Two hazards for Sri Lankan displaced civilians
I have two issues on my mind about the displaced civilians being held in internment camps in Sri Lanka: (1) will the camps be able to cope with the coming monsoon rains, and (2) are the civilians safe in the camps now?
On the first issue, a British minister visiting the camps said Tuesday that freedom of movement for the displaced was critical now, especially with the rains expected soon. (Amnesty International has been calling on the Sri Lankan government to allow the civilians to leave the camps if they wish; for more information on this topic, please see our Sri Lanka page.) The BBC was allowed to accompany the minister as he toured the camps and heard heartrending pleas from the displaced civilians about poor conditions in the camps. The Sri Lankan government has said that the camps will be ready for the monsoon, although a UN expert who visited the camps last week expressed serious concerns about whether the camps would be equipped to deal with the heavy rains.
On the second issue, the UN refugee agency said last week it was concerned for the safety of the displaced civilians in the camps, after an incident on Sept. 26th in which some civilians attempting to move between areas of a camp were stopped by the security forces. The angered civilians then attacked the security forces who responded by opening fire, resulting in several injuries, including a child who is now paralyzed.
As the visiting British minister said, allowing displaced civilians to leave the camps would do much to address the first issue. I think it would also help a lot on the second issue; allowing people more control over their own lives would do a lot to ease any bitterness or tension. If you haven’t already, please consider joining in our Unlock the Camps campaign and ask the Sri Lankan government to restore freedom of movement now to the displaced civilians.
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Tags: British minister, displaced civilians, Sri Lanka, UN Refugee Agency, unlock the camps
October 7th, 2009 at 8:49 am
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October 7th, 2009 at 8:50 am
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October 7th, 2009 at 8:53 am
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8293982.stm
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October 7th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
But — no reconciliation here.This was Sunset — not a bloodred Dawn.
The imposed nationstate is no structural model for justice for, or for even the survival of, the world’s amputated, decapitated nations.
But when the Wheel comes back full Circle — when the poisons of Tamil genocide thoroughly corrode the body of the Sinhalese state, people & culture, hurling the Sinhalese themselves over their own psychic, existential precipice –maybe then but never before then, might the 2 peoples drag themselves towards a twinned or twining nationhood.
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October 7th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
124 internally displaced families including several pregnant mothers who were allowed to leave Menik Farm in Vavuniyaa to go to their places in Jaffna on September 29 are stranded in Vavuniyaa town without Sri Lanka Army (SLA) clearance to proceed to Jaffna. These IDPs were brought down from Menik Farm on September 29 and dropped at Vavuniyaa bus stand the same day midnight, sources in Vavuniyaa said.
As their attempt to get clearance for their travel to Jaffna from Vavuniyaa district secretariat failed, they were asked to stay in the wedding hall of the Vavuniyaa Sivan Kovil till Sunday and the temple authorities also allowed them to stay.
Vavuniyaa district secretariat failed to provide funds to the temple authority to maintain these IDPs during their stay as promised.
However, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has offered to pay their travelling expenses to Jaffna.
They were then taken from Sivan Koayil wedding hall Sunday morning to the army camp to get passes to travel to Jaffna.
But the army officer in charge of transport refused permission for them to board the buses stating that they were not in possession of proper clearance for their travel.
Hence these IDPs returned to Sivan Koayil and are now staying there in a depressed state.
Meanwhile, another batch of 75 IDP families including pregnant mothers was allowed to return home from Menik Farm camp Saturday. They were first given shelter in Vavuniyaa Town Hall and later shifted to Sivan Koayil where they are awaiting clearance to go to their homes.
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October 7th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
The government falsely describes these squalid prison camps as “welfare villages.” However, detainees are not permitted to move in or out of their camps, which are surrounded by barbed wire fences and guarded by heavily armed soldiers. Relatives are allowed to see inmates only after the type of rigorous screening found in high security prisons.
Those inside are civilians—young and old, men and women—who lived in former LTTE-held territory and were simply herded into the camps. They had already suffered months of military blockade, with many starved, dehydrated, wounded and sick. Numbers had lost family and friends as a result of the army’s indiscriminate shelling.
