Sri Lanka Civilians tell of War Ordeal

By Swaminathan Natarajan
BBC Tamil service

Civilians fleeing the area in north-east Sri Lanka where Tamil Tiger rebels and government forces are in fierce conflict have been telling the BBC of the ordeal of life under almost constant gunfire. Added to the intense shelling there is an acute shortage of water, food and medicine.

The civilians also confirmed the long-levelled accusations by human rights groups that the Tigers are forcefully recruiting young children and are stopping people from moving out to government-controlled areas.

Some of the injured civilians from Wanni have been brought to Pulmoddai hospital in Trincomalee district on a ship under the supervision of the Red Cross. After receiving initial treatment in a medical facility manned by a medical team from India, patients are sent to various hospitals in the north for further treatment.

Child recruitment
The BBC Tamil service secured rare access to some of the civilians who had arrived at Pulmoddai hospital, accompanying injured relatives.

Sridharan is one of more than 800 civilians who have arrived in the past few days on the ship. He is hoping to get medical treatment for his three-year-old son Vidushan. “My wife was killed last Friday in a shell attack. My son was injured. He has an injury in his back. Living conditions are getting very bad there. We had nothing to eat for the last five days. Prices are going up every day,” he said. A doctor at Pulmoddai hospital said some patients had lost limbs and most had shellfire injuries.

The area designated by the Sri Lankan government as a “safe zone” is about 20 sq km of coastal land in Mullaitivu district. The government on Sunday said the Tigers no longer controlled any area beyond this. Estimates of the number of civilians trapped in the area vary from 50,000 to 200,000. The Sri Lankan government and other international organisations have repeatedly urged the rebels to free civilians in the conflict zone. The Tamil Tigers say the people are choosing to stay. Independent journalists are not allowed to go to the war zone.

The Tigers have continuously denied accusations of recruiting children. But the recent batch of patients who reached Pulmoddai say rebels are showing no mercy and are taking away as many people as possible from families. One civilian, Kauruppaiah Ganapathipillai, said: “The Tigers are increasing the recruitment of children. Now one cannot even send the children out to fetch water. “They are even taking 14-year-old kids. In some cases which I know they have taken four to five people from the same family. There is continuous shelling. Scores are dying every day.”

Sources from a local hospital say hundreds of civilians die every week due to shell attacks. The Tigers have accused the army of regular and indiscriminate shelling of civilians but the military denies this. The UN and aid agencies have accused the government of not taking enough measures to protect civilians caught in the conflict zone.

Head injury
Moving to government-controlled areas is not an easy option for trapped civilians. One woman who fled, Pakkiyavathi, said: “People take great risks to escape. They have to walk for days braving shelling. If [Tamil Tiger] cadres spot them they will fire at them. “A few days ago more than 200 people tried to cross over to the government-controlled areas on their own. [Tamil Tiger] cadres fired at them, one was killed.” The civilians also say that most of the houses and shops have been destroyed and it seems that there are only a few wells to meet drinking water needs.

One civilian, Shanmugaraja, says his wife was hit by a shell five days ago and sustained a serious head injury. He says by coming to Pulmoddai hospital her chances of survival have improved. “A piece of pellet is still inside her head. It is very difficult to live there. We had nothing to eat. In the [Tamil Tiger] controlled area there is no electricity and a big shortage of water. You have to wait in long queues to get water. People think [the Tigers] are losing but many don’t feel sad about this,” he said.

There remains no guarantee that life will change for the better once the civilians cross to government-controlled areas. One mother, paralysed from the waist down, told her story to an NGO supported by Christian Aid after she reached a government camp. “My husband was pushing me on a bicycle, searching for safe areas. In the worst of the fighting we lost the bicycle – I was in a bad situation. Ultimately we all had to scatter and the family was separated. “Somehow we were able to get out of the war zone and reach a safer place. We were then locked up in a fenced area, isolated from the people outside. But we were alive.” She added: “We are prevented from freely meeting with visitors. Even if we can make contact with family outside, all we can do is talk to them through the wire fence. “The people are suffering under these rigid restrictions. Wives, husbands, children, friends are kept apart and cannot share their painful feelings or support each other.” The Sri Lankan government has promised to improve the conditions in the camps.

Due to the intense fighting over the past few months a number of families have been displaced many times, some more than a dozen. Most of them have lost everything they had. One elderly lady, Kanagasabapathi Rasamma, broke down while narrating her journey. “We have come from Pudumathalan hospital. There is fighting everywhere, bombing and deaths… Oh God how much we have suffered… What we did to endure this… Nobody is there to save us. No-one is helping us,” she said.

Source: www.bbc.co.uk/news

Exit the Tiger, Enter the Dragon

by Dushy Ranetunge in London

The West wants a “humanitarian pause.” Whenever anyone uses the word “humanitarian”, its like politicians kissing babies, its time to get worried. The word “humanitarian” is another word for “weapons of Mass destruction”. It smacks of an agenda, certainly not a “humanitarian” one. Remember the “humanitarian” flour bombing of Jaffna. The “humanitarian” operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and even Sudan. There was also that very “humanitarian” operation in Mavil Aaru. Not to forget the one we are having in the Vanni as well. Right now in the East coast there is another “humanitarian” Indian army medical team doing, you know what.

So has the world, including Austria, Costa Rica and Mexico suddenly woken up, mounted their white stallions and are galloping to the rescue of Tamils who are “trapped” in between the nasty LTTE, and the biscuit and tea offering, cotton wool caring Sri Lankan armed forces? I suspect that only the galloping part is accurate. The Government of Sri Lanka could not have succeeded in their present course of action, if not for the internationally favourable position to pursue its military strategy – I call these trade winds. The government is playing a very high quality chess game with great skill in the international arena, by carefully reading the game, so far, accurately. No previous government has in my opinion played this game with such skill. But, they are sailing very close to the edge.

