The Real War Heroes

SL Army KIA, east of Kilinochchi in early 2008.

SL Army KIAs lie where they were hit in front of LTTE earthen fortifications east of Kilinochchi in early 2008.

Protecting Crime by Criminalising an Entire Populace

Part 6 of the UTHR(J) Special Report No 34: Protecting Crime by Criminalising an Entire Populace

Welcome to Snake Farm

Although the plight of the IDPs in Manik farm has received considerable media attention, an aspect of the IDP situation that has received little attention, illustrates best the rationale behind mass detention of IDPs. Until mid-March 2009, IDPs with the most serious injuries from shelling and bombing who were evacuated from the NFZ by the ICRC, with their care givers, landed at Trincomalee. Trincomalee is a place where most Tamils have social contacts in the local civil society, its hospital and in the government administration. It is also a place with several foreign organisations and is frequented by foreigners.

Trincomalee thus became a major point of information exchange about how the war affected civilians, but this was not a situation the Sri Lankan government appeared happy about.. During the early half of March 2009, Amos Roberts of Australia’s SBS spoke to Major General Palitha Fernando, the military liaison officer in Trincomalee. The latter informed Roberts that there was ‘absolutely no problem in visiting Trincomalee’, but added that it is not possible to interview wounded people who have been evacuated from the war areas and brought to Trincomalee. Asked why, Maj. Gen. Fernando replied, “That’s the way we want it, Simple answer.”

The ICRC landed patients at the new Indian facility at Pulmoddai from 16th March, from where patients were treated by Indian doctors or sent to other hospitals including Padaviya and Trincomalee. It made logistical sense because the distance from the war zone was shorter. It did not stop information about ‘safe zone’ injuries getting out. As civilian casualties intensified in late April 2009, The UN OCHA Vanni Emergency Situation Report of 27th/28th April posted the following announcement:

“In Trincomalee District, the local authorities informed agencies that patients and care givers evacuated by ICRC and arriving in Pulmoddai will remain in the district and will no longer be transferred to Vavuniya as was the case previously The authorities have said that the site will be opened for six months only.” Local authorities here refer to the local administration and military hierarchy taking orders from the President and Defence Ministry. What it meant was that those arriving in Pulmoddai for treatment of injuries, and others accompanying them, would not later be sent to IDP centres in Vavuniya, which were porous where information was concerned.

The immediate context was the President’s pledge reported in an Associated Press dispatch of 27th April 2009, headlined, ‘Sri Lanka to stop air strikes, shelling of rebels’: This followed the visit of John Holmes, UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs. President Rajapakese pledged that “combat operations have reached their conclusion,” and that the “use of heavy calibre guns, combat aircraft and aerial weapons which could cause civilian casualties” would stop.

We also note that injuries to civilians from army shelling mounted steeply from 28th April to 2nd May, when shelling killed scores of injured in Mullivaykkal Hospital. ICRC shipping of the injured was stopped between 30th April and 7th May, reportedly due to the ICRC not being able to get agreement between the Government and the LTTE on the pick up point. The Government could have enabled the ICRC to pick up the injured as it was responsible for the shelling of the area. The ICRC’s mission was stopped after a further pick up and a minuscule food delivery on 9th May.

The significance of this could be seen in the fact that the ICRC picked up 1056 casualties from 21st to 30th April and only 357 casualties in May before it ceased operations from 10th May. These figures suggest (see Ch.5) that more than 400 major casualties were allowed to die in the deteriorating conditions at Mullivaykkal Hospital. Blame has to apportioned after a transparent inquiry, but we may say on evidence that the Government was wary of the bad publicity resulting from the ICRC shipping a large number of the injured. It further detained, criminalised, held up to public obloquy and silenced the doctors who had served in safe zones.

Granting that the Indian facility at Pulmoddai was gifted with good intention, manipulation by the Sri Lankan government raises questions about whether patients ultimately benefited from it. The ICRC was already providing specialist care at Trincomalee and the MSF too was available. While patients have nothing but praise for their treatment in the local hospitals to which they were sent and for the doctors who dealt with them, the administrative arrangements left in the hands of the Army and the clumsiness and resulting delays, caused unnecessary complications for the patients.

