Hidden from the world.. innocent captives of terror

The News of the World sends award-winning reporter Dan McDoug all to reveal truth about Sri Lanka's secret refugee camps

REPORTER DAN McDOUGALL: First journalist to report from the Tamil refugee camps

By Dan McDougall, British foreign reporter of the year, 24/05/2009

THEY squat in a circle, grinding their tiny hands nervously into the mud behind the six foot high barbed wire fence that imprisons them.

And their little eyes stare wide open in fear at what lies on the other side.

Around the infants and their families in the grim surroundings of the Pulmoddai refugee camp in war-torn northern Sri Lanka, the soldiers sit, each one ten yards a

part, their AK47 assault rifles trained at the 6,000 terrified refugees huddled inside.This the terrifying aftermath of Asia's longest civil war - and the News of the World is the first newspaper in the world to witness the human suffering in the controversial camps where Tamil survivors are trapped.

Speaking to us in the belief we were aid workers, the official in charge of the Pulmoddai compound claimed the Tamil women and children were being "held" for their own safety.

"We are protecting these people," he claimed. "This is why there are so many soldiers here. There might be Tamil Tigers in there and we cannot just let them come and go. They have water and shelter and they are happy to be free of the war."

But later a charity worker gave us a very different view: "The children, their mothers, their grandmothers, they can't get out. They are trapped behind b

arbed wire with guns trained on them, innocent children.

"This is a prison camp, a Nazi-like detention camp that evokes the worst fears of humanity."

And if the children of this bloody war are not being held in camps, they are in a different kind of hell-in orphanages scattered across their war-torn land with no mother or father to comfort them.

Burns

Children whose memories will be scarred forever by what they witnessed.

Like 12-year-old Theverajah Kajenthini who told us: "I saw my mother's body. She was on fire after the shelling and died of burns to her face and neck. Her head was black, it was the last I saw of her."

To get to the terrifying fallout of the 26-year conflict between the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan Government and the Tamil Tigers took a 13-hour, 400-mile drive from the west coast capital Colombo along dangerous roads and through more than a dozen heavily militarised checkpoints and cordons-once having to hide in the back of our minivan.

At every stage of our journ

ey the Sri Lankan Military-which has effectively created a border cutting off the north of the island from foreigners-brandished their weapons to try to intimidate us and stop us seeing what they don't want YOU to see.

For here, in the north-east of the South Asian island, is a scene light years away from the pristine tea plantations and golden sandy beaches in the south and west of the island that attract more than 100,000 British tourists a year.

To British honeymooners Sri Lanka is a tropical paradise; to British businessmen it is source of clothing for high street stores like M&S, Next and Gap.

But for the past three decades the former British colony has been gripped by a deadly war that has bitterly split the South Asian nation in two and killed 100,000 people.

It erupted in 1983 after the demands of the minority Tamils for a homeland of their own separate from the Sinhalese were refused. Last week it finally came to a violent and bloody end in the north of the country. And since January, an estimated 7,000 civilians, many of them children, have died in the crossfire at the hands of both sides.

But now the end of the conflict has brought new and terrible suffering for the Tamil people left behind.

Brought down by ship from the former front line 50 miles to the north, the Pulmoddai refugees before us are effectively-as the charity worker said-prisoners of war facing disease and malnutrition.

Further north many tens of thousands more share the same fate in dozens of similar camps.

As the fighting engulfed them, they suffered shelling and aerial bombing as well as torture, rape, mass arrest and now prolonged detention.

In the Pulmoddai camp, children wave from behind the barbed wire fence.

A child no more than two-years-old toddles naked towards the razor wire imprisoning her and her family. Terrified of retribution, parents pull the child away. Many of the refugees are dressed only in rags and tattered clothing. Chicken pox and skin diseases are sweeping through the camp and hepatitis is a growing problem because of poor sanitation.

Around the perimeter, women gather at hastily-constructed water pumps but only one is functioning properly.

Our attempts to interview the detainees through the wire were met with angry threats of imprisonment and deportation by guards.

Two Tamil women shouted "help us" to our translator as we were pushed away from the perimeter fence. Sickened by the violent attempts to stop our access, the charity worker who spoke to us spat out the truth of what was happening here.

He works for ZOA-a non-governmental organisation which helps set up wells and food distribution systems in some of the world's worst trouble spots. He told us the creation of the camp and dozens like it was causing grave concern.

"The Sri Lankan government have said these poor people could be in these camps for another two years, there is a fine line between refugee camps and prisons here," he said. A construction worker, who helped the Sri Lankan army build the camp, told us later at a secret location that locals had effectively been forced to help the army create a prison for the refugees.

"We pass them on the road and they look out at us through the barbed wire. They are absolutely helpless," he said. "They have escaped a war which they had no part in and now they are prisoners.

"The children are the saddest sight of all. They sit by the fence waving at the cars that pass, usually military vehicles."

The UN confirmed this week that as many as 300,000 Tamil refugees are now jammed into the camps dubbed "welfare villages". Western journalists have been banned from going near them.

The Sri Lankan government argues that the last remaining Tamil Tiger fighters remain in the camps and pose a danger to the public. Neil Buhne, the United Nations' top official in Sri Lanka, said he believed there would be no more than a couple of hundred at most.

And James Ross, the legal and policy director of Human Rights Watch, accused the Sri Lankan Government of imprisoning hundreds of thousands of innocent people. He said: "The government appears to view all Tamils as presumptive Tiger supporters."

Meanwhile, along the road from the Pulmoddai camp, is the sound of hammering and the clink of metal. Thousands more tents are being made to house refugees from the north.

And Sri Lankan soldiers are hammering huge wooden stakes into the ground to create another razor wire perimeter fence. Away from the camps, things are little better. We travel 30 miles down the Bay of Bengal coast to Uppuveli which has the most beautiful beach on Sri Lanka's east coast according to the guidebooks.

As the sun sets it certainly looks like an island paradise-a curve of white sand with palm trees and deep emerald water.

If you drive through the jungle in the east, you can see herds of wild elephants crossing the road while long-tailed monkeys watch from the trees. At night, fireflies hang by the roadside. This is the part Sri Lanka tourists know. But no-one comes here any more.

The beach is littered with sewage and hotels are boarded up. As deadly battles have gripped the jungles around the town only foreign aid workers and soldiers pass through.

Growling and menacing packs of dogs roam the empty stretches of sand. The jungle, long burned by government soldiers trying to clear the roads of hiding places for Tamil Tiger guerrillas, is a twisted charred wasteland.

Where tourists once strolled, hundreds of soldiers nervously search for remaining Tamil Tigers who might launch the kind of suicide attacks for which they were renowned.

But nearby there is a human timebomb of misery ticking away.

