Sri Lanka Tamils 'facing misery' in the world's 'largest displacement camp'
by BBC News
V Anandasangaree described condition in camps for civilians displaced by the country's war as "horrible".
The head of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) said hundreds of thousands faced misery and hardship.
He said there were food, health and sanitation problems in camps set up for Tamil civilians in northern Sri Lanka.
The United Nations says nearly 300,000 people have been displaced by recent fighting between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels.
The civilians have been housed in various camps, most of them in Manik Farm, near the northern town of Vavuniya.
The Manik Farm camp site, which is described by the UN as the world's largest displacement camp, houses around 220,000 people displaced by the fighting.
Health fears
Mr V Anandasangaree, the TULF leader, is one of the few remaining long-serving moderate Tamil political leaders in Sri Lanka. He has strongly supported the government's stance against the rebels.
"From the reports I get from the people [in the camps] they are good in some areas and horrible in many," Mr Anandasangaree told the BBC.
 V Anandasangaree has been a critic of the Tamil Tigers |
"Health, water and sanitation situation is horrible. Many people are having skin diseases as they didn't get a chance to have a shower for days because of water shortage.
"Pregnant mothers and newborn babies go through a harrowing time in the camps due to scorching heat," he said.
The Sri Lankan government accepts that conditions in some of the camps are not ideal but says facilities have been improved in many other camps. It says more land is also being allocated to build new camps to decongest those already full.
The United Nations and other aid agencies have also demanded better access to the camps to carry out humanitarian work.
Sri Lanka's government is wary of aid agencies and has complained that the agencies had helped the Tigers in the past.
Sri Lanka says it plans to resettle most of the refugees within six months.
Mr Anandasangaree, a well-known critic of the Tamil Tiger rebels, the LTTE, also faulted the government for viewing every Tamil civilian in the camps as a possible Tamil Tiger suspect.
Sri Lanka has said it needs time to weed out potential Tamil Tiger infiltrators hiding in the camps.
"The civilians risked their lives while fleeing from the LTTE-held areas as the rebels were shooting at them. If the government suspects such people as Tamil Tigers, then the entire population of the two districts - Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu - should be the suspects," he said.
"Then the government will never solve the problem."
Sri Lankan officials say they have been overwhelmed by the sudden arrival tens of thousands of civilians from rebel-controlled areas since the start of the Sri Lankan military's final battle against Tamil Tigers a few weeks ago.
The government says it also requires help from the international community for post-war resettlement and reconstruction.
The TULF leader also challenged the official view that de-mining needs to be carried out before the resettlement of civilians can begin in the north.
"The theory that the area is heavily landmined cannot be accepted because I am in touch with a number of people. So, when I ask them they tell me where the landmines are placed. They are local people. According to them, 75% per cent of the area is not at all landmined," the Tamil leader said.
Mr Anandasangaree said Sri Lankan security forces were doing a commendable job in carrying out relief work for the displaced civilians, but said that was not enough.
"The government cannot address the problem fully on its own because of the size of the displaced population." [courtesy: BBC News]
19 Comments
This Sri Lanka government is doing this beacuse displaced are Tamils.
First GoSL bombed own citizens. Now put them in inhumane camps. No food and drinking water, even though others want to help, access denied.
Now watch for a some people to come and say 'oh..its alright...GoSL is just nice'
Its good to highlight the short commings for the betterment of the IDPs. Don't fail to appriciate the little good things done in a short time for a large displaced poeple. Even working overnight without rest providing food for nearly 300,000 is unimaginable.
Its best that the govt. screen the poeple as fast as they can and release the innocnet without any more discrimination. Especially the women and children and the elderly.
These poeple had suffered for too long and they need and deserve a good life at least now.
The hot heads and big mouths from Sri Lanka(SL), manipulated 29 spineless and unintelligent countries in the UN Human Rights Council to pass a resolution last week in favour of it. Prof Francis Boyle said that it does "violate Genocide Convention, the 4 Geneva Convention of 1949 and additional protocol of 1977 and the Rome Statute for International Criminal Court".
