OTTUSUTTAN REFUGEE CAMP, Sri Lanka — The way Thambaiya Pangayachchelvan sees it, the battering Sri Lankans suffered at the hands of a deadly tsunami has made it abundantly clear how essential peace is to this divided country. He just wonders when leaders on both sides of the long-simmering civil war will get the message.
"Enough is enough," said the 44-year-old principal of the local school, who lost five relatives in Sunday's calamity. "So many people have died. We desperately need to end the fighting and avoid still more killing."
It's a sentiment echoed by many people in Sri Lanka's northeast, which is controlled by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Although people across the country have faced crushing losses this week, the deadly waves are only the latest in a flurry of blows to impoverished Tamils.
For almost two decades beginning in 1983, the civil war between the government and the rebels raged on Tamil doorsteps -- local houses were bombed, farmers were killed and rice fields turned into battlefields.
Gesturing toward the bullet-pocked walls, Pangayachchelvan described how his rural school became a military base, first for government soldiers, and then, as the line of control shifted, for Tamil Tiger forces. The area, about 15 miles southwest of Mullaittivu on the east coast, was hit by drought and then by floods. Crops failed, and farmers pulled their kids out of school. People went hungry, and the economy sputtered.
Residents were just starting to get back on their feet and establish some semblance of a normal life when the tsunami slammed into their homes. The Tamil-majority north was the worst hit, accounting for about half of the more than 28,000 reported killed nationwide and for many of the 1 million said to be displaced.
Once again, Pangayachchelvan's school has been deployed, this time as a refugee camp.
"We really need peace," said Suppaiya Raja, 38, a laborer living in the camp with his wife and five children after narrowly escaping death in Sunday's massive waves. "My house was destroyed. I don't have a job, and my family is back in a camp again. I'm losing hope."
Experts believe that a narrow window for peace has opened with this week's shared suffering, uniting people of various religions and ethnic groups.
"This disaster is so unfortunate, but it's happened," said Mahesh Senanayake, a political scientist at the University of Colombo and an expert on the separatist conflict. "We must try to turn this into a positive. It would be a great shame to miss this opportunity."
