by Ranjit J Perera

Created on: July 08, 2011

Killinochi, Sri Lanka, 23 June 2011: While Britain’s Channel 4 was airing what it claimed were images of ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’, hundreds of Tamil civilians living in Sri Lanka’s war-ravaged Wanni region were expressing gratitude to the Government after having their eyesight restored with cataract operations performed by leading local surgeons at eye camps in Vavuniya and Kilinochchi, the very areas that were described as the “killing fields” in the documentary aired in Britain.

The camps organised by the government as part of Sri Lanka’s Vision 2020 program were held to coincide with the country’s two main Buddhist festivals of Vesak and Poson in May and June respectively.

“Most of those who benefited (from this eye camp) are the poorest of the poor,” pointed out a senior doctor from the Kilinochchi General Hospital who declined to be named.

“They could possibly be the most poor in the northern province. That is why they have waited to get it (the cataract operation) done free of charge at the nearest location possible as they don’t have the money even for transport (to Vavuniya),” he added.

The beneficiaries are among those who were worse effected by the conflict between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the government, and these clinics are one of many measures taken by government to rehabilitate the Tamil community from the scars of the civil war which ended in May 2009 with the military defeat of the LTTE not far away from the location of the eye camps.

Walking through the corridors of the hospital, which though ransacked, remained intact during the final phase of Sri Lanka’s conflict, you see both men and women in separate wards resting after the operation, many sleeping on the floor on camping mattresses. All of them have a bandaged eye signifying that they have undergone the surgery to remove the cataract and had an artificial lens implanted.

The program is organised by the Ministry of Health, along with the Provincial health authorities and the ‘Tharunyata Hetak’ (A Tomorrow for the Youth) Organisation chaired by Parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa, the youngest member of parliament and son of President Mahinda Rajapkasa. Associated with him were the Northern Province Governor, G.A. Chandrasiri and Tamil Parliamentarian Murugesu Chandrakumar.

The government has provided the lenses free of charge and the total cost per patient is Sri

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