Shrouded in Lies: An
Introductory Note
A
young mother is injured and her three month old baby killed by shell fragments
as she breastfeeds the child in the government declared no fire zone.
Parents
hide their children in roughly dug bunkers to escape LTTE press gangs who comb
the no-fire zone for conscripts.
A
woman loses her husband to sniper fire and the toddler he was carrying too
drowns when they attempt to wade across a lagoon to escape the no-fire zone.
A
father is shot in the head by LTTE members as he attempted to flee with his
family.
We
seldom receive independent accounts of current developments in the Vanni. The information provided in this bulletin is
an exception. Given below are some cross-checked facts drawn from persons who
recently escaped from the Vanni, which give the lie to
the Government’s claims that it does not fire on the civilians and show clearly
the LTTE’s cynical use of
civilians as bargaining chips. They also speak to the impotence of the
international community and India to stop the carnage. What we have
learned:
· Shells fall in the no-fire zone almost every day
and take a heavy toll on civilians. Persons in regular touch with those who
have escaped confirm that an average of 15 to 20 people die each day; either
killed by shells or shot by the LTTE attempting to drive fear into would-be
escapees.
· The military is presently stationed some
distance away from the lagoon. Thus they are able to spot movement – including
movements of LTTE vehicles within the no-fire zone. Typically they rain a few
shells soon after spotting a militant vehicle moving within the zone.
· Persons who escaped on 8th April
said that about the same day, the Army announced over speakers tied high up
on palmyrah trees instructing
the public to come across the lagoon into their area immediately, as they were
going to advance into the no-fire zone. Soon afterwards, they fired a large
shell right into the midst of the public, apparently to goad them into
complying. This reportedly caused heavy casualties among the public.
· Many escapees from the no-fire zone testified to
a heavy recruitment drive by the LTTE. The minimum age for conscription is now
14. There is no ceiling set on the maximum number that could be taken from one
family.
· The LTTE has recently started the practice of
sending out teams of 6 cadres with instructions for each team to return with 30
conscripts. If they fail they are reportedly subject to heavy and often lethal
punishment.
The
Government today objects to ‘balanced criticism’ by governments, the UN and
human rights agencies, because all of them demand restraint from it towards the
besieged civilians. What the Government apparently seeks is a blank cheque to go on indulging in cost-free killing of
Tamils in the name of warring against terrorism. Nothing can cover the
absurdity of the Government’s position. The LTTE, confined and reduced by
steady attrition poses no threat to the Government. It is merely postponing the
inevitable, placing more and more conscripts and children before missiles of
the Government, whom it is happy to blow to smithereens. This has been true for
several months and a government with a minimal sense of responsibility should
have looked to other political means.
As
for the LTTE, most countries that count have declared it a terrorist group. In
its present state of decay no one is going to breathe political life into it,
unless the Government and the Sinhalese polity bungle their political act
hopelessly. This is what they are doing by firing into the civilians in the
no-fire zone and thereby committing a crime against humanity. These and other
issues will be discussed in greater detail below, including the role of Tamil
expatriates. We will conclude with several cases exemplifying the plight of
civilians in the no-fire zone.
The
cases we give below in Section 6 show that civilians, lactating mothers and
infants continue to die of shelling in the no-fire zone. These are not all
cases of the Army firing in response to the LTTE firing from their midst, while
that too has often happened as we have said before. In early March 2009, there
was a furore when the UN Human
Rights Commissioner cited figures of around 3000 civilians killed by shelling.
Government responses varied from the angry to the argumentative. The main
argument was that the Commissioner’s figures were too close to LTTE figures to
be credible. But even a small fraction of the number would have been a poor
reflection of how the Government was treating a minority. Methods, not numbers,
are the issue.
The
fact is that mothers, children and infants were being blown up while attending
to routine chores, feeding the family or cooking a meal. In these instances the
LTTE firing from their midst is an unlikely possibility. Soon, the
Government realised the futility of
arguing about numbers. The civilian casualties mounted undeniably as troops got
close to the government-declared No-Fire Zone, and were reportedly high during
these advances.
While
all this was going on the Government kept lying about its plans for zero
civilian casualties, and to liberate civilians from terrorists, with occasional
rhetorical gestures of a safe civilian corridor or demanding that the LTTE free
the civilians, which it very well knew had no substance. Many of us hoped in
vain that between, the international community, India and the
Government, some plan would materialise to protect the civilians. Every plan crashed against the
hard rock of divergent government and LTTE conditions for a cease fire.
Looking
back on our war experience, there should never have been illusions about the
numbers and intensity in civilian suffering. Operation Liberation in 1987,
which lasted barely a week, claimed several hundred civilian dead, although
civilians had been instructed to move to schools and places of worship.
The Kumaratunge government’s first operation to
capture Jaffna in July 1995,
which was aborted within a week, claimed over 300 civilian dead in bombing and
shelling. That government was regarded politically more determined to win over
the Tamils, and this showed itself in civilians being impressed with the behaviour of soldiers towards them in captured
areas, but the dead were dead.
This
time round in the Vanni, civilians have been
fleeing for several months, decamping often and driven into a smaller areas.