Legal experts on International law reckon that the 29 countries have become "accessories after the fact" to the crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing of the GOSL against the Tamils. They ALL have become a bunch of criminal states punishable under International Conventions.
In the past, laws were respected and strictly upheld. The UN and the entire human race accepted unequivocally that any criminal state or a state with uncivilised ways towards fellow human beings should be severely shamed, disgracefully barred from the UN and punished with economic sanctions.
Such uncivilised ways were clearly not an internal matter but an international criminal matter. Former apartheid South Africa was punished by the UN till it got civilsed and was then brought back to the UN.
SL is worse than apartheid South Africa. SL abuses its parliament and democratic system to enforce tyranny against Tamils; abuses its diplomatic protocol and status to harm Tamils accusing them as terrorists, although, soldiers of SL are actively engaged in ultra terrorism against Tamils, as witnessed by people all over the world on TV screens last month.
SL also recently abused Russia and China at the UN Security Council -to be accomplices for the genocide of Tamils by blocking preventive intervention by the UN- and 29 countries at the UNHRC to normalise crimes against humanity as just and acceptable human behaviour. In essence, the entire world is being polluted by SL into criminality.
When abuse is allowed to nurture at home, it is ultimately exported abroad. SL did this at the UN and UNHRC.
How could the matter between the Tamil nation and Sinhala nation be an internal matter, if India was actively involved in Indo-Lanka agreement and Norway as the facilitator and signatory to the Ceasefire agreement between SL and Tamil Tigers of Tamil Eelam?
Simple logic of an internal matter and international matter could be exemplified easily. When a husband beats up his wife in his home it is an internal matter but when he stabs his wife in the same home, it is an external police matter, involving subsequent judicial process and punishment from outside home.
The world is becoming wicked. Might is becoming right. We are returning to the law of the jungle. Criminal states are taking over. The judicial system is collapsing. The UN systems to protect humanity is ceasing to exist. Fasten your belts! The world is going to crash !!
"It says more land is also being allocated to build new camps to decongest those already full."
Why not build houses for the IDPs instead of "camps"?. Oh yes, it would be hard to ethnically cleanse the North if they are allowed to resettle because it is SL Government's plan to settle the Sinhalese soldiers (with their families) in the north. 100,000 additional soldiers to prevent tigers from conducting guerrilla war which means at least 100,000 new families (approx. 500,000 people) to the North.
This is the solution, the home-grown solution that Mahinda Co. has for the vanquished Tamil people.
The possibility some sick minds secure ghoulish pleasure in keeping hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians under barbed-wire fences - in abject hunger, shortage of medicine, sanitation etc - is difficult to resist. Yes. There could be a few youth who would have been part of the LTTE. But why keep old men, women, the sick, infants, babies in these atrocious conditions? Why ask for a minimum of 6 months?
Why the elaborate plans to institutionalize the camps with banks, police stations, government offices etc if the thinking is only to keep these citizens only temporarily in the duration of the War? Why is the Army chief asking for a further 100,000 men to increase his army’s strength to 300,000 if the LTTE is finished? Is he planning to invade Tamilnadu? If one fails to learn from the lessons of history where SWRD was killed by the same sources who ushered him into power, we will be condemned to re-live history in its goriest form. One wonders why the Press (both foreign and local) humanitarian bodies, recognized NGOs are denied access still?
It is no secret the events of the past months in the Wanni have created greater anger and dissatisfaction among the Tamils there than those starting from 1956 to the late 70s that gave birth to the LTTE and other militant organizations. In as much as the Buddhist Sinhala revolution created VP and friends, the present wave of anger will breed still angrier young men and women before whose eyes their women were raped, young men killed or missing, large sums of money alleged to be demanded to release young men-women and other punishment to subject Tamils to utterly inhuman and degrading treatment. If the Tamil struggle in its militant form is made to continue the Sinhala Govt and side has to hold themselves entirely responsible for this.
