Tamils gone

Categories: uncategorized

Tags: southeastlondon, local

Date: 18 May 2009 23:52:19

From the street, I mean. All the shops shut, no-one walking around. Slghtly weird, slightly scary. A little ghost town row of shops.

Presumably they have all gone to one of the various demonstrations or political meetings going on in London. Or else perhaps there is some sort of mourning. Or maybe they are all trying to get their relatives out or find out what happened to them. (I'm assuming they aren't all under secret orders from the LTTE. Not all of them at once, anyway)

These people are watching their world end and we're just walking past on the way to the bus-stop. Maybe we pop in to buy a packet of fags or a few lemons. Well, noit tday we couldn't.

I suppose they will be back tomorrow. Which is not going to happen in Sri Lanka. It all seems to be over over there. No-one is sure of course. No news in or out of the last corner that they say the LTTE were trapped in. No news and, so the Sri Lankan government says, no escapes either.

Of course I have no idea what happens next. Peace? Persecution? Guerilla warfare? Some sort of improvised government in exile of an unrecognised country, a kind of self-perpetuating Provisional Army Council? Refugees?

What happens there affects what happens here a little. If there is a stream of new exiles, they will come here. Maybe right here, this street, the corner by the bus stop.

Assuming the shops open again tomorrow .