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Still Counting the Dead: Survivors of Sri Lanka's Hidden War

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The tropical island of Sri Lanka is a paradise for tourists, but in 2009 it became a hell for its Tamil minority, as decades of civil war between the Tamil Tiger guerrillas and the government reached its bloody climax. Caught in the crossfire were hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren, doctors, farmers, fishermen, nuns and other civilians. And the government ensured through a strict media blackout that the world was unaware of their suffering. Now, a UN enquiry has called for war-crimes investigations. Those crimes are recounted here to the wider world for the first time in sobering, shattering detail.

272 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2012

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About the author

Frances Harrison

5 books7 followers
Frances Harrison (born 1966) is a British journalist who worked with the BBC. She read English literature at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and did an MA in South Asian Area Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University and an MBA at Imperial College London.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
406 reviews193 followers
October 9, 2015
The Sri Lankan Civil War remains the bloodiest of modern conflicts, and its horrifying stories are still spilling out of the devastated beaches of the country’s north. More than 40000 Tamil civilians were shelled to death and murdered by the Sri Lankan Army on a small stretch of beach where the Tigers made their last stand. The Tigers sandwiched the civilians between them and the advancing Lankan Army, hoping to attract international pressure over civilian casualties, so the Army would back off.

It was a cruel gamble that didn't pay off.

Sri Lanka had prepared for this eventuality. From the outset, they had made sure that there were no foreign journalists or troublesome UN officials in the north who would go and tell the world what they did. They moved in, and indiscriminately killed everything that moved. This wasn’t war, this was extermination. A stronger word, used much later, was genocide. When the nation faced criticism from the international community and Human Rights organisations about what it did in the last days of the war, Sri Lanka denied doing anything wrong. It is still in denial. As a tactic to hold off the world, it was brilliant. No one in Sri Lanka has yet been convicted of anything approaching war crimes.

This is the story of the Tamils who were caught in between, and lost everything.

Harrison makes sure that we know at the outset that this is serious, harrowing reportage, and that there will be no pulled punches here. The UN failed, the international community failed, and more importantly humanity failed, facing a bloodbath that remains very difficult to make sense of.

The stories she tells are graphic and numbing. They pile on, rendering a reader senseless with the callous loss of life that is described. Several times I had to put the book down and look around, to assure myself that the world I lived in was the same that had swallowed these people up. It is a very tough book to read.

In the end, I didn't know what to make of it. So much blood, so much cruelty, so much hate and pain. For what? What was Sri Lanka trying to prove? So many times in the war they could have gained the moral upper hand; the Tigers had lost that years ago. But they chose to kill and maim, to murder and rape, and the state stood by and watched. How can a country born out of this be whole? How can it move on? Won't the fissures that have been cemented over with gunmetal be just skin-deep? Won't the slightest tremor bare the raw anger underneath yet again? This was the lesson the hollow reconciliation of World War 1 taught us. And yet we forget.

