[A-List] The Fires Within: Sri Lanka at War

["Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

<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
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Yoshie