Kombavil 'New Village' : Resettlement or forced relocation?

By Aru'loaviyam Maniram
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There is a saying in Tamil, that “you will find the house, if there is a path”. It means, there won’t be residences without a path or road. It has a deep cultural meaning in Tamil.

Kombavil 'camp', will be the new form of famous Manikfarm camp. Earlier, the vanquished Tamil people were detained in Manikfarm camp, from where their cries at least reached outside world. But now, once more they are going to be relocated against their will, which will ensure that any such cries will not be heard by anyone.

This well calculated measure to forcibly transfer the war affected population in to the deep interior areas in North, which should be considered as a part of the long term genocidal strategy of Sri Lankan regime is very much supported by the so called humanitarian agencies too.

When the military of Sri Lanka, began to destroy the Tamil people and their assets in their traditional homeland, the international community not only remained in silence and failed to stop the tragedy, but also overtly and covertly supported the genocidal military actions. During the humanitarian catastrophe, same international community requested the people to move into government control areas, where barbed wired camps were waiting to greet them. Since the advent of the offensive, international community failed to take any adequate measures to protect Tamil civilians, apart from being ill prepared to provide the required humanitarian assistance. In most cases, either they just repeated the government fabricated stories or “obeyed” government “orders” rather than playing a role as international humanitarian actors, who must act with responsibility. Particularly, the UN and its bodies, provided open assistance to hide the casualty numbers, apart from backing government's claims about the reduced numbers concerning displaced civilians remaining inside the final battle zone.

Al though organizations like ICRC and MSF tried their best to ease the burden of the population, no one raised any serious questions about fake