Saraswati Waits For Jaffna Library To Open

[Guest guest]

JAFFNA, SRI LANKA (27 Jun 2003) - Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of

learning is standing guard, a retired school principal is all fired

up, and the computers are in place.

 

War-weary Jaffna is ready for the reopening of a famous library, more

than two decades after a mob of Sinhala police and thugs set it on

fire.

 

"I am so very happy about that," said A. Sabaratnam, the retired

headmaster.

 

The library, a centre of learning and culture, is hugely symbolic for

the country's minority Tamil community. The fire destroyed nearly

100,000 Tamil-language books, including rare palm leaf writings.

 

Its destruction one night in June 1981 opened an ethnic wound that

rallied Tamils who wanted to join the fight for a separate homeland

in the north and east of Sri Lanka.

 

Locals hope its reopening will help heal some of the torment from a

civil war that killed 64,000 people and displaced more than one

million. They also hope it will bolster a peace process backed by a

16-month-old ceasefire between Tamil rebels and the government.

 

The building is once more a gleaming white cultural icon, where a

statue of goddess Saraswati stands in the forecourt and a new

computer room is already open in the back.

 

But a date for the official opening has not been set because of a

dispute between the government, local Tamil leaders and the

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

 

CENTRE OF LEARNING

 

Jaffna has been a Tamil centre of learning for centuries and many of

its schools -- run by missionaries including the great, great

grandmother of one-time U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles --

were the best in Sri Lanka.

 

The schools even attracted students from the Sinhala south from the

1950s through to the 1970s.

 

The Jaffna library first opened in 1841, and was an important focal

point for Tamil history by the time it moved in the mid-1950s to the

building that was eventually attacked.

 

Sabaratnam, who joined the library in 1951, says he remembers the

attack vividly.

 

"It was a great loss for me," he said, while looking at books in a

temporary library in Jaffna's old government building.

 

"When the Jaffna library was burnt it touched almost the hearts of

the Jaffna people because they value education very much," said

Thomas Savundaranayagam, the Catholic bishop in the region.

 

The renovated building is surrounded by reminders of war. Trees and

bushes have grown over buildings destroyed by two decades of fighting

that made Jaffna the epicentre of Sri Lanka's ethnic bloodshed.

 

It is also just across the street from a sports field named after a

former mayor, Alfred Durayappah, who was gunned down in 1975 and is

widely believed to have been the first victim of secretive Tamil

Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

 

DELAYED OPENING

 

The rebels delayed a planned opening in February, with residents

saying the LTTE wanted more books collected and a wing built showing

what happened to the library.

 

"They even wanted some of the holes kept to show what happened," one

resident said.

 

Government troops captured Jaffna in 1996 but it is still seen as a

rebel stronghold -- the political wrangling over the library

highlights the mistrust that still exists despite a ceasefire that

has mostly held since it was signed in February last year.

 

Head librarian S. Thanabaalasinham said there would be about 30,000

volumes when the building reopens.

 

"We expect more than 1,000 people a day to use it," said

Thanabaalasinham, who added he sees about 200 people a day use his

temporary building.

 

Many of the books for the new library were donated by India and other

countries, and some were even given by the Sri Lankan Army, which

impressed Sabaratnam.

 

"Especially when there are stamps (inside the books) where the army

has collected money and bought the books. We feel there is good

people from the other side as well," he said.

 

News Feature by Scott McDonald for Reuters

URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP204907.htm