Pawns of an Un-heroic War

"The plight of the people of the Vanni, whose children are forced into military service by the LTTE and have suffered continuous death, deprivation and displacement because of the Government’s heavy weaponry, has long been headline news."

by UTHR (J)

(October 27, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The human rights situation in Sri Lanka is deteriorating with signs of it getting worse. At the same time the President’s pledge of a political solution once the war is won is disingenuous if one looks at the East where he claims he has restored democracy by instituting a toothless provincial council.

Today we are again witness to militaristic euphoria being sustained by an increasingly authoritarian regime terrorizing the people, the press and silencing voices of caution and humanity. The Government’s ‘war on terrorism’ quickly took on the character of an ideological crusade against the minorities in general, focused on the Defence Ministry. Fighting the LTTE has become almost secondary to the prerequisite of the extremists close to the corridors of power to establish a Sinhalese-Buddhist state and erase all semblance of pluralism. It is this obscurantism that in the first place kindled the present ethnic conflict. An important category that became targets of the State’s killer groups are those who are not LTTE sympathizers, but were active in defending and speaking up for legitimate Tamil interests. The result is the further isolation of the State from the Tamils.

A responsible government must think and do the political work it is there to do, in winning over the Tamils and to persuade the world that it has a viable plan to minimize the damage and loss of life, before sending in the armed forces. To conduct a war with the present chauvinistic outlook is utterly irresponsible by the Sinhalese youth being sacrificed, even if the State has no empathy for the Tamil victims. But what is to be gained by giving the Tamils the message that they would lose everything and have no place in this country if the LTTE is defeated?

On the other side the people are in this terrible plight because the LTTE for its totalitarian ends repeatedly spurned opportunities to reach a political settlement. The people’s relationship with the LTTE is complex. The general mood among the people of the Vanni was strongly anti-LTTE four months ago, and resistance continues. Resistance however to the LTTE is either passive of tragically fatalistic. With increased aerial bombing and shelling and stories of increasingly repressive treatment of minorities coming from other parts of the country, the mood is changing. Despite this the LTTE, by October 2008, had once again become very aggressive in conscription.
There was fear under the LTTE, but now there is terror, violence and extreme uncertainty under the much travestied label of democracy. The natures of internal terror and external terror and their dynamism have been regularly discussed in our reports. The first destroys the soul of the community and the latter creates continuous uncertainty and fear; both take away hope and dignity from the people. That is why for us the choice is not between an LTTE victory and a Government victory. Both are obnoxious in their aims and inimical for the people. Any evil ultimately burns itself out. We could only hope and pray that the suffering of the people would be brief, followed by a dawn of fresh hope.

The current political and human rights situation in East Lanka portends a dismal future for democracy and security in Lanka as a whole. The LTTE has regrouped and is carrying out regular attacks and there is a reported upsurge in incidents of abduction, searches and abuse of women by government security forces and allied paramilitaries. In the East where the Government’s public relations men boast of development and the restoration of democracy, there is greater fear, uncertainty and a deliberate cultivation of communal tensions.

In the North as the Army advancing along the western half of the Vanni edges closer to Killinochchi an estimated 200 000 displaced civilians are getting hemmed into the north-eastern corner of the Vanni, attempting to escape the ravages of the fighting. Facing abysmal conditions with continual bombing and shelling and forced to move at short notice, they had even stopped putting up temporary shelters. The choices for them were never human. Initially they moved north to escape shelling from the advancing army. Then the LTTE prevented those who tried to move into government-controlled areas. The Government in turn confines those escaping LTTE-controlled areas in mass detention centres from which they are not allowed to leave. Those in Vavuniya find themselves in a place of crime and lawlessness, where torture, murder, extortion, abduction and rape are routine and women are powerless. The blame lies mainly with the security forces and Tamil paramilitary elements working alongside them.

The South too will not escape unscathed. A very disproportionate burden in fighting the war is placed on the backs of rural Sinhalese youth sowing the seeds for future discord. For the poor everywhere it is their families that are their main source of joy. Instead of protecting and fostering that source of strength, the Government abuses their children as cheap cannon fodder for their perverted ideology.

The plight of the people of the Vanni, whose children are forced into military service by the LTTE and have suffered continuous death, deprivation and displacement because of the Government’s heavy weaponry, has long been headline news. The UN and international agencies were the only ones present to provide reliable humanitarian capability as well as to witness. That the whole structure was dismantled literally overnight on an order from a government too well known for its disregard of the rule of law and humanitarian norms, should make us wonder at the fragility of international machinery we expect so much from. It raises questions about what the international order and agencies should realistically aim for. Have humanitarian norms fallen victim to the ‘war on terror’, whose rhetoric so many nation-states across the globe find useful? Are influential governments being soft on the Lankan government, because they were earlier soft on the LTTE?

Since 1986 many people have posed the exasperating question, ‘How on earth does one deal with a phenomenon like the LTTE?’ It has over the years shown a capacity to descend to the lowest depths without any qualms in the treatment of its own people, do the unthinkable such as conscripting children as young as ten, exploit and betray the most intimate forms of trust and one could go on. To those who understand that this phenomenon grew out of a persistent denial of political rights to the Tamils, accompanied by humiliation and violence, it is in addressing these that the cure should begin.

In our past reports we have given more detail to exemplify the trends. We give a few cases here to show that if anything the human rights situation is deteriorating with signs of it getting worse. We do not minimise the importance of complete documentation. But the task is so demanding that it needs to be undertaken by organisations with the dedicated resources. It may not even be possible in the current climate of terror. Inquiring into an individual case is much more demanding and frustrating than it was two years ago and one is left with the uncomfortable feeling of being a source of danger to someone. One feels truly humble before those who are willing to expose violators under these perilous conditions.

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