The two hours saved by shortening the ship’s journey may not have been to the patients’ advantage, when Trincomalee Hospital was already doing a good job with ICRC help. The new arrangements appear to have been to cover up, rather than to improve services for the war zone patients.

Disappeared on Paper

Part 5 of the UTHR(J) Special Report No 34: The Population Game: Disappeared on Paper and Killed with Cannon

Strategic Numbers

For a government’s claim to have accomplished the ‘hostage rescue’ with zero civilian casualties to carry conviction, it should have had some idea in advance of how many hostages it had to rescue and where they were. Minimally it had to ensure that they did not starve. It was basic intelligence, and indeed administrative work, to determine how many there were, and where. After all it is the government of these people, with administrators in the area whom it regularly met formally and informally and who would have told them where matters stood even when local records were flawed. Tamil administrators were worthy of at least that little respect. By rejecting their word the Government was deliberately or through incompetence preparing to act blindly.

The Government’s cavalier attitude to the lives of the trapped people is revealed by its unacceptably low figures for the displaced population, and is further illustrated by its claim on 17th May before the final free-for-all that 50 000 civilians had come out of the NFZ and all the civilians had been rescued. After the final bash it announced on 18th May: “Despite the speculations of a ‘bloodbath’ and a ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ at the final military push Sri Lankan soldiers were able rescue about 70,000 people within the last 72 hours without causing any harm to the innocent” (defence.lk). In fact 29 000 civilians were transported from the battlefield to Chettikulam Zone 4 from 18th May and 1400 injured civilians to Padaviya Hospital. Civilians were coming out of the war zone until at least 20th May 2009. This means there must have been nearly 35 000 civilians left when the Government said on the 17th afternoon there were none.

The vexed question of how many were killed in the Vanni by the Government and the LTTE is closely tied to how many there were originally. After all, we do know that from the time the welfare camps were set up in 2008, the number that had been detained there after the close of the war was 290 000. This was practically all who had survived the war. In 2008, the task of aid agencies was to ensure that the people were fed. Thus the practical way out for them was to err on the higher side and in late 2008 estimated the population at 430 000. Many of us groped in the dark and judged from past experiences or past biases. The truth was unknowable within a wide margin.

When enumerating the displaced on 4th November, the Government Agents of Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi gave the total as 348 103. The same month the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimated there are 230,000 displaced in the Vanni. The Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies currently estimated the number to be 300 000, which HRW pointed out the UN also at times quoted inconsistently.

Curiously, the Government which was the employer of the GAs of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu, was not sitting down with them to arrive at a working consensus, which was its duty to the people. Instead, it quoted an unrealistic figure of 100 000 IDPs and stuck to it. The war in the Vanni reached its more destructive phase for the civilians in January 2009. By early March about 37 000 civilians had escaped to the government-controlled area. The Government lowered the number of IDPs remaining in the Vanni to 70 000. It stuck to this figure until the next exodus of 103 000 civilians during 20th to 22nd April, 33 000 more than the Government’s total.

Then by its curious arithmetic, the Government insisted that only 15 000 to 20 000 people were left in the NFZ (e.g. defence.lk, 30th April 2009, 9.40 AM). However the IDP count in camps was 172 000 on 28th April and 290 000 on 25th May, suggesting that more than 120 000 people remained in the NFZ after the April 20th to 22nd exodus. The unofficial figure of 165 000 given to leading Tamils by the government administration in the NFZ is much closer to the truth, if one also takes into account the large casualties among those who remained.

There was no consistency or any genuine information behind the Government’s figures. These were just pulled out of the hat, and on the basis of these food and medicines to the IDPs were curtailed to ridiculously low quantities, irregularly delivered, causing starvation and extreme hardship. It did not treat the Tamils as citizens of this country. In a more sinister vein, by deliberately understating the IDP numbers the Government was preparing for the eventuality where it could dismiss any later suggestion of high civilian casualties by pointing out that, according to its statistics, the dead persons never existed. It was as though they had been disappeared on paper in preparation for their extinction by cannon fire.