This is an important book, but I doubt if the island nation understands that their peace is as fragile as a taped up china teacup. It will hold for some time, but you don't know for how long, and you certainly can't drink tea in it anyway.
Profile Image for Paya.
342 reviews356 followers
October 12, 2021
Nie miałam pojęcia o sytuacji w Sri Lance i o okrutnym konflikcie, który rozgrywał się tam od lat. Książka Harrison pełniła więc dla mnie w pierwszej kolejności funkcję informacyjną. Osią książki są historie osób, które uciekły z tego kraju w wyniku wojny domowej – wypowiadają się osoby stojące po dwóch stronach konfliktu, wojskowi i cywile, kobiety i mężczyźni, wszyscy w równej mierze zniszczeni i pokrzywdzeni w wyniku tych działań. Uważam, że książka była dobrze wyważona, autorka starała się przedstawić sytuację jak najszerzej, jednocześnie zachowując przy tym emocjonalność i nie pozostając obojętną na emocje jej rozmówców, bez względu na to, czego dana osoba się dopuściła i co myśli.
Profile Image for Vicki.
47 reviews1 follower
October 10, 2012
An excellent account of the civil war that explains a conflict little understood in this country. The human cost of the war is plainly exposed, mostly through the first-person accounts of survivors. A very important book, a must for anyone seeking to understand Sri Lanka, or indeed war itself.
Profile Image for Sian.
6 reviews
February 6, 2013
This brought me to tears, stirring up inside me a passion for justice. Read this book if you care about injustice.
Profile Image for Weronika.
126 reviews4 followers
January 19, 2021
Wstrząsający i poruszający reportaż głównie o tym jak cywile są bezbronni w obliczu wojny. O tym jak łatwo szafować życiem niewinnych ludzi dla własnych korzyści. O tym jak łatwo łamie się prawa człowieka, nawet pod nosem organizacji mających tych praw bronić. O tym, że sojusze, koalicję i dobre stosunku dyplomatyczne są ważniejsze niż życie tysięcy kobiet, dzieci, starców, ludzi, którzy chcieli po prostu żyć. Gorąco polecam, bo wojna w Sri Lance jest naprawdę wojną nieznaną.
8 reviews1 follower
November 18, 2012
Very well written. It must have been an effort to trace the few survivors in various countries across South Asia and Europe and get them to share their traumatic experiences. It shows the extent to which the Sri Lankan government went to mislead its own citizens, not that neighboring governments do not. It also shows the ineffectiveness of the UN bureaucracy and the practical approach that agencies like Red Cross had to adopt. Subsequent events including disappearance of journalists - both Tamil and Sinhalese - Continued torture and disappearance of Tamil origin Sri Lankans - as well as the current move to impeach the Sri Lankan Chief Justice - http://www.firstpost.com/world/impeac.... What would have made it even better and a unbiased one - would have been greater coverage of the Sri Lankan government's views. It clearly illustrates the chronology of the Tamil issue in Sri Lanka which is not well understood by casual observers. In the broader context - there are two points made - how can we prevent rampant misuse of power by governments and how do we devolve power so that local communities are able to make decisions - better suited to them. Will efforts by the citizens of Sri Lanka, the UN reports and acknowledgment of public apologies made by Governments across the world for their mistakes influence the future Sri Lankan governments finally apologise and take remedial action is a moot question?
Profile Image for Nallasivan V..
Author 2 books44 followers
January 24, 2013
There is no other better source of information on war than first hand accounts. All human endeavours can be seen in two levels: at the human scale and the bigger picture. But of all human endeavours, War is probably the only one where the bigger picture cannot be justified by ignoring the things at the human scale. Frances Harrison illustrates this very clearly with her book. It is a collection of stories of real people - mostly civilians and a few Tamil Tigers - during the last few months of the Sri Lankan Civil war when the Sri Lankan Military as well as the Tamil Tigers took strategic decisions which are never justifiable outside their ideologies. The Sri Lankan military dropped all its sensibility to go out an full-out war driven by tamil-phobia. The tamil tigers on the other hand, betrayed their own kind for tactical reasons and tried to get the civilian body count up so that UN intervenes. What emerges is a terrifying tale of tamil civilians caught between the devil and the deap sea.

The book raises scary questions for international community also: The ineffectiveness of UN, the moral ambiguity of nations like US, India and China who didn't question SL for their own strategic reasons. If things are as bad as the book portrays the ethnic situation in SL is still precarious and waiting to explode.
Profile Image for Vijay Raj.
10 reviews
May 7, 2014
The book gives the real-life experiences of different tamil/non-tamil civilians/commoners who were caught in the cross-fire of the final war against the LTTE. Here are some really gory accounts of the war crimes committed by the LTTE and the srilankan army. The book is well-written, and I am surprised about the completely un-biased stance that the author takes, although it seemed to me that the book was slightly bent against the srilankan army. This may still be reflecting on reality though.

The description of events is also very good, as I could imagine the scene described most of the times, and some events moved me to tears. The author also scores in correlating intersection points between different stories.

Two things went missing - we heard about the views of the civilians who were in the cross-fire, but not from soldiers in the srilankan army (I am specifically not mentioning diplomats because they were not in the frontline, and you know what you will get from them anyway), and some sinhalese commoners living in the south of lanka (on the lines of "what information was reaching the lankan common man"). That would have given a rounded perspective.

Overall, a wonderful book.
Profile Image for Matthew Griffiths.
241 reviews14 followers
January 26, 2013
This book was an excellent account of what surely must be one of the least known and arguably most horrific conflicts to take place in recent years.

