Sri Lanka's war-scarred north hopes vote will bring change

Sri Lanka's main newspaper in the northern port of Jaffna endured bullets and bombings during a decades-long Tamil separatist war, but its publisher says the biggest threat came during peacetime.

While an unprecedented 2022 economic crisis hit all on the island -- with furious protesters in the capital Colombo ousting the then-president -- it knocked northern regions still rebuilding 15 years after the war especially hard.

Many among the island's Tamil minority are hoping that presidential polls on September 21, the first since the economic meltdown, will bring financial stability.

Eswarapatham Saravanapavan, 70, the publisher of the Tamil-language Uthayan daily, a defiant symbol of peaceful resistance during the no-holds-barred war, said it nearly closed because there was no foreign exchange to import newsprint paper and ink.

"I was determined that the continuity of the paper should never be hampered," Saravanapavan told AFP in his modest office in Jaffna, the capital of the Tamil-majority northern province.

Journalists were killed and media institutions were attacked during the war, which reached a brutal finale in 2009 when the army crushed Tamil Tiger separatists.

The Jaffna flagship suffered the highest losses.

In the newsroom, red tape marks the 12 bullet holes in the wall where pro-government gunmen killed two staff in 2006.

Three others were also killed. Many more were arrested, assaulted or threatened with death.

- High prices, few jobs -

Yet it was the economic crash that nearly silenced the Uthayan's presses.

"We were in a situation where we didn't know if we would be able to publish the next week," Saravanapavan said.

The paper is still struggling, with its future uncertain due to high prices and rising unemployment, Saravanapavan added.

Jaffna witnessed some of the heaviest bloodshed in a conflict in which the United Nations estimates at least 100,000 people were killed.

Residents say they are still grappling with long-unresolved issues of accountability for war crimes, disappearances, and demands for the return of private land occupied by the army.

"After the war ended in 2009, our economy was at its lowest point," said R. Jayasegaran, president of the city's chamber of commerce.

"After that, 15 years passed. We were slowly improving."

Jayasegaran hopes the next president will reopen the port, which lies just across a narrow strait, to boost trade with regional powerhouse India.

The government negotiated a $2.9 billion IMF bailout last year but is yet to complete crucial restructuring after defaulting on its sovereign debt.

Tamils make up around 11 percent of Sri Lanka's 22 million people and the lone Tamil candidate is a rank outsider to win.

However, it is unclear who most Tamils will choose for their critical second choice on the ballot in the preferential voting system.

That adds to uncertainty in an already tight three-way race between the incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe, opposition chief Sajith Premadasa, and Marxist leader Anura Kumara Dissanayaka.

- Traders struggle -

Like many in Jaffna, Saravanapavan hopes for change but is sceptical any of the trio can deliver on promises to address long-standing demands of Tamils.

Others in the city say that whoever wins, they only want the leader to tackle their list of grievances.

1. M. Kumar, 38, sells traditional Jaffna sweets made from palms and wants fuel costs that tripled during the crash to be reduced.

Jaffna was off-limits to visitors from the rest of the island during the conflict but domestic tourism was increasing and Kumar's sweets were popular.

The 2022 crisis put paid to that.

"Due to the very high fuel prices, fewer visitors are coming from outside Jaffna," Kumar said at his stall in Jaffna's market.

That is echoed by fishmonger A. Johnson, 43, who said 70 percent of their costs went to fuel, and with prices high and incomes low, people bought little.

Fisherman union leader Nagarajah Warnakulasingham, 62, said politicians had failed to regulate trawlers netting their waters, leaving locals with little to catch.

"Foreign and local trawlers are destroying our fish stocks," Warnakulasingham said.

Trader Sudan, 30, who sells cordials and boiled sweets , said business was still slow, with his turnover slashed multiple times.

"People have no money now," he said.