Conditions inside the camps are appalling. There is inadequate food, sanitation, medical care, sufficient water or even space to sleep. Moreover, the military, which runs the camps, maintains an internal regime of terror and intimidation. Despite heavy media censorship, cases have filtered out involving the sexual abuse of women, the shooting of protesting prisoners and “disappearances”. Military intelligence personnel systematically interrogate young men and women. More than 10,000 have been branded as “LTTE suspects” and dragged off to “rehabilitation centres”, which are notorious for abuse and torture.
President Mahinda Rajapakse insists that forced detention is necessary to weed out “terrorists”, but none in the detention camps or the rehabilitation centres have been charged, let alone convicted, of any crime. In reality, the government is engaged in the collective punishment of a quarter of a million people solely because they are Tamils. In effect, they are being treated as prisoners of war, in flagrant breach of the country’s own constitution and laws.
The detention camps graphically underscore the communal character of the war that was waged by successive governments from 1983. This was not a “war on terrorism”, but a conflict aimed at entrenching the privileged position of the island’s Sinhala elites at the expense of their Tamil counterparts and all working people. Its roots lie in the decades of official anti-Tamil discrimination utilised by the Colombo political establishment, from the time of independence in 1948, to buttress its rule by dividing the working class.
Sri Lanka’s prison camps have few historical precedents. One is compelled to go back to the 1899-1902 Boer War, when the British pioneered the concentration camp and incarcerated the Boers, or to the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans in the US during World War II. However, for the systematic persecution of an entire people, the only real precedent is the Nazi concentration camps during World War II, where millions of Jews, as well as trade unionists, socialists and communists were herded, and many killed.
Increasingly the Rajapakse regime functions as a politico-military cabal, openly flouting the constitution, the legal system and the courts. Parliament has become a powerless rubber stamp for decisions made by the president, his brothers, close advisers and top generals. The police state apparatus built up during a quarter century of war, and strengthened under Rajapakse, remains intact. Far from demobilising soldiers in the aftermath of the war, the government is boosting the army and transforming the North and East into a vast military camp.
Having mortgaged the country to the hilt to pay for the war, Rajapakse confronts a profound economic crisis, compounded by the global recession. He has already announced a new “economic war” to force the working class and the poor to bear heavy new economic burdens. The SEP warns that the methods that have been used to terrorise the island’s Tamil minority—arbitrary detention, “disappearances” and murder by pro-government death squads—will be used to suppress opposition by all working people.
The campaign to free the Tamil detainees is an essential component of the broader fight to defend the democratic rights and living standards of the working class as a whole. The closure of the prison camps must go hand in hand with an end to the military occupation of the North and East and the withdrawal of all troops. In this struggle, no confidence can be placed in the various opposition parties or on the “international community”.
Not one of the opposition parties has challenged the mass detention of Tamils. Ranil Wickremesinghe, leader of the right-wing United National Party, instead offered to support the introduction of draconian new regulations under the Public Security Ordinance to “legalise” the government’s anti-democratic measures. For its part, the Sinhala extremist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna has publicly supported the internment camps, asking only for the president to establish an all-party committee to alleviate the problems facing detainees.
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a coalition of bourgeois Tamil parties that acted as a mouthpiece for the LTTE, has not demanded the detainees’ immediate release. After meeting with Rajapakse last month, TNA leader R. Sambandan declared that his party would “work with the government to alleviate the conditions of the IDPs [internally displaced persons] and to facilitate their early resettlement.”
The LTTE itself has launched no campaign for the release of the Tamil civilians. Its so-called transnational government in exile issued a statement in August over the detention of its leader, requesting “the international community to secure a speedy solution to the plight of the 300,000 civilians, as well as to ensure that Mr Pathmanathan receives the protection of all international norms.”
As for the middle class ex-left groups—the Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP) and United Socialist Party (USP)—they have also stepped in to promote the illusion that the “international community” will come to the detainees’ rescue. The USP has appealed to the major powers to block an IMF loan as a means of forcing the Rajapakse government to release them. The NSSP has simply hailed the US and European powers for their limited criticisms of the government’s human rights record.
