Sri Lanka: War on the Displaced - new Human Rights Watch report

By: Sameer Padania, Posted: Feb 20 09

Regions: Asia, Southern Asia, Sri Lanka

Issues: Armed conflict, Humanitarian, Violence

Tags: aerial bombardment, IDPs, ltte, sri lanka

Priscila, Tina and I spent part of yesterday with our colleagues over at Human Rights Watch, and at the same time as being generous with their expertise, time and hospitality, they were preparing to release this report and slideshow, calling on the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE to bring an immediate end to the "ongoing slaughter of civilians".

Over the past few weeks, the Sri Lankan armed forces have won military victories against the LTTE, penning them into an ever-shrinking area on the northern coast of the country. This offensive has had a terrible impact particularly on civilians caught in this region. According to the HRW report, civilians in this area have been prevented by the LTTE from fleeing the fighting, and are being swept into forced recruitment and forced labour. The Sri Lankan armed forces are reported to be shelling areas within this zone that contains dense concentrations of civilians - thousands of casualties and fatalities have been reported. Many of those managing to flee into government-controlled areas are being held in "welfare villages", essentially internment camps (depicted in the slideshow below), with some being taken for detention and possible enforced disappearance.

Click the image above to launch the HRW slideshow and here to read the full report. Here's the most pointed section of the Executive Summary:

Human Rights Watch calls on the Sri Lankan government and
the LTTE to act immediately to stop the ongoing slaughter of civilians. Both
parties should facilitate the creation of a humanitarian corridor and otherwise
respect the laws of war. The LTTE should allow civilians to leave the war zone
and the SLA should stop shelling near densely populated areas, safe zones and
hospitals. Those displaced civilians who reach the government side should be
assisted but not interned. And the government should permit independent media
and human rights organizations to go to the conflict area. [...]

Instead of using its victories in the field to promote a
more open and democratic nation, the Sri Lankan government has conducted a
cynical campaign to prevent all independent public coverage of its military
operations and the plight of civilians caught up in the war. While decrying
LTTE abuses, it has kept out the media and human rights organizations that
could report on them - and on government abuses. It has kept displaced persons
who could describe the artillery bombardments locked up in camps and hospitals.
It has traded the well-being of tens of thousands of Sri Lankan citizens for
protection from international scrutiny. With civilian casualties mounting, it
has sought to bury its abuses.

In the face of this systematic suppression of information, it's crucial to ensure that stories and evidence of abuses - where they exist - are collected and compiled, and where it is safe to do so, shared more widely to draw attention to the human impact that HRW and others highlighting. Tools like the Hub and Ushahidi represent one route for collecting and safeguarding these resources. If you know of, or come across, images, footage or testimonies out of Sri Lanka at this time, please let us know below, by email, or here.

If you're looking to learn more, IRIN, HRW and AI are a crucial starting point. Entry points into local perspectives and responses include Vikalpa, Groundviews, and the Center for Policy Alternatives (though their website is currently inaccessible). See also local humanitarian organisation Sarvodaya's co-signed letter on the humanitarian situation. Please do add more resources through the comments field below.

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Centre for Policy Alternatives Report on the Vanni

By Sameer Padania on Mar 20 09

The CPA has released a report that gives an overview of the human rights and humanitarian situation in the Vanni. Here's the PDF:
http://www.cpalanka.org/Policy_Brief/Vanni_Report.pdf
--
Sameer Padania | http://hub.witness.org | http://www.witness.org

David Miliband on Sri Lanka

By Sameer Padania on Feb 25 09

Sent in by a contact:

From David Miliband's blog
(http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/miliband/entry/sri_lanka1)

Wednesday 25 February, 2009
Sri Lanka
I missed the European General Affairs Council for a Cabinet away day in Southampton on Monday, but the Council agreed clear and unanimous conclusions on Sri Lanka.
This is important. We want the UN to play a greater role, but others are resisting this. But as I said in the House of Commons yesterday [link embedded] the growing international concern about the loss of civilian life reflects the situation on the ground.
We remain committed to working with the Sri Lankan government over the appointment of Des Browne as the PM's special envoy; a political solution is eventually going to be needed and he is a man of real experience e.g. in Northern Ireland.
Posted at 11:52 25 February 2009 by David Miliband

And click to read an exchange between Miliband and fellow MPs during a House of Commons debate this week: http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.com/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm0...

--
Sameer Padania | http://hub.witness.org | http://www.witness.org

Genocide on tamils

By Jane on Feb 25 09

Sri Lankan Government want ot swap out the tamils from sri Lanka. War on tamils highlights the ethnical cleancing from SRI Lanka.
Sri lankan Government named as ' War on Terrorism'
But this is actually 'War on Tamils Homeland' .
Srilankan military occupation was started more than 30 years. now every tamil' part of the areas occupied by Sri lankan Sinhal military. Tamils evacuted forcefully from their birt place and accomadted open prison for decades.