The Government had in a way turned the discourse to suit its aims, where the international agencies, if they wanted to avoid confrontation that would be fatal to their operations, were best advised to moderate their figures. In January 2009, the UN spoke of 230 000 IDPs on the move and the ICRC of 250 000. When the final NFZ was created in February, the Government stuck to 70 000 IDPs in the NFZ. The UN said in a briefing to the diplomatic community in Colombo on 9th March 2009 that on the basis of satellite imagery there were at least 100 000 to 150 000 in the NFZ. The UN also pointed out that the food being supplied was less than a quarter of the monthly 3000 tons needed to feed 200 000 people (i.e. barely adequate for 70 000). The International Crisis Group (ICG) in a statement in early March quoted the ICRC as saying that there were 150 000 people in the NFZ and got a bloody nose from the Government’s Peace Secretariat.

There had in fact been well above 250 000 in the NFZ, taking into account the 37 000 in IDP camps in early March and 290 000 on 25th May. How much more, is a question we need to answer as part of determining how many died in a straightforward manner? It is interesting that INGOs who were planning for a Vanni population of 430 000 in late 2008, also talked about 300 000 and 250 000, finally came down to 150 000 in the NFZ and 37 000 in welfare centres. We were ourselves guilty of understatements and mix ups, the sum of which allowed the Government to manipulate the discourse.

Sadly, not many of us took seriously the figures given by the abused and abased GAs and AGAs, who were trying to do an honest job within their constraints and now dare not speak. We were given a jerk by a senior community leader who had been in the NFZ and told us of a conversation he had in early March 2009 with a high ranking government administrator. The latter told him that from the checks he had made through the village headmen (GSs) of the Vanni who were nearly all there, there were 330 000 civilians in the NFZ. The community leader asked him, “With or without ghosts?” The administrator assured him, “Without ghosts”. Ghosts refer to padded numbers on official lists enabling the siphoning off of part of the supply to feed the LTTE. The community leader told us, “I cannot prove it, but I believe the administrator’s figure was correct.”

The community leader gave us another jerk by assuring us that a minimum of 6400 civilians were killed up to the end of March. (The UN briefing referred to above suggests 4800.) What we gathered is that we must be prepared for much higher casualty figures than are commonly talked about. The UN briefing gives us a hint.

The Final Phase

Part 4 of the UTHR(J) Special Report No 34: The Final Phase

Deception over Civilian Safety

Having taken Valaignarmadam after overcoming strong LTTE resistance, which gave it time to build three defence bunds, the Army on 28th April launched a fierce attack on the first bund at Irattaivaykkal. The result as civilians had experienced repeatedly was a rain of army shells falling among IDP camps in Mullivaykkal, two miles south, causing enormous civilian casualties. The Government denied using its heavy weapons while blaming the LTTE of using its. President Rajapakse the previous day pledged that the Government was abandoning the use of heavy weapons.

If there was a military method in this madness, one needs to look back at the experience of civilians in the Udayarkaddu-Suthanthirapuram-Thevipuram safe zone during January and February 2009. In the reality of things, calling the war zone a safe zone was a mere piece of deception for the international community. The civilians were in their bunkers listening to the music of falling shells, having no idea where those shells were coming from. It was when they saw withdrawing LTTE cadres that they knew the Army was very close, perhaps just 50 yards away.

In normal war, shelling the roads far behind enemy lines made sense to obstruct enemy supplies and reinforcements. In this instance those who got killed were civilians fleeing with their meager belongings. At the same time fighting was fierce and army casualties were heavy. The Government had placed all its eggs in the basket of absolute victory and was prepared to go on at any cost, using patently the most ridiculous deception.

When it came to the fears and nervousness of the troops against the Government’s obligations to the civilians it purported to rescue, the former meant everything and the latter did not matter at all. Firing its cannon freely into the cowering IDPs became a small matter, if it made the troops a little readier to advance towards the prize of absolute victory.

At the same time the LTTE showed no mercy in deterring the escape of civilians, as if in the hope that the cries of genocide and humanitarian catastrophe by its expatriate lobbies would buy it a reprieve.

In this final phase, a major element in the Army’s nervousness consisted of the Sea Tigers and Black Tigers. The LTTE’s land based offensive capacity had been broken after the victory at Anandapuram. Since then much of the LTTE’s defensive capability had shifted to the Sea Tiger and Black Tiger units.

Once the LTTE lost Chalai and Putumattalan, the Sea Tiger assets were shifted to the Mullivaykkal coast. The military surveillance (e.g. by UAVs) was so high that launching out a boat and later dragging it up the shore and camouflaging it became very risky. At the end of April, the Navy gun boats were stationed off the coast to cover the Army’s advance. This meant that the civilians got a heavy dose of firing from machine guns and cannon from both land and sea.