In the Sivananda Thaovanam Orphanage more than 100 children huddle together, their eyes betraying tragedies they could not easily put into words.

Each youngster had his or her own story, but they all had one thing in common, the death of their parents in war. Four year-old Mohanapriya's eyes lit up as she spoke about her mother and father, telling us how she is waiting for them to come and take her home.

"She is too young to understand they are gone," said one of the orphan directors. "What can we say to her?"

The orphanage looks tattered and shabby, like its inhabitants. The room that serves as their bedroom-a communal hall with peeling paint and a few lockers with broken locks-overflows with secondhand clothes and toys that have seen better days.

The only bed there was piled high with mats, sheets and pillows.

But despite its woeful lack of facilities, Sivananda Thapovanam has been a safe haven for children for more than four years. They are content with the little they receive here-but the real unhapiness is deep within.

Theverajah Kajenthini wiped a tear from her eye as she recounted how she lost her mother, her sister and her aunt when a Sri Lankan government shell hit their home. Several months later her father was executed by "unknown forces"-accused of being a Tamil Tiger sympathiser.

"I don't understand what has happened to me," she said. "Like other children in here I don't talk about the past. I am old enough to know my parents are gone but the younger children laugh and play and tell us their mum and dads are coming back.

"Many of the children in my village became orphans during the fighting. I can't deny what happened to me.

Across the north of Sri Lanka hundreds of such orphanages house the true legacy of Sri Lanka's civil war. With no funding for rehabilitation or counselling the children's fates seem to be sealed at a tragically young age.

"The camps to the north of here are full of children like me I am told," said 11-year-old Mahetevan Suganya.

"At least I have my friends here in the orphanage and I can walk in the garden and play with my toys.

"The director here tells us all we are fortunate to be here and to be protected from the war." Staring out from a picture on the wall are the dead eyes of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the Tamil Tigers, killed last week in a final stand against The Sri Lankan military.

At the height of his power, Prabhakaran ruled as a virtual dictator over a shadow state of hundreds of thousands of people in northern Sri Lanka with its own flag, police and court system.

The Sri Lankan President announced to the world last week that it had finished off the last of the rebels in the northern war zone and killed Prabhakaran and his top deputies.

To his followers, Prabhakaran was the steadfast heart of the battle to establish a breakaway state for the ethnic Tamil minority. But his many detractors saw him as the brutal ruler of a suicide cult who repeatedly sabotaged peace deals in pursuit of power.

In more than a quarter-century of civil war, his Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam perfected the science of suicide bombings, assassinated top politicians including former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and fought the Sri Lankan government to a near-standstill.

Prabhakaran's guerrilla force was armed with heavy artillery, a rudimentary air wing that once bombed Colombo's international airport, and a squad of suicide attackers.

Explosives

Its navy consisted of small attack craft, suicide boats laden with explosives, crude submarines and huge smuggling ships. The Tamil Tiger rebels reportedly earned as much as £188 million a year from arms and drug smuggling, fake cha

rities and donations from Tamil expatriates.

Prabhakaran rarely appeared in public, preferring to communicate via radio addresses delivered every November.

Tamil Tiger troops, some forcibly recruited when they were children, saw Prabhakaran as their unquestioned leader.

He ordered them to abstain from

sex, cut personal ties and carry glass vials of cyanide on a necklace so they could kill themselves upon capture.

Now, as our pictures show, the Tamil wome

n and children they fought for are left to carry on the suffering as virtual prisoners of the government forces who defeated them.

Amnesty International spokeswoman Yolanda F

oster said t

he photographs show how vulnerable children have been left imprisoned in these camps.

After looking at our evidence of the human disaster unfolding in Sri Lanka, she said: "Thousands of children who fled the combat zone are severely traumatised and in need of vital humanitarian assistance and support.

"As long as humanitarian access to the camps is restricted, children remain very vulnerable.

"Life imprisoned in camps is not what the many traumatised and malnourished children need.

"They need support and protection. Humanitarian agencies must be given immediate access or thousands of children's lives remain in jeopardy."

PICTURES: Robin Hammond

Published by:News of the World.co.uk

What now for Sri Lanka's Tamils? - 25 May 09

Riz Khan - Al Jazeera English

Part 1


Part 2

UN Human Rights Council should tackle Sri Lanka crisis-Amnesty International

The armed conflict in Sri Lanka appears to have come to an end but a humanitarian crisis continues to unfold in the country.

Amnesty International welcomed the decision of the United Nations Human Rights Council to hold a special session on Tuesday to address the plight of more than a quarter of a million civilians—including some 80,000 children--now held in difficult conditions in de facto internment camps.
"For the sake of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in Sri Lanka, the Council should ensure that the Sri Lankan government takes immediate and concrete steps to address this crisis, beginning with providing immediate, unhindered access to international aid workers and monitors," said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific director.

Most of these civilians suffered seriously under the control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who used them as human shields and as a source for forced recruitment (including of children) and involuntary labour.

The civilians who survived weeks under heavy combat reached the camps sometimes badly injured, malnourished, exhausted and traumatised.

The displaced civilians are suffering from widespread and serious human rights violations at the hands of government security forces and allied paramilitary forces, including enforced disappearance; extra-judicial executions; torture and other ill-treratment, and forced recruitment to paramilitary groups.

These concerns are aggravated by the fact that the Sri Lankan government has severely curtailed access to the camps by international humanitarian agencies, including from the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Amnesty International has called on the Human Rights Council to demand that the Government of Sri Lanka immediately provide the UN and the ICRC full access to critical locations, notably at displaced peoples registration and screening points, all places of detention and camps for the displaced.

The Sri Lankan government should also provide international observers (aid workers, journalists and NGOs like Amnesty International) with free access to all relevant parts of the country to monitor the situation and provide a safeguard against human rights violations.

Amnesty International has also called on the Council to set up an international commission of inquiry into allegations of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in the recent conflict, with a view to establishing the facts and making recommendations on how best to ensure accountability for abuses.

"The Council should note that the human rights issues in Sri Lanka are older, broader and more pervasive than those related to the current humanitarian crisis situation," said Sam Zarifi. "The current catastrophe exists against a backdrop of pervasive human rights violations, weak institutional mechanisms to protect human rights, and a culture of impunity for perpetrators that has continued for years."

22 May 2009

Source: Amnesty International

Read More from Amnesty

Sri Lanka: Government misrepresentations regarding the scale of the crisis (Public document, 22 May 2009)

UN Security Council must act immediately to stop "bloodbath" in Sri Lanka (News, 11 May 2009)
Civilian casualties continue to mount in Sri Lanka (News, 24 April 2009)

INTERNALLY DISPLACED IN CAMPS-BBC

Details of theIDP Camps and the number of people in these camps are reported in a news story by BBC. This data was provided by the Sri Lankan ministry to BBC. There is no independent agency verification from the time of arrival of these IDPs from the war zone. There were abductions, forced disapearances and unaccounted detentions from the camps. Hence the numbers could be higher.

