AI diverts attention from KP capture

By Lucien Rajakarunanayake

(August 15, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) At the height of the LTTE's final battle for the survival of terror through the holding of thousands of civilians hostage and as human shields for the safety of the terrorist leaders, and was using all available civilian from children to the aged to carry weapons for the cause of terror, Amnesty International (AI) was among the international organizations, along with some western countries, that tried to do their best to extend a lifeline to Prabhakaran and the other leaders of the LTTE.

The method they used was to call for a ceasefire allegedly for the safety of the civilians. Much was done to move international opinion, and powerful world bodies against Sri Lanka in this last ditch move to help the leaders of the world's most ruthless terrorist organization, so described by the US State Department.

The war in Sri Lanka is now over, after nearly 30 years, because the Government did not give in to the pressures brought on it at that time and also did not give ear to those pleaders like AI, for the cause of the LTTE, under the guise of pleading for the safety of Tamil civilians.

The result was that no sooner a path to escape was opened nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians, who are citizens of Sri Lanka, crossed over to Government held territory, in a life and death escape to freedom, with LTTE cadres shooting at them from behind as they fled their captors of the past several years.

The call for a ceasefire was a craftily thought out tactical move by AI and similar organizations, who were ready to risk jeopardizing their image of being fair, to please the expatriate Sri Lankan Tamil community in the West, with all the financial resources that were available to these forces that had been funding the LTTE's terror through nearly three decades. Amnesty International failed in its bid to help the so called "Tamil Diaspora" on that occasion, as did some prominent western political leaders, too.

But AI does not give up on a cause, especially if it is directed against a country that has a guts to stand up to international pressure, whether it comes from states or high profile crusaders for human rights, with their own agenda. So AI has launched a new campaign against Sri Lanka.

The KP diversion

It was on the night of August 6 that the story began breaking out about the arrest of KP - the successor to Velupillai Prabhakaran and the holder of the finances of the LTTE. By the morning of August 7, it was widely known that KP had been arrested by Sri Lankan undercover operators in daring operation in a South East Asian capital and been brought to Colombo for questioning.

The Tamils abroad who were thinking of reviving the LTTE through KP and the funds, sources for arms and other assets he had control over were dismayed. It was another major defeat to the forces of terror and separatism.

It was time for AI to step in to the scene. The interest had to be taken away from the arrest of KP and the further humiliation of the LTTE, and its troopers scattered abroad, especially in the West. AI's International Council meeting took place in Turkey last week and on August 7 it issued statement launching its new campaign against Sri Lanka. AI's Secretary General, Irene Khan, launched the new campaign - the "Unlock the camps in Sri Lanka". It was a well timed diversion to take the media focus away from KP and what he may be telling the Sri Lankan authorities; to distract world opinion from the existence of the remnants of the LTTE in so many countries of the West, who could very soon be dangers to those societies. So Irene Khan and AI have once again decided to use the Tamil civilians who fled the ruthless grip of the LTTE, to further its campaign against Sri Lanka.

The fact that the IMF had also not given too much credence to the appeals and at times demands that Sri Lanka not be given the Special Drawing Rights it sought for reconstruction and rehabilitation work, would also have prompted AI and others who think alike to have a new campaign to vilify Sri Lanka. So the nearly 280,000 Tamil civilians who are still in relief villages in the North of Sri Lanka, awaiting relocation to their homes in congenial surroundings are being made use of to attack Sri Lanka again.

Not real

There is precious little that is new in the AI campaign to "Unlock the camp in Sri Lanka". It's all a regurgitation of what has been said before, with little concern for the reality of steadily improving conditions in the relief villages, and the steady, although not large number of civilians leaving for resettlement and to start new livelihoods.

"Hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the recent war in North East Sri Lanka and living in camps are being denied basic human rights including freedom of movement", said AI in its opening remarks in the statement launching the new campaign.

It adds that: "Two months after the end of the fighting, the Sri Lankan authorities are still not addressing properly the needs of the newly displaced. The camps are overcrowded and unsanitary....In addition, these are effectively detention camps. They are run by the military and the camp residents are prevented from leaving them; they are denied basic legal safeguards. The Government's claim that it needs to hold people to carry out screening is not a justifiable reason to detain civilians including entire families, the elderly and children, for an indefinite period."

AI is obviously not bothered about reality. Yes there is still much crowding in the relief centres. It is still barely two months since that massive influx of people from the terrible experience of being held hostage by the LTTE. They do lack the complete freedom that other citizens of Sri Lanka have.

Screening is a necessary process, after a war that lasted 30 years, and in which the LTTEer indoctrinated and trained so many to carry arms. Each day the security forces are discovering hidden LTTE arms in places as far away as Colombo, and very close to the relief camps in Vavuniya, in parts of the East and North too.

The absence of legal safeguards for the citizens in the relief villages is disproved by the fact that some of them have in fact sought relief from the courts against some of the conditions they considered unsuitable.

The camps may be considered insanitary by those who are used to the comfort of western cities, but not in the more deprived areas of those cities, and the WHO itself bears witness to the fact that conditions regarding health are showing steady improvement.

There are mass vaccination campaigns being carried out and there are no epidemics that have broken out in the relief centres, contrary to the dire warnings of such possibilities made.

The health conditions have improved to the point where India had decided to take back its team of medical personnel who set up a field hospital, and later a permanent facility, for the people fleeing the LTTE from April this year, and has said that facility can now be manned by Sri Lankan medical personnel.

AI is so blind to reality in these places that it calls "detention camps" where there are cooperative stores, banks, a large flow of goods from outside given by donors hundreds of miles away, and irrespective of race, creed or caste.

It is also totally unaware, or does not want it known, that the authorities there have made arrangements for nearly 180 students to sit the GCE Advanced Level, the main school leaving examination in Sri Lanka, at Vavuniya earlier this week, having arranged for special tutoring in the earlier weeks. Some "detention camps" this must be.

These are the actual conditions in the relief villages that AI wants unlocked. It does not say where all these people are to go if set out. Are they to wander into mine infested fields to start cultivations, and be killed or maimed? Who is to give them sufficient craft to resume the fisheries that a large number were engaged in? How can people be asked to go and fend for themselves where there are still no proper roads, no electricity, no easy access to potable water, and no schools and hospitals and other necessary facilities and utilities?

AI may have thought it timely to talk of unlocking the camps in Sri Lanka, as a catchy slogan. But is only proof of how much it is locked in a determination to vilify Sri Lanka, for the benefit of the remnants of the LTTE and the organizations that supported the terrorist organization which caused so much death and destruction in Sri Lanka for so long.

AI may have thought it timely to try to take the focus away from the capture of KP - an internationally wanted criminal; wanted for financing terrorism, gun running, illegal arms purchases, drug dealing and the assassination of democratic political leaders, including India's Rajiv Gandhi. There are many more doors to lock in Sri Lanka and elsewhere, before the world is truly made safe from the LTTE and the remnants of its forces of terror.

AI should take a closer look at such realities before calling to unlock the camps in Sri Lanka. This is a game as cheap and unbecoming of an organization such as AI, as what it tried to do to humiliate Sri Lanka at the last Cricket World Cup played in the West Indies. AI and Irene Khan must know better than to divert world attention from KP and the remaining terror network of the LTTE.

-Sri Lanka Guardian