According to persons from the area, another strategy used by the LTTE during the protracted battle for Puthikkudiyiruppu was to station disabled suicide cadres with explosives in bunkers of the kind used by civilians, with instructions to explode themselves when a large group of soldiers passed that way. This might explain in part the Army ordered to finish the job in a hurry, reportedly running their heavy vehicles over civilian bunkers, thus burying a significant number of people.

Escape invites Death and Staying is Worse

Part 3 of the UTHR(J) Special Report No 34: Mattalan: Escape invites Death and Staying is Worse (continued fromPart 2)

Use of Bombs, Cluster Munitions and White Phosphorous; and Curtailment of Medical Aid

The first public reports on the use of cluster munitions appeared in the international media in early February 2009. On 4th February AFP’s Ravi Nessman reported citing the Colombo UN Spokesman Gordon Weiss that 52 civilians had been killed in intense fighting over the past day and that cluster munitions were fired outside the Puthukkudiyiruppu Hospital, which too had been struck by artillery killing 12 persons. The Government immediately denied it. Mr. Weiss as quoted by AFP said that cluster munitions had been used at least once earlier in recent weeks. The same report also quoted him saying, ‘the UN accepted the government’s assurance that they did not have the weapons’. It appears the UN took a political decision not to pursue the matter.

Our sources have assured us that cluster shells, known locally as kotthu kundu, were regularly fired from 21st January. They were then noticed by the Oxfam staff at Thevipuram and subsequently by the OCHA, which had its office near Puthukkudiyiruppu Hospital. Both observations were reflected in the UN statement.

Witnesses said that at the time of firing cluster shells are indistinguishable from normal shells, but subsequently these shells open about 1000 feet above the ground with the pop sound of an opening of a soda bottle, sending out about 80 submunitions or bomblets, each the shape of a plumb bob. A few seconds later they strike the ground making a characteristic loud drumming noise for several seconds. Our witnesses are agreed that this was a daily occurrence in the NFZ – about one in ten shells fired had cluster munitions. Of the 80 or so bomblets in a shell, about 15 remained on the ground, lethal to children who chanced to pick them up. The LTTE regularly warned people about these and placed sticks with a red cloth attached wherever an unexploded device was reported. This was a familiar sight and the drumming noise of these shells was a familiar sound until the fighting ended in May 2009.

TamilNet regularly reported the use of cluster munitions, but appears not to have published pictures of any unexploded devices. Taken along with indignant government denials and the UN dropping the matter and the ICRC not saying anything publicly, the only means of establishing the truth is to question witnesses brought to the IDP camps.

From Kilinochchi to Puthukkudiyiruppu

Part 2 of the UTHR(J) Special Report No 34: From Kilinochchi to Puthukkudiyiruppu (continued from Part 1)

The fall of Kilinochchi and After

Soon after Kilinochchi fell on 1st January 2009, senior LTTE leaders conferred in Visuamadu. While several of the senior leaders reportedly believed that the war could no longer be won and that it was time for a new approach, none was in a position to tell Prabhakaran, who had acquired a reputation of invincibility to live up to.

Sources who had access to senior leaders said that the counsel of men like V. Rudrakumaran and K. Pathmanathan would have been of little consequence because they were not on the ground and it was often easy for those like Castro and Nadesan to discredit them by dropping innuendos suggesting they were agents of outfits like CIA or RAW. If a difference was to be made it need have come from persons like the late Anton Balasingham or Shankar who had the capacity to force the leader’s attention and carry through an argument to its end. The talk got around among the people that Prabhakaran had become mentally unbalanced after the fall of Killinochchi. Other reports said that he was refusing to meet groups like the Christian clergy and intellectuals, who were pressing for course change.

A former left activist, with access to LTTE advisors, who was an eyewitness in the Vanni confirms in What happened in the Vanni? An Experience from the Battleground (Vanni Experience) that many advised the leadership to stop forced conscription, mend relations with India and to proceed in a new direction, but to no avail. The writer notes that among the first things the LTTE started when the war began in 2006 was forced conscription, openly justified in LTTE propaganda, while also claiming contradictorily that youths are joining voluntarily in large numbers. Conscription became worse after the UN and many INGOs left the Vanni in September 2008 on the Government’s order. The article to which further reference will be made appeared in the Madras based Tamil journal Kalachchuvadu, August 2009.