Ilaya Seran Senguttuvan
We have been witnessing victor's justice meted out on innocent civilians regardless of their involvement in the conflict that has ended. In ancient Greece, city states always meted out unreasonable punitive justice on civil population regardless of their involvement in the wars. ancient victorious city states always killed male population and take women and children as slaves. What we have been witnessing in Lanka is exact repetition of ancient kingdoms' brutalities meted out on conquered city states. When china lost Boxer war against western European nations,conquered Chinese were brought as coolies to build national railways in North America. When Mysore kingdom was lost to British in 1780s, victorious English crown meted out victor's justice on Tamils by shipping out to Tea plantations in Sri lanka, rubber plantations in Malaysia. Sugar plantations in Fiji, Trinidad and tobacco, and Guayna. We are going to see victor's justice in Sri Lanka against these helpless Tamils. Who said history has never repeated?
Prof Francis Boyle said that it does "violate Genocide Convention, the 4 Geneva Convention of 1949 and additional protocol of 1977 and the Rome Statute for International Criminal Court".
Dear Austin, my last cheque bounced with a remark "no cash in account". Some scoundrel escaped with full fund. Now I will file a suite for my own cause. Don't expect me in future to read you from Geneva convention book.
The Government Ministers like, the Defense, Foreign and all the other big mouth government officials should go and live in one of the camps at least 24 hours and eat and drink what is given to the people in those camps and sleep on the floor to see how life is difficult for the people in the camps instead of making political statements, that the life is good and they have achieved lot with in the shot time. People are dying with out food and some say they have been given only two meals in every four days and haven’t slept properly for days, they don’t have good drinking water nor had bath for weeks. What about the sick, injured, pregnant women and children. If this government open the door for the foreign NGO's they would make the life of the refugees much easier. They have means to provide food, water and medical care for all those humans who are suffering as a result of this restriction place by the government. The government thinks every single man; woman and young adult over 14 year’s age are terrorist. If they think that way they will never be able to resettle this people in their homes for year to come. Are they trying to hoodwink the International Community so the they could implement their hidden agenda? The government is only interested to receive money from the donor countries so that they could divert some in their bank accounts and spends the rest to pay off the debts incurred as a result of this unwanted war and leaves the people to die the natural death. Only time will tell us their true intensions.
chandru
No Sinhalese power country political junta, who want to govern the whole country didn't want to visit those camps and instruct the authorities to implement the needs. No "puppet" international body who are shouting loudly for human rights and the abuses didn't take any step for the violations committed to these masses, detained into the detention camps.
How they can preach freedom or injustice or whaterver nonsence to the mankind, by sitting as guardian of Human rights? As per the statement made by former Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Luxman Kadirgamar, UN can only be used for the prevention of Malaria disease.
India has been footballed among the other countries, China, Pakistan and Sri Lanka for hers bitter survival in the region. Sri Lankan President played the cards very well among the so called "big people" in the region. If these countries wanted to preach peace in the region and want to put their nose into neighbour's affairs, why don't they advise for the pragmatic steps with the concerned parties to bring a long lasting peace at the grassroots levels.History in the past show as to what has happened to the so called bosses now!
Further, as how the Sri Lankan government had been stood to fight against the so called terrorism till now, in such a way, they have to understand the reasons for the separatism and how to win the hearts of the masses who have been affected due to such a cruel war, which has brought misery, loss of lives and destitute left to the country. Adequate steps should be taken to resettle the civilians at the earliest in their areas they belong.
There are conflicting reports about the children between the age groups of 10 -17 were kept in concentration camps for the Tiger suspects, this will further endanger the amity among communities which will in turn leads for a permanent division in the future! Chauvinistic masses in the country will never understand this, other than their filling pockets whenever and wherever possible!
"Can an Ethiopian change his skin"? Time and their culture they preserved or possess will have to answer the future prospects of Sri Lanka’s unity, integrity and sovereignty!
AYUBOWAN MAHINDA AIYE' YOU HAVE WON THE GUINNES BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS CREATING THE LARGEST CONCENTRATION CAMP IN THE WORLD, BY PASSING ADOLF HITLER'S AUSCHWITZ AND NURENBURG.
