HRW sees floods as manna from heaven

By Lucien Rajakarunanayake

(August 22, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Rain is a blessing not only for the drought stricken farmers in several states of India. It is an even bigger blessing for Human Rights Watch (HRW). Last week we discussed how Amnesty International made its latest attack on Sri Lanka with a call to unlock the gates of the IDP relief villages in Vavuniya, to take the focus away from the arrest of KP, the most wanted figure in the LTTE after Prabhakaran. These organizations that claim to speak up for human rights (which they occasionally do) are ready to use anything and everything to attack Sri Lanka, for the benefit of the Western Governments, lobbyists, and the pro-LTTE expatriate Tamil community in the West, who are still unable to accept the reality of the LTTE’s defeat and the new changes that are and will take place in Sri Lanka.

The recent rains in the North have come as manna from heaven to HRW. It has used the rains and so-called flooding of the IDP relief villages in Vavuniya as a convenient peg to hang its latest attack on Sri Lanka and the treatment of the IDPs.

The HRW statement of August 17 uses the recent rains and the inundation of some areas of the relief centres with rain water (not flood water) for its swing at the Sri Lanka Government and its treatment of IDPs. Its opening volley is: “Floods caused by heavy rains unnecessarily threaten more than 260,000 displaced Tamil civilians whom the Sri Lankan Government has unlawfully detained in camps in northern Sri Lanka”. It is interesting to ask what it would say if heavy rains threatened such a large number of “lawfully detained”.

In its persistent desire to attack Sri Lanka to achieve the goals that the LTTE and its foreign supporters failed through the use of arms, and its constant efforts to show that conditions in Sri Lanka are not good for tourism and foreign investment, HRW and similar groups do not bother to do any homework to know the facts of the situation in the IDP relief villages in Vavuniya.

It is a Goebbelsian approach to anti-Sri Lanka propaganda. Repeat lies about the country, its Government and its people as often and as long as possible to make the world believe it is the truth.

HRW gives its own answer and solution to the problem and also proceeds to make serious allegations against the Government. It states that: “Permitting displaced families to move in with friends and host families would quickly address the deteriorating conditions in the camps with the onset of the rainy season.”

“The Government has detained people in these camps and is threatening their health and even their lives by keeping them there during the rainy season floods,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This is illegal, dangerous, and inhumane.”

In violation of international law, the Government has since March 2008 confined virtually all civilians displaced by the fighting between Government Forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in detention camps, euphemistically called “welfare centres” by the Government.

Only a few thousand camp residents have been released and allowed to return home or to stay elsewhere” It is good to know what these international laws the Government has violated in keeping those who were freed from the clutches of ruthless terror in relief villages, where have every facility possible under the given circumstances of the surge of civilians to escape terror, the funds and other assistance available and the necessity to properly screen such a large number of people, many of who may have been involved in the LTTE’s terrible record of terror, although a large number of them may have done so through coercion.

There is certainly a major problem in having the IDPs in areas from which they do not have the freedom to move out. This is a matter of serious concern which needs addressing, not in the manner that HRW or Amnesty International would want to, but in the manner best suited to the needs and realities in Sri Lanka.

For example, these Human Rights groups keep harping on the fact that persons over 60 continue to be held against their will in these relief centres.

One fact that is not mentioned is that the war with the LTTE went on for 30 years. A person who voluntarily joined the LTTE ranks or was forcibly conscripted into it when 30 years old, could well have been a fighter for 30 years, till reaching the age of 60. Are there to investigations to be carried out into the records of such people? Does the fact that one is 60 years old absolve anyone of the guilt of previous terrorist crimes, in which unarmed men, women, children, the clergy, intellectuals, trade unionists, teachers, elected democrats and so many others were brutally killed?

Has HRW raised one word of protest against the recent deporting of John Demjanjuk from the USA to Germany to stand trial on accusations of assisting in the murder of 29,000 Jews during World War II Going by the 60 years cut off age for the release in Sri Lanka demanded by the cry babies for human rights, does the 89 year age of Demjanjuk not hold as a mitigating factor in his favour? Or is it a case of the ethnic differentiation, where the killing of Jews in concentration camps deserve to be punished at whatever age, while the killing of Sinhalese, Muslims, Tamils, Burghers, and any others to serve the needs of the LTTE does not deserve any such investigation, trial or punishment, as is regularly done to the butchers of Jews under German Nazi rule, more than 60 years ago?

Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW says that keeping this large number of IDPs in the relief villages in “illegal, dangerous, and inhumane.” It’s nothing but unreal propaganda puff. It must be more specific about the laws being violated.

What are the dangers to the people in the relief villages? And how is it inhumane, considering the conditions they have escaped from, and the arrangements that are actually being made, with help from several foreign governments and genuine relief organizations too, to have them resettled, rehabilitated when necessary and provided with new livelihoods as soon as it is humanly possible. It is interesting that HRW has itself to now refer to around 260,000 people being in the relief villages, which is reduction of 20,000 from the earlier figure of 280,000. Which shows that resettlement is in fact taking place, but not at the pace at which HRW demands it.

In its rush to condemn the Sri Lankan authorities for temporarily keeping the IDPs in the current locations at Vavuniya, where they are alleged to have been affected by floods, one wonders what HRW and its ilk would have said, if by some huge misfortune, there was an earthquake that caused major death and destruction in such a place? There is hardly any doubt that an organization such as HRW would place the entire blame on the Government of Sri Lanka, for the earthquake. That is how these people think and act to serve the goals of the remnants of the most ruthless terrorist organization in the world.

As for the much criticized flooding at Menik Farm relief centre itself, it is useful to quote the Disaster Management and Hayman Rights Minister, Mahinda Samarasinghe’s report to Parliament, Sri Lanka’s supreme legislature, on August 19: “As of last evening, I have received reports from the DMC to the effect that there is no stagnation of rainwater inside the camps. I repeat that there is no large-scale flooding and as I have said earlier, construction work is ongoing to improve the conditions.”

And it is not that no action is being taken to prevent possible, actual flooding when the monsoon breaks later.

The Minister has detailed all the actual steps that are being taken by the Government, together with relief agencies working with it, to alleviate any major threat to the IDPs in such an eventuality.

This is what the Minister told Parliament: “I can report that we have made substantial progress in preventing and/or mitigating the risk of flooding in the camps in the Menik Farm area. In accordance with decisions taken to date the Disaster Management Centre’s Disaster Risk Management program assisted by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) will bear the costs of developing contour maps for all IDP zones while the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) will support initiatives related to drainage system development.

The project will be implemented in two stages to minimize the delays that could occur between the planning and implementation periods.” It is obvious that HRW had taken no trouble to make inquiries about these matters before issuing its statement about flood waters causing major problems for the IDPs at Vavuniya.

And about the health hazards that HRW has expressed concern, here is the actual situation. “Moving on to the health issue, Mr. Speaker, I am informed by the Healthcare and Nutrition Ministry that the moderate rain that occurred last week has not resulted in any major health or health related issues. None of the health centres were affected and all centres are functioning at normal capacity.

Health personnel are supplied with adequate protective clothing and are actively working. The communicable disease situation is monitored closely and, so far, there is no reported increase of any communicable disease.”

We can be sure that HRW will issue more such statements about the situation of the IDPs in the North, which are total departures from the truth, as well as not being issued in the interests of the IDPs, but those who are those LTTE supporters who are living in great comfort and convenience abroad today, and have been living so, when the Tamils that they are crying about were undergoing the worst suffering under the LTTE for decades. HRW will be looking for more manna from heaven to attack Sri Lanka with.

-Sri Lanka Guardian