of our homeland with foreigners, we are just an inconspicuous dot on the map. Pregnant women have to walk more than eight kilometres from here to get a bus to Thirukkovil”, he adds bitterly. “We had to break granite stones for a living. We could not cultivate the lands here and my family is still sunk in poverty. Three meals a day is a luxury for my family”, says Krishnan Sivajothy, 38, as she beats with a stick a sheaf of paddy she and her friends had been allowed to collect from the floor of a harvested field in Thangavelauthapuram, a village near Udumbankulam. “A hard day’s work gets us enough grains of rice to give the children a square meal”, she said. “A hard day’s work gets us enough grains of rice to give the children a square meal”, she said.Sivajothy and her colleagues are from the village of Thandiady, about 94 kilometers south of Batticaloa, on the main road along the island’s southeastern coast. The STF held the village for more than decade, like an open prison, human rights activists in Batticaloa say.Indiscriminate arrest, detention, torture and disappearance were rampant here. No journalist has been to the area since the STF took control more than 18 years ago. Thousands of families which were driven out almost overnight as part of the STF’s counter insurgency strategy designed according to western manuals on the subject, lived as refugees for more than 12 years in the villages of Thirukkovil and Thambiluvil, 76 kilometers south of Batticaloa. Many were driven to destitution and despair as the STF continued to deny access to their fertile lands and cattle herds. Those who dared to go back were shot dead by STF patrols in ambush. References Massacres in 1986 History of Ampara District Massacres in Sri Lanka Mass murder of Sri Lankan Tamils Attacks on civilians attributed to the Sri Lanka Army February 1986 events in Asia 1986 in Sri Lanka