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Flash floods displace thousands in war-torn area

More than 50,000 people have been hit by flooding in northwestern Mannar District in Sri Lanka since 12 March, the government said. The area has witnessed intense clashes between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the last six months, restricting access to relief agencies.

[Women wade through pools of water to reach the polling station in Ichchanthivu recently-Photo: Amantha Perera/IRIN]

Flooding caused by torrential rains has affected 173,909 people in nine districts of the country, including 120,000 in the eastern Batticaloa District, and left five dead, the National Disaster Relief Services Centre (NDRSC) said on 19 March.

“Floods have caused immense damage to affected areas, interrupting all economic and social activities,” the NDRSC stated in a situation report. “It is also reported that there is tremendous damage to infrastructure facilities in the areas [of Mannar]. About 14,010 families or 54,323 people have been affected.”

The report also stated that 40 houses had been destroyed and 155 damaged in the eight districts. The NDRSC said the government had allocated three million rupees (US$27,000) as emergency funds for affected districts and Rs2 million ($18,000) for Mannar District.

Crops damaged

Initial assessment reports by the NDRSC said damage to crops could be high as the rains came just before the harvesting season.

“There are 12,000 acres of paddy land that were to be harvested when the floods hit,” A Nicholaspillai, the government agent for Mannar, told IRIN. “We still don’t have exact figures, but damage to the harvest is something we will have to deal with.”
Nicholaspillai also said seed would have to be provided to farmers for the upcoming season.

Officials of the Sri Lanka Red Cross (SLRC) said there were indications of damage to crops in at least one other southern district. “The initial reports we have indicate that there have been significant crop losses in the southern district of Badulla,” Merik Peiris, executive director, communications and humanitarian values at the SLRC, told IRIN.

Government officials in Mannar told IRIN they had began distributing relief items and were awaiting assessment reports to decide on additional assistance. “We started distributing meals almost as soon as the first displacements were reported over the weekend,” Nicholaspillai told IRIN. “We have made initial plans to continue the distribution for three days at least.”

Restricted access

Increasing clashes between government forces and the LTTE along the line of control in Mannar District and other security concerns had already restricted access to the district before the latest flooding.

“Since 4 February, access has been restricted to vehicles north of Madawachchiya checkpoint, creating additional challenges for civilian travel across Mannar District,” the Inter-Agency Standing Committee stated in a situation report released on 15 March.

However, Peiris said the SLRC did not foresee the security restrictions limiting the relief effort in Mannar. “We already have a network there and plan to work through government agencies.”

He added that while the immediate needs of the victims, such as cooked food and clothes, would be provided, SLRC would need additional assistance, such as non-food items, as the flood waters receded and the displaced began returning home.

“There will be lot of demand for dry rations and baby food after they return home,” he said. “We also will have to look at health concerns and loss of livelihoods.”

“Extra-judicial killings and disappearances are part of a terrible pattern of abuse in Sri Lanka, which must be stopped,” said Jacques de Maio, head of operations for South Asia of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a Press Release issued today.

The ICRC issued the statement deploring the Government of Sri Lanka for making misleading public references to ICRC’s confidential findings on “disappearances and unexplained killings,” and for disclosing that U.S. embassy also had access to the confidential reports.

Full text of ICRC’s Press Release follows:

ICRC deplores misleading public use of its confidential findings on disappearances

Geneva/Colombo (ICRC) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) strongly objects to misleading public references to its confidential findings on disappearances that were included in a recent statement by the Sri Lankan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In the statement, issued on 15 March in response to the United States Department of State’s 2007 country report on human rights, the Foreign Ministry said that the ICRC “confirmed a distinct downward trend in disappearances and unexplained killings (…) during the second and third quarters of 2007″. The Foreign Ministry cited an “improvement on the ground” based notably on ICRC observations. The statement also indicated that the US embassy had access to confidential ICRC reports.

The ICRC deplores the publication and sharing of confidential reports submitted exclusively to the Sri Lankan authorities, and the Foreign Ministry’s misrepresentation of its overall findings and its dialogue with the government.

“Extra-judicial killings and disappearances are part of a terrible pattern of abuse in Sri Lanka, which must be stopped,” said Jacques de Maio, the ICRC’s head of operations for South Asia. “The ICRC strives to bring this about through its confidential and direct dialogue with the authorities concerned. For this reason, we prefer not to enter into a public debate on the number of disappearances in Sri Lanka.”