In reality, the major powers accept the government’s prison camps, just as they tacitly backed Rajapakse’s renewed communal war. For all its calls for “greater access” and “early resettlement”, the UN foots the bill and is thus directly responsible for the Tamil civilians’ incarceration. To date it has handed over $180 million for the running of the camps.
Likewise, the limited criticisms expressed by the US and European powers have nothing to do with any genuine concern for democratic rights. The US stalled on the IMF loan, but eventually allowed it to go through. Its hypocritical concern over human rights in Sri Lanka is simply a convenient means to pressure the Colombo government and counter the influence of rival powers in the country, particularly China.
As for India, China and Russia, their contempt for the Tamil masses was graphically illustrated at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in May, when they pushed through a resolution praising the Sri Lankan government’s victory in its criminal war.
On this as every other issue, the appeals by the NSSP and USP to the “international community” stem from their hostility to any independent mobilisation of the working class, the only social force capable of mounting a genuine struggle for the democratic rights of Tamils and the entire working class.
The SEP calls on all workers to demand the release of the Tamil detainees and for billions of rupees to be provided to help them rebuild their shattered lives. Sinhala workers, in particular, must come to the direct aid of their Tamil class brothers and sisters. The campaign must be based, not on worthless appeals to the imperialist powers and the den of international gangsters known as the UN, but on a turn to the working class throughout South Asia and around the world.
The working class in every country has a responsibility to defend the democratic rights of working people in Sri Lanka. The Rajapakse government’s actions are only a particularly sharp expression of international processes. Under the banner of the “war on terrorism”, governments around the world, with the US in the lead, are tearing up long-standing legal norms as they prepare for new wars abroad and deepening class conflict at home. The defence of democratic rights is intimately bound up with a struggle against the outmoded capitalist order and for the complete refashioning of society on socialist lines.
The SEP urges workers, youth and all those concerned with defending democratic rights to support our campaign by sending letters, holding meetings and organising protests to condemn the Sri Lankan government and demand the immediate and unconditional release of all Tamil detainees
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October 8th, 2009 at 6:40 am
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October 8th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
1. Taking the second issue first, it may or may not be true that this is the first time in 4 months that an incident of this type has taken place. Given that the Sri Lankan government has not allowed journalists and independent observers access to the camps, it can be difficult to be certain whether other similar incidents have happened or not.
2. Allowing the displaced civilians freedom of movement does not mean sending them back to unsafe areas. Nor does it mean that they are allowed to leave the camps only if someone has registered with the government to host them. It means that the displaced civilians should be able to decide for themselves what their best option is, whether to stay in the camps or find somewhere else in the country to live (not including an area which is still unsafe). Unlocking the camps does not mean forcing the civilians out of the camps if they decide that the camps are their best option. I hope this clarifies what AI is calling for.
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October 8th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Tamils facing “cultural annihaliation” by SL Government: Australian Senator
“It may be argued that the Tamil people have a legitimate right to self-determination but what is essential now is that we must see an end to the oppressive and discriminatory policies of the victorious Sri Lankan Government” urged Greens Senator Ian Cohen in an address to the Australian Parliament on September 24th. Highlighting the “potential humanitarian catastrophe” faced by almost 300,000 refugees who “despite their desire and capacity to return home they are being held prisoner”, Senator Cohen described the Governments treatment of Tamils as “a litany of injustice, cultural annihilation and human rights atrocities”. Meanwhile, a Tamil NGO official in Vavuniyaa, while welcoming the interest of Australian politicians, said they should also come forward to “first address the question of double standards, employed by their government, between issues such as East Timor and Eezham.”
“The calls for addressing immediate humanitarian crisis in the island, knowingly brought in by the IC, are ineffective without addressing the fundamental question,” the IDP official in Vavuniyaa said adding that the current plight of Tamils is essentially a result of the “ideological bankruptcy of the International Community” in not being able to find universal formulas for recognising righteous questions of liberation.
