Brutality, Broken Trust and The Battle For Dignity in Mannar

Mannar has long been a land where beauty and pain coexist. Its pristine beaches and migratory birds tell one story, while its scars of war, displacement and neglect tell another. Now, Mannar has become the frontline of a new battle: a community’s desperate cry to protect its home and livelihood from a development project imposed without their voice.

The protests here are not just about wind turbines; they are about dignity, survival and democracy itself. And the violent police crackdown on the people of Mannar on the night of September 26 is a chilling reminder of how fragile justice remains in post-war Sri Lanka.

For over 55 days fisherfolk, farmers, women, children and Catholic clergy in Mannar carried out a peaceful satyagraha. They gathered day and night at the roadside holding rosaries and placards, chanting hymns and pleading for dialogue. Their demand was not radical; they wanted the government to listen, to consult and to show that their voices mattered in decisions that would shape their future.

But on the night of September 26, peace met with force.

Hundreds of Sri Lanka police and Special Task Force (STF) personnel stormed into the protest. Witnesses describe a terrifying scene: batons swinging, shields pushing, uniformed men charging into unarmed villagers. Women fell to the ground screaming. Priests tried to shield them, only to be beaten themselves. Ambulances rushed the injured to Mannar District Hospital.

The brutality was compounded by its lawlessness. Male officers assaulted women protesters in the absence of female police personnel – a direct violation of police guidelines and a gross abuse of human dignity. For a community where the church remains a moral anchor, the beating of priests was not just violence but sacrilege. It sent a chilling message: no voice of dissent, however peaceful or sacred, will be tolerated.

The violence cannot be understood in isolation. To grasp the outrage, one must examine the wind power project itself.

The project has been rolled out without meaningful dialogue with local communities. Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs), if they exist, have not been shared in accessible form. Decisions were made in Colombo boardrooms and signed with foreign investors while the people most affected were left in the dark.

Fishing is the lifeblood of Mannar. The sea is not just an economic asset; it is culture, inheritance and identity. Fisherfolk fear that underwater cabling and turbine construction will disrupt breeding grounds, reduce catches and destroy their only livelihood. Farmers, too, worry about losing land to infrastructure and construction. For them, the project is not green energy but a trade-off between electricity for the nation and food for their own children’s tables.

Mannar is globally recognized as a sanctuary for migratory birds along the Central Asian Flyway. Turbine blades could kill thousands of birds annually, devastating biodiversity. Conservationists warn that an industrialized coastline will scar one of Sri Lanka’s most pristine landscapes with consequences for tourism, ecology and community life.

For decades, the Northern Province has suffered from top-down development imposed without community consent whether in war time militarization, land grabs or poorly planned “reconstruction.” Mannar’s people carry this memory of exclusion. To them, the wind project feels like another betrayal in a long line of state actions that have disregarded their rights.

Why was a peaceful protest seen as a threat? Why did the government answer prayers with batons? Because the people of Mannar are not only opposing a project, they are challenging a system. They are saying that development must not be dictated from above, that communities have the right to decide what happens to their land, their sea and their future. This demand for participation unsettles a state accustomed to controlling narratives and silencing dissent.

The crackdown exposes a deeper weakness: an inability to defend policies through dialogue, a fear of accountability and a reliance on force to impose legitimacy. In silencing Mannar, the state reveals its own fragility.

The Mannar violence is not just a local issue; it is a national test of democracy. Can democracy survive if women are beaten for demanding a voice? Can priests be assaulted without consequences in a country that claims to value faith and freedom of conscience? Can development be called progress if it destroys the very communities it is meant to serve?

The people of Mannar are not anti-development. They are pro-justice. They are asking for renewable energy that does not come at the cost of their sea, their livelihood and their dignity. Their resistance is not a rejection of the future but a cry for a future built on fairness, sustainability and respect.

If Sri Lanka’s leaders truly believe in democracy, the path forward is clear:

• End the violence immediately. Stop treating peaceful dissent as a crime.
• Launch an independent inquiry into the police brutality and hold perpetrators accountable.
• Suspend the wind project until a genuine, transparent consultation process is established with the local community.
• Commission an independent, publicly accessible review of the environmental and social impacts by credible experts.
• Rebuild trust by ensuring that future development projects in the North and elsewhere are shaped with – not against – the people.

The winds of Mannar can indeed power Sri Lanka’s future but not at the cost of silencing the people who have lived in harmony with that wind for centuries.

The crackdown has turned what could have been a story of shared progress into one of broken trust and state violence. Yet Mannar’s voice remains unbroken. The people continue their protest, carrying both their wounds and their faith, reminding the nation that development without justice is no development at all.

Their cry is not only for Mannar. It is for the soul of Sri Lanka’s democracy. Listen to us. Respect us. Do not build our future on our wounds.