Cleaning the Nest

Well, last blog, I fouled the nest. However, I grabbed a broom to the tangle of attitude that had stormed into our, er... my, nest and have been sweeping up a storm all week. The nest is clean, tidy and a sense of calm and order has returned. Whew! Unger is hard to take. I feel much better.

We have confirmed tickets to leave September 28. We fly to Korea to see Lisa, our daughter who is teaching English as a Second Language there, and then from there, fly to Sri Lanka on October 5. We, however, still do not have Visa approval from the Sri Lankan Government. However, we have been told by the Sri Lanka CUSO-VSO staff that if in about 3 week's time, we have not yet received approvals, they will re-apply for us to obtain Visas for the interior or southern part of Sri Lanka.  We have been approved by Passport Canada for the new passports.  We made our trip down on Tuesday this week and all was approved.  The biotch did not "assist" us this time.

Jaffna, Sri Lanka is where CUSO-VSO wants to place us. Jaffna is home to the largest population of Tamil people and this section of Sri Lanka remains under Military Rule, since the end of the civil war between the Tamil people and the Sinhalese people of the country. As Military Rule exists, no foreigners have been permitted Visas since about 2006 and despite the situation being much more settled since the war ended, Visa permits apparently remain very difficult for foreigners.

 I provide a bit of history on Sri Lanka, for some context. As nearly and as simply as I understand the situation over there, the civil war is an ethnic war for equality. About the 16th century, some coastal areas of the country were ruled by the Portugese, Dutch and British. After the year 1815 the entire nation was ruled by the British Colonialists until the political independence granted in 1948 and Sri Lanka became a sovereign state after 1972. The Sri Lankan Civil started in 1983 and the 26 year civil war ended in year 2009.

The Tamil people are the minority population in Sri Lanka. Therefore, when voting in parliament on various issues, the Tamil people are underrepresented, and therefore, have no political power. As a result of this inequality, they lobbied the government, requesting extra seats in parliament in order to equalize the power between the Sinhalese and Tamils. It was the refusal of this equalization by the Sri Lankan Government that led to the formation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the move toward a fight to create an independent Tamil state named Tamil Eelam in the north and the east of the island.

The Sri Lankan government overthrew the LTTE in 2009, but now, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for a panel advising him on possible war crimes in Sri Lanka. On July 6, 2010, Reuters reported that,

 

"Sri Lanka's government is furious at Ban's appointment of the three-member panel on June 22, saying it is a violation of its sovereignty and a hypocritical application of double standards by Western governments engaged in the war on terror. The panel is to advise Ban if any crimes were committed in the final months of Sri Lanka's quarter-century conflict with the Tamil Tiger separatists, in which government forces won total victory in May 2009. Sri Lanka is under pressure from the West, after rights watchdogs took advantage of the anniversary of the war's end to renew a push for an international probe into what they say are tens of thousands of civilian deaths"
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6651MI20100706).

Interestingly, this UN panel formed to conduct an inquiry on the war crimes has also been refused visas to enter the country, "The Sri Lankan government promptly announced that it would not provide visas to the panel members to visit the country. "(Tamil News Network.com, July 12, 2010). So maybe an ex-Judge is not welcome in the country and Bill may actually be the reason for our difficulty in obtaining visas.


As you can only imagine, the horror experienced by the people during a war situation, especially if there have been war crimes. Reading on the subject of war crimes in Sri Lanka, one quickly realizes that trauma in our country is not same as seeing your mother shot or your home deliberately burned or a mother forced to carry the decapitated head of her child during a forced march. Such crimes of humanity may have actually been carried out by both sides. In addition, the country was devastated by the Tsunami of 2004.


Obviously, counselling is required to assist the people to cope, adjust and find hope again after these types of devastations. A counselling centre has been established in Jaffna and this centre, also provides counselling training to other regions of the country. It is here, at Shanthiham Counselling Centre, that the heart of my work will lie. Shanthiham Counselling Centre needed a person to study the drawbacks of their training unit and help it to improve its quality and sustainability. This will be my primary responsibility. However, Dr. Sivoyokan, the psychiatrist for whom I will be working, has alluded to "multiple roles" due to the shortage of trained personnel: direct clinical work, clinical teaching in the various mental health hospitals and centres and also some liaison with the university.


Who am I to even begin to believe that I can assist in the face of so much trauma? I can only hope that the principles of therapy are universal and that my skill at program evaluation improves. I can also hope that the old adage is true:

 

"God doesn't call the prepared, he prepares the called".

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