Published: March, 2010
EVERYBODY out, the military officer ordered us, as we pulled off the bumpy road linking the Tamil-dominated eastern province to Sri Lanka’s hill country. My driver motioned to the back seat, where a police officer we picked up a few miles back was sitting. His presence lent an air of authority, and we were promptly waved through. But the busload of European shutterbugs in front of us — unloading their suitcases and filing out in a single column — was not so lucky.
Such are the inconveniences of visiting a postwar country like Sri Lanka. I traveled there last October with fresh memories of what had befallen this teardrop-shaped island off India: a brutal decades-long conflict between the Sinhalese majority government and a band of separatist rebels called the Tamil Tigers.
Postwar societies, no matter how peaceful or picturesque on the surface, are inevitably complex places that still bear the scars of war, though some less overtly than others. Sri Lanka is no different. Visitors will discover a tropical island teeming with exotic wildlife, white beaches and stylish boutique hotels. Yet they will also find internment camps, military checkpoints and a government accused by watchdog groups of undermining democratic principles as it tightens its grip on power.
Remnants of the war can be found practically around every corner. As our van sped along, I spotted rows of abandoned huts lining the road, which my Tamil driver said were used by snipers. In Trincomalee, a busy port in the northeast, fishermen with missing appendages hawked the day’s catch. Conversations with locals almost inevitably drift back to war.
The wounds are still fresh, as The New York Times found out after listing Sri Lanka as its top travel destination for 2010 (as the author of the entry, my e-mail in-box was bombarded with angry letters). The anger stemmed from the brutal way in which the Sri Lankan military ended the war last May. By some estimates, about 7,000 civilians, and possibly thousands more, were killed during the final battle. Hundreds of thousands were put in camps. The government remains in the awkward position of defending itself against accusations of war crimes while also trying to open up the country to foreign investors and vacationers.
Because of the war’s tense aftermath, the State Department has issued a travel warning on Sri Lanka (travel.state.gov/travel). But to date, I have heard no reports of Western tourists killed or kidnapped in Sri Lanka. In recent months, tourism has steadily inched upward from past years, thanks to efforts by the government and local entrepreneurs to redevelop the eastern coast and to build an airport down south near Hambantota. The tourism ministry has also begun a “Visit Sri Lanka 2011” public relations blitz to rebrand itself after the war.
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source - http://travel.nytimes.com
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