Sri Lanka is a mere pawn in the international chess game, a pawn that has certain strategic value. Indian and Western powers want influence over this pawn in their favour and they view the Sinhala-Tamil conflict as a strategic tool for this purpose. Mrs Gandhi did not train and arm the early Tamil militants because of her love for Tamils. It was because India was at the time pro-Russian and she wanted to “control” a pro-Western Jayawardene’s Sri Lanka. This Indian foreign policy in relation to Sri Lanka fitted in with the Tamil cause and they hitchhiked on the slum dogs.

This strategy needed Tamils to be the pawns of India and as soon as the LTTE rejected this, the two parties fell out. The next trade wind to affect Sri Lanka was Islamic fundamentalism. That wave ensured the banning of the LTTE around the world and Lakshman Kadirgamar guided Sri Lanka through that period to gain maximum benefit. The Rajapakse administration is presently riding the Chinese trade wind. The world is watching China, the sleeping giant of Asia awakening, slowly becoming the super power of the 21st century. The world is aware of the long unbroken relationship of Sri Lanka with China going back to Sirimavo and Mao Tse Tung. Sri Lanka is China’s most stable and consistent ally in South Asia. For India, the earlier equation of Pro-Russian Indira and Pro-Western Jayawardene is no longer valid as India is also now in the Western economic camp. For them too, the new concern is China, with whom they fought and lost a war. India is emerging as Washington’s key economic and strategic partner and is concerned that developments in Sri Lankan will impact negatively on its interests. Rajapakse has repositioned Sri Lanka reducing its reliance on the West and increasing its engagement with China. Sri Lankan officials comment that the level of aid that we get from the West is negligible. China has begun a process of building capacity around the globe, with significant input in Africa to secure markets and raw material.

One of its major projects are in Sri Lanka at Hambanthota, where its shipping, bringing in Oil and other raw material and its exports to Europe are passing six miles from Hambanthota in the major sea lanes. For the Chinese this is a strategic investment. China favours the Sri Lankan state to have complete, uncontested political and military control over the Island, so that Sri Lanka cannot be compromised in any way in its allegiance to Chinese strategic interests. The Wickremasinghe administration’s action of handing over Trincomalee oil tanks etc to India was to safeguard Sri Lankan strategic interests. This would not have taken place if the LTTE had been marginalised previously.
Removal of the LTTE from the equation strengthens China’s position in Sri Lanka and weakens Indian and Western control over Sri Lanka.

Control over the pro-LTTE Tamil Diaspora also gives the West a certain degree of control. With the straining of relationships between Sri Lanka and the UK, highlighted by the Des Browne affair, we see Britain turning a blind eye to increased LTTE fund raising currently going on in the UK. The LTTE fundraisers are going around saying that even if they lose territorial control in Sri Lanka, they intend staying around for another 20 years.

Britain has also turned a blind eye towards a LTTE front, British Tamils Forum, assisted by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils (APPG-T), hosting an international conference, titled “World Tamils Forum”, on Thursday, 26 March 2009 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in London. These events do not take place without the knowledge of New Scotland Yard, Specialist Operations. Des Browne was one of those present, together with Rev Jesse Jackson. Colombo ignored the event rejecting Jackson as yesterday’s man. Britain would not have dreamt of allowing a group allied to a radical Islamic group to put on such a show in London. By allowing the event, Britain is sending a signal that it is treating a front organisation of a terrorist group that assassinated Rajiv Gandhi and President Premadasa in a different light to that of Islamic fundamentalists.
But then, Britain will argue that they did business with the IRA, who assassinated Lord Mountbatten.

The present “Humanitarian” pause smacks of a Western agenda, rather than the World coming running to help the Tamils. It is an attempt by the West and India to counter Chinese strategy in Sri Lanka and to safeguard their strategic interests. Sri Lanka has already allowed an Indian “humanitarian” presence in the form of an Indian military medical team on the East coast. It is hard to believe that those who dropped atomic bombs on civilians in Japan, dropped napalm on civilians in Vietnam, have killed more civilians in Iraq than Saddam Hussein, looked the other way while the Jews were being gassed in Germany, carpet bombed the civilian city of Dresden to the ground, herded civilians into concentration camps in Malaya (teaching our brothers a thing or two), watched over the carnage in Rwanda, have suddenly found humanitarianism in their hearts towards the Tamils.

The Tamils around the world are distraught, watching their families bombed, shot and chopped by those claiming to be liberators, and yes, “humanitarians”. Those who manage to escape are only swapping prisons. They leave an open prison run by the sole reps, to a brand spanking new one, complete with a glistening razor wire boundary, run by the humanitarians. The humanitarians will of course argue that they are making omelettes and that omelettes cannot be made without breaking eggs. Then they will bless you and talk of the triple gem. War on terror has resulted in the abandonment of the triple gem, and embracing radical Catholicism and Islam. Its no longer the middle path, but the philosophy of medieval Catholicism and Islam. Then it was the Crusades and the Bible or death. Then it was the Jihads, the Koran or death. Today its “you’re with us, or you are against us.” You can only spread our gospel, of the “humanitarian” patriots. The middle path is as dead as the enlightened one.