Senator Cohen in his address said: “Human rights agencies say that there are between 30 to 50 ‘disappearances’ every day of people from the camps. The Sri Lankan Government may well be continuing its human rights abuses with these arbitrary arrests.” He blamed Colombo for its move to weed out alleged ex LTTE cadres within the camps as “collectively punishing the non-combatant civilians who wish to return home”.
“Many of the almost 300,000 internally displaced persons have relatives in Sri Lanka who are prepared to look after them” the Senator argued, describing them as “not economic refugees” but “rather government servants, teachers and farmers. All they want is to go home”.
“International pressure is being stifled in the United Nations and elsewhere” Cohen highlighted, describing China’s opposition to censure Sri Lanka at the Security council during the height of the onslaught as evidence “that the machinery of the United Nations has been emasculated by China’s veto as China considers Sri Lanka is in its sphere of influence” before slamming Beijing’s promotion of non-interference with national sovereignty as “convenient”.
Acknowledging close ‘cricketing ties’ between the two nations, the Senator urged the Australian cricket fraternity to speak up on the imminent humanitarian disaster in the camps to raise public awareness of the situation, stating that “cricketers as ambassadors for a sense of fair play and peace could save hundreds of thousands from despair and death”.
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October 8th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
The government of Sri Lanka is actively engaged in colonizing Ki’linochchi, Mullaiththeevu and Jaffna district with Sinhalese Buddhists in order to crush the demand for Eelam in the traditional homelands of the Tamils in the North, Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna parliamentarian, said in a press meet held Monday in his Jaffna office. He further accused the government for not accepting help from International Community in de-mining Vanni as it does not want the persons from foreign countries to see the mass graves of civilians killed by its armed forces in the Vanni during the war. The MP also said that though the government says that it had resettled 40,000 IDPs from Vavuniyaa internment camps, 95% of them have been again detained in new internment camps in their respective home districts under the direct control of Sri Lankan forces.
He said that he has the vital information to substantiate his claims.
The following is the gist of the information he gave at the press meet:
“In Ki’linochchi a large Sri Lanka Army (SLA) camp has been constructed in 150 acre area and the villages around it are to be colonized with Buddhist Sinhalese. A big Buddhist Vihara is being built based on claims that it is as ancient as the ones in the South in an attempt to steal the traditional homelands of the Tamils in the Vanni. This is part of a major plan to colonize sizable areas in the North with the motive of altering the ethnic demography.”
“Many small Buddhist Viharas are being erected along A9 road in Vanni for the religious activities of the Buddhist Sinhalese people brought from the South.”
“Similar plans are afoot to occupy around 30% of land in the districts of Mullaiththeevu and Ki’linochchi.”
“The government has not so far identified the mine infested places in Mullaiththeevu and Ki’linochchi from which the residents had fled wholesale though it has its military soldiers to do this job. The main reason for the government for not allowing de-mining personnel from other countries is that it fears the mass graves of civilians in Vanni would be disclosed to the world.”
“But the government makes much publicity that it has resettled 40,000 IDPs from Vavuniyaa camps in their own districts. But the truth is that 95% of these IDPs have again been detained in new internment camps in their respective home districts.”
“Meanwhile, the government is actively engaged in de-mining in 31 villages in Vavuniyaa and Mannaar districts so that it could relocate some of the IDPs in Vavuniyaa camps. On one side the government is trying to show that it is resettling IDPs with the view of getting the tax relief from the EU and on the other hand it intends keeping the people of Vanni from resettling in their own villages. Their ancestral places would thus be made vacant to colonize Buddhist Sinhalese.”
