Kallady Beach, Batticaloa

The Traveler's Journey: Dutch Reformed Church

The Traveler's Journey: Dutch Reformed Church: "1639 the Dutch won over Trincomalee and Batticaloa from the Portuguese and handed over to the Sinhala Rule."

Vaalai: Autonomy District council solution for Sri Lanka

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This picture has been taken in Sri Lanka, Kalmunai

Canoi and Beach

Africans descendants survive only in pockets along the island's coastal regions of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Negambo, according to Census Department

The African-Sri Lankans are known as "Kaffirs" but not in an insulting way

SIRAMBIADIYA, Sri Lanka — In a village deep in west Sri Lanka, one of the island's few remaining communities of African descent breaks into song -- a poignant elegy to a disappearing culture.

The music starts with a slow, gentle rhythm played on a tambourine, spoons and coconut shells, before it builds to a climax with dancers swinging their hips, hands and feet wildly.

The performance is a direct link back to the tiny minority's distant African past.

"We are forgotten people," Peter Luis, 52, said. "We are losing our language and, having inter-married many times, our children are losing their African features."

The population of African-Sri Lankans -- now numbering about 1,000 -- is mainly descended from slaves brought to the island after about 1500 by Portuguese colonialists.

They are known as "Kaffirs", but the term is not the savage racial insult here that it is in other parts of the world, notably South Africa.

"We are proud of our name. In Sri Lanka, it is not a racist word like the word negro or nigger," said Marcus Jerome Ameliana, who believes her ancestors came to Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon, as Portuguese slaves.

The slaves were also used as soldiers to fight against Sri Lanka's native kings, in the first stage of a long history of oppression under a series of imperial masters.

When Dutch colonialists arrived in about 1600, the Kaffirs worked on cinnamon plantations along the southern coast.

After the British took over Sri Lanka in 1796, the Kaffirs were further marginalised by an influx of Indian labourers who took most work on tea and rubber estates.

Lazarus Martin Ignatius, 82, remembers her grandfather telling how their ancestors were chained up and forced by the Dutch to take on the Ceylonese army.

Her memories, like those of most other Kaffirs, are fragmented, and she speaks a lyrical creole language with a mix of native Sinhalese and Tamil.

"We never learnt how to read or write, only to speak. Now young people go to school. They marry outside the community, so I think education comes from that influence," the frail Ignatius told AFP.

Louisa Williams, 17, dressed in jeans and a pink T-shirt, said she may train to become a traditional Kaffir dancer but admitted she rarely uses the dialect.

"I like to dance and will perhaps join a local dance troupe," she said. "I have heard about my ancestors from aunts and uncles, but I only speak a few words of creole like 'water', 'eat' and 'sleep'."

The future looks bleak for the Kaffirs, according to Anuthradevi Widyalankara, senior history lecturer at the University of Colombo.

"They have been denied education so they have a lack of interest in sustaining their language or culture -- unlike some other minority groups," Widyalankara told AFP.

Widyalankara, who is writing a book on the ethnic group, said the Kaffirs had assimilated over generations, having married Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.

But in the palm-fringed village of Sirambiadiya, about 100 Kaffirs remain, living in modest brick houses and earning a living as labourers and cleaners.

At lunchtime, the men chat and doze in hammocks as the women sing catchy creole tunes while preparing a meal on outdoor stoves.

Their songs, mostly repeating a few basic lyrics, speak of love, the sea and wildlife, explained George Sherin Alex, 43, one of the village dancers.

The performing arts remain one of the few expressions of the Kaffirs' roots, Shihan Jayasuriya, a senior fellow of the London-based Institute of Commonwealth Studies, told AFP.

"Music and dance seem to be the best indicators of African ancestry, other than their physiognomy. Their other cultural traits are not African because they have adopted local customs and habits," Jayasuriya said.

The Kaffirs were originally Muslims, but now they practice a range of faiths from Catholicism to Buddhism, and wear typically Sri Lankan clothes of long skirts for the women and sarongs for the men.

No one knows how many Africans were brought to Sri Lanka, but their descendants survive only in pockets along the island's coastal regions of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Negambo, according to Census Department officials.

Jayasuriya, who has done extensive research on the African diaspora in the Indian sub-continent, said the Kaffirs' predicament is centred on their struggle to find a place in post-colonial Sri Lanka.

"They have become disempowered because their patrons, the European colonisers have left the island. They have lost their role as a part of the colonial machinery," said Jayasuriya.

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Human smuggling begins in East

By Chris Kamalendran and Damith Wickremasekera

While Australia and Indonesia are engaged in diplomacy to resolve the problem of the growing number of Sri Lankan asylum seekers drifting into their seas, the people-smuggling racket originating from the eastern coast of Sri Lanka is continuing unabated, the Sunday Times learns. Young men desperate to get away from the country are paying anything between Rs. 150,000 to Rs. 500,000 to board a deep-sea fishing trawler with the hope they can make it to Australia and claim asylum there. The money is paid to a middleman, after which the asylum seekers are given short notice to meet at a particular point to board the boat. More than 600 persons are reported to have already left on the perilous route, according to Rest House owners in Batticaloa who provide shelter to the men till the day of their departure arrives. One young man who is waiting his chance to board a boat after having failed to get on the last one that left Batticaloa two weeks ago, said, that in spite of the defeat of the LTTE, he feels unsafe and thinks he will have a better life in Australia. “We know that once we get there, we will not be sent back. I am hopeful of getting there and in a few years I will help my family members to do the same,” said Nirmalan, a 34 year-year-old man from Passekudah. The trip is estimated to take 13 days during which time they would be given cooked meals on board. With the east coast becoming the new launching pad for human smugglers, Police in the area are trying to track down those behind the operation. DIG (Eastern range –Central) Edison Gunatillake confirmed that since the defeat of the LTTE, the eastern coast has become the setting-off-point for those trying to leave the country illegally. “Some people are encouraging people to leave the country in this manner so that it gives a negative picture of the situation of the north-east, even after things have returned to normal. There is an organized group of people behind this and we are investigating to find out who they are,” DIG Guantillake said. On Thursday police apprehended one person in the Batticaloa area in a trawler that had met with a mishap before the perilous journey. There were more people on board, but they had got off, when the trawler met with the accident. He is being questioned now to ascertain the modus operandi of the agents behind the human-smuggling trade, he added. The issue has now gained international significance after the latest boat-load of 78 asylum seekers were picked up by An Australia customs ship “ Oceanic Viking” in Indonesian waters two weeks ago. They are since stranded in Indonesian waters with neither country willing to accommodate them. Source:Sunday times