The Western world have been preoccupied with other issues and have been taken by surprise by the speed and the momentum of the Sri Lankan military advance. Suddenly, it has dawned on them that the politico military landscape of Sri Lanka has changed and is continuing to change rapidly. They have suddenly woken up to the prospect that in Sri Lanka, the exit of the Tiger, will result in ‘enter the Dragon’. The West is scrambling to press the pause button. A humanitarian pause, of course.

Source: www.transcurrents.com

The Silent Horror of the War in Sri Lanka

by Arundhati Roy

The horror that is unfolding in Sri Lanka becomes possible because of the silence that surrounds it. There is almost no reporting in the mainstream Indian media — or indeed in the international press — about what is happening there. Why this should be so is a matter of serious concern.

From the little information that is filtering through it looks as though the Sri Lankan government is using the propaganda of the ‘war on terror’ as a fig leaf to dismantle any semblance of democracy in the country, and commit unspeakable crimes against the Tamil people. Working on the principle that every Tamil is a terrorist unless he or she can prove otherwise, civilian areas, hospitals and shelters are being bombed and turned into a war zone. Reliable estimates put the number of civilians trapped at over 200,000. The Sri Lankan Army is advancing, armed with tanks and aircraft.

Meanwhile, there are official reports that several ‘‘welfare villages’’ have been established to house displaced Tamils in Vavuniya and Mannar districts. According to a report in The Daily Telegraph (Feb 14, 2009), these villages ‘‘will be compulsory holding centres for all civilians fleeing the fighting’’. Is this a euphemism for concentration camps? The former foreign minister of Sri Lanka, Mangala Samaraveera, told The Daily Telegraph: ‘‘A few months ago the government started registering all Tamils in Colombo on the grounds that they could be a security threat, but this could be exploited for other purposes like the Nazis in the 1930s.
They’re basically going to label the whole civilian Tamil population as potential terrorists.’’

Given its stated objective of ‘‘wiping out’’ the LTTE, this malevolent collapse of civilians and ‘‘terrorists’’ does seem to signal that the government of Sri Lanka is on the verge of committing what could end up being genocide. According to a UN estimate several thousand people have already been killed. Thousands more are critically wounded. The few eyewitness reports that have come out are descriptions of a nightmare from hell. What we are witnessing, or should we say, what is happening in Sri Lanka and is being so effectively hidden from public scrutiny, is a brazen, openly racist war. The impunity with which the Sri Lankan government is being able to commit these crimes actually unveils the deeply ingrained racist prejudice, which is precisely what led to the marginalization and alienation of the Tamils of Sri Lanka in the first place. That racism has a long history, of social ostracisation, economic blockades, pogroms and torture. The brutal nature of the decades-long civil war, which started as a peaceful, non-violent protest, has its roots in this.

Why the silence? In another interview Mangala Samaraveera says, ‘‘A free media is virtually non-existent in Sri Lanka today.’’

Samaraveera goes on to talk about death squads and ‘white van abductions’, which have made society ‘‘freeze with fear’’. Voices of dissent, including those of several journalists, have been abducted and assassinated. The International Federation of Journalists accuses the government of Sri Lanka of using a combination of anti-terrorism laws, disappearances and assassinations to silence journalists.

There are disturbing but unconfirmed reports that the Indian government is lending material and logistical support to the Sri Lankan government in these crimes against humanity. If this is true, it is outrageous. What of the governments of other countries? Pakistan? China? What are they doing to help, or harm the situation?

In Tamil Nadu the war in Sri Lanka has fuelled passions that have led to more than 10 people immolating themselves. The public anger and anguish, much of it genuine, some of it obviously cynical political manipulation, has become an election issue.

It is extraordinary that this concern has not travelled to the rest of India. Why is there silence here? There are no ‘white van abductions’ — at least not on this issue. Given the scale of what is happening in Sri Lanka, the silence is inexcusable. More so because of the Indian government’s long history of irresponsible dabbling in  the conflict, first taking one side and then the other. Several of us including myself, who should have spoken out much earlier, have not done so, simply because of a lack of information about the war. So while the killing continues, while tens of thousands of people are being barricaded into concentration camps, while more than 200,000 face starvation, and a genocide waits to happen, there is dead silence from this great country. It’s a colossal humanitarian tragedy. The world must step in. Now. Before it’s too late.

The Times of India
30 March 2009

Stop the Humanitarian Catastrophe in Sri Lanka

To: Indian Mission to U.N.
February 25, 2009
Hon Nirupam Sen,
The Permanent Representative,
Republic of India, to the United Nations.

Dear Ambassador Sen,

We, the undersigned Indian citizens and persons of Indian origin, are writing to insist on urgent and effective action by the Government of India to stop the unfolding humanitarian disaster in northern Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government’s indiscriminate military actions have exacted an appalling toll on the civilian Tamil population. Unless India does its part to negotiate an immediate ceasefire, civilian casualties will continue to escalate, tarnishing India’s claim to be a morally responsible regional power.

Indeed, we have watched with growing dismay the Indian government’s effective complicity with the Sri Lankan government’s ongoing efforts to brutalize the Tamil minority. There is considerable evidence that, while publicly calling for a “political solution”, the Indian government has covertly supplied military equipment and training to Sri Lanka. In July 2007, Sri Lanka’s army chief, Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka, told journalists that India was training 800 officers annually, free of charge, describing India’s support as “huge”. Furthermore, there are credible reports indicating that India’s support for the Rajapakse government is based on base economic calculations: that Tamil areas destroyed by Sri Lanka’s ferocious military offensive will offer lucrative investment opportunities for Indian companies under the guise of helping Tamils living there.