Following figures are from the BBC news:

Vavuniya: 25 camps, 255,000 people

Jaffna: 12 camps, 11,064 people

Mannar: Three camps, 845 people

Trincomalee: Two camps, 6,642 people

Source: Sri Lankan human rights ministry as of 22 May

Reported by: BBC

UN: investigate abuses by both sides in Sri Lanka - AP

By FRANK JORDANS

GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.'s top human rights official demanded an independent investigation Tuesday into atrocities allegedly committed by both sides in Sri Lanka's civil war.

High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told an emergency meeting of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council that tens of thousands of civilians had been killed or injured in intense fighting between the government and Tamil rebels since December. But a majority of the 47 countries on the council appeared unwilling to heed her appeal for a war crimes probe.

Pillay said the Sri Lankan government had an obligation to respect humanitarian law at all times, even when fighting terrorism.

"In no circumstances can the end justify the means," Pillay said. "There are strong reasons to believe that both sides have grossly disregarded the fundamental principle of the inviolability of civilians."

Sri Lankan Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka said it was "outrageous" to suggest the government should be investigated along with the rebels, saying it was like asking the victorious allies of World War II to accept a war crimes tribunal for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

"Just name me one country in history anywhere in the world ... that would embrace such a suggestion," Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka told The Associated Press. "It's outrageous. Sri Lanka has just prevailed over a notoriously fanatical and formidable army, the Tamil Tigers."

Jayatilleka insisted the conflict was a domestic matter in which other countries had no right to interfere, and denounced the staging of the council meeting.

He said no other country would accept such "patronizing suggestions and criticism one week after it has won."

Pillay, other senior U.N. officials and rights groups have said that a team of independent investigators should examine claims that government forces shelled civilians that were allegedly being kept as human shields by the Tamil Tigers in the war the rebels lost last week.

Sri Lanka, which has strong support in the 47-member council, proposed a resolution of its own stressing "the principle of noninterference in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of states."

The resolution, which has the support of China, Cuba, Pakistan and others, also urges the international community to cooperate with Colombo by providing it with more financial aid.

Switzerland, backed by European countries, Mauritius and Canada, proposed a resolution condemning the loss of life — believed to have exceeded 7,000 in the last months of the war — but stopped short of demanding a war crimes probe.

Debate on a resolution will continue Wednesday.

The U.N. Human Rights Council has no enforcement power, but countries fight doggedly to avoid criticism and the negative attention its resolutions bring.

Earlier this year the body voted to establish a war crimes probe for the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. That resolution had the backing of 33 mostly African and Asian members of the council.

Reported by: Associated Press

UN faces fierce clash over call for Sri Lanka war crimes inquiry-Times Online

Catherine Philp in Colombo

Sri Lanka is to clash with Western powers at the United Nations Human Rights Council today in an effort to ward off any investigation into alleged war crimes committed during its military offensive against the Tamil Tigers.

The country has marshalled a team of powerful allies led by China, Russia and India to fight off a European-backed resolution at today’s special session on Sri Lanka calling for an inquiry into abuses on both sides of the conflict.

Observers at yesterday’s preliminary meeting in Geneva, which was described as acrimonious, said that the 47-member Council was divided over the European resolution, with 18 countries for and 18 against. The other nine are undecided.

The division sets the stage for a session today that will test the very purpose of the Human Rights Council. Israel, which had an investigation into its Gaza offensive forced on to it by the Council, is furious at the prospect of Sri Lanka escaping the same fate.
Related Links

* Horror of war in Sri Lanka's 'no-fire zone'

* 200,000 Tamil civilians imprisoned in camp

The European resolution that Sri Lanka is aiming to defeat has already drawn the ire of human rights groups for failing to push for an international war crimes inquiry. It calls on the Sri Lanka Government to conduct its own investigation into breaches of international law and allow unfettered access to camps where more than 200,000 displaced Tamil civilians are detained.

Sri Lanka has submitted a counter-resolution, sponsored by at least 14 allies, in which it praises its own Government for liberating civilians and urges the international community to offer it more financial assistance.

The two competing agendas clashed in the preliminary meeting when an Asian bloc led by India, Pakistan and Malaysia argued for today’s special session to be abandoned altogether. India, China and Egypt walked out of the meeting after this was refused.

Sri Lanka goes into today’s meeting backed by powerful new allies such as China, which provided much of the military hardware for the final offensive that defeated the Tamil Tigers last week after a 25-year war. The Tigers formally acknowledged yesterday that their leader, Vellupillai Prabhakaran, was among the dead.

Several undecided countries, including Chile and Mexico, are pressing for a compromise resolution incorporating elements of both drafts. Whichever resolution makes it to a vote must be passed by a simple majority. Unlike on the UN Security Council, no country can veto a resolution. Observers said that the outcome was “still in play”, due in part, to the lack of independent assessments about the situation in Sri Lanka.

The Government’s decision to ban all journalists, aid workers and other independent observers from the conflict zone and restrict access to the camps where displaced Tamil civilians have been detained has meant that information about what happened has been slow to emerge. The Times was among the first small group of journalists to see the “no-fire zone” on Saturday while accompanying Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, on a helicopter flight. Afterwards Mr Ban said that the sight was the most appalling scene he had come across in his long international career.

Reported by: Times Online May 26, 2009

Senate opposes repatriation stop for Tamils-SwissInfo.ch

Switzerland should keep sending rejected Tamil asylum seekers back to Sri Lanka, the Senate decided on Tuesday.

It followed the view of Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf that halting repatriation would send the wrong signal.

The 26-year-long conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers rebel group seeking independence for the north came to an end earlier this month.

Switzerland, which already has a large Tamil expat community, is expecting more refugees. According to Widmer-Schlumpf, by mid May there were already 662 new asylum requests.

The minister said that all cases would be considered carefully by the migration authorities and that repatriation would not take place to the troubled northern and eastern areas.

The Senate's foreign affairs committee had argued that a repatriation stop was necessary, with some parliamentarians raising concerns of revenge attacks being carried out on Tamils.

In related news, the United Nations' Human Rights Council, which is currently meeting in Geneva, will debate a Swiss draft resolution calling on Colombo to investigate allegations of human rights abuses during the conflict.

It also calls on the Sri Lankan government to ensure the freedom of displaced people, as well as access to drinking water and sanitation.

Reported by: SwissInfo.ch

Fears that Sri Lanka to occupy the north - The Australian

Amanda Hodge, South Asia correspondent | May 27, 2009

The Sri Lankan army will recruit an extra 100,000 soldiers to crush any attempt to revive the Tamil Tiger movement, triggering accusations the Government plans a military occupation of the Tamil-dominated north.