The ICRC has an international mandate to protect and assist the victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence around the world and, in its capacity as an exclusively humanitarian organization, it does so in a strictly neutral and impartial manner.

In Sri Lanka, the ICRC maintains an ongoing dialogue with those involved in the conflict, including the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, regarding violations of international humanitarian law, such as enforced disappearances. It urges them to take all necessary measures to put an end to violations and to prevent their recurrence.

The ICRC remains committed to pursuing its confidential contacts with the government as the most effective means at its disposal to help the victims of violations of international humanitarian law and their families.

A visiting high level EU delegation has insisted that the government allow the Co-chairs and the Norwegian facilitators to travel to the Wanni to meet the LTTE to deliver key messages -including a request to resume the peace process, to observe humanitarian access and to respect human rights, according to news reports.

However, according to sources of Colombo newspaper Daily Mirror, the Government of Sri Lanka has asserted that it was not possible to provide immediate access to the Wanni to any diplomat owing to the prevailing security situation in the areas controlled by the LTTE, which is under attack by the military.

Speaking at a media conference at the European Commission (EC) office in Colombo on Mar 18th, representatives from the EU reiterated their concern over the human rights situation in Sri Lanka and also said that they were looking forward to an ambitious final peace proposal by Sri Lanka during the coming months.

Janez Premoze, Asia Director in the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, representing the current EU Presidency, said that the EU harboured very serious concerns about continuing reports of human rights abuses and expressed regret that the Independent International Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) had decided to terminate their work with the Presidential Commission of Inquiry because of concerns about its compliance with international standards and institutional lack of support for the work of the Commission.

“The EU underlines the seriousness of calls by the IIGEP and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, for the government to deliver concrete results through taking cases to court,” he said.

[UCAN] Nuns from various Catholic women’s congregations stressed the need to inform the public about the truth on this troubled island rather than leave them to rely on the “lies” of the media.

The Women’s Desk of the Inter-Congregational Conference gathered 350 nuns, 100 priests and brothers, and 160 laypeople to discuss the civil war and how to improve the chances of peace through better communication and an emphasis on the truth.

Our Struggle and Dreams for Peace, as the national convention was titled, ran Feb. 22-24.

The Women’s Desk, representing six women’s congregations, held the convention in the auditorium of Good Shepherd Convent in Kotahena, on the northern outskirts of Colombo.

Participants included Oblate Bishop Norbert Andradi of Anuradhapura and guests of other faiths and religions: Bishop Duleep de Chickera, the Anglican Bishop of Colombo; A.T. Ariyaratne, a Buddhist and founder of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, the country’s largest NGO; and Jesima Ismail, a Muslim women’s activist.

“We must awaken our countrymen to the truth, for the sake of peace,” Franciscan Missionary Sister Rose Fernando told the audience. To open channels of communication and “reawaken people” to the “lies” of the media, “we plan to open a new website and organize interreligious peace dialogue in every place possible,” she said.

Bishop Andradi, in his keynote address, called it unfortunate that people are deprived of the truth. “The root cause is the lack of an independent and impartial source,” he said. According to the prelate, Sri Lankans learn about the war only through news provided by army spokesmen and the media unit of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The LTTE began fighting the Sinhalese-led government in 1983 for an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka, where the Tamil minority is concentrated.

“Transformation of consciousness is possible only by telling the truth to our countrymen,” Sister Fernando, the chief organizer, said on Feb. 24. “Let us create awareness of the socio-political and cultural situation, to bring about a transformation of consciousness.”

“People see false reports all the time,” she told UCA News after the conference. “We are in the process of forming a new website to further collaboration” between credible information sources, she added.

Sri Lanka has suffered from the war for more than two decades, and there is a need to empower people with information, according to Sister Fernando. She described the new website as a necessary first step toward further collaboration among bishops, priests, leaders of various faiths and lay activists to devise ways to mobilize people.

A main aim of the convention, according to the organizers, is to have Church personnel, who work throughout the country, supply news and information for the new website. But they acknowledge the project will not be easy.

“Organizing a new movement among Religious is difficult,” admitted one sister from the contemplative Rosarian community, who asked not to be named. “Taking a more active role as spiritual leaders and peace-builders is a great challenge for us.”

She said extremists have disturbed many protest gatherings and interreligious peace meetings, and religious leaders have been threatened.