If these reports are true, India’s economic and political gain will have been purchased in blood and lives. The humanitarian situation in northern Sri Lanka is now catastrophic. According to Human Rights Watch and Sri Lankan rights groups, since January 2009 alone, at least 1,000, and perhaps as many as 2,000, Tamil civilians have been killed as a result of the Sri Lankan military’s continuing artillery attacks and aerial bombing offensive. The military has openly targeted urban areas, including schools, hospitals, and buildings that house civilians. As a result of these reprehensible tactics, a further 7,000 people have been injured; many young children have had their limbs amputated. The Sri Lankan government, believing it is on the verge of final victory over the LTTE, has resisted all calls for a ceasefire. For its part, the LTTE continues to prevent around 200,000 civilians leaving the 50 sq. km. or so territory it still holds, effectively using these civilians as human shields.

The government is keeping those who have managed to flee the onslaught in detention camps that it has cynically and misleadingly termed “welfare villages”. Arguing that the population of internally displaced people includes “terrorists” in its ranks, the Sri Lankan government has announced plans to hold up to some 250,000 civilians – even very young children – in the camps for a period of three years. It has requested funds from the U.N. and other aid agencies to build schools, banks and hospitals inside these camps. There is credible fear that, while detaining this population, the Sri Lankan government will settle majority Sinhalese in northern Sri Lanka.

 The Sri Lankan’s government’s ongoing offensive matches in scale and brutality the recent Israeli assault on Gaza, and deserves the same widespread condemnation. The recent appeal issued by the Indian External Affairs Ministry “to the Sri Lankan Government and to all concerned to work out appropriate and credible procedures for the evacuation of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to safety, which would include the international agencies being able to oversee the movement of the IDPs” is a step in the right direction.

But it is not enough. We ask the Government of India to call for an immediate ceasefire in northern Sri Lanka, to provide urgent medical and humanitarian assistance to war refugees, and to challenge the Sri Lankan government’s proposal for compulsory confinement of these refugees in detention camps for as long as three years.

India claims to be a strong international voice for democratic rights. We think it is time for our government to speak up.

 Sincerely,

 The Undersigned

 

to sign the above petition go to: http://www.petitiononline.com/mannar/petition-sign.html

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right

by Ramachandra Guha

February 15, 2009

In a recent essay in the Economic and Political Weekly, the political  scientist Neil DeVotta quotes a Sri Lankan Government Minister as  saying: ‘The Sinhalese are the only organic race of Sri Lanka. Other communities are all visitors to the country, whose arrival was never challenged out of the compassion of the Buddhists. But they must not take this compassion for granted. The Muslims are here because our kings let them trade here and the Tamils because they were allowed to take refuge when the Moguls were invading them in India. What is happening today is pure ingratitude on the part of these visitors’.

Commenting on these and other such statements made down the years, DeVotta says they form part of a ‘nationalist narrative that combines jeremiad with chauvinism’. In this narrative, ‘the Sinhalese only have Sri Lanka while the island’s other minorities have homelands elsewhere; Sri Lanka is surrounded by envious enemies who loathe the Sinhalese; those living across the Palk Straits in Tamil Nadu, especially those who want to overtake the island; and NGOs, Christian missionaries, human rights groups, and various Western powers and their organisations conspire to tarnish the image of the Sinhalese Buddhists and thereby assist the LTTE. Those who subscribe to this narrative are patriots; the rest are traitors’.

Although DeVotta does not make the comparison himself, in reading the sentences he quotes, as well as his own analysis, I was irresistibly reminded of the rhetoric used by the majority chauvinists of my own country. The main ideologues of the tendency known as Hindutva, such as V. D. Savarkar and M.S. Golwalkar, have argued that Hindus, and Hindus alone, were the true, original and rightful inhabitants of the land known as Bharat. In their view, the other communities were late comers or interlopers, whose presence here was permitted only because of the ‘tolerance’ of the Hindus. Regrettably, these minorities — Muslims, Christians, etc — were often not grateful enough to the majority. Hence the need to periodically issue them a warning.

In the perspective of the chauvinist, a proper, good and reliable Sri Lankan must apparently be a Tamil-hating or at least Tamil-distrusting Sinhala. Change a word or two, substituting ‘Indian’ for ‘Sri Lankan’, ‘Muslim’ for ‘Tamil’, and ‘Hindu’ for ‘Sinhala’, and you arrive, more-or-less, at the core beliefs of Hindutva. The parallels run further still. Consider the strong element of paranoia that characterises the Hindu as much as the Sinhala chauvinist. Thus the Sinhala bigot venerates the memory (or the myth) of a king named Dutegemunu, who back in the 2nd century BC is believed — or alleged — to have defeated a Tamil king. The exploits — real or imagined — of Shivaji and Rana Pratap serve the same symbolic purpose for the Hindu bigot, which is to invoke a militantly nationalistic past in which the foreigner or invader was humbled or killed In India, as in Sri Lanka, the myths of the past inform the poisonously practical politics of the present. Thus the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh also rants on about the various Western powers out to demean and defeat Bharat Mata; it also reserves a particular opprobrium for NGOs and human rights groups. But it goes further — singling out, as particular enemies of the Hindu nation, those independent-minded intellectuals whom they deem to be in thrall to the unholy Western Trinity of Marx, Mill and Macaulay. (Since there is no substantial intellectual class in Sri Lanka, the Sinhala bigots can, fortunately for them, claim one enemy less.)