The troop build-up, announced a week after President Mahinda Rajapakse declared victory in the 26-year civil war with the separatists, is likely to involve thousands of troops stationed in former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam territory.

Sri Lankan army chief Sarath Fonseka said yesterday the extra troops were required to ensure that remnants of the proscribed terrorist group living overseas, and those still hiding in northern jungles, could not resurrect it under new leadership.

Suicide bombers were believed to be hiding out in the capital, Colombo, he said.

The military claims to have wiped out the LTTE leadership, including Velupillai Prabhakaran and its administrative leadership, in a push to capture the last patch of a once powerful shadow state controlled by the Tamil separatists in the north and east.

"There may be people abroad trying to promote a new leader and stage a comeback," General Fonseka told state-run television yesterday. "Our strength is 200,000 and it will become 300,000 soon. It will not be easy for them to build up a terror group as they did before."

The Government has been accused of planning an "army of occupation" in the north by establishing large military bases and cantonments to control Tamil separatist sentiment.

"There is talk of Israeli-type settlements and returning Tamils being settled according to a plan which makes them easy to control," an observer told The Australian.

Mr Rajapakse has vowed to reunite the country through a political package that would devolve power to Tamil people and satisfy demands for the right to govern their own regions.

But his brother, Defence Minister Gotabhaya Rajapakse, has warned that the military's job is far from over. "The entire area has to be de-mined and then we have to look for any remnants of the LTTE hiding in the jungles," he told the BBC.

The military build-up plans have concerned diplomats, aid workers and analysts, who warn it will only further alienate and demoralise the Tamils, who represent about 18 per cent of the population but suffer discrimination at the hands of a Sinhalese-dominated bureaucracy.

"It depends on what they do with (the troops) but it does not send a fantastic message about a new dawn in a post-conflict Sri Lanka if they blanket the north and east with Sinhalese troops," a diplomat said.

Sri Lanka has warned it will pursue the last remnants of the LTTE and any active sympathisers across the global Tamil diaspora, including Australia, in a new diplomatic offensive to stamp out rebel feeder grounds.

Information and Media Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa detailed plans last week for a "two-pronged attack to see a total eradication of the LTTE from the globe as it can pose a threat to other countries now that Sri Lanka has proved beyond any doubt that terrorism can be defeated".

"We will start discussions with countries, in Europe, Australia, the US, UK, and Canada, where the Tamil diaspora was active, to put an end to fundraising and demonstrations against Sri Lanka," he said.

The Government would push for the extradition of any known Tiger soldiers, politicians or fundraisers.

Several prominent rebel leaders remain at large, including the Tigers' so-called "smuggling mastermind", Selvarasa Pathmanathan.

Article from: The Australian

9,100 Tamil Tiger rebels surrender to gov't-XinhuaNet

VAVUNIYA, Sri Lanka, May 26 (Xinhua) -- The military in Sri Lanka said Tuesday that 9,100 Tamil Tiger rebels have surrendered themselves to the government and most of them have been sent to rehabilitation centers after proper legal procedure.

Military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara told a group of foreign journalists visiting the Internal Displaced Person (IDP) camps in Vavuniya that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) members fled to government controlled areas among civilians and surrendered themselves to the authorities.

"Most of the former LTTE members have been sent to different rehabilitation centers after being produced to the court," Nanayakkara said.

The spokesman said the civilians were brought to different IDP camps in Vavunia, about 240 km north of the capital Colombo, after coming through a screening process in Omanthai, a small town north of Vavunia.

The last Sri Lankan Army check point which divided the government and LTTE controlled areas used to be in Omanthai for many years.

Nanayakkara said all the civilians who had fled to government controlled areas have been registered and the government is managing to help the IDPs to find their lost family members.

The government said about 260,000 civilians are now being accommodated in 24 IDP camps in Vavuniya.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has promised to resettle most of the civilians to their original villages within 180 days.

Sri Lanka's 30-year civil war came to a conclusion last week with the total defeat of the LTTE.

Claiming discrimination at the hands of the majority Sinhalese dominated governments, the LTTE began to fight for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east since the 1980s, resulting in the killing of more than 100,000 people in Asia's longest civil war.

Reported by: XinhuaNet

Sri Lanka: Displaced Tamils seek missing family-AP

By RAVI NESSMAN
MANIK FARM, Sri Lanka (AP) — Of all the hardships in this sprawling displacement camp, people most bemoan not knowing what happened to relatives who disappeared in the chaos of the decisive battle that ended the prolonged war between the Sri Lankan military and Tamil Tiger rebels.

Scores of ethnic Tamils clustered on both sides of the barbed wire perimeter Tuesday seeking news of their families. Some said they return day after day without success. Many held wedding photographs or portraits of their loved ones, hoping someone would recognize them.

A military-sponsored tour for journalists to a small corner of the camp revealed scenes of heartbreak and misery among the 200,000 displaced crammed into the vast tent city hastily constructed on scrub land.

Tens of thousands more war-displaced people are scattered in smaller camps near Vavuniya, which used to be the army's northern garrison on the edge of the territory ruled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The United Nations says together the camps house nearly 300,000 internally displaced people in wretched conditions.

One woman said her 2-year-old son was shot in the head while they were fleeing the unrelenting shelling and gunfire from both sides. When she reached Sri Lankan lines, she gave the child to soldiers who promised to take him to the hospital.

She's heard nothing of him since.

On Tuesday, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights demanded an independent investigation into atrocities committed in Sri Lanka's civil war.

Navi Pillay recommended to the U.N. Human Rights Council that both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers be investigated over the high civilian death toll since December.

Pillay said the government has an obligation to respect humanitarian law even when protecting people from terrorism.

Sri Lankan Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka said it was "outrageous" to suggest the government should be investigated, saying it was like asking the victorious allies of World War II to accept a war crimes tribunal for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Pillay's call for an investigation lacks support in the 47-nation council.

Back at the displacement camp, Veluppilla Selvaraj, 39, said he was given emergency leave from his job as a security guard in Saudi Arabia to try to find his mother and sister. "I was here yesterday and the day before and the day before. I am still searching," he said.

The Sri Lankan military has refused to release the internal refugees, saying they must be screened to weed out any Tamil rebels who may be hiding among them. Access for international aid agencies has been restricted for the same reason.

Many told reporters about relatives taken away for questioning who so far have not returned.

"They are calling most of the Tamils LTTE," said a man who identified himself as Seevalingam, a former worker at the hospital at Killinochchi, once the rebel capital. He feared the displaced masses would be held here a long time.

The United Nations has called Manik Farm the world's largest displacement camp. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said after his own visit last week that he was saddened and moved by the experience.

Aid agencies have warned that a lack of sanitation and adequate medicine was allowing disease like hepatitis to spread.