Ariyaratne gave an example of how people are currently misinformed. “It is very pathetic that some Buddhist monks who are extremists are fully engaged in promoting war, and not peace,” he told UCA News.

His movement links community development with the philosophy of the late Mahatma Gandhi and general spiritual principles drawn mainly from Hinduism and Buddhism. Sarvodaya also operates Sri Lanka’s largest charity organization, with 15,000 grassroots-level branches staffed by 1,500 people throughout the country.

“Some Buddhist monks mistakenly support the war, and misconstrue the ethnic problem as a terrorist problem,” Ariyaratne complained.

Sri Lanka government has expressed its serious concerns about the recently released US State Department Report on Human Rights in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama summoned the US Ambassador in Colombo Robert O Blake last week and conveyed the government’s position while protesting the report on Sri Lanka as baseless.

But in A statement issued by the Embassy in Colombo said that the U.S. Government stands by the report.

Full Text of Press Release, US Embassy, Colombo, Sri Lanka:

U.S. Stands by Human Rights Report; Looks Forward to Continued Dialogue

Colombo, March 14, 2008 – U.S. Ambassador Robert Blake and Minister of Foreign Affairs Rohitha Bogollagama held a constructive discussion on March 14 of the 2007 Report on Human Rights Practices in Sri Lanka that was released this week by the Department of State. The U.S. Government stands by the report. Our goal in the annual, Congressionally-mandated Reports on Human Rights Practices, which are issued for 196 countries, is always to be fair and objective. We welcome information from governments and other parties to correct what are perceived to be inaccuracies. We look forward to continued dialogue with the government to address human rights concerns in Sri Lanka.

Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) from its Head Quarters in Vanni on Monday released a statement condemning the Indian ‘State welcome’ extended to Sri Lanka Army Chief Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka and the statements made by Indian military chiefs in this context. “The Indian State must take the responsibility for the ethnic genocide of the Tamils that will be carried out by the Sinhala military, re-invigorated by such moves of the Indian State,” the statement said. “LTTE wishes to point out to the Indian State that by this historic blunder, it will continue to subject the Eelam Tamils to misery and put them in the dangerous situation of having to face ethnic genocide on a massive scale.”

Full Text of LTTEPS Press Release:

Is the Indian State attempting yet another historic blunder?

The State welcome given by the Indian State to the Head of the Sri Lanka military chief Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, who is heading the Sri Lankan State’s war of ethnic genocide against the Eelam Tamils, has deeply hurt them.

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) strongly condemns the Indian State action of extending a State welcome to the military chief of the Sinhala State which has unilaterally abrogated the ceasefire agreement and has launched widespread military offensives in the Tamil homeland. The Sri Lankan State is facing many warnings and condemnations for its attempt to seek a military solution and for its enormous human rights violations.

Despite this, the Sinhala State ignores these warnings and condemnations and continues with its abductions, killings, and arrests of Tamils.

The Sinhala State, keen to cover up this truth, is blaming the freedom movement of the Tamils, the LTTE, for the continuation of the war and is seeking assistance from the world for its war of ethnic genocide.

Many of the European countries, understanding this hidden motive of the Sinhala State, have halted all assistance that could support the ethnic genocide of the Tamils.

The Indian State also knows this truth. Yet, while pronouncing that a solution to the Tamil problem must be found through peaceful means, it is giving encouragement to the military approach of the Sinhala State. This can only lead to the intensification of the genocide of the Tamils.

LTTE wishes to point out to the Indian State that this historic blunder by it will continue to subject the Eelam Tamils to misery and put them in the dangerous situation of having to face ethnic genocide on a massive scale. On behalf of the Eelam Tamils, LTTE kindly requests the Tamils of Tamil Nadu to understand this anti-Tamil move of the Indian State and express their condemnation.

We did not leave the ceasefire agreement and we did not start the war. We are only undertaking a defensive war against the war of ethnic genocide of the Sri Lankan State. We still have not abandoned the Norway sponsored peace efforts and we are ready to take part in such efforts.

In this context, the Indian State’s move of propping up the politically-militarily-economically weakened SriLankan State has upset Eelam Tamils.

The view expressed by the Indian military chiefs, “India wants to ensure that the Sri Lankan Army maintains its upperhand over the LTTE”, just illustrates the efforts of the Indian State to prop up the Sinhala war machine.

Indian State must take the responsibility for the ethnic genocide of the Tamils that will be carried out by the Sinhala military re-invigorated by such moves of the Indian State.

10 Mar 2008