When they decamped and put up a tent in a new area, they thought it relatively
safe until the shells began falling. There is nothing unbelievable about
casualties running into several thousands, as exemplified by the thousands of injured
shipped for treatment by the ICRC. Further military advances would be even
harsher on the civilians. Government spokesmen, who say that they are doing
this to liberate the civilians, and would somehow protect them, are lying. Much
more needs to be done to ensure that, beginning with the monitoring of
no-fire-zones.
When
the first reports of the LTTE shooting at civilians who fled from its control
emerged in February, there was widespread indignation against the LTTE,
including among Tamil expatriates. But as the Government went on shelling even
when the civilians were being corralled into a small area, the LTTE was able to
gain much propaganda mileage. The LTTE too was cornered into a small area and
posed no significant threat to the Government. But the Government’s imagination
failed.
Amidst
the euphoria of winning the war, the long term consequences to the country and
the stability of the region are yet to feature in discussions. The minorities
in Sri Lanka , including Muslims and Tamils outside the North-East
are visibly disgruntled with a government so drunk with military success that
it thinks it could get away with anything, from killing to attacking or
incarcerating newspaper editors. Meanwhile a great deal of simmering hatred has
been sown wherever Tamils live.
The
electronic media has been efficient at conveying pictures of mangled civilians
and legless children, regardless of government restrictions on the media. Said
a general in Trincomalee refusing an
Australian journalist who wanted to see the injured in hospital, “That is
the way we want it.” Many of the photographs have been passed around
depicting President Rajapakse as a Hitler,
an honour earlier reserved
for Prabhakaran. Rajapakse has been very unwise in his chosen
fellow travellers.
These
negative feelings though largely latent, are potentially destabilising. The Indian authorities are no doubt keeping
their fingers crossed in a region where a journalist throwing a shoe in Delhi
caused political tremors in Punjab. Even as the life of the old LTTE comes to a
close, one-sided romanticisation of
its leaders is already under way.
Left
out of account and expunged from the annals of history are the young conscripts
cruelly abducted from their parents and forced to die fighting, and no doubt
often bravely. Nor is there any comparison between the early idealistic
innocence of the Irish struggle, whose pioneers occupied Dublin Post Office in
Easter 1916, and LTTE leaders who long wallowed in a culture of mass torture
and execution of their own people.
In
continuing the war in this fashion the Government may sow the ground for a more
virulent afterlife for a mythified LTTE, and not just
in Lanka. Continuation of firing at civilians in Mullaitivu is in no one’s interest. Most of all the
civilians must have respite. Information coming in speaks of the situation
becoming unbearably desperate.
If
the Government is really concerned about the trapped civilians, it should utilise any leverage the international community
has, to effectively apply pressure on the LTTE to release the civilians. This
might involve the UN and ICRC and their negotiating with the LTTE to open a
genuine humanitarian corridor. The fate of the LTTE leaders is a political
matter. The demise of the LTTE’s brand of politics
is long overdue, and the longevity it enjoyed was the gift of the Sinhalese
polity.
Given the deterioration of the humanitarian situation, an
international body such as the UN Security Council needs to augment its
attention and engage with a sense of urgency. Taking into consideration
the plight of the civilians, Sri Lanka being put on the UN Security Council’s agenda is
imperative. It could also pave the way for a UN Special Envoy and other
UN officials to not only visit Sri Lanka but also the No-Fire
Zone and inspect the humanitarian conditions of the people trapped there and
find ways to ensure their release. At a minimum, the presence of the UN
officials on the ground will empower the trapped civilians to challenge the
LTTE leadership and struggle for their release. In addition, UN Security
Council attention will also be important in addressing the ongoing violations
of international humanitarian law. The brutality, disregard for civilian
life and impunity with which this war is continuing in its last stages requires
nothing less.
The
unfolding tragedy in Sri Lanka is the outcome of the contest of
destructive nationalisms, namely Sinhalese chauvinism and Tamil narrow
nationalism, which have been devouring the body politic for the past six
decades. The LTTE is now cornered militarily and its days as a territorial
military force are virtually at an end. At the same time, the Sri Lankan
government’s habitual use of the state apparatus for its anti-democratic
actions is grossly undermining the rule of law along with prospects for peace
with justice.
The
present humanitarian crisis reflects the prolonged degeneration of the
political culture in Sri Lanka , accompanied by impunity. Successive
governments aggravated alienation among the minorities and the rural populace,
allowing violently anarchic, anti-systemic forces to take root. A country with a
high literacy rate that was considered an exemplar in the Third World during
the 1960s, became blighted by
unchecked human rights abuse by state and non-state parties.
The
Tamils all over the world have been mobilised by the expatriate LTTE lobby, making use (one-sidedly) of
their very real and legitimate concerns on the plight of scores of thousands of
civilians trapped in Vanni. This distortion of reality would at best make a
short-term impact on the international community and a section of the human rights
community, but in the long term it would founder on the rock of credibility.
LTTE abuses against Tamil civilians would inevitably come to light, even in a
context where independent observers were being kept out by the government. It
would further undermine the prospect of making the State accountable for its
actions and would be detrimental to Lanka and in particular her minorities.
While
the expatriate campaign is focused on the “Genocidal Sri Lankan State” (an
accusation that requires deep scrutiny), it whitewashes the LTTE’s crimes
against its own people whom it holds hostage. The LTTE and its expatriate
backers are no less party to the large-scale killing of Tamil civilians by
misrepresenting civilians as staying with the LTTE voluntarily and turning a
blind eye its abuse of the people and their children who are constrained to die
in large numbers. In doing so they enable the Sri Lankan state to argue that
they are legitimate targets. Rather than help to resolve the conflict, it would
drive the communities further apart and allow the Government to muzzle and goad
the Sinhalese on an obscurantist course behind patriotic slogans, against an
alleged worldwide conspiracy against them.