Indeed, many of the inmates interviewed at Manik Farm said their children were suffering from diarrhea and other illnesses that stem from tainted water. One woman held up her baby who she said had diarrhea for three days. When she took him to the camp clinic the doctor said the child was fine and sent her away, she said.

Hundreds of mothers stood quietly in line waiting for soap, baby formula and aspirin. Others washed their toddlers in plastic basins. About two dozen men lined up with pails to draw water from a community well. They all emerged from between endless rows of white U.N. tents, each housing as many as 15 people.

On Monday, army commander Gen. Sarath Fonseka said concern remained high that the Tamil rebellion might try to re-form, and said he wanted a 50 percent boost in the military's numbers even though the military victory over the LTTE was complete.

"There may be people abroad trying to promote a new leader and stage a comeback," Fonseka told the state-run Independent Television Network. "Our strength is 200,000 and it will become 300,000 soon. It will not be easy for them to build up a terror group as they did before."

The army had just 10,000 men when the civil war began in 1983, he said.

Associated Press writer Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this report.

Published by: The Associated Press 26 May, 2009

UN: investigate abuses by both sides in Sri Lanka-AP

GENEVA (AP) — The U.N. high commissioner for human rights is demanding an independent investigation into atrocities committed in Sri Lanka's civil war.

Navi Pillay has recommended to the U.N. Human Rights Council that both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers be investigated over the high civilian death toll since December.

Pillay said Tuesday the government has an obligation to respect humanitarian law even when protecting people from terrorism.

Sri Lankan Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka said it was "outrageous" to suggest the government should be investigated, saying it was like asking the victorious allies of World War II to accept a war crimes tribunal for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Pillay's call for an investigation lacks support in the 47-nation council.

Published by: The Associated Press 26 May, 2009

UN Watch slams “toothless” Swiss-EU draft U.N. resolution on Sri Lanka - by UN Watch

Geneva, May 25, 2009 – Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch today expressed “serious disappointment” today over a “toothless” draft resolution on Sri Lanka submitted today by Switzerland and other Western states for tomorrow’s U.N. Human Rights Council emergency session.

“This text is too little and, tragically for Sri Lanka’s innocent victims, far too late” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.

“Despite the call by U.N. rights officials for an international inquiry into possible war crimes, the proposal instead asks Sri Lanka to investigate itself — it’s a joke. The text deliberately omits any condemnation of the government for its actions, and even praises Sri Lanka for ‘cooperation’ with the UN, and for its “strengthening” of measures against discrimination, when the opposite is true. Finally, it’s not even drafted as a resolution, but as a lower-ranking ‘decision’.”

“The Swiss and E.U. sponsors are making a grave error by choosing ‘consensus’ over victims,” said Neuer. “When diplomats declare their willingness to water down a text to achieve consensus at the U.N. Human Rights Council, they effectively grant a veto to China, Saudi Arabia, and other serial abusers of human rights. Consensus at the council is purchased by moral indifference, and always means coming down on the side of the perpetrators — and never on the side of the victims.”

“If the E.U. in 2006 had gone ahead with their resolution at the council for Sri Lankan civilian victims, instead of pulling it under pressure, the world spotlight might have led to thousands of lives being saved today. It’s time for democracies to introduce serious resolutions, and even if they’re voted down, international attention will have been drawn.”

Published by: UN Watch

Aid groups blocked from former Sri Lanka war zone

29 May 2009 11:20:00 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Red Cross unable to access former Sri Lanka war zone

* UNHCR urges Colombo to prepare to send war-displaced home

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA, May 29 (Reuters) - International aid groups said on Friday they still could not access Sri Lanka's former war zone from which hundreds of thousands of people fled, stalling efforts to help people return home.

Spokesman Florian Westphal said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has not been permitted to access the northeast strip the Sri Lankan military had advanced upon to extinguish the Tamil Tiger guerrillas.

The ICRC and its aid partners, including U.N. agencies, have faced obstacles reaching the huge military-run camps housing those who escaped the fighting, including the Manik Farm facility whose population is estimated at 220,000.

Sri Lanka, which has said it is in control of the refugee situation and that there is no problem with access, this week relaxed its restrictions and allowed aid vehicles into the camps. But other limitations remain in place, the ICRC said.

"We haven't been able to access the areas where most of these people would have fled from since the ending of the most recent fighting," Westphal told a news briefing in Geneva.

The government, whose troops have been accused of killing and mistreating civilian bystanders, also kept outsiders from the war zone during the fighting that officially ended last week, making claims of abuses on both sides hard to verify.

Aid workers have cited acute health, nutritional, water and sanitation needs in the camps holding mainly ethnic Tamils, on whose behalf the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said they were waging their insurgency against the majority Sinhalese.

The United Nations estimates that between 80,000 and 100,000 Sri Lankans have died since the civil war erupted in 1983.

The LTTE is notorious for having perfected the suicide bomb jacket and recruiting child soldiers, and was reported to have used civilians as human shields against the Sri Lankan military.

Western governments seeking to examine allegations of war crimes during the conflict suffered a major setback this week at the U.N. Human Rights Council, when Sri Lanka gathered its allies to pass a resolution celebrating its military success and asserting its right to act without outside interference.

The resolution praised Sri Lanka's pledge to resettle "the bulk of" those driven from their homes within six months and "to further facilitate appropriate work" by aid groups to meet urgent needs in displaced-persons camps.

On Friday, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said the government should do all it could to lay the groundwork for people to return to their homes in the region where the LTTE had been battling to establish an independent Tamil homeland.

"This may be somewhat of a time-consuming process but the work needs to begin now to prepare these areas of return. UNHCR for one certainly hopes that people will be able to go home as soon as possible," spokesman Ron Redmond told the briefing. (For more information about humanitarian emergencies, please see: www.alertnet.org)

AlertNet

Sri Lanka urged at U.N. to ensure aid reaches Tamils

Wed May 27, 2009 7:21pm IST

By Laura MacInnis

women stand in line to receive food at the Manik Farm refugee camp located on the outskirts of northern Sri Lankan town of Vavuniya May 26, 2009. REUTERS/David Gray

GENEVA (Reuters) - Sri Lanka must allow international humanitarian access to an estimated 300,000 Tamil refugees from its recently ended civil war, some 60 countries states told the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday.

They also urged Colombo to work towards reconciliation between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamils and other minorities to ensure long-term peace.

Norway, which mediated talks between the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan government before the final military push, called for "full and unhindered humanitarian access" to all war survivors.

"The affected people must be able to return to their homes and to normal, peaceful lives as soon as possible," Oslo's representative Beate Stiro told the Geneva talks, which were convened at the request of European nations.