One thing is obvious that systmaticall ethnical cleancing conducted by past and current Sinhal Government. This genodical war by Sri lankan govermnet against tamils causes inexistency of tamils in Sri lanka. In this situation, every human being should realise about Sri lanakn state terrorism on tamils.

Fact finders

By Anton Chel on Feb 23 09

I would like to know how HRW gets their facts - because no one is permitted into the warzone by both the Government and the LTTE. There has not been a consensus taken in the North of Sri Lankan for many decades during the time the LTTE controled the area.

Those who are living in Sri Lanka find it impossible to align the facts presented by HRW with the realities on the ground.

The UN on the other hand assigns the blame for the present state of deterioration of the problem solely on the LTTE - and it is not hard to believe what they say;
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29922&Cr=sri+lanka&Cr1=

The LTTE has not achieved anything for the Tamil people living in Sri Lanka - but have brought on us missery and suffering, violence and death. It has however had a mutually beneficial relationship with Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Ne_uCzYco

It is sad that the Tamils in Sri Lanka are being victimised from every side - the agitations of the LTTE and tamil Diaspora purely for their personal gain is contributing to our demise.

LTTE sat down with the Sri Lankan Government for peace talks...

By Tamiya on Feb 22 09

and still willing to do so.

However the government has denied any peace talk chances and wants to wipe out all Tamils in Sri Lanka.

You say Tamils Tigers (LTTE) would not let the civilians run from the war zones. There are two problems with the argument.

First one is, if that is the case, the Sri Lankan Government should provide independent agencies, journalists and monitors free access to the war zone. Why the Sri Lankan government is so secretive about the so called "terrorism" they are rooting out? The government is rooting out all Tamils in Sri Lanka and LTTE is trying to stop this from happening entirely for so long.

Second of all, even if the Tamil civilians escape, where would they run to? They have lost all their properties, money and livelihoods. Where would they go? If they go to the refugee camps run by the Sri Lankan Government /Army, it would be choosing torture, rape or even killing over death in the war zone. Tamil civilians do not have any real choices and they did not for last several years under all Sri Lankan Governments.

LTTE force can not be dismissed easily as they are the most chosen representatives of Tamils Civilians in Sri Lankan right now. If you run a secure and foreign monitored referendum, you will find hear loud and clear from Tamils Civilians in Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan Government has abused Tamils civilians and their rights since 1948.
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/under-reported-underdogs

Sri Lankan Government has silenced media to cover up all of its atrocities against Tamils and their supporters:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/02/01/srilanka.media/index.html?ir...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090201/ap_on_re_as/as_sri_lanka_media_attac...

Sri Lankan Government(s) have systematically destroyed Tamils culture, prosperity, education, and livelihoods:
http://www.blackjuly83.com/EventsofBlackJuly.htm

http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2007/2/12218_space.html

The dark history of Tamils in Sri Lanka since 1948:
http://www.scribd.com/share/upload/9116122/1j1oov9fbezawm7n50h4

Let Tamils have autonomy in Sri Lanka. We had our own separate country before British colonial power came to Sri Lanka.

Aerial bombardment - the impact on civilians

By Sameer Padania on Feb 20 09

The slideshow above contains images of the craters left by shelling, and this sent me back to Sven Lindqvist's history of aerial bombardment, A History of Bombing, which looks to remind us of the enormous human cost of this military tactic. Patrick Wright, writing about Lindqvist's unusual practice of inserting deeply autobiographical elements into his histories, says:

"Lindqvist uses his autobiography to establish a human scale against which to measure these catastrophic events in which whole cities disappear and the dead pile up as abstracted digits in a heap of zeros. It allows him to see through the strategic justifications, the spookily abstracted calculations of the technologists, to the person quaking on the ground beneath the planes. [...] the victims keep appearing here, crowding out the ingenious scientists and the heroic airmen. Some are hardened corpses, melted in their own blackened fat in the shelters, or laid out in rows 'liked grilled chickens'. 'There were people on the roadway, some already dead, some lying alive but stuck in the asphalt. They must have rushed onto the road way without thinking,' a survivor of the Hamburg fire-bombing recorded. 'Their feet had got stuck and they had put out their hands to get out again. They were on their hands and knees, screaming.' The victims may be found peeling off their own skins in the ruins of Hiroshima or speaking back with polite firmness, like the Korean Pak Jong Dae, who sat in front of an American historian, saying through the remnants of a face burned away by napalm: 'I do not think there should be any more victims like me in this world.'" [http://www.svenlindqvist.net/text_only.asp?cat=3&lang=2&id=81]