To be sure, similar forms of chauvinism can be found in other countries as well. In South Asia itself, the Islamists in Bangladesh and Pakistan consider their chief enemy within to be the Muslim liberal who engages with the West; and their chief enemy without to be the malign Hindus of India, here accused of conspiring to keep the Islamic umma from claiming its rightful place. Looking further afield, we have those Americans — such as the late political scientist Samuel Huntington — who claim that only those who speak English, celebrate the achievements of the West, and have an allegiance to the Christian creed can count as wholly reliable citizens of the United States of America.

Many years ago, the great Kannada writer Sivarama Karanth insisted that it was impossible to talk of ‘Indian culture as if it is a monolithic object’. ‘Indian culture today’, he pointed out, ‘is so varied as to be called “cultures”. The roots of this culture go back to ancient times: and it has developed through contact with many races and peoples. Hence, among its many ingredients, it is impossible to say surely what is native and what is alien, what is borrowed out of love and what has been imposed by force. If we view Indian culture thus, we realise that there is no place for chauvinism.’

These words need to be read afresh in India. But, as the civil war in Sri Lanka nears its end, they need to be read and heeded across the Palk Straits too. Far from being ‘the only organic race’ of their island, the Sinhala almost certainly migrated there from eastern India. In any case, in later centuries the culture of the island has 
been influenced and enriched by many races and peoples, among them Tamils, Arabs, the Dutch, the Portuguese, and the British, who in religious terms were variously Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Parsi and atheist as well as Buddhist. The LTTE is a terrorist organisation — it is impossible to defend them. However, if their defeat at the hands of the Sri Lankan army leads to a consolidation of Sinhala chauvinism, it will be impossible to defend that, too.

Ramachandra Guha is a historian and the author of India After Gandhi

Source: Hindustan Times

The Members of South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) Express Concern over the Plight of Sri Lankan Civilians in the North

The members of South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) express horror at the escalating human tragedy and the plight of a quarter of a million civilians in the Northern region of Sri Lanka, who are trapped in the war zone, caught in the crossfire within a shrinking geographical space of 250 square kilometers; and urges the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government to halt hostilities and enable the evacuation of civilians to safety.

In this regard the cooperation of the LTTE is essential, as in the past it has actively prevented civilians from moving into government controlled areas.

SAHR expresses concern over the attacks on civilian hospitals in the region and reports from the ICRC that hospitals and ambulances have been hit by shelling, injuring several of their aid workers who were evacuating the wounded. While both parties blame the other for shelling the ‘No Fire Zone’ and civilian casualties, the people continue to bear the brunt of the military offensive. Those trapped in the conflict zone have limited or no access to food and medical facilities and are constantly subjected to shelling and aerial bombardment. SAHR urges both parties to abide by principles of humanitarian law, respect the sanctity of humanitarian spaces such as hospitals and No Fire Zones and take all possible measures to protect civilians.

According to reports the LTTE is refusing to allow civilians to leave the active combat area and move to safety, and using them as human shields in contravention of international humanitarian law. In yet another reported incident, the army has recovered 17 bodies of civilians including two children confirmed to be among the dead who were fired upon and killed by the LTTE while attempting to crossover to government controlled areas. The number of civilians injured has increased to 69. SAHR also condemns the reported suicide attack on a registration centre for displaced people fleeing the conflict zone, which was said to have killed 28, and injured about 90 civilians and soldiers.

 At the same time, SAHR calls upon the government of Sri Lanka to ensure that the rights of civilians who come out of the combat zone are respected and they are treated according to international human rights standards as citizens of Sri Lanka whose rights are constitutionally recognized and protected and not as criminals or suspected LTTE activists. In providing assistance to IDPs and drafting policy with regard to their return and resettlement we ask the government to respect and abide by the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement.

Signed by:
I. K. Gujral,       
Chairperson

Dr. Hameeda Hossain,
Co-Chairperson

On behalf of the members of South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR)
13th February 2009

In Sri Lanka, Tamil Women Suffer the Worst of War

By M.R. Narayan Swamy

New Delhi, Feb 12 (IANS) In one of the biggest hospitals in Sri Lanka’s north, many women patients wonder why they survived the fighting between the Tamil Tigers and the military that killed so many of their friends.

A woman in her late 40s frequently breaks down as she lies on a bed in a hospital in Mannar, clutching her son of two-and-a-half years who has lost a leg. Her two other children are missing, residents in the region say. She was among the large number of Tamils escaping from Kilinochchi, the former political hub of the Tamil Tigers, last month when a shell probably fired by the army exploded, ripping apart her son’s leg below the knee.

Losing no time, she handed over her other two children, a six-month-old son and a daughter of seven years, to a friend as she tried to find help to save her bleeding and wailing son. She managed to reach the hospital in Mannar, where she remains warded. She has no idea where the other children are – and whether she will see them ever again. She also has no news of her husband, who left their home long ago after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ordered him to serve their civilian militia.

Another patient at the hospital is a girl of 16 years who is left with only her upper torso. A resident of Mullaitivu district, both her legs came off in an aerial bombing seemingly targeted at the LTTE.

There is also a 22-year-old woman, seven months pregnant. Half her body got burnt when her house in Kilinochchi caught fire in aerial bombing. Her breasts are charred.

Remarkably, all these women are officially under detention at the hospital although some cannot even stir on their own. Since they came from areas the LTTE ruled for years, the doctors have been forbidden from discharging them. Human suffering shows no signs of abating in Sri Lanka’s bleeding war. Most of the pain is being borne by Tamil civilians, many of whom are destitute after repeatedly fleeing their homes.

As the Sri Lankan military remains poised to seize the last stretch of land held by the LTTE in Mullativu, civilians are fleeing from there in hundreds, desperate to get away from it all.

