Patching Up Paradise

The port city of Galle fronts the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka, a teardrop-shaped island nation in the Indian Ocean. Gleaming on a promontory in the bright sun, the whitewashed buildings and stooped palm trees of its Fort neighborhood shelter a quiet landscape of pedestrians, shops, stray dogs, and courtyard gardens. They are ringed by massive stone walls that daily fend off waves, as they have for the 400 years since European colonists first began construction.

Though the fort walls have witnessed many assaults, two recent ones are not easily forgotten: in December 2004, pulses of water from the Indian Ocean tsunami reached this area, suddenly flooding nearby markets at the height of a holiday shopping day and killing thousands. About two years later, the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) attacked a nearby naval base, abruptly bringing the country's unresolved civil war uncomfortably close to this World Heritage Site.

The cultural treasures of Galle (pronounced Gaul ) should be natural draws for tourists from around the world. But Sri Lanka tourism promoters face a special challenge: convincing foreign tourists that it is safe to visit. During more than two decades of civil war, in which government forces dominated by the ethnic majority Sinhalese fought to suppress LTTE factions, Sri Lanka's tourism industry has lost more than US$6.3 billion in potential revenues. A 2002 ceasefire brought respite from the fighting, but the ceasefire fell apart in 2006 and the violence and unrest returned. Thanks in large part to Western government advisories, fear is once again keeping foreign tourists away from the palm-studded beaches and coral reefs of Sri Lanka's southern coast, as well as its hill temples and ancient spiritual sites.