‘70,000’ - the stubborn war figure Sri Lanka adores

By Rajasingham Jayadevan

Death counter cock

(March 14, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Sri Lankan government has imposed artificial ceiling on the revelation of figures on the casualties in the war that is plaguing the country since 1983. The figure of 70,000 is being well managed and remaining static without an up-word movement of a point even for over five years. The claims and disclosures of deaths on both sides of the divide is daily reported, but the figure of 70,000 remains stubbornly static due to the mechanical fault in the death counting clock.

The death counter clock needs servicing and lack of will on the part of independent monitors and reporters is not helping the clock to move at all.

The media reports use the 70,000 deaths as yardstick and either accept the static figure as the legitimate death toll or some reporters will use the term ‘more than’ to generally confirm further deaths in their reporting.

If one research into the death tolls by referring to the daily reporting in the media the count should have reached over 100,000 by now. The 70,000 claim does not include the deaths of former Foreign Minister Luxman Kadirgamar, LTTE’s Thamilchelvan, Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickramatunga and even the fifteen civilians killed in Matara suicide attack by the LTTE last week and the 200 tigers the government claimed its army killed in Vanni ten days ago.

The government was revealing the army casualties on a monthly basis until the end of December 2008 and total death claim went over 3,000 soldiers and these too did not move the counter clock. There were verifiable deaths of civilian casualties running into thousands and these too are disregarded and the modest 70,000 is helping the government of Sri Lanka in its campaign to down play the casualties.

There are hidden deaths tolls and how and when these will be included in the counter cock is anyone’s guess. The white van abductions, disappearances never being certified as deaths, the soldiers treated as missing in action, LTTE killings of Tamils in secret locations etc are mind boggling numbers event to think of and unaccounted yet.

Civilians trapped in the LTTE controlled area

In a bizarre development, another magic figure of 70,000 is being propped up by the government on the civilian population trapped in the current conflict area in the Vanni. Having prevented the independent media and the NGO’s into the war theatre, the government wants everyone to digest its claim of 70,000 civilians being trapped in the conflict area of Vanni. To justify, the government keeps on harping on its latest claim of 70,000 trapped civilians and some independent media too have accepted the government assertion.

Since the army started to move from the western flank, the civilian population too numbering over 200,000 shifted en mass to the east and they are now bottled up in the war front caught up between the LTTE and the army and the ravages of the air force bombings. The government which accepted that over 200,000 civilians were trapped until recently, suddenly somersaulted in its claim last month and played down the number to 75,000 to minimise the publicity on the catastrophe facing the trapped civilian population. Unable to confirm that over 130,000 people have moved out of Vanni to the government’s IDP camps, the government came out with the weird figure of 70,000 without any verifiable evidence through independent sources. -Sri Lanka Guardian