220,000 DISPLACED TAMIL REFUGEES LIVING BEHIND ELECTRIFIED BARBED WIRE FENCE EAGERLY AWAITING A SLOW DEATH, WORSE THAN HITLER'S NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS.
NO FOOD, NO MEDICINE, NO VISTATION, NO ROOF, NO JOURNALIST,BEHIND ELECTRIFIED BARBED WIRE FENCES FOR ANOTHER 4 YEARS.
Already, in these camps,many have perished of diarrhoeal diseases, probably bacillary dysentery - this could have been averted if they had been given oral antibiotics and oral rehydration solutions. This is evidence of the absence of even rudimentary medical care in these camps.It appears that the "authorities" couldnt care less about sanitation and health care.At least the local Medical Officers of Health should have visited regularly and advised - this is part of their duties in crisis situations - on sanitation,water supply,hygienic preparation/supply of food/meals,toilet facilities,primary health care to avert/contain infectious/contagious diseases & special care of infants/elderly.The minister who should have ensured this, is reported to have been elected as chairman of the WHO general assembly ! ! !
Maybe the phobia against outsiders especially the media speaking privately with,and ascertaining the truth of what happened during the last days of hostilities is being extended to cover medical personnel too.
Even those who were displaced by the 'high security zones' have still not been resettled as ordered by the Supreme Court last year.Hence, resettlement of this lot of IDPs may take a long time, if at all. The excuse about "minefields" does not hold water - these IDPs existed in their own homes, alongside minefields which were clearly demarcated, without casualties, until the last days of the war.The 19 member 'resettlement task force' does not include even a single tamil,or any local state official - not even from the office of the Minister of Tamil Affairs Devananda.
Already there are reports of abductions from & murders inside, the camps.This is worse than what happened in Nazi Germany.
"Pregnant mothers and newborn babies go through a harrowing time in the camps due to scorching heat,"
We were told that Mr Anandasangaree, Thevanantha and Karuna were black sheep in our society. Now we are depending on these alternative voices more than ever to save our voiceless people !!!
It is sicknening to see these people's comment.They may have skin diseases.but it can be treated.But no longer they need to be worry about their children as ltte can not snatch their children and sent to the battlefield.How many children lost their lives due to the forcible conscription.These people want to send these people prematurely to the villages and when terrorists inthe camps began to explode the bombs to blame the government that war strategy is unsuccessful.How many people lost limbs after the completions of wars in cambodia,afganistan,vietnam due to bombs.Do you want to create that situation.Main thing people's are not dying.How can you compare these people nazi camps.In these camps thousands were killed daily,totured and subjected inhuman experiments.Are their any such evidence.Hundred thousands of singhalese gave what they can to alleviate dificulties of these tamil civilians.What do you offer for them . Do you want put them in more trouble.Let's wait a year .give the chance the government to carry out its plan and assist financialy.Then you can criticise the govt.I donot think this governmnment do not fall into your hidden agendas.They beat unbeatable LTTE.They made fools out of Millibad and Kushner.They beat the west at the GENova.This govt is very professional on this front.
Hi Justin,
Appalling..Apartheid..Genocide..World has heard enough of that about Sri Lanka but no body makes serious note of it, as the ground reality is different.!!
It took more than 3 years to settle Tsunami victims in SL and nearly 2 years to settle IDPs in Eastern Province..Therefore it will take minimum of 1 year to settle IDPs in North under best circumstances..You can shout till then...OR help the IDPs by some mean as most of the Sinhalese do these days!!!
Wow.. there is Genocide in Sri Lanka...!!!
Thats why Colombo Municipal area has 33% of Tamil population and 55% of total Tamils live amongst South with Sinhalese..Thats why Tiger Terrorist child soldier is the Chief Minister in East today and Terror Second in Command, who murdered thousands of innocent Sinhalese civilians, is the National Reconciliation Minister Today...
Wow ...This an Apartheid Country..
Thats why we treat our Tamil friends like our brothers and thats why we never bother about their race when we recruit employees to our Organizations.. and thats why everybody is collecting rations for IDPs nowardays.