One thing that struck me from a very early stage of reading this book is that the author maintained an incredibly unbiased account of things considering what she was describing, never shying away from placing the relevant blame at the door of the LTTE as well as at the door of the Sri Lankan army. Also another thing which was clear throughout the book was the careful way in which the author approached retelling the stories of those she had interviewed, at no point did it seem forced or exploitative.

This book would be highly useful for anyone studying either civil war, humanitarian crisis or genocide/ethnic cleansing at a university level due to the consistent use of references to NGO or government reports discussing the events as detailed in the book.

Profile Image for Wilfred Arasaratnam.
18 reviews1 follower
October 13, 2012
Stalin said that "One death a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic" and I suppose the difficulty for many with getting their head around accounts and histories of genocide and persecution is the sheer scale of the horror. In this balanced, well-written and authoritative book, Frances Harrison has managed to overcome the paradox that Stalin mentioned by documenting survivor testimony in a compelling from nine survivors of the final months of the conflict.

Frances deftly weaves fact with evocative description taken from interviews with these survivors to uncover the horror of this conflict. The shocking thing about this conflict is that the death toll and the horror of the conflict puts it in the same league as Afghanistan, Iraq or Darfur but few know about it.

It's worth reading and then worth considering why the world kept silent about it.
Profile Image for Kira.
54 reviews
July 1, 2014
"It was a world in which death was so omnipresent that few expected to walk out alive."

Harrison manages to take the experiences of a handful and turn them into the voices of the hundreds of thousands of civilians caught between two ruthless factions determined to fight until the end. These civilians were failed by those who claimed to be fighting for them, their country, and by the international community as a whole.

Especially frustrating is the fact that even today, civilians continue to suffer and die needlessly in Syria, South Sudan, and elsewhere.

An absolutely devastating and utterly painful read--I can't even begin to imagine the trauma and unspeakable horror of those who have actually lived those last few months.

All I can say is, while I never want to read this book again, it's a must-read and will always have a place on my shelf.
Profile Image for Giridharan.
53 reviews2 followers
May 8, 2015
Tales of unspeakable horrors endured by Srilankan Tamils during the civil war. Even as I was reading several real life account I was constantly reminded of how truth is stranger than fiction. It takes a lot of gunption to have survived the bloody war and more so to recount it. History tells us about gruesome wars of the past, the arson, pillages, rapes and murders but very few have survivors' accounts captured to this detail. And this detail chills you to the bone not just because of how many human rights crimes have been committed but how listless the international community's response has been in taking the criminals to task.
Profile Image for Kathryn Cousins.
11 reviews
August 27, 2013
An incredibly moving compilation of accounts of survivors of the Sri Lankan war.
It is not a history of the war so doesn't offer reasons Or politics or insight; it is merely what it says it is in the introduction. Memoirs of those who survived, to give them a voice.
The world didn't care about the thousands of Sri Lankan civilians who were killed in the war; if you read this you will be sad that you were probably part of this world who turned a blind eye.
Profile Image for Polly.
20 reviews3 followers
September 3, 2013
An utterly devastating and sobering account of Sri Lanka's civil war. A necessary if difficult read.
Profile Image for janeee :D.
405 reviews88 followers
July 18, 2025
1.5 DNF AT 47%

this is about a War yet only displays the woes of one side w no consideration for the other . i dont doubt the atrocities witnessed , but i think the framing is far from objective . it presumes that the only sins committed by the tamil are in response to the sinhalese when there have also been accounts of spontaneous violence from the tamil , for example the many counts of arson and looting .

i thought this book would help me learn about the emergence of the tensions but instead it regurgitates the same information of truly terrible war crimes executed by the sinhalese government against the tamil insurgency thru different individuals . theyre all tamil btw — the priest , the journalist , etc . to me thats a highly subjective position . i skimmed the rest of the book and all of these interviewees are still tamil .

the writing is not very good either . the language is repetitive and dense and i think too plain for such aggression .

i think any good ( objective ) ‘history’ book about War ( not any occupation or anything ) should maintain a focus on the misdeeds of either side . at the very least , still counting the dead from the start shouldve established why the actions of the sinhalese government are unwarrented given the histories of the two ethnic groups + the justified and rightful response and wished of the tigers . its important to answer these fundamental and , to many , basic questions to truly understand our principles , our emotions , our responses , and our desires especially in the chaos of war .
Profile Image for Sumit Singla.
466 reviews197 followers
September 28, 2016
Having recently been to Sri Lanka on a mini-vacation, one would hardly imagine that less than a decade ago, this serene and lovely island was deeply mired in a devastating civil war. A war where the army used its power to crush not only the Tamil militants, but also countless innocent civilians.

