought out Tamils and killed them, Ranjan said. This led to the nearly two-decade-long civil war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government in which 60,000 Sri Lankans were killed, most of them Tamils. A cease-fire was called in 2002.

Meanwhile, about 500,000 Tamils have left the island in the past two decades, many seeking refuge in southern India, Canada, England or the United States.

The TRO was formed in 1985 to assist the refugees living in Tamil Nadu, India. Now the TRO has offices in more than 16 countries — wherever there are Tamils.

As for working together with Sinhalese to aid the island, Ranjan said: "Maybe in a situation like this, it would be a good idea. We want to make it extremely clear: Our hearts go out to everyone that suffered in Sri Lanka. ... Our only grievance is with the government."

Members of the Buddhist viharas in the New York boroughs of Queens and Staten Island reported that some Tamils gave donations, Kondanna said. He believes there is a real possibility for both groups to live peacefully because there are areas in Sri Lanka where they already do.