How
this obscurantism has worked is evident in the Government’s use of ‘War
on Terror’ as a slogan to unleash indiscriminate bombing and shelling in the
conflict area with targeted killings and abductions in the South and areas of
the North-East it controls, and to create fear psychosis all round. The
gangrenous effects of the shelling of civilians in the Vanni and the executive
protection of sections of the security forces involved in extrajudicial
killings, will unfold in the months to come.
The
present must be seen as a continuation of the culture of impunity engendered by
communalism. Bouts of organised violence against
Tamils in 1958, 1977 and 1983, with the State directly involved in the latter
two, have been passed over without the healing touch of public accountability.
It taught the Sinhalese to shrug these off as part of the normal order of
things, not entirely undeserved by the victims. The rule of law became the
politician’s plaything and the resulting culture underscores the weakness of
civil society among the Sinhalese.
The
new Rajapakse government had to
deal with the LTTE as a force for which negotiation was anathema and which
dealt in constant provocations and assassinations, as the route to its
maximalist goal. But its political outlook, founded on hard line rhetoric
and actions – its early public execution of five students in Trincomalee to
start with – plunged it headlong away from saner and humane options. The
squashing of the APRC that was meant to forge a political settlement, and the
steep rise in targeted killings running into thousands, further exemplified the
trend.
The
LTTE’s politics had given a clear logical basis for the hawkish section among
the Sinhalese, its mirror image, to take the upper hand. This is what it
wanted, in the expectation that the Sri Lankan State would continue to bungle
militarily. The Tigers’ totalitarian mindset and overconfidence in their
military prowess, based on suicidal missions and large scale military and
financial networks across the world, blinded them. They failed to anticipate
that the Sri Lankan state could also use its repressive apparatus and silence
voices of sanity, to pursue a similar course with suicidal determination, and,
like the Tigers, be snared into the alternatives of total military victory
regardless of cost, or bust.
The
civilians now find themselves wedged between the LTTE that is strategically
using them as the final bargaining chip and the firepower of the Sri
Lanka state, which is determined to finish the battle off as soon as
possible. The LTTE has placed guns among civilians and has been firing at
military lines from among them. Shorn of the window dressing of its
propagandists, their aim is to use civilian hostages to demand a ceasefire that
would give them some leeway to rebuild their political fortunes.
It
has, as the cases discussed below show, used harshly punitive methods to
prevent the civilians from fleeing. Those who saw them for what they were over
the decades know the power of the suicidal mindset the LTTE cultivated among
the population and its cadres. Yet many Tamils who had found new homes far from
the scene of suffering dwelt in congenial myths.
The
vocal section of the expatriate community which now campaigns for a ceasefire
previously evinced not the slightest interest in pressurising the LTTE to use the Norway-brokered peace
process to work towards a political settlement. But the Diaspora is not
monolithic and those dissenting from the LTTE opposed the war when it started
in 2006, they were however in the minority. Even when the LTTE blatantly
shredded previous ceasefires and deliberately imposed several rounds of war on
an unwilling people, those who organise today’s rallies in Western capitals, went on supporting the
LTTE’s terror politics and its military agenda, both of which were utterly
detrimental to the Tamils who live in Lanka.
It
is important to understand how the LTTE persistently undermined any process
entered into by various governments willingly or under duress, which could have
led to a peaceful resolution to the conflict. This historical sequence is
sketched out in Appendix I. The recent Norway-brokered peace process too could
have been used to secure peace with dignity, but instead the LTTE’s
determination to abuse it for its ideological ends precipitated war in 2006.
During
this latter phase killings and major human rights violations were routine on
both sides. Expatriate Tamils did not organise protests against the war or apply organised pressure to both sides to begin
negotiations. The Tamil media in Western countries continued confidently to air
the view that the LTTE would counter-attack and recoup its losses. Only after
the fall of Mullaitivu when the LTTE was cornered into a small shrinking space
around Puthukkudiyiruppu,
did the West witness copious protest marches and vocal demands for a cease
fire.
At
this stage thus, allegations of ‘genocide’ against the Sri Lankan government,
and the portrayal of the LTTE as a force with an abiding interest in the Tamil
people at heart, is utterly disingenuous. Civilians have been shown to be
thoroughly dispensable for the LTTE. Illusions about the LTTE have been
congenial for Tamils who have built their lives far from the shores of Lanka
and have invested their emotions on an imaginary Eelam with no thought of what
it would cost Tamils living in Lanka. These arm chair Eelamists were brainwashed mafia-style by the Tamil
media controlled by the LTTE in the West and frog marched to support its
agenda. It is now time to sweep aside shattered illusions and make a
constructive re-evaluation on what they could contribute to their country and
people who have undergone untold suffering through loss of life and limb.
What
should be the strategy of a responsible government that is obliged to protect
its citizens? It should allow no stone unturned to find means of protecting the
civilians. Is the Sri Lankan government really doing that? Not only should it
try every available means to get the civilians out, but it should also be able
to convince the world that it is genuine in this endeavour. In attacking the UN and INGOs pejoratively and
representing demands for a humanitarian ceasefire as pro-LTTE, the Government
is exposing its desperation and paranoia, and the protection of civilians as
low priority.