Truth is Sinhalese and Tamils lived in this country for 2000 years and they had fought each other many times and every time Sinhalese have emerged victorious..So remember if you continue to adopt this hatred towards Sinhalese its Tamils who will suffer more than Sinhalese as it always happened including this time!!
MR TOLD THAT HE FOUGHT INDIA'S WAR. INDIA SHOULD PAY COMPENSATION FOR THE DEATH OF 30,000 INNOCENT TAMIL FAMILIES THE WOUNDED AND THE 220,000 DISPLACED TAMILS LIVING IN NAZI TYPE CONCENTRATION CAMPS.
Response to Ramesh Pathiraja:
"Sinhalese and Tamils lived in this country for 2000 years and they had fought each other many times and every time Sinhalese have emerged victorious."
Wow..... what an intelligent statement that was! If one side was always emerging victorious, then they would NOT have fought for 2000 years. And sinhalese would not be whining now on how they were beat by Cholas 1000 years ago or by Prabhakaran 10 years ago. Nice try posing as a "FOREVER VICTORIOUS RACE", but that is not the truth. The modern day sinhalas are emerging victorious in only one thing - in taking their country down to look like Rwanda.
"....the ground reality is different!"
Wow... what an illusion! If it is all so good as you imply, why don't you go and live in those camps for atleast a day and "enjoy" the life there?
"Tiger Terrorist child soldier is the Chief Minister in East today......"
Wow.....I am impressed by your magnanimity towards "terrorists". In a country with proper law and order and equality for all, such terrorists would not have sprung up in the first place, let alone promoting them as Chief Ministers. You will join hands with state-terrorists like Rajapaksa or non-state terrorists like Karuna, AS LONG AS IT SUITS YOU.
".....thats why everybody is collecting rations for IDPs nowadays."
Wow... again your intelligence at display. If not for the apartheid and genocide, there will be no IDPs for Tamils there. You can shout on how generous you are towards displaced Tamils, but Tamils would not have been in IDPs, if not for chauvinistic sinhalas.
Perhaps you should start reading real news from genuine sources and start thinking with your brain, instead of swallowing everything churned out by Rajapaksa and Co.
Response to Mayavi,
In a way you are correct!
Many Tamil Kings and Tamil Terrorists have been successful in challenging the Sinhala dominance historically but unfortunately for you and fortunately for us, end result has always been a failure...
Thats why its advisable for both of us to live peacefully now, without spreading ethnic hatred since Tamils always suffered/suffer LITTLE MORE than Sinhalese..
We know ours is not the best country in the world but literacy rates, health indicatorss and economic growth rates (despite war)indicate we are heading somewhere..and don't worry we will ensure that this country will prosper, possibly with help of many Tamil Friends who live peacefully in Colombo and South.
You are correct, I also think those Tiger terrorists, who murdered thousands of civilians, should have been shot, but the GOSL think otherwise..Rehabilitate and let them enjoy what they lost all these years due to brain-washing!!
Agree you and I cant stay in IDP camps, but what we do is to collect something in our capacity to help them...Innocent civillians, who were hurded into jungles like animals by Tiger terrorists..
Hay history repeats it self..
I know you and many Tamils (SPECIALLY DIASPORA)are angry, having lost everything, will never be happy with what the GOSL offer..but I feel that you can regroup and come back in few years and cause similar mayhem to you and your community again...
Ramesh Pathiraja ,
your response shows you haven't read and followed the last sentence I wrote - START THINKING WITH YOUR BRAIN, instead of parroting your sinhala "imaginary" victory over 200000 years.
Fortunately, "brainwashed Tamil terrorists" were "LIBERATED" by your people, but did you ever wonder who will liberate the brainwashed from your own community??? Well you are brainwashed so you cannot be possibly wondering about that.
As you said make use of the peace loving Tamils for your economic benefits before they disappear into that white van in Colombo. Because terrorism is not over in your country, it just moved it's headquarters from the North to the South under the guise of sovereignity and still active under a various names like "war on terror" , "national security (for sinhalas only)" etc etc.