Medical personnel say that many of the patients in Mannar are traumatised after seeing scores of bodies along the road as they fled the fighting. Many bodies were torn apart. Many of the injured, reports say, simply bled to death because no help was available.

One woman told the doctor: “It is worse than the tsunami. At that time many came to help us. Now there is nobody.”

Hospitals in the northern districts of Mannar and Vavuniya every day receive dozens of wounded civilians. The really critical cases are sent to Anuradhapura, at the edge of the war zone. Most victims are children, women and elderly men. While the Vavuniya hospital has all kinds of patients, the ones at Mannar are mostly amputees – those without hands and legs.

Once out of the conflict zone, and left with nothing but the clothes they are in, the injured are dependent on the military and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for survival. There appears to be no precise count of how many have been wounded in aerial bombings and shelling. Tamils from outside have no access to army-seized Kilincochi where hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Tamils from Mullaitivu have taken refuge.

Civilians who have not been injured are taken to detention centres in Mannar, Vavuniya and Jaffna to find out if they are indeed non-combatants or LTTE fighters in disguise.

Source: Indo-Asian News Service

SAHR-SAFMA Peace Mission to New Delhi: Let People Unite against Terrorism and War

Lahore-New Delhi: 21-24 January, 2009
 
            South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR) and South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) have jointly decided to take a Peace Mission from Pakistan to New Delhi from 21st to 24th January 2009. The 22-Member Delegation will interact with civil society, media and political leadership of India to stress the need to keep the peace process going, jointly fight the scourge of terrorism at all levels and in every manner and avoid war in the best interest of the peoples of India and Pakistan. The Peace Mission will explore the possibilities of reciprocation by the civil society of India.

The Peace Mission condemns, unequivocally and unreservedly the November 26 terrorist attack in Mumbai as a most heinous crime against innocent people. We share the grief of the families of victims and the people of India whose friendship we cherish.  Unfortunately, this outrage has brought India and Pakistan to a dangerous crossroads and we hope we will not be diverted from the path of peace. The two countries must not allow the terrorists to hijack the peace agenda. They must resume the Composite Dialogue process, and the sooner the better. War or even a state of suspended hostility between India and Pakistan will blight the whole region’s future.

            India’s rage after Mumbai was justified and the world had sympathy for it. When Pakistan revealed its hurt it didn’t wash with the world and ended with bringing Pakistan’s democratic experiment under tremendous strain. Unfortunately the media on both sides did not pay due heed to the long-term interests of the subcontinent’s teeming millions.

            After passing through a denial mould, Pakistan has acknowledged that the surviving Mumbai raider came from Pakistan which it should have accepted much earlier. Subsequently, the interior ministry has ordered an investigation and vowed to bring the culprits to justice. We hope the investigation will be thorough and fair and the Pakistan establishment will take all possible measures not to let anyone use its soil for murderous games. Meanwhile, India must eschew anger and get Pakistan to engage in negotiations on the basis of verified facts of the Mumbai attack. Whoever planned the Mumbai carnage wanted to foment conflict between India and Pakistan and prevent the latter from securing peace in its north western regions? They did succeed partially, but they must not be allowed any further success.

            We appreciate the role of the international community in helping to defuse the situation and yet the South Asian context remains relevant. It is important that both India and Pakistan accept a South Asian cooperative methodology of resolving inter-state disputes. The wisdom may not appear realistic at the moment but it is unassailable. We must insist on evolving a SAARC mechanism for looking after our common problems.

Mumbai should not threaten Indo-Pak relations, nor should it endanger South Asia. It should compel South Asia to seek solutions to problems that are bound to become more trans-border than they are now. Terrorism is spreading like a disease. It has engulfed Afghanistan, a SAARC member, and has spread to most of Pakistan too. Some traces of it are already visible in India where a majority of the South Asian population lives. Instead of accusing each other of terrorism, the SAARC states must get together and discuss it as a common problem. A regional consensus against terrorism and extremism and a common strategy to fight it – that is the only answer.

            It is only in this context that SAARC states could ask one another for the surrender of terrorists guilty of cross-border outrages. There are two possible reactions to trouble as it looms on the horizon. One is to build high walls and block communication so that calamity stays on the other side of the border. This has not worked and may work even less in the days to come. The only casualties are the peace process and the truth. The other way is to open up the region to trade routes and transport networks allowing free movement of people, goods and information. The SAARC protocols on terrorism need to be made more effective.

The Mumbai attack was paradigmatic, which means patterns of behaviour must change fundamentally now for the sake of survival of SAARC states. This change cannot come through war. It must come through cooperation at both bilateral and regional levels. India and Pakistan must strengthen Joint Anti-terrorism mechanism. On the other hand, SAARC must evolve regional mechanisms and institutions to collectively fight terrorism, cross-border crimes, smuggling, narcotics trade and evolve a judicial forum to prosecute the terrorists and criminals wanted by one state or the other. We must forge friendship and burry the hatchet for ever. We wish India well, so should you Pakistan. The people must unite against terrorism and war and persuade their governments to forge unity against the common enemy.

Imtiaz Alam
Secretary General, SAFMA                                             

Asma Jehangir,
SAHR-HRCP, Pakistan

Statement Issued at the Conclusion of the “Aman Caravan” from Pakistan in New Delhi on 23 January 2009

The 26/11 attack on Mumbai has caused deep shock to people in Mumbai, elsewhere in India and in fact in the entire South Asia region.  There has of course been an outpouring of sympathy for the victims and their families; but the attacks have led to a serious questioning amongst many as to the planning and execution of this act of terrorism, and to interrogations of security and culpability. In addition, the rapidly growing militancy in South Asia, particularly in Pakistan, is extremely worrying. Governments must co-operate in dealing with this dangerous menace and the Government of Pakistan has an obligation to play a key role.
 
