Voice of caution

She was another on of the victims of this brutal war, Photo by, Nuwan Jayathilleke from Batticaloa

By: B. Muralidar Reddy

The report of the University Teachers for Human Rights highlights the fragility of the military gains and warns of dangers ahead.

IT would not be an exaggeration to suggest that no single organisation, within or outside Sri Lanka, has shown the kind of courage that the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), or UTHR(J), has displayed, since its birth in 1988, in documenting the various aspects of the island nation’s nearly three-decade-old war. The miseries that innocent people suffer and the stifling of human rights by state and non-state actors figure prominently in its latest report. The 26th Special Report of UTHR(J) is a must-read for everyone who is interested in the “ethnic conflict” and the grief it has caused to millions for over two decades. The escalation of hostilities between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and government forces since July last year and the claims by the Mahinda Rajapaksa government about the “liberation of the East” form the backdrop of the report. It estimates that the current phase of the conflict has cost over 5,000 lives and displaced more than 300,000 people in the East and the North.

The meticulously researched report titled “Can the East be won through Human Culling?” demolishes several myths about the supposed gains flowing out of the so-called “liberation of the East”. The report brings to the fore the fragile character of the military gains and warns of the serious dangers ahead if the government and all other stakeholders fail to initiate immediate steps to instil trust and confidence among people of all ethnicities and religions in the “liberated” province.

The report has been in the public domain since August 3 and is replete with concrete examples of things gone horribly wrong in the execution of “Operation Liberation East”. Not a single fact or assessment made in it has been contested. The title of the report exposes the fundamental flaw in the government’s strategy. Capture of territory does not mean that the hearts of the people have been won over. But territorial gains seem to enjoy priority in the Rajapaksa government’s scheme of things.

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