Some of the incidents are plain shocking and inhuman. And what saddens me is the fact that some of Sri Lanka's neighbours (including my home country, India) and also world superpowers turned a blind eye to the atrocities being committed in the name of destroying terrorists. In fact, Sri Lanka has become a case study for using an 'iron fist' to eliminate threats to national security.

War criminals and people without whose collusion the army could not have acted are still in positions of power and till date there is large army presence in areas with higher percentages of Tamil ethnicity.

Despite being a difficult read, this is a book that calls out to be read. War is terrible, war is evil and it is incredibly sad when people who wage war to drive their selfish agendas get away scot-free.
Profile Image for magda.
138 reviews7 followers
August 13, 2022
Po reportaż sięgnęłam po części dlatego, że od jakiegoś czasu zalegał mi na półce, a po części na fali ostatnich wydarzeń w Sri Lance, raczej bez większej ekscytacji – a finalnie okazał się jednym z najlepszych reportaży z jakimi miałam okazję się zapoznać.

Mimo, że opisana jest w nim tylko ostatnia (najbardziej krwawa) faza konfliktu zbrojnego trwającego ćwierć wieku, to ogrom cierpienia zawarty w tych kilku historiach jest wręcz przytłaczający.
Sri Lanka to wyspa doskonale znana turystom, którzy odwiedzają (i odwiedzali również w 2009 roku, pod koniec wojny) luksusowe kurorty, nie mając przy tym pojęcia o rzeźni, jaka miała miejsce na północy kraju. Niektóre szacunki mówią nawet o ponad 100 000 ofiar – przy czym od 20. do 40. tysięcy cywilów zginęło właśnie w trakcie trwającej 5 miesięcy lankijskiej ofensywy w 2009 roku.

Co najważniejsze, autorka nie patrzy oczami lankijskiego rządu czy Tamilskich Tygrysów, czyli tych, którzy pociągali za sznurki, używając zwykłych ludzi jako żywej tarczy. Harrison oddaje głos Tamilskiej ludności cywilnej – czyli tym, którzy w tym konflikcie wycierpieli najwięcej i nieustannie tracili życie, zdrowie, członków rodziny (zarówno zabitych podczas licznych ostrzałów ze strony rządu jak również tych, którzy siłami zostali wcieleni w szeregi bojowników).
Myślę, że dla nas, Europejczyków często nieświadomych istnienia tego konfliktu, który przecież zakończył się zaledwie 13 lat temu (!!), ta książka to potężne uderzenie – uderzenie pokazujące, że nawet w XXI wieku, prawa człowieka nadal nic nie znaczą i można bezkarnie łamać je pod nosem takich organizacji jak ONZ czy Czerwony Krzyż. Pokazujące jak niewiele znaczy ludzkie życie w obliczu przeróżnych stosunków dyplomatycznych i dziwnych sojuszy, które bardzo skutecznie bronią zbrodni wojennych przed wypłynięciem na wierzch. Pokazujące, że najwygodniejszym rozwiązaniem na polu międzynarodowym bardzo często jest zasłonięcie oczu i patrzenie na rzeź przez palce, jednocześnie udając, że nic się nie widzi.

Wojna w Sri Lance skończyła się w 2009 roku, ale czy znaczy to, że na wyspie w końcu jest bezpiecznie? Absolutnie nie. Tamilowie, którym udało się uciec za granicę (często przy pomocy pracowników służb przekupionych za astronomiczne kwoty) nadal nie chcą wracać do swojej ojczyzny, słusznie obawiając się, że jeśli wrócą, wpadną w ręce władzy, będą torturowani i być może pożegnają się z życiem.