An outcome of the meeting, according to sources with access to senior LTTE leaders, was a decision to go on fighting. One assumption was that if they made life difficult for the Army, they might be content to hold the A9 (Jaffna – Kandy Road) and not move east. No decision of consequence was taken. Pottu Amman, according to our source, put forward a plan to stop the Army by using their assets to foment terrorist attacks and paralyse the South. Not perhaps wanting to risk turning international opinion against them, Prabhakaran vetoed the plan.

The area to be defended was divided into three zones. The one furthest west, Visuamadu, was under Ratnam Master. Ratnam Master had been responsible for two operations in Vavuniya, one against a communication facility and, according to these same sources, the suicide assassination of Genaral Janaka Perera Rtd. in 2008. The latter is however contested by army circles close to the late general. Latterly, Ratnam Master had become a new right hand man of Prabhakaran, commanding a new intelligence unit, partially sidelining Pottu Amman from 2007. The middle area around Udayarkattu was placed under Sea Tiger leader Soosai.

Puthukkudiyiruppu (PTK) and a ring around it were placed under Pottu Amman. The first two were unable to hold their areas when the Army advanced. An observer suggested that Ratnam and Soosai in their given state with heavy ammunition becoming scarce, lacked the confidence to execute offensives as a means of defence.

A conscripted LTTE soldier who was later killed, told his family that they were almost never ordered to advance at this point. When the Army advanced they fired at them with small arms and ducked into their bunker. Government soldiers who were well equipped and had LMGs, let loose continuously. When the Army stopped, the LTTE made their escape. Another observer told us that LTTE units at this time often comprised three experienced cadres and about 15 newer conscripts. When attacked, the seniors began to withdraw. The others often died or surrendered to the Army. When civilians asked the seniors why they are coming back alone, they didn’t answer, only replied that they would soon chase the Army back! Observers present also told us that it was army shelling during advances that caused the largest casualties among the LTTE.

Pottu Amman held his area in early February 2009 by launching an offensive that also used suicide cadres, many of them women. They were deployed to halt a northward army advance from Mulliavalai and pushed the Army back a few miles after inflicting a heavy loss of men and weapons. Pottu Amman eventually had to let go, after the Army outflanked him by moving through Soosai’s area towards the east coast, bypassing him to the north. But he ensured that the battle for Puthukkudiyiruppu, a built up area, was costly to the enemy.

The author of Vanni Experience writes that senior LTTE military leaders continued the fight under duress, but their actions lacked the force or will to stop the army advance. Meanwhile conscripts were escaping regularly from training camps and the battlefield, which the LTTE tried to check by imposing severe punishments on the families. Such raw conscripts, aged 15 to 22, were in no position to stop a determined and well-equipped army advance. Their training, which at first took a week, was reduced to three days and in the final stages, was confined merely to being taught to fire a gun.

When People Do Not Matter

I normally do not repost material from other sites here; however, I am going to make an exception with the UTHR(J)’s Special Report No 34 released on 13th Dec 2009. On my blog, I have dealt with mostly the SL Army side of the conflict, and occasionally the LTTE side, but haven’t really touched on the civilians’ plight, except peripherally, mostly because of my lack of first-hand experience. Another reason I’m doing this is in the hope that more people will read this horrifying account of the last year of the war and its immediate aftermath. For ease of reading, I will be breaking the report into its eight parts and posting it unedited. Many of us might disagree with the conclusion and analyses put forward by the UTHR(J), particularly on deducing motive, but it remains a very balanced and sobering piece. The original report appears on the UTHR(J)’s site.

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall – think of it, ALWAYS. – Mahatma Gandhi

Part I of UTHR(J) Report No 34: When People Do Not Matter and Tyrannical Egos are Dressed-Up as Nations

The Still Eloquence of Wastelands

The legacy of war and the devastated lives of hundreds of thousands of people will remain with us long. Its effects will be felt in every corner of the country, by the blind, blighted, marred and crippled; and beyond this is the mutilation of democracy, freedom and the ability of different communities to live together.