Sri Lanka and its allies, including Russia, China and Egypt said the extraordinary meeting was an effort to meddle in the country's internal affairs, and said the focus should now be on the country's recovery from nearly three decades of conflict.

Mahinda Samarasinghe, Sri Lanka's minister of disaster management and human rights, told the special session on Tuesday that his government was "sick and tired" of foreign pressure but was aiming to allow war-displaced people to return home once demining and reconstruction activities take place.

"COMBAT DISCRIMINATION"

The United States said the council session coincided with "an important moment in the life of the Sri Lankan nation" and urged Colombo to ensure that all people uprooted by the conflict can return to their homes by the end of the year.

"To secure the peace, we encourage the government of Sri Lanka to make all possible efforts to combat discrimination against persons belonging to ethnic minorities and to ensure equal access for all to education, health, housing, water and food," U.S. delegate Mark Storella said.

Neither of two resolutions presented to the council called for an independent inquiry into abuses committed during the war, in which the government said the LTTE used civilians as human shields and the Tigers said the Sri Lankan military killed innocent civilians in their drive to crush the rebels.

Unlike the U.N. Security Council, the human rights body cannot impose sanctions, but its resolutions are meant to apply moral and political pressure.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has evacuated 14,000 sick and wounded people and their families from the Sri Lankan war zone since February, said it still did not have full access to its military-run camps for displaced people.

ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger cited huge needs for aid and medical care for those sheltering in facilities such Manik Farm, which holds about 210,000 people.

It is "still not clear" whether Sri Lanka will allow aid workers to reach people needy help, Kellenberger said. "We are in discussions with them," he told a news conference in Geneva.

The United Nations estimates Sri Lanka's civil war killed between 80,000 and 100,000 people since it erupted in 1983. The Sri Lankan military says lost 6,200 troops and killed 22,000 Tigers in the nearly three years of the war's final phase.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Lynn)

Published by: Reuters

UN call for Sri Lanka war probe :BBC

The UN's high commissioner for human rights has called for an independent investigation into alleged atrocities by both sides in Sri Lanka's civil war.

Navi Pillay said it was the only way to build a sustainable peace in Sri Lanka.

Her comments to the UN's Human Rights Council (UNHRC) come amid growing concern for more than 250,000 civilians now living in government-run camps.

Sri Lanka has rejected Ms Pillay's demands and has called instead for financial aid to rebuild the country.

In her opening speech to the UNHRC's emergency summit in Geneva, Ms Pillay said there were "strong reasons to believe that both sides have grossly disregarded the fundamental principle of the inviolability of civilians".

She said an "independent and credible international investigation" should be carried out to establish "the occurrence, nature and scale of violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law, as well as specific responsibilities".

"Establishing the facts is crucial to set the record straight regarding the conduct of all parties in the conflict," she said.

"Victims and survivors have a right to justice and remedies."

Her comments were echoed by the UN's Under Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes, who told the BBC an investigation was essential if the country was to move forward.

Mr Holmes said the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) had used civilians as human shields "in the most cynical and brutal way", but that civilians had also been "affected very badly" by being caught up in army shelling.

'Outrageous'

The rights council's special session is considering two different draft resolutions.

One put forward by 17 European and Latin American countries calls on the Sri Lankan government to investigate allegations of rights abuse and for aid agencies to have greater access to displaced people.

But Sri Lanka has drafted its own document calling for UN co-operation in providing humanitarian aid.

Its resolution cites the "principle of non-interference" in states' internal matters and says it is addressing the needs of civilians.

Sri Lanka's ambassador to the UN, Dayan Jayatilleka, said it was "outrageous" to suggest that the government should be investigated.

The country's resolution has been supported by India, whose representative to the council said his country had "serious reservations about the objectives and usefulness" of the session.

A Gopinanthan said the focus of the international community should be on promoting reconciliation and healing in Sri Lanka.

The BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says it appears that the widespread allegations of violations are not being seriously addressed at the meeting, much to the frustration of rights groups and Ms Pillay.

The end result of the session is likely to be a bland and consensual resolution which does not demand much action from anyone, says our correspondent.

Cramped conditions

Ms Pillay has also called for journalists and human rights monitors to be given access to the camps for internally displaced people.

The Sri Lankan army is currently controlling the closely-guarded camps and there is concern about the poor conditions in which up to 300,000 people are now living.

The BBC's Ethirajan Anbarasan was taken by the Sri Lankan military to two camps housing tens of thousands of displaced people.

He said conditions in one camp were very basic, with people complaining of a lack of water, proper food and sanitation.

At another camp - also run by the military - conditions were better, although still cramped.

The government has said it is addressing the problems but has also accused the rebels of infiltrating the camps.

The Tigers' defeat has almost brought to an end their 26-year fight for a separate Tamil homeland with most senior leaders believed to have been killed in recent weeks.

But Daya Mohan, head of the political wing of the LTTE in the eastern district of Batticaloa, told the BBC Tamil service that the remaining fighters in the east were not thinking of surrendering.

He said the groups were "capable of carrying out guerrilla attacks" and were waiting for a decision from their leadership.

On Tuesday, Sri Lanka's defence secretary rejected an offer from the Tamil Tigers to enter a democratic process after their military defeat.

Gotabhaya Rajapaksa told the BBC the LTTE rebels could not be trusted to give up "terrorism".

Story from BBC NEWS
Published: 2009/05/26 18:29:47 GMT

Sri Lanka's displaced families torn apart by war

By RAVI NESSMAN

MANIK FARM, Sri Lanka (AP) — Lakshmi Rasamy reached through the barbed wire enclosing this displacement camp, grabbed her mother's hand and wept for her four children who were killed in the last spasm of fighting in Sri Lanka's civil war.

Around her, other camp residents searched the crowd outside for their loved ones and spoke of families split apart by the chaos, of sons detained by the military, of illness, injury and death.

While Sri Lanka celebrates its military victory over the Tamil Tiger rebels after a quarter-century of warfare, nearly 300,000 ethnic Tamils who were driven from their homes and trapped in the war zone are struggling to come to terms with the scars of the fighting.

Most of them have been corralled into Manik Farm, a 1,400-acre (570-hectare) lot of former scrubland that has been turned into what the U.N. describes as the world's largest displacement camp, housing 210,000 people in endless rows of white tents.

Like dozens of other smaller camps in the north, Manik Farm is surrounded by coils of razor wire and rows of barbed wire. Those inside are barred from leaving, a restriction that has generated strong criticism from international rights groups who say the displaced should be free to choose where they want to live.

"We are holding them here for their own safety," military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said during a military-led tour of the camp Tuesday. "We don't want anyone to come here and set off a bomb."

Other officials say the war refugees must be screened to weed out any remaining rebels from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam who may be hiding among them.

But the restrictions have also kept families apart and left the barbed wire fence as the only link between those inside the camps and their relatives who lived outside the war zone.