Whatever
the Government’s spin doctors say, its handling of the IDPs and Tamil civilians
besieged in the Vanni bespeaks extreme callousness. It continues to control the media and denies access to persons
who could play a positive role in assisting the IDPs. It is also doing
everything to punish those who are trapped in the No-Fire Zone, while claiming
that it never attacked the civilians. Our cases demonstrate the contrary.
After
the government began its war against the LTTE, its military campaign was in due
course taken over by those who dreamed of a military solution; those who stood
for a political approach were sidelined. The former logically meant the ascension of a Sinhalese hegemonist approach, involving death squads, terror
and intimidation with racist overtones (see Appendix II).
This
context needs to be taken into account in judging the actions of Tamil
expatriates who reacted to news of these violations with increasing horror. But
their actions in propping up the LTTE have been callousness in this hour of
intense danger to their fellows; instead of seeing the LTTE for what it really
is -- a murderous force
that has destroyed so much and achieved nothing -- they have been
prepared to prop it up by sacrificing the civilians and their children it holds
hostage. This cannot be blamed entirely on the LTTE’s mafia-like control over
their lives; it also speaks to their disconnectedness from the realities of
recent life in Sri Lanka ; most have been resident abroad for
decades.
The
minorities and the sensitive among the Sinhalese are thoroughly alienated by
the present government’s advocacy of Sinhalese chauvinism and its associated
ideological aims, which are shot through its military campaign, and the
insulting comments about the position of minorities uttered by those who now
enjoy inordinate power, even power over the lives of those who disagree. Tamils
who disagree with the LTTE and have sought to play an independent role have
likewise been treated with utter contempt and driven up against the wall by a
government interested in Tamils only as stooges and killers, so that it could
continue to play Tamils against the Muslims.
Instead
of admitting that there are serious structural problems with the State that
would keep Sri Lanka an unhappy, bloodstained and stunted entity
among nations, it has played with tokenism. All the grand gestures about
reaching a political settlement have boiled down to the obcurantist sediment: How to provide some frills and
preserve the Sinhalese hegemonist state? This is why
playing with the 13th Amendment, which India still
seems to advocate, has become irrelevant. The rulers’ attitude is also
unrepresentative of the majority among Sinhalese who wanted peace with a
political settlement, and many ordinary Sinhalese soldiers who have treated the
displaced Tamils with compassion.
The
work of the army unit receiving civilians escaping from the LTTE has been
highly commended. These civilians felt touched by their warm reception and they
were moved when an army officer offered his own food parcel to ravenously
hungry escapees. But already the strain of detaining them in so-called welfare
camps in conditions of want, where life inevitably becomes subhuman, is
showing.
A
young mother was feeding her three month old baby in the government declared
No-Fire Zone (NFZ) in the Puthumathalan area.
A shell fell very close and one piece killed the baby and another very severely
injured the mother at the back of the shoulder. There is another mother in the
hospital who lost her 7 month old baby through a very similar experience while
breast feeding the child. This particular mother lost another two young
children as victims to the same shell. The trauma suffered by these mothers is
beyond description. The second one screams in her sleep. They were both brought
via Trincomalee harbour by the ICRC.
There
is also the case of a young mother keeping her injured baby. She had requested
her husband to spoon feed the baby while she attended to some work. While the
husband was doing this a multi-barrel shell fell and the husband was killed
while the child escaped with injury as the result of being shielded by the man.
This was also in the No-Fire Zone.
Thavarajah had been displaced
from Pooneryn at the time the fighting reached his area about the middle of
2008. The people were pushed towards the present NFZ east of Puthukuddiyiruppu. At the end of March 2009 the LTTE conscripted
his 13 year old daughter.
The
minimum age for conscription is now 14 but as in the case above, it could be
lower. There is no ceiling set on the minimum number that each family is
obliged to give. The LTTE recently started the practice of sending out teams of
6 cadres with instructions for each team to return with 30 conscripts. If they
failed they are subject to heavy punishment.
One
escapee said how a relative of his, a female militant, whose group did not
comply with the required number of recruits for the sake of conscience, was put
on the front lines and got killed.
Consequently,
parents keep their “eligible” children hidden permanently in bunkers. In cases
where a militant or a set of militants pass by noticing the bunker, the father
and/or adults in the family dig up another bunker, hidden as much as possible
by weeds and bushes and move the young children to that bunker. This is in fear
of the “spies” returning with a bigger group in order to capture the
youngsters.
In
another particular family trapped in the Vanni, the father is timid and would
not bring himself to take any bold initiative. He had already suffered from the
conscription of his second daughter. His third daughter is married with a
child. The fourth daughter who is just 18 has just recently been wrested from
the family and conscripted. The family is powerless.
There
are frequent incidents of groups of parents resisting violently the carrying
away of their children. Many parents do not now go to the food
distribution centres where the regular
allocation of the quota of dried rations are given in the presence and
over-sight of a militant for fear of letting them know that an eligible recruit
was available.
All
this has made the group overwhelmingly unpopular locally. People refer to the
leaders, who have no sympathy for their plight, by names that are far from
flattering. For some light relief they joke about their
enforced martyrdom without honour.