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October 9th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
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October 9th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
34 journalists and media workers killed during Rajapaksa brothers regime
APRIL 2004 – MARCH 2O09
2004
1. Aiyathurai A. Nadesan – Journalist / 31 May
2. Kandaswamy Aiyer Balanadaraj – Writer / 16 August
3. Lanka Jayasundera – Photo journalist/ 11 December
2005
4. Dharmaratnam Sivaram – Editor / 28 April
5. Kannamuttu Arsakumar – Media worker/ 29 June
6. Relangee Selvarajah – Journalist / 12 August
7. D. Selvaratnam – Media worker/ 29 August
8. Yogakumar Krishnapillai – Media Worker / 30 September
9. L. M. Faleel (Netpittimunai Faleel) – Writer / 02 December
10. K. Navaratnam – Media worker/ 22 December
2006
11. Subramaniam Suhirtharajan – Journalist / 24 January
12. S. T. Gananathan – Owner / 01 February
13. Bastian George Sagayathas – Media worker / 03 May
14. Rajaratnam Ranjith Kumar – Media worker / 03 May
15. Sampath Lakmal de Silva – Journalist / 02 July
16. Mariadasan Manojanraj – Media worker/ 01 August
17. Pathmanathan Vismananthan – Singer and musician / 02 August
18. Sathasivam Baskaran – Media worker / 15 August
19. Sinnathamby Sivamaharajah – Media owner / 20 August
2007
20. S. Raveendran – Media worker / 12 February
21. Subramaniam Ramachandran – Media personnel / 15 February
22. Chandrabose Suthakar – Journalist / 16 April
23. Selvarasah Rajeevarman – Journalist / 29 April
24. Sahadevan Neelakshan – Journalist / 01 August
25. Anthonypillai Sherin Siththiranjan – Media worker/ 05 November
26. Vadivel Nimalarajah – Media worker/ 17 November
27. Isaivizhi Chempian (Subhajini) – Media worker/ 27 November
28. Suresh Limbiyo – Media worker/ 27 November
29. T. Tharmalingam – Media worker/ 27 November
2008
30. Paranirupesingham Devakumar – Journalist / 28 May
31. Rashmi Mohamad – Journalist / 06 October
2009
32. Lasanntha Wickrematunge – Editor / 08 January
33. Punniyamurthy Sathyamurthy – Journalist / 12 February
34. Sasi Mathan – Media worker/ 06 March
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October 9th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
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October 10th, 2009 at 12:07 am
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October 10th, 2009 at 12:17 am
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October 10th, 2009 at 4:40 am
Dear, friend, thanks a lot for your informative and very helpful links. Your sincere efforts are deeply appreciated. I’m extremely worried about the cruel reshuffle of the Tamils (like cattle) from one concentration camp to another.
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=30357
Can you find some links on this subject, thanks again.
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October 10th, 2009 at 5:51 am
Q2. Why is the UN not asking the government to ban the usage of fire-arms in the camps? Usage of fire-arms at refugees (even if they were escaping as alleged) is a human-rights violation. I wonder why Amnesty International has not condemned and protested the use of fire-arms.
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October 10th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Bring the relevant articles and links here and we can discuss them
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October 10th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=30419
now HR say 250, 000, what happened to the remaining? how many killed(released to go to hell)? how many in the unknown cams? No free media allowd yet?
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October 11th, 2009 at 12:25 am
looking 4 more on Unlock camps
http://www.topix.com/forum/world/sri-lanka/TQJETU7CIHTL0Q11Q/p8
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October 11th, 2009 at 1:57 am
Thank you very much, for a lovely link, friend.
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October 11th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
North many buddist temple are been constructed, then colonize with budda, Tamils has to stay and die in the concentration camps.
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October 12th, 2009 at 8:51 am
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October 12th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
In response to various comments above, I’d ask that people commenting do not simply post links to articles or simply repeat text verbatim from articles. This site is intended for reasoned, thoughtful discussion of the issues raised by the blog entries. It is not intended to be a bulletin board. Please do not abuse the opportunity to comment.
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October 16th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
For those interested, I would note that there are two videos now on the Sri Lanka page of the AIUSA website (www.amnestyusa.org/srilanka) concerning the IDP camps – they can be found in the “Unlock the Camps in Sri Lanka!” box.
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October 17th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
over 80,000 children are in the camps, many severely malnourished
For IDP children, food becomes medicine
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/091018/News/nws_29.html
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October 22nd, 2009 at 10:41 am
Comments for this post have been turned off. Please see our most recent entries on this issue: http://blog.amnestyusa.org/tag/sri-lanka/
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