The Tamil IDPs need to be treated just like other citizens...!!!

Note book of no body
The IDPs need to be treated just like other citizens....................by Shanie

From all available reports, the position of the civilians interned in camps in the Vavuniya District continues to be a grim one. These quarter of a million people have gone through a series of ordeals particularly during the last six months. Many of them were displaced several times over while the war was on, and since moving into the government declared no-fire zone, had suffered from a severe shortage of food and drinking water and a lack of proper shelter (many holed up in make-shift bunkers), sanitation and medical facilities. Used as human shields by the LTTE, they were subject to artillery fire from the state security forces. Several hundreds reportedly died and many more were injured and did not have access to proper medical care, despite the three remaining doctors carrying out their duties as best as circumstances permitted. In the last couple of days before the end of the war, civilian casualties were high as the security forces were reportedly keen to end the war without further delay. There is dispute as to the actual numbers killed during this time and the true figures can probably never be established, for a variety of reasons.

In the last days of the war, tens of thousands were able to flee from the ‘no-fire zone’. All of them were received into the IDP camps. Naturally, they all arrived in a weak and malnourished condition. The security forces personnel on the ground reportedly received them with courtesy. But the conditions within the camp did not match the goodwill of the soldiers. There was totally inadequate shelter available for the refugees. So was sanitation and sewerage. Perhaps the state authorities had believed their own propaganda that there only 70,000 persons left in the strip of land controlled by the LTTE in the last weeks of the war. So when some 280,000 finally arrived, they were totally unprepared. So these weak and hungry persons received little respite by escaping from the conflict zone. Even the hospitals could not cope with the hundreds of injured persons and the injured and the sick have had to be sent for treatment to several provincial hospitals. But there is a more serious psychological problem faced by these IDPs. In the confusion during the last days of the war, families were separated and many are still unaware of the whereabouts or fate of other members of their families. Placing restrictions on their movement outside the camps or on receiving visits from family and friends from outside has only exacerbated the problem. Even Members of Parliament have had to move the Supreme Court to visit the camps. The assistance of INGOs and the local civil society should have been obtained to help in re-uniting families and identifying the refugees. But no such concern has been shown and this has naturally led to suspicion that there is another agenda. There are reports of high rates of deaths and disappearances in these camps. Surely it is in the interests of the government to allow independent investigation into these reports.

There have been mounting calls for better conditions at these camps and for a speedy re-settlement of the displaced. This has come from a variety of organisations and individuals, including the Secretary-General of the UN and the recently retired Chief Justice of Sri Lanka. These refugees are our own citizens and deserve to be treated as other citizens. But sadly there has been no positive response from the government for the calls for improved conditions. A number of signatories, calling themselves a group of concerned Tamils, recently issued a statement calling for a speedy resolution of the problems faced by the IDPs. Typical of the majoritarian mindset of many apologists of the current policy was a criticism of the statement by a senior journalist who writes a political column in a Sunday newspaper. Ignoring nearly all the eminently practical suggestions made in the statement, he castigated the signatories as representing the Jaffna Tamil (sic) leadership who always make ‘impossible demands’ and for whom political pragmatism and sagacity are not their strong points. He stated that apart from two names and members of two families, the other signatories could not be identified, despite inquiries made by him. It is a pity that neither he nor his contacts seem to have any knowledge of the Tamil community. Otherwise, he would have recognised that among the signatories were the sister of Rajini Tiranagama, killed by the LTTE, the widow of Kethes Loganathan, also killed by the LTTE, and several well-known academics and former senior public servants. So much for the present levels of journalism.

Majoritarian and Minoritarian Agendas

The latest UTHR (J) report deserves to be widely read by all those who value decency and dignity even in the midst of a victory in the battle against the northern insurgency. In the introduction to the report they state: "For the nearly 300 000 people held in internment like camps, the end of the war has not brought about the respite they deserve. They continue to suffer in squalid conditions of camps made not to last more than a few weeks. Living conditions including families packed into tents and the deteriorating hygienic conditions from the lack of proper sewage to garbage disposal are leading to further disease and suffering. These displaced peoples who had suffered much under the LTTE do not deserve to be held in these conditions. The Government in restricting people the choice of movement out of the camps is responsible for their suffering. While the screening should be much quicker, there is no justification for detaining those who are clearly not combatants.

