[R-G] The Fires Within: Sri Lanka at War

[Anthony Fenton]

Fair Disclosure:

SourceWatch backgrounder on the 'democracy' promoting Asia Society:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Asia_Society



On 23-Jun-08, at 5:28 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

> <http://www.asiasociety.org/pictureasia/thefireswithin/index.html>
> The Fires Within: Sri Lanka at War
>
> Sri Lanka has known civil war for 25 of its 60 years of independence.
> The conflict started in July 1983 with an attack on government troops
> by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a group that seeks a
> separate Tamil state in the north and east of the island nation.
>
> The fighting has taken a tremendous toll on ordinary Sri Lankans: over
> 65,000 deaths, hundreds of thousands displaced, and rising military
> spending and economic disruption.
>
> Both sides have been accused of human rights violations by local and
> international rights groups. Regrettably, the official end of the 2002
> ceasefire in January 2008 brings the potential for a new cycle of
> violence. Already there has been a surge in fighting, aerial bombings,
> and LTTE suicide bombings.
>
> Photojournalist Ron Haviv visited Sri Lanka in late 2007 to document
> the humanitarian costs of the civil war. The Fires Within: Sri Lanka
> at War is his account of the impact of a quarter-century of conflict.
>
> <http://www.asiasociety.org/resources/080612_ron_haviv.html>
> Photographing Conflict to 'Give a Voice'
> Ron Haviv discusses recent Sri Lanka project
>
> NEW YORK, June 12, 2008 - Over his more than 20-year, award-winning
> career, American photojournalist Ron Haviv has traveled to dozens of
> war zones and hot spots around the world, trying to show, in pictures,
> the plight of civilians caught in conflict. But the often-touted ideal
> of "objectivity" is not necessarily his goal. When deciding what to
> capture in an image—and what to leave out—Haviv says his aim is to be
> "fair and truthful."
>
> The Fires Within: Sri Lanka at War
> In an interview at Asia Society headquarters in New York on the
> subject of his recent multimedia project, The Fires Within: Sri Lanka
> at War, Haviv gave his perspective on the country. "Sri Lanka is a
> place that very few people know about," he said. "It has had a civil
> war running for many years, and in civil wars there are lots of people
> who have no voices, and that is something I give a great importance
> to: going around the world and trying to give a little bit of a voice
> to those people through my photographs."
>
> In this project, Haviv noted that "you can see the people and hear the
> people speak for themselves. By basically humanizing these types of
> conflicts it makes it much more real to people, and hopefully, will in
> one way force people to try to take action to stop conflict."
>
> During his time in Sri Lanka, Haviv talked to all sides: Sinhala,
> Tamil, and Muslim. He spent time with civilian victims from the
> different communities affected by the conflict in order to give
> viewers a better sense of the consequences of the war and, in
> particular, to demonstrate the disproportionate suffering of civilians
> on all sides.
>
> The medium of photography, Haviv stressed, is uniquely placed to
> convey this message: "I think the strength of photography itself is
> inherent in the way we, as human beings, our brains work; when you
> remember things you remember them quite often in the still image. The
> still image has this ability, much more so than moving video, to kind
> of remain with you and sear itself into your mind."
>
> As he shared his experiences in the country, Haviv said he was
> surprised to see the areas controlled entirely by the Tamil Tigers,
> complete with fully functioning parallel institutions including
> schools and courthouses. He witnessed how the Tamil Tigers were
> attempting to create their own autonomous region by providing basic
> necessities, even as some of the population was coerced by the LTTE to
> remain in those areas.
>
> One of Haviv's main interests in covering the Sri Lankan conflict has
> to do with its effects on children. He spent a significant amount of
> time with children while he was in Sri Lanka, including those just
> released from the LTTE, and with parents of child soldiers. "When you
> have a war that's been going on for as long as it has been there, it
> is very important to try to understand how it passes from generation
> to generation because the only way it will stop is if one generation
> just says, 'Enough! We're not going to do it anymore'."
>
> Haviv expressed hope that the audience will see that civil conflict,
> especially one as seemingly intractable as the one in Sri Lanka, can
> only be resolved with the political will of the international
> community. And if that does not happen, Haviv warned, it is innocent
> people who will continue to suffer.
>
> Reported by Nermeen Shaikh, Asia Society Online
> ---
> Yoshie
>
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