U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes called on the government Tuesday for more freedom of movement for those now in camps, family reunifications and rapid resettlement of people forced from their homes. "If that does not happen, then very serious questions will have to start being asked," Holmes told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York.

Rasamy, 45, sat in the dirt with tears pouring down her cheeks as she held hands through the rows of barbed wire with her mother outside the fence. She told her of the final days of the war, her escape from the battle zone five days ago and the death of four of her five children in the violence.

A nun, who gave her name as Sister Madeleine, had received a note that her sister's family was in the camp and came here in hopes of seeing them for the first time in two years. But after five hours and repeated announcements over a camp loudspeaker, she was still waiting.

Nearby, Veluppilla Selvaraj, 39, scanned the crowd for his mother and sister. He was given emergency leave from his job as a security guard in Saudi Arabia to try to find them. "I was here yesterday and the day before and the day before. I am still searching," he said.

Many in the camp said they lost their families in the chaos and violence of the final days of the war and their flight across the front lines. Some held formal family photos taken at wedding celebrations, pointing to those relatives that were missing.

One man said he got separated from his wife and two children last month as they fled the approaching fighting. He doesn't know whether they are alive or dead. Another woman said she thinks her 7-year-old son is with his grandmother in another camp, but she isn't certain.

A mother said her 2-year-old son was shot in the head while they were fleeing the unrelenting shelling and gunfire in the war zone two weeks ago. When she reached Sri Lankan lines, she gave the child to soldiers who promised to take him to the hospital. She's heard nothing of him since.

On Tuesday, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights demanded an independent investigation into atrocities committed in Sri Lanka's civil war.

Navi Pillay recommended to the U.N. Human Rights Council that the government and rebels be investigated for the tens of thousands of civilians killed and wounded since December.

Sri Lankan Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka said it was "outrageous" to suggest the government should be investigated, saying it was like asking the victorious allies of World War II to accept a war crimes tribunal for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

A 29-year-old woman at the camp named Ranjini meanwhile said the army had taken her husband as they escaped the conflict zone on suspicion he was a rebel fighter.

Military officials said they had pulled out 9,100 suspected rebels and sent the bulk of them to rehabilitation camps.

Some of the displaced said the military is suspicious of everyone.

"Most of the Tamils they are calling LTTE," said a man who identified himself as Seevalingam, a former worker at the hospital at Kilinochchi, once the rebel's administrative capital.

U.N. political chief B. Lynn Pascoe, who visited Sri Lanka on Saturday with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, stressed the importance of political reconciliation.

"The big issue that's going to be out there is who talks for the Tamil side — how broad a group there is involved in the discussion," he told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York. "These are the kinds of questions that need to be worked on in the near future."

Though the government has said it hopes to resettle the bulk of the displaced by the end of the year, Seevalingam said he feared they would be stuck in the misery of this crowded mini-city for a long time.

Nearby, two dozen people line up with pails and empty bottles to pump water from a well alongside the white tents, which house as many as 15 people each. Hundreds of others — many of them mothers holding small children — waited for a ration of soap, baby formula and aspirin. Others washed their toddlers in plastic basins.

Satgunanathan, who like many Tamils uses one name, said that in the final days of the war there was massive shelling from both sides and nowhere was safe. He bears shrapnel wounds in his head and one leg from a shell that landed outside his family's shelter.

He complained about conditions in the camp, said his wife and two children were in the hospital with diarrhea and expressed fears about the heavy military presence here.

"Everybody is in misery here. We want to go back to our own homes," he said.

Associated Press writer Frank Jordans in Geneva and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Reported by: The Associated Press

May 26, 2009

Tamils trapped in internment camps tell of desperate hunt for loved ones

Menik Farm internment camp in Sri Lanka. Photograph: Gethin Chamberlain

Gethin Chamberlain in Menik Farm guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 26 May 2009 23.21 BST

The three children standing in the dirt outside the tent in Sri Lanka's newest internment camp have not seen their mother for weeks, ever since a shell exploded next to the bunker where they had taken cover, ripping a hole in er stomach.

Medics rushed 29-year-old Sandi to a makeshift hospital, where doctors operated to save her life. All that Sandi's husband, 33-year-old Yogisuran, and the children – Thuyamthini, Kuwanthini and Thusiyanthini – know is that she was later evacuated on a ship by the International Committee of the Red Cross. They have not seen her since, and trapped with tens of thousands of others in the Menik Farm camp they are powerless to do anything about it.

Another camp refugee, Threekanden, 27, is similarly distraught at the disappearance of a loved one. He produces a picture of himself and his wife, Pokonai, on their wedding day. They were split up last month, he said, when the army advanced on the last Tamil Tiger redoubt in northern Sri Lanka. "Now I cannot find my wife or our daughter. The girl is only four and my wife was nine months pregnant. I don't know where they are. We need help to find them."

Countless civilians herded into Sri Lanka's sprawling internment camps are in the same position, unable to locate or contact relatives missing or separated during the bloody chaos that ensued during the final weeks of the military onslaught on the Tamil Tigers.

More than 200,000 refugees are corralled inside Menik Farm, a sweltering 1,400 acres of scrubland sealed off by barbed wire. Some are still hoping to find relatives amid the rows of tents that provide a temporary home. But others say relatives were separated out by the military, suspected of being Tamil Tigers. The Sri Lankan government says it has so far identified more than 9,000 members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and is sending them to "rehabilitation centres", where they will be held for a year.

The government claims that it needs to keep the civilians in camps it is building in the north of the country until it can be sure that they are not members of the LTTE. The camps sprawl out over a vast area, mile after mile of tents where the unfortunate civilians displaced by the recent fighting have been told they could spend up to two years before they are allowed to go home.

Navaratnam Rasapalen, 31, said he arrived at Menik Farm on 18 May. He lost contact with his wife, Jagadah, and three children, aged seven, five and three, on 18 April when the army advanced.

"The army cut off the civilians in a box and I could not find them," he said. "I just want to find them. I don't know what to do. Please help me to find them." Several others in the same part of the camp had similar stories.

Evidence of the brutality of civil war was everywhere. One young woman, who gave her name as Banji, was carrying her 18-month-old daughter, Umarani. The child's head was wrapped in a tattered bandage and her right hand was bound up. She had been hit by shrapnel from a shell, her mother said, which had gashed her head and broken some of her fingers.

The tactics of herding civilians into internment camps indefinitely has been widely criticised, and yesterday the authorities offered up contradictory explanations. Officials and military officers at the camps variously claimed that the civilians were there for their own safety, for the safety of the rest of the population and because most "have been involved in some sort of activity for the LTTE". Some officials said that screening of the civilians was taking place inside the camps, others that it was not.