Książka bardzo interesująca, ale ciężka i poruszająca. Zdecydowanie nie taka, którą czyta się dla przyjemności i raczej nienadająca się dla osób bardzo wrażliwych – głównie ze względu na pojawiające się w wielu miejscach obrazowe i brutalne opisy tego, czego na co dzień doświadczała Tamilska ludność.
Profile Image for Rachel Wilce.
4 reviews
April 27, 2014
I'm not really much of a non-fiction reader, usually choosing a book for an escape, but planning a trip to Sri Lanka later in the year meant that I picked up some recommended Roma Tearne novels, which led finding myself hungry for information about this terrible war that had so little documentation in the mainstream over here in the comfort of the UK. I found this book shocking, upsetting, very well written and compulsive reading. A must read I think for anyone planning a trip over there, I find it important to understand, or at least to try to understand somewhere that you're going to visit, and understand it in a way that goes beyond knowing how to ask for a beer! Reading this has made me determined to spend time with people during my visit, and also made me search out yet more information.
Profile Image for Chisato Oguma.
7 reviews1 follower
January 5, 2014
It took forever to finish the book. The stories of the Tamil survivors were too painful to read. But I felt obliged to read cover to cover especially because I needed to explore the truth behind the beauty and prosperity of the country that we see today as visitors. The atmosphere of this country that the government is advertising is now hopeful, but I cannot help but agree with the conclusion of the book: "It's unrealistic to expect survivors just to put the war behind them... The risk is that next time it won't be just the Sinhalese they hate, but also the international community that abandoned them."
Profile Image for Rahul Sharma.
60 reviews22 followers
July 17, 2014
An excellent account of the Sri Lanka's civil war. The first-person accounts of survivors exposes the human rights violations by the Sri Lanka army & government and how the "so-called" international human rights organizations failed to do anything. The spine chilling stories shake you up to the core. The book presents a balanced view as it talks about the human rights violations by the Tamil rebels also. As an Indian, I feel sorry that we did so little to stop these crimes happening in our neighboring state. More so because the Sri Lankan Tamils trace their roots back to India!

A very important book, a must for anyone who wants to understand Sri Lanka, or indeed war itself.
1 review
April 1, 2013
A book filled with troubling accounts on the genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Extreme cruelty and barbarism by the the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka directed against Tamil civilians and Tamil militant groups. Rape, murder and Torture appear to be the calling cards of the Sinhalese putting them on an even footing with the Nazis, Serbian extermination groups and the Pol Pot. Remember the name: Sri Lanka - Asia's Torture chamber.
Profile Image for Chris Steeden.
483 reviews
February 13, 2014
Unbelievable. That is the only way to start my review of this book. The facts of the end of the civil war and the survivors stories are not for the faint-hearted but must be told. The Tigers and the Government both get the bad press in this book. The outright killing of civilians should never be accepted but this happened and in the tens of thousands as well. As I said - Unbelievable.
33 reviews7 followers
October 23, 2016
It is particularly very sad to read accounts of war crimes committed by both Sri Lankan army and LTTE. It is even more sad to find out that these cruel acts of impunity still continue. Manik refugee farm and the makeshift hospitals and churches hit by shells and shrapnel are all vividly described. What this book achieves best is that it provides an unbiased view of the whole scenario.
Profile Image for Dhakshi.
7 reviews
February 21, 2013
Very harrowing read. It took a while for me to finish because I found it difficult to read more than 30-40 pages at a time due to the nature of the subject matter *note the book is about the last days of the war from the perspective of various survivors and NOT a history of the war*
Profile Image for Kannan Ekanath.
22 reviews6 followers
January 8, 2013
Brutal.. I now have to read something totally light-weight to compensate ....
60 reviews2 followers
May 24, 2013
Random collection of information about what has happened in the srilankan crisis which is told by real people who lived at the time of war. Very well organised and written
Profile Image for Rukmani.
2 reviews1 follower
December 2, 2013
A very unbiased and well presented account of the Sri Lankan option. All different stories and first-person accounts are tied together quite well and substantiated with facts.
Profile Image for Sarah.
115 reviews2 followers
January 17, 2014
horrific stories but as a Canadian I am proud to have offered so many Tamils a new home, in Canada and in Toronto. I wish we didnt have to
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