Over
the last few months, when the trapped civilians have felt compelled to escape
from the narrowed combat area, the militants have been very harsh on them,
determined not to let a single one of them succeed. Only the severely injured
were allowed to go with the ICRC. While maintaining publicly that the
people are staying with them
of their own free will, they have resorted to beating, threatening, shooting
below the legs, arresting and severe beating up of those who attempt the escape
and so on. Recently, several new IDP arrivals have testified to scattering over
dead bodies as militants had opened fire on them as they had attempted the
escape with a crowd of others. Such reports are quite common now.
6.3.1 Father perished
with a son, Saving another son: During the second
week of April, a father managed to save his 17 year old son from conscription
in this way. However he was he was shot on the forehead and killed on the spot
by a group of pursuing militants as he was making good his escape with his family.
He had been leading a group of families along an escape route about 11.00 AM
dodging militant sentries who had been placed at the edge of the NFZ. Just as
they were part way across the lagoon, a group of militants spotted them and
came after them firing. This father was carrying his 10 year son on his
shoulders and fell just as he was climbing ashore at the other end. The younger
son on his shoulders got injured just below his chest. He had initially started
running with the crowd crying to his God for help, and then returned to his
father and lay over his body sobbing in silence. In the meantime the wife, the
17 year son and his younger sister had, after getting to the shore run towards
the army with their fellow escapees, thinking that the father was also coming
behind them. The gun fire from the pursuing militants gave them no chance to
stop and look behind. The escapees were encouraging each other to push ahead
without a moment’s delay. It was only as they stopped at the other end that
they were told by one who had come behind them that the father was fallen at
the water’s edge and the son was injured and was clinging to the father. The
elder son took out his purse with the NIC and other documents threw it on the
ground and ran back. He picked up his younger brother, tugged at his father for
some time only to spot the wound, and ran back. The army received them with
real sympathy, fed them and gave priority to send this family to Omanthai. Word
got to the brother of the deceased living in the government-controlled area.
They went to Vavuniya. The mother and the
injured son had been brought to Vavuniya hospital by this time. The boy succumbed to his injuries.
The police OIC showed a lot of sympathy in responding to the request of the
family to get the other two children down from Omanthai in order to take them
to the funeral. He used his cell phone to get in touch with the officer in
Omanthai, got them down and completed the paper work to release them.
In
the early days after the declaration of the no fire zone along the Mulaitivu
coast line, the civilian population was centred on Puthumathalan at the northern end of the NFZ. On one of
those afternoons a crowd of around five thousand people had banded together and
told the militants who had prevented them that they were going, come what may.
After long attempts at “persuasion” they were told to go by a particular route
as a group of trigger happy troops were hanging around very close-by along the
other possible route. On this route, however, a huge team of militants with
fresh palmyrah branches- the dreaded “patchai mattai” in Tamil, sticks and
guns were positioned and waiting. The civilians were given very cruel treatment
and chased back.
6.3.3 Anger and tragedy
among people cornered by working for the LTTE: The following case is revealing of the
tragic plight even of those who were working with the LTTE and their present
predicament. A father, mother and her eldest daughter, were forced to move
from Jaffna when the LTTE
importuned an exodus in 1995. The eldest daughter was a teacher, who had been
asked to teach LTTE cadres. When the Army began to move into the Jaffna peninsula during late 1995, the family was
told insistently that the Army would kill the daughter who was teaching their
cadres, and forced them to move into the Vanni. The other daughters of this family are in the
West. Later on the eldest daughter was offered a teaching position in Jaffna, but the LTTE refused to give her family a pass
to leave with her. She also had periodic depressions and because of this the
parents did not want her to go to Jaffna alone. Even so, the LTTE refused the parents permission to
leave the Vanni. The family too was
pushed around during the recent military operation, finally reaching Puthkkudiyiruppu. Unable to bear the shelling the family decided
to move out. The father and daughter arranged for the mother to travel in a
tractor-trailer, while they travelled on bicycles. Barely had they gone about quarter mile, when
the Army began shelling, hitting the father and some others nearby. The
daughter who lay down on the ground escaped. The father who had a shrapnel
injury was admitted to a makeshift hospital and later he and the mother were
transported to Trincomalee. The mother was anxious
to send the daughter first as she too was in need of medical care, but the LTTE
denied her a pass. Now the parents are in Vavuniya while the daughter is with a known family
from their village in the NFZ.
Recently,
a boy from the family with whom the daughter is staying, phoned the sister in Canada and
told her how they twice tried to escape and got caught. Once, they were stopped
by an LTTE man from their village and asked to go back. He told them that since
he knows them he is allowing them to go back, and if not they would have been
executed as punishment. The sister from Canada asked the boy, how he
came to tell all this on a phone provided by the LTTE. The boy said the person
who is manning the booth is also from their village and his family too had
tried to escape with them and failed. Owing to this, he was lenient in allowing
him to communicate all this. Here, the person who is working with the LTTE is
trying to send his family out with known families but he cannot leave.
6.3.4 Killed for
Desertion!: On 5th March 2009, a group
of people had arranged for a boatman to take them to Jaffna from the present
NFZ. The boat started off without the LTTE apprehending them. Soon after it
started moving, a very bright light was flashed into the boat. An LTTE gun man
picked out Mahalingam Prakash Mohan and shot him dead. The boat
then proceeded to Jaffna. Prakash Mohan has been in
the jewellery trade and was
close to the LTTE. Originally from Kacchai Road Chavakachcheri, he had moved to Killinochchi in the wake of the Jaffna Exodus in early
1996.