SAHR, a network of human rights networks in the region issued a press statement immediately demanding investigations into the Mumbai incidents and its likely causes.   In the aftermath of the hostile comments from one side and evasion from the other, SAHR Pakistan took an initiative for a Peace Mission from Pakistan to India to engage in dialogues with different groups of political leaders, professionals, civil society leaders, to share  concerns of  the  emerging threats to democracy and peace in India and Pakistan and to create a climate for shared solutions.
 
The SAHR initiative received immediate support from many organizations and individuals in Pakistan, particularly SAFMA.  In India, over 20 groups of activists who had been organizing meetings and rallies for peace, for de-escalating the tensions, welcomed the initiative.  Indian peace activists welcomed the group in Amritsar and Delhi and organized a full programme to maximize the effectiveness of this initiative.  SAHR is in particular, grateful to ANHAD and SANGAT who organized the logistics of the visit.  The Peace Mission does not represent any government or political party, this has been an entirely people’s initiative.
 
On 21 January, 24 human rights defenders, including lawyers, political leaders, artists, writers, members of Parliament from different parts of Pakistan crossed the Wagah border on foot and flew into Delhi, where they were joined by their counterparts.  To express their solidarity two SAHR members flew in from Bangladesh and Nepal. Between 22 and 23 January, the “South Asian Peaceniks” met with a large number of people.  Before leaving Pakistan, the delegation   had met with the Pakistan Foreign Minister, and with leading political leaders from different political parties. In India, cordial meetings were held with Dr Karan  Singh, Chairperson,  Foreign Affairs Department of the Indian National Congress Party, AB Bardhan, the Secretary General of the Communist Party of India,  Mulayan Singh Yadav, President, Samajwadi Party,  and Mr Shiv Shankar Menon,  the Foreign Secretary,.  Views were exchanged at a Round Table with  leading policy analysts, academics, former members of the civil service, editors to analyse possible plans of action which could be taken to defuse the situation, to start peace talks again and to press for action against the perpetrators.  At a public meeting,  as well as  at meetings with artists, writers and  cultural activists,  several speakers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh affirmed the need for collective understanding.  
 
The attack on Mumbai is not an isolated incident, similar incidents, not as well reported, have occurred elsewhere including several in Pakistan. In the Northwest of Pakistan, people are subjected to daily attacks by the Talebans, girls schools are being forcibly closed down.  In Bangladesh too there have been grenade and bomb explosions. The threat of such attacks is to our entire region and not only to one country.  Therefore it is important to share information, to build trust in each other and to act collectively. Most importantly, the Government of Pakistan and all major political parties in Pakistan whole heartedly condemned the Mumbai carnage and remain concerned at repercussions it has had on the relationship between India and Pakistan.
 
We have sensed continuing doubts in India about action from Pakistan Government and responses of the people of Pakistan.  We share the anguish and trauma faced by the Indian people.  We extend our sympathy and offer our cooperation.  In fact, in many parts of Pakistan, even in small towns there have been expressions of concern to protest the grenade attacks which have taken so many lives. In Bangladesh and Nepal there have been expressions of solidarity with the people of Mumbai and India.
 
During our meetings with different groups of people we have come across many diverse voices.  Some have been negative and untrusting, some have talked of “surgical strikes”, but the overwhelming voices we have heard have expressed a strong need for peace and understanding, despite the deep sorrow and anguish they continue to have regarding the Mumbai attacks.
 
The “Peace Mission”  welcomes these voices because we are convinced that there cannot be a military answer,  it would not only destroy Pakistan’s newly emerging democratic process, it would  also set back all our societies economically and make us vulnerable to global power politics.  Moreover, it would not affect the machinery of terrorists.  On the contrary it would give victory to the authors of Mumbai. We call for a greater sharing of information and understanding amongst ourselves and call upon our governments to facilitate the process of cooperation.  We call for a renewal of the peace process.
 
Despite the war mongering from different quarters within India and Pakistan we recognize and appreciate the restrained expressions from the Government of India. During our briefing with the Foreign Minister of Pakistan he too assured us that the Government of Pakistan will be thoughtful of its public statements.  This is an encouraging sign but we realize that results alone will bring sustainable peace.
 
We thank the media which has given our mission of peace much space.  We have been able to reach a wider public. At the same time we regret that the Press Trust of India circulated a report to different papers, covering a meeting where no journalist was present as it was a private exchange of views. We would urge the media to play a constructive and responsible role in promoting peace in the region.
 
SAHR will continue the process of deeper engagement between the people of South Asia so that decision making in the region comes from within. We are encouraged that a similar mission will be visiting Pakistan.
 
Finally, SAHR will continue to call for all acts of terrorism including the one in Mumbai to be thoroughly investigated and perpetrators of such acts to be brought to justice in a free, fair and transparent manner. We believe that in order to sustain peace, governments will also have to invest much more towards peace to make the process transparent so that the people of South Asia can enjoy its benefits and dividends.
 
 
New Delhi
23 January, 2009

Peace Activists are Great Folks, so why are we still in Trouble?

by Jawed Naqvi

A GROUP of battle-scarred peace activists from Pakistan was in Delhi last week. They included fighters for human rights, champions of free media, politicians who take on military dictators and freethinkers who work for democracy at home and peace in the neighbourhood. The unflappable and courageous Musarrat Hilali, vice-chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in the NWFP, who has lost friends and associates battling the Taliban’s stranglehold in her homeland, particularly struck me as one who needed to be heard and seen in India.

