The last time he visited Sri Lanka, it was two days after the Boxing Day tsunami had struck. Yet among the devastation, a shaky ceasefire between Tamil rebels and government forces seemed to offer a glimmer of hope. So what went wrong? Euan Ferguson returns to find an island paradise once again torn apart by conflict. From The Observer:
Hard not to laugh, for a brief second, when you’re told about Claymore landmines. I am being told of them by a helpful young Sri Lankan near a military checkpoint, who is making a fairly compelling case not to be stupid by waiting till dark and dancing off around the guns and into the jungle. But I’m quietly laughing because I have just learned that the Claymore - shaped like a fat, convex, olive-green laptop with little legs to bury in the ground - has embossed writing on the business end. What the writing says is: ‘Front towards Enemy.’
Even the arms industry, apparently, can’t help but pap-feed us with health and safety disclaimers. And one of the most effective counters to tripwires, it turns out, is Silly String, which lands on the wires in all its gaudy, giveaway colours, without detonating them. The most inhuman, anonymous, cowardly, deadly weasels of modern warfare, and they come with safety warnings, and they’re battled by streamers designed more normally for parties featuring jelly. Hard not to laugh. Briefly.
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