Nurtured amidst appalling human rights violations by the Sri Lankan state from 1977, the Tamil militant movements made a virtue of impunity. The upshot was the LTTE whose astounding military success was founded on despoiling the social fabric of the Tamils and making everything, from child bearing to education, creatures of its military needs.

The LTTE politically took Tamil society hostage from the mid-1980s through systematic terror. Militarily stymied, it took physical hostage of 300 000 people in its final stages, repeatedly provoking the Army to underpin its claims of genocide, shooting or shelling hundreds who tried to escape and forcing thousands of their children who could barely carry a rifle to man the frontlines. Even as the LTTE leaders were discussing surrender terms, they were sending out very young suicide cadres to ‘martyrdom’ to slow down the army advance.

Through repeated abuse of peace processes to strengthen its war machine, the LTTE again and again resuscitated the Sinhalese majoritarian agenda which lay dormant when peace seemed possible. Such provocative action during the last peace process enabled President Rajapakse to come to power backed by hawkish allies intent on a military solution to the ethnic problem.

In turn, it is ironic to see the Sinhalese polity is being taken hostage by the very elements of Sinhalese extremism that fuelled and exacerbated the conflict in the first place. These elements within and outside the major parliamentary parties have derailed every attempt at a political settlement since 1957. The present government too has relied on narrow Sinhalese nationalism, within the state and judicial apparatus and without it, to undermine any authentic investigation demanded by world opinion into major human rights violations and political crimes. The same abusive response is in evidence as the government attempts to defend itself against worldwide criticism of the way military operations were conducted in the last stages of the conflict."

The Bob Rae Saga

The manner in which Bob Rae, a former Prime Minister of Ontario, was denied entry and deported after being issued a visa by the Sri Lanka High Commission (with clearance from Colombo) was both clumsy and disgraceful. It was ridiculous to refer to him as a threat to our national security. Rae has been to Sri Lanka several times in the past and has been a strong supporter of democracy and human rights. Only last year he wrote in a Canadian newspaper referring to the LTTE as "a merciless armed group ... engaged in brutal attacks against civilians as well as assassinations of their opponents." The UTHR (J) in a report issued last week referred to Bob Rae as having chaired a Human Rights Watch meeting in December 2004 in Toronto launching a report looking into the LTTE’s recruitment of children. "It was his commitment to Tamil children that led him to take a strong stand on the child soldier issue even as pro-LTTE activists attempted to disrupt the meeting."

To justify the action in denying entry to Rae, pro-establishment journalists and other apologists have tried to portray him as a supporter of the LTTE without an iota of evidence. The standards of integrity of some journalists with a political agenda have been exposed in the Groundviews web blog, A senior journalist writing a political column in another Sunday newspaper tries to make out that Rae was an LTTE supporter and refers to the following sentence in his biographical details allegedly published in the online Wikipedia encyclopedia: "(Rae) is known as a supporter of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), and has supported openly for a separate State for the Tamils in Sri Lanka by dividing the island into two" But Groundviews’ investigation has revealed that Bob Rae’s profile was first entered to Wikipedia on 23 June 2003. This particular sentence (in line with the defence establishment’s reasons for refusal of entry) first appeared on Rae’s profile on Wikipedia on 11th June and was up there for less than 12 hours. The edit with this controversial sentence was made by an anonymous contributor at 6.31 hrs on 11 June and by 17.12hrs, it had been taken out.

Is it merely a curious coincidence that the journalist has ignored Rae profile that has appeared in Wikipedia for seven years and chosen to quote a sentence that was inserted by an anonymous contributor and which was up for less than 12 hours? Surely, senior journalists need not be reminded of Scott’s well known dictum for journalists: ‘Comment is free but facts are sacred’. And journalists who publish ‘news’ received from tainted sources do so at the peril of their journalistic integrity.

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