It is tempting to compare her with Sharmila Irom of Manipur. Her fast unto death now on for over six years against the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act in her state will inspire future generation of rights workers across India. Or Musarrat’s challenges could be even as threatening as Geetaben’s, the brave Hindu woman who was stripped and lynched in the streets of Gujarat by members of her own faith, because she was married to a Muslim, or Teesta Setalvad who fights religious bigotry in Gujarat and in the den of Shiv Sena in Mumbai.

Musarrat shared her experiences of a region where only the other day the bullet-ridden body of Shabana, the renowned dancer, was thrown in the centre of Mingora’s Green Square with two messages to the locals in the Swat Valley’s largest town: “un-Islamic vices” will no longer be tolerated, and the Taliban is now effectively in control.

Shabana’s body was found slumped on the ground, strewn with bank notes, CDs of her dance performances and pictures from her photo album. In case someone missed the point the Taliban commander Maulana Shah Dauran broadcast a warning on one of its FM radio stations in the valley that his men had killed her and if any other girls were found performing in the city’s Banr Bazaar they would be killed “one by one”.

The fact that Musarrat was largely ignored by Indian TV and newspapers during her two or three days in Delhi speaks more for the self-absorbed Indian media and its blinkered views about Pakistan, than about the insights she could have shared about an inaccessible region that has become a fountainhead of zealotry, a painful bout of which India experienced recently in Mumbai. Asma Jehangir, Salima Hashmi, I.A. Rehman were the other main interlocutors in the 24-member delegation that came here as South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR).

The group mostly included individuals who work in different fields in Pakistan under extremely adverse conditions, who have faced authoritarian governments and religious fanatics alike, and if I am not wrong most of them have been to jail at some point in their endless battles with state and non-state actors who cross their path. They are a truly laudable lot and there’s no one I can think of in India among the so-called civil society folks, who match their gutsy resolve to fight for democracy and liberal ideals as they do in Pakistan.

It was heartbreaking that with so much to offer in the cause of our shared fight against religious terrorism, the group was not given the audience they deserved. I am inclined to believe that it had to do with the mythology the Indian media nurtures about its notions of Pakistanis. Indian channels are happy to show repeated looped shots of a mullah on a Pakistani channel ranting that India be destroyed, if necessary with nuclear weapons. The mullah-stereotype fits snugly with the image needed to whip up hysteria with Indian audiences whenever it is needed, as we saw happening when Mumbai was attacked. Voices of sanity of the kind that SAHR or ANHAD or SANGAT, the groups that hosted the visit, bring to an India-Pakistan discourse are sought to be drowned chiefly because they question the stereotype.

Part of the blame for the low exposure the visitors received – and blame should be apportioned to avoid future hiccups must go to the habit of sectarianism that contuse to stalk the left and liberal groups in India. That alone may have prevented several major groups in Delhi from actively participating in the peace mission. I asked the Pakistanis if they faced a problem like it in their country. “Thank God, in Pakistan the mullahs are victims of their own sectarianism,” was the cheerful reply. Thank God for small mercies, indeed. I am sure, therefore, that if the net were cast wide enough and everyone who had a track record in speaking up for peace, democracy and fundamental rights was posted an invite, it would have made a big difference to the ambience, if not necessarily the outcome of the visit. The only group that brought 15,000 people on the streets of Delhi to condemn the war drums after Mumbai, and which, true to form, was ignored by the Indian TV channels, was the Communist Party of India (ML). They appeared to be shunned, though not by design surely, from the discussions that were organised with the Pakistani peace mission. It’s unforgivable.

At another level, there is a mismatch between the spaces that civil society groups have forged for themselves in Pakistan and their Indian groups who are getting increasingly marginalised from the mainstream struggles. The Pakistanis have thrown out a military dictator, restored the dignity of their judiciary and generally created a consensus for democracy to strike roots in an otherwise difficult terrain in their country. They are standing tall even in the unequal battle against religious fundamentalism. Indians were way ahead of their Pakistani counterparts in having a better-choreographed struggle, like the one they displayed in the overthrow of the emergency regime.

Moreover, they always have the inherent advantage of getting even with the government, or even the system, thanks to a degree of stable democracy that exists, although democracy by ballot alone can be harnessed to nefarious objectives as we see happening in Gujarat. At any rate, there is a greater need for Indian left and liberal groups to come together to fight for their spaces before it is too late. Their Pakistani counterparts and those from other surrounding countries equally engaged in struggles against religious tyranny and economic emancipation can thus join a more robust struggle in India.

Asma Jehangir led the group from Pakistan. It made all the right observations, though the logic of peace quite evidently failed to pierce the armour of jingoism. They indicated this to be the case. Some of the groups the peace mission met were “negative and untrusting”, some called for “surgical strikes”, but “the overwhelming voices we have heard have expressed a strong need for peace and understanding, despite the sorrow and anguish they continue to have regarding the Mumbai attacks”, an end of visit statement said. This brings me to an observation once made by Arundhati Roy, another person who was not invited to last week’s discussions, that civil society groups or and NGOs are not an effective substitute for a political movement. In the absence of a vibrant political campaign, well-meaning visits like SAHR’s would amount to no more than Band-Aid to help heal a hemorrhage. The answer perhaps does not lie in engaging rightwing hawks, as key members of the delegation tried to do, but in fortifying the shrinking liberal political space, and expanding it. That’s a lot tougher than finding grudging space on TV channels or newspapers.

Source: Dawn

26 January 2009