Weakened, impaired communities of widows and fractured families may be rehabilitated in name, but they continue to live in isolation under a paramilitary regime; their sons, brothers and fathers who were LTTE conscripts – some for only a short time – , have been intimidated and recruited as agents of the state security apparatus. Under these conditions human rights abuses would inevitably remain hidden deep below the surface.

Highlighting a few that are hard to prove such as rape may actually help the State to hide others no less grave and systemic.

The truth must be faced in its full horror without compromise for partisan gain. Visible tokens of what thousands of ordinary Sri Lankans were compelled to endure owing to the ideological games played by those more powerful are nowhere more evident than in what mine clearing teams have found in their treacherous and delicate labour, where a slip could be fatal. The wastelands they move in have their own story to tell.

Just north of the Mannar – Vavuniya Road that had been a frontline for more than a year, no house in the once prosperous agricultural area stands undamaged. Most of them are ruins. Virtually all the trees are destroyed. In the fields, a larger version of the thorny Udai trees have grown up, making thereby cultivation this season far more arduous after resettlement is done.

The variety of weapons that they had collected on the field is an indicator to the heavy casualties that both sides must have suffered. There were all types of weapons collected and piled up in houses to be cleared. These are all that remain of many a friend and foe, who once fought one another with them.

The whole area had been heavily mined by the defenders – in this case the LTTE. They had built up a long trench for their line of defence and then heavily mined a vast area behind it. They left behind varieties of mines with timing devices. The delayed action mines had been set to various times. Wire-trip mines were also used widely. Observers with military experience are amazed at the sophistication of the devices. To this day, soldiers on patrol die regularly as they go inadvertently into certain areas and houses that have been mined.

Four groups are working on mine clearing, including a local company, two Indian companies and one from the Sri Lankan Army, each allocated different areas.

A widely understood catch in the affair is that the last “No-Fire-Zone”, the strip of coast north of Mullaitivu that was the final, traumatic and devastating home for over 240 000 persons, has been given to the Sri Lankan Army unit. Far more than mines, which our informants tell us the LTTE was very short of at that time and, at best, laid astride a handful of well defined bunds across the narrow strip between the sea and the lagoon, the area undoubtedly contained a great deal of incriminating material including remains of a huge number of shells and cluster munitions the Army fired into the helpless IDPs from February to May 2009. This is just the tip of the iceberg in the continuing war on truth.

Python Update

For those of you who enjoyed reading about the AC Cobra replica I spotted at the Colombo Motor Show earlier this year, I’ve updated that post with some clips of the RVD-283 Python being road-tested in the hills. That V8 sounds fantastic. Thanks go to Vince for sending me the clips. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and turn up the volume!

Dancing

Time is gonna take my mind
and carry it far away where I can fly
The depth of life will dim my temptation to live for you
If I were to be alone silence would rock my tears
’cause it’s all about love and I know better
How life is a waving feather

So I put my arms around you around you
And I know that I’ll be leaving soon

My eyes are on you they’re on you
And you see that I can’t stop shaking
No, I won’t step back but I’ll look down to hide from your eyes
’cause what I feel is so sweet and I’m scared that even my own breath
Oh could burst it if it were a bubble
And I’d better dream if I have to struggle

So I put my arms around you around you
And I hope that I will do no wrong
My eyes are on you they’re on you
And I hope that you won’t hurt me

I’m dancing in the room as if I was in the woods with you
No need for anything but music
Music’s the reason why I know time still exists
Time still exists
Time still exists
Time still exists

So I put my arms around you around you
And I hope that I will do no wrong
My eyes are on you they’re on you
And I hope that you won’t hurt me
So I put my arms around you around you
And I hope that I will do no wrong
My eyes are on you they’re on you
And I hope that you won’t hurt me
– Elisa. Dancing

Toilet Art

This is an exhibition we did on behalf of one of our clients, Mega Life Sciences, who are launching Goezy, a brand of laxative. We decided to avoid the usual conventional above-the-line campaign, something the client couldn’t really afford, and instead advertise the brand through an art exhibition. Several artists were asked to interpret the theme of ’struggle’ using toilet paper as a medium. Half a dozen artists worked on the project over a period of several months, and this was the result. The exhibition was held two weekends ago at the Artway Gallery in Nugegoda. Here are a selection of the pieces:

Breathless

Burden

Clutches

Grimace

Escape

Gut Attack

Tempest

Wriggles

Throes