IN THE fortress-city of Jaffna, a white, scrubbed place of churches, palms and liquid brightness on the edge of a lagoon in northern Sri Lanka, there is a sinister, inescapable image. You see it everywhere: on the walls of schoolyards, where children play on see-saws made of broken AK- 47 rifles; outside cinemas; and in the neighbourhood behind the bombed- out church, where every third shop sells freshly varnished coffins.
It is a poster, showing, in silhouette, a Tamil guerrilla walking along a path, hand in hand with a young boy and girl. The artist intended that it should be inspirational, no doubt, but to Western eyes the effect is depressing. The shadowy, skeletal warrior, you think, is Death himself, leading the children straight to their graves in Jaffna's red-earthed cemetery.
But the Tamils like to see martyrdom dressed up like this, in lurid, B-movie allure. All over the Tamil rebels' capital, on the main squares and crossroads, or looming up in the palm trees, you see large wooden cut-outs of men and women commandos. They might easily be mistaken for advertisements for some gory war film.
In fact, they are shrines for fallen Tamil guerrillas. For 12 years now, the Tamils have been defending their stronghold in northern Sri Lanka against repeated assaults by up to , government troops, backed by air power and naval gunships. Their casualties have been enormous, but not in vain: for they have succeeded in carving out for themselves a de facto homeland which they call Eelam on the northern tip of the island; and, following two months of intensive talks, the Colombo government has just announced that it is prepared to concede some form of autonomy to the Tamils.
In a world full of long- running civil wars and secessionist guerrilla campaigns, the Tamil rebellion has been remarkably effective. It has also been remarkable for something else. For the past four or five years, most of the Tamils' fighting has been done by an army composed largely of young women and schoolchildren. One of the bloodiest civil wars in recent history has been waged by boys and girls as young as youngsters raised with a death wish and obsessed with martyrdom.