Despite acknowledging that they had a list of known LTTE members, they maintained that they needed more time to identify former fighters. One military officer privately confided that they were seeking information from other detainees in the hope of identifying the group's members.

"The problem is that the government thinks we are all LTTE. There is nothing we can do," said Sivalingam, 63, a medical officer from Kilinochchi, who had recently arrived at zone four of the camp, where thousands of civilians have been deposited in tents with basic facilities.

Others wanted to talk about the fighting and the terror of the last days of the war. Sivalingam described the plight of the civilians caught up in the fighting.

"The fight was going on all around us and people were being fired on. People could grab only their clothes and run. There were shells landing and firing and people did not know what to do. A lot of people were killed in the shelling and the air attacks. Jets were bombing us and people were running and running."

The Sri Lankan government has repeatedly denied using air strikes in the no-fire zone, but its claims are impossible to verify because it barred access to the area during the fighting.

Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, is demanding an independent investigation into atrocities committed by both sides in Sri Lanka's civil war.

Published by: guardian.co.uk

UN rights council to take up competing resolutions on Sri Lanka war crimes, aid

Sri Lanka will fight a resolution backed by Western nations calling for an inquiry into possible war crimes during the conflict against the Tamil Tigers.

By Huma Yusuf

posted May 26, 2009 at 8:40 am EST

The United Nations Human Rights Council is expected to clash Tuesday over two competing resolutions on how to provide aid to thousands of people displaced by the Sri Lankan military campaign against the Tamil Tigers.

The first resolution, tabled by Switzerland and supported by European countries, proposes that international aid agencies be given direct access to those affected by the long-running war, including more than 300,000 people housed in government camps. It also calls for investigations into possible war crimes during the conflict against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). A counterresolution, tabled by Sri Lanka and backed by powerful allies including China, Russia, and India, calls for the UN to cooperate with the Sri Lankan government in providing humanitarian assistance.

During the session, Sri Lanka is expected to clash with Western countries as it attempts to curtail investigations into allegations of war crimes, reports The Times of London. Tuesday's special session on Sri Lanka was requested by 17 nations, including France, Germany, Britain, and Canada. A Human Rights Commission special session has been convened on only 10 previous occasions.

Observers at yesterday's preliminary meeting in Geneva, which was described as acrimonious, said that the 47-member Council was divided over the European resolution, with 18 countries for and 18 against. The other nine are undecided….

The two competing agendas clashed in the preliminary meeting when an Asian bloc led by India, Pakistan and Malaysia argued for today's special session to be abandoned altogether. India, China and Egypt walked out of the meeting after this was refused.

Sri Lanka goes into today's meeting backed by powerful new allies such as China, which provided much of the military hardware for the final offensive that defeated the Tamil Tigers last week after a 25-year war….

Several undecided countries, including Chile and Mexico, are pressing for a compromise resolution incorporating elements of both drafts.

International human rights groups are dissatisfied with the European resolution because it fails to call for an international war crimes inquiry and instead suggests that Sri Lanka launch internal investigations, reports Agence France-Presse.

Although the European-led text targeted violations during the conflict and backed investigations, the watchdog group UN Watch dismissed it as "a joke".

"Despite the call by UN rights officials for an international inquiry into possible war crimes, the proposal instead asks Sri Lanka to investigate itself -- it's a joke," said UN Watch's executive director Hillel Neuer….

Advocacy group Human Rights Watch said that the Council needed to examine the creation of an impartial commission of inquiry to investigate allegations of human rights violations committed by both parties as a matter of urgency.

Analysts have said that UN's stance on Sri Lanka remains undecided due to the lack of independent assessments of ground realities. According to The Christian Science Monitor, access to the northeastern war zone remains rare even after the defeat of the Tamil Tigers. The Sri Lankan government has granted only sporadic access to aid workers of the International Committee of the Red Cross to supply food aid and help the injured. Journalists and independent observers, meanwhile, are denied access to the region.

"There's only one thing you can surmise from this," says Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Colombo-based Centre for Policy Alternatives. "The government doesn't want the world to see what happened there – or is currently happening there."...

International observers argue that it needs urgent access to the former battle zone to not just check on civilians left behind but also to provide a safeguard against human rights violations, torture, and arbitrary detention for any remaining Tamil Tiger rebels.

According to the Daily Telegraph, a London-based newspaper, the government has been accused of "ethnic cleansing" in Tamil areas in Sri Lanka's northeast region.

Aid officials, human rights campaigners and politicians claim Tamils have been driven out of areas in the north-east of the country by killings and kidnappings carried out by pro-government militias.

They say the government has simultaneously encouraged members of the Sinhalese majority in the south to relocate to the vacated villages….

[A local campaigner for the families of Tamils who have disappeared] said much of the "ethnic cleansing" was being done in the name of economic development in which Tamil villagers were being moved out to make way for new roads, power plants and irrigation schemes, while Sinhalese workers were being drafted in with incentives including free land and housing.

But the Sri Lankan government denies such reports and insists it is in favor of a national reconciliation campaign. On the eve of the Human Rights Commission session, a Sri Lankan government official said international monitoring was unacceptable, reports The Nation, a Sri Lankan daily.

The international community is welcome to provide Sri Lanka with assistance, but it should be according to the wishes of the people of this country, including the people of the North, Senior Presidential Advisor and MP Basil Rakapaksa said in a message to the international community.

"If they want to be our friends, then they should be genuine friends. We do not want 'monitors,' we need partners. Be our partners in this task to help our people," Rajapaksa said.

An opinion piece in an Indian newspaper, the Deccan Herald, argues that the Human Rights Commission's disagreement on how to tackle Sri Lanka is evidence of a global power play underway in the Indian Ocean.

In essence, Sri Lanka is the theatre where Russia and China are frontally challenging the US's incremental global strategy to establish NATO presence in the Indian Ocean region. The US has succeeded in bringing the NATO up to the Persian Gulf region. The NATO is swiftly expanding its relationship with Pakistan. But it is Sri Lanka that will be the jewel in the NATO's Indian Ocean crown. Russia and China (and Iran) are determined to frustrate the US geo-strategy. The hard reality, therefore, is that geopolitics is sidetracking Sri Lanka's Tamil problem.

Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan government on Tuesday rejected the Tamil Tigers' offer to participate in the country's democratic process after being defeated last week, reports the BBC.

In an interview with the BBC, [Sri Lankan defense secretary] Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said the LTTE rebels could not be trusted to give up "terrorism"....

He said: "I do not believe the LTTE can enter a democratic process after years of their violent activities." He added that there were "enough democratic Tamil political parties in the country" to represent the Tamil minority....

Mr Rajapaksa also said the work of government forces was not yet over as they had to recover weapons hidden by the LTTE in the northern and eastern regions.

Published by: Christian Science Monitor.com