6.3.5 Father Killed by
Sniper, Son he was carrying Drowns: During latter March 2009, a family of three children and
their parents were making the dangerous crossing from the NFZ, first across
the Nandikadal lagoon (in chest
high water for a grown man), then across an open meadow, then doze flat on the
sand till dawn, and into the hands of the military. This has been the situation
for escapees over the last weeks as the military has been very slowly closing
in on the no fire zone from several directions facing severe resistance. While
crossing the father had been carrying a 2 year old child on his shoulder and
had been partially supporting the eldest, a 7 year old with one hand to help
him wade through the water. The mother had been carrying the youngest child, a
few months old. It was deep into the night. Sniper fire hit the father directly
on his head and he fell dead. The child on the father’s shoulder also perished
underneath by an excessive intake of water. The mother had to leave these two
in this watery grave, and rush across with the remaining two children. The
eldest child also drank a lot of water, but was brought to the other end with
the help of fellow travelers. The military moved them immediately to Vavuniya
through the ICRC and the eldest son succumbed while undergoing treatment
in Vavuniya hospital. A sister
living in South Vanni brought home the
mother and the surviving child after going to Vavuniya and speaking to the
authorities. The family, originally from Jaffna, had been living in the Vanni after the 1996
displacement. The mother is dazed and hardly speaks a word to outsiders who
visit the sister.
All
the thousands who are daring the crossing from the NFZ are doing so facing the
terrible risks described above. Many have had to walk over dead bodies
both in the waters and in the open fields. Danger could come from both
sniper fire from the military,
mistaking the civilians for the militants, as well as from the militants angry
at the “betrayal.” The over-whelming reports from IDPs indicate that more people attempting to
flee have been killed by the LTTE than by army snipers.
The
following plaintive note came from a cousin of the deceased: “On the 12th of
March 2009 …, Uncle’s son…passed away during shelling in Ampalavan Pokkanai. We heard this from his grandmother who came to Vavuniya. The
rest of his family members are still in the no-fire zone.” Another relative said that the deceased had
telephoned his brother in Colombo a few days earlier and said that he was going
home for two days, after which he was sent into action and perished. The father
was forced to hand him over to the LTTE towards the end of 2008.
An
Aunt in Toronto received a call from her nephew, who is with the LTTE in the
NFZ. It was a surprise. The cadre had got the aunt’s number from his brother in
Colombo whom he had also contacted. He was one of those forcibly taken by the
LTTE when he was aged 15. Some of the youngsters in his village had been asked
to come and clean the Great Heroes Cemetery and then forcibly taken for
training. The family tried all means including informing the ICRC to get him
out, but in vain. After two years the ICRC informed the family that the boy was
then 17 years and does not wish to go home and there was not much they could
do. The aunt whom he called asked about his well-being and also about his
family, who too were in the NFZ. He avoided talking about himself, but said
that he was urging his parents to somehow get out. He also mentioned another
cousin, a graduate from the University of Jaffna who was also trapped in the NFZ and was
also trying to get out. Two weeks later the aunt received the message that her
nephew died during the disastrous battle on 5th April 2009. She
then realised that the LTTE
allowed him to talk because they were sending him to the frontline.
Some
other relatives of this family are forced to move with the LTTE and they are
still trapped in the NFZ. One of the relatives recently escaped with some of
the family members. On the way, the militants began to fire at them. The family
members scattered and some reached the government zone. Some could not escape
and no one knows what became of them. The family is totally traumatised.
These
dead youths above were conscripts from families who had for many years been
bitter critics of the LTTE
A
young family man who works for an NGO and had served selflessly in several
previous emergencies faced by the people of the Vanni had been contemplating escaping to the
cleared area from the LTTE controlled area in the Mullaitivu district. This was in late January
or early February, when the army was advancing from Vishwamadu to Puthukudiyirupu. His family had been through several
displacements and he had throughout been at the forefront of those who were
seeking to preserve lives through his very active organization. He had one difficulty though: he was totally alien to the jungle
paths in this area. Thus he had to very secretively make prior arrangements
with another escapee who would guide them. After making such an arrangement, he
had helpfully told some other intending escapees on that particular day to be
ready that night. Sadly that information had leaked to the militants. A group
of them came that evening and tied him with bands to a pole and publicly beat him up with rods, rifle butts and raw palmyrah branches. As
they were giving him this public treatment intermittently for a few hours, they
received information that a group of civilians had set off on an attempt to
escape. They left him tied and went after them. As soon as they left some of
his relatives untied him, and the group made good their escape. One of his
friends observed, “One does trace the unmistakable providential hand of
mercy.” He is now with his family in one of the IDP camps in Vavuniya.
A
woman of about 60 years is caring for her 27 year old daughter in the local
hospital. The young patient is the mother of two girls, aged two and eight, and
is a widow; her husband died on the front lines after conscription. The family
had settled in Killinochchi after being
displaced from Jaffna 14 years ago. During the current operations they had been
displaced from Kilinochchi and settled in
the Viswamadu area.
On
the day in question, the young mother had left her elder daughter with the
grandmother and had gone to a nearby shop in order to buy a coconut to do some
cooking, carrying her 2-year-old daughter with her. The grandmother had heard
the noise of a multibarrel shell falling
close-by and waited anxiously for her daughter’s return. In the meantime she
heard that the shell had left quite a number dead and injured. She rushed to
the spot, leaving her grand daughter with neighbors. By the time she arrived
she found that the injured had all been cleared, but dead corpses were left here
and there. She found her daughter’s body shoved to the side of the road and
left for dead, but she was still breathing. The toddler daughter was dead. With
the help of some passersby, she rushed her to a local hospital. The ICRC
brought them to Vavuniya hospital by bus – this was about the time of the
incident above.
The
young woman lost an eye, a shell fragment having tragically gone through her
eye and out of her head. Another shell piece had gone through one of her legs,
and she is still unable to walk. There is, after over two months still no news
of the other daughter. The grandmother has not dared to divulge the news of the
death of the younger daughter to the injured mother. Nor does the older woman
have any news of another four of her children, and their families left in the
Vanni. That noble lady is finding bearing all this knowledge in her head and at
the same time caring for a daughter so tragically affected, quite unbearable.
She appreciates being able to unburden her-self to sympathetic listeners – but
alas, very tight restrictions are now in place on visitors. The young lady is
confined to lying flat on a mat in the hospital. The single- eyed good looking
face is permanently dazed. Hardly a word comes out of her mouth. Only nods.
The wife of the deceased who died at
the waters’ edge (6.3.1) had said some-thing that was touching. As they reached
the front-line of the military, they had been received courteously and given a
meal and drinks. Since the civilians had been in fear and hunger for long they
had delved into the food and in the end there was not enough food. One older
military officer, who was announcing in crude Tamil over the speakers tied high
up on the palmyrah trees, gave his own food parcel to a refugee and went
without a meal him-self. This particular officer was shown on television (Eye
Channel) making the announcement over the speakers, and the lady pointed him
out as a very good and kindly man and related this story.
There are many grateful testimonies
from IDPs of how military personnel put them-selves at great risk in
checking and taking them in as they came in groups to the front-lines and
surrendered to the military. There are reports of many instances where when the
checking process had begun, a group of militants had appeared, and taking cover
behind the trees, started shooting, and often killing some military personnel.
The military have, by all reports, invariably taken cover, but avoided
retaliating in order to protect the civilians from getting minced in the cross
fire. Invariably in all such instances the civilians had felt desperately sure
that even if they survived the cross fire, they would become victims to angry
revenge killings. After the shooting subsided and the militants withdrew, they
had invariably been received well. In one particular instance in early February
2009, a female suicide bomber had arrived at the front-line with a group of
refugees and exploded her-self while being checked in, killing about four
military personnel.
In the minds of many who were
touched, there lurks the question of whether all these achievements towards
healthy inter-communal relations in the future, would be entirely undone by
insensitive chauvinistic forces. The way the care and resettlement of the IDPs is
going to be organized may turn out to be a recipe for the destruction of peace
building.
6.8 Disaffection with Welfare Centres
Even
while the army unit receiving the escapees has done its part well, there is
disaffection in the “welfare centres” where the escapees are virtually prisoners. They have no income
and are at the mercy of the camp officials. There are already complaints about
the hygiene, toilet facilities and the food. Food distribution in some camps
has been reported irregular leading to situations where one parcel is shared
among four. Not only are they confined, but their freedom to see people is
restricted. Such a situation leads to corruption rackets.
Already
people are complaining about the corruption in the ‘Welfare Centres’ where people have to pay various people to get
out of the camp. The security forces will often say they have some doubts and
want to keep the IDP there. There have reportedly been several cases of old
people who organised their relatives to
send money to get them out.
What
makes matters more uncertain is that the government is cash-strapped and is
heavily dependent on NGOs and INGOs to keep the camps running. However, the latter groups want
the people resettled in their villages expeditiously and would likely withdraw
their resources that now support these camps. If the government wants to delay
releasing the people, the camps would be even further under-funded, and then
there can be no pretence that the camps are human.
We
hope the Government would implement the recommendations of the UN Special Rapporteur on IDPs and allow the UNHCR to monitor these camps
and give the people the reassurance that is their right.
· The Indo-Lanka peace accord was forced
by India on the Sri Lankan government when it was about to take
control of Jaffna’s Valigamam area, the LTTE’s
last remaining bastion in 1987. The LTTE did its utmost through killings
and provocations to undermine the Accord and eventually unleashed a war against
the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), which resulted in hundreds of deaths and
widespread destruction.
· The LTTE made a backdoor deal with President
Premadasa and got the IPKF out and formally began negotiations with the Sri
Lankan Government in March 1990. During this time its preoccupation was
to arrest and torture thousands of Tamils, both young and old, based on false
allegations and many disappeared in the process. Until June 1990, the Sri Lankan
army too connived with the LTTE in helping them to arrest and detain the
latter’s perceived enemies in the Tamil community.
· Instead of engaging with the government to find
a political solution, the LTTE was bent on dissolving the hard-won North-East
Provincial Council to create a total vacuum. It followed its massacre of the
TULF leadership in Colombo in August 1989 with that of the EPRLF leadership
in India in June 1990. It redoubled the recruitment of children to
build up its military machine, and in June 1990 provoked a war by laying siege
on several police stations in the East and later massacring hundreds of Muslim
and Sinhalese policemen who surrendered on the orders of the Government which
hoped to settle the matter peacefully. It further angered Muslims in the East
through three unprovoked massacres, killing nearly 300,
in Kurukkalmadam, Kattankudy and Eravur within a month beginning mid-July 1990. The LTTE
then pulled back into the jungles, leaving helpless Tamil civilians at the
mercy of incensed government troops and Muslim paramilitaries. The latter were
cynically armed by the Government to shift the blame for its killing of
thousands of Tamil civilians. The LTTE’s interest was to use recruits from the
inferno it fanned in the East for costly operations in the North, which ground
to a bloody stalemate. The civilians suffered enormously, while the LTTE
further isolated the Tamil civilians by using suicide bombers to execute Indian
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991, and then President Premadasa in May
1993. The election of Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1994, who campaigned on a peace agenda, brought hope
of peace to all communities. The LTTE entered peace talks guided solely by
seeking concessions to further its military agenda, inevitably precipitating
war by April 1995. The Government’s ability to push for a new constitution was
also hindered by the war. The LTTE even targeted one of the architects of the
new constitution, Neelan Thiruchelvam, using a suicide bomber. Again state armed
forces were allowed to return to their former methods, leading to significant
human rights abuse with the same impunity. The LTTE engineered the large scale
displacement of Muslims from the North in 1990 and likewise of hundreds of
thousands of Tamil civilians from Jaffna during the army advance into the
peninsula in late 1995. Many of them were taken to the Vanni for use as a recruitment base, a mine for
resources and today explicitly as both a mobile civilian shield and a source of
conscripts.
· Then came the 2002 peace process facilitated by Norway . As
expected the LTTE went on targeting their perceived opponents and increased
forcible child recruitment amidst the ceremony of peace talks. It did little to
hide its intentions in taking advantage of the access provided by the peace
talks to enhance its military capability and its suicide squads to operate by
land, sea and air. Those who had staked their reputations and resources
in the successful completion of peace talks went along using their influence to
appease the LTTE. The totalitarian control of Tamil society being its primary
aim, it put forward an interim demand solely with that end in view. No
government was in a position to agree to this and the Government too was
becoming constrained by the futility of talks and the resulting Sinhalese
extremist mobilisation. The LTTE actively
played the two major Sinhalese parties against one another, without ever
demanding that they come together and accept an equitable political settlement
and it did not want that to happen. Whenever called upon to discuss the
settlement, it shied away on some pretext. While emphasising its ‘sole representative’ status by
terror, it pulled out of peace talks in 2003 when a human rights binding
mechanism was to be discussed at the Tokyo conference. It further killed among
others Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, who was an advocate within the
Government for a federal settlement. This was in Colombo during August 2005.
The peace process became meaningless without any mechanism in place to restrain
the LTTE or the government from human rights abuses, targeted killings and
warlike rhetoric.
· During the 2005 presidential election, the LTTE
overtly worked to prevent the Tamil people voting in the North-East, in order
to ensure that Mahinda Rajapakse got elected as president. After the election
again the LTTE began IED attacks in various places and claimed that these were
people’s forces outside their control. Against the LTTE’s continued provocations and assassinations,
the Government responded in kind, leading to its blockade of the LTTE-controlled
area south of Trincomalee in July 2006 and
the LTTE in turn shutting down an irrigation sluice. The last was used by the
Government begin what it termed a ‘humanitarian offensive’ where tens of
thousands of Tamils and Muslims were displaced and hundreds in the East died of
shelling during the latter half of 2006. The offensive then moved to the North
resulting in the present scenario.
· The Government’s claim to find a political
solution through All Party Representatives Committee faced a continuous
onslaught from those with a majoritarian agenda. Every attempt to come up with a reasonable
framework was shot down by the President’s office which was catering to the feelings
of the vociferous minority above.
· Killer squads were formed in the name of
fighting LTTE terror and used to unleash pervasive terror, first in the
North-East and increasingly in the South. The media came under threat; and all
means were used to bring them into subjection. The LTTE’s terror campaign in the South, served as an
excuse for the Government to resort to extra-judicial methods in the name of
security. These included kidnapping and extortion in the capital for pecuniary
ends.
· The Security forces in Trincomalee were given a
go ahead for extrajudicial killings, as in the case of the 5 students, and the
massacre of ACF staff in Mutur was part of the logical sequel. Many in the
security establishment were unhappy about the developments, but the minority
who had been raised to positions of influence covered up by resorting even to
further extra-judicial measures. The appointment of the International
Independent Group of Eminent Persons was unashamedly undermined by a coterie
deriving its authority from the President’s office. The result proved to the world and
the Tamil community that the Rajapakse government is no less cavalier about justice than previous ones.
· When the operation in Vanni began, the
government forced out all the INGOs and UN citing concern for their security
and thereafter there was no check on military operations as independent
verification became impossible.
· The Government should bear the principal blame
for creating a situation where the world was left with little choice but to
start from the LTTE’s version of events once it arrogantly denied access to war
zone for any independent eyewitnesses and its claims to restraint were readily
contradicted by persons fleeing the war zone. Matters were made blatantly worse
by thrusting escaping witnesses into virtual prisons and isolating the injured
ferried into hospitals.
University
Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna)Sri
Lanka - UTHR(J)
Information
Bulletin No. 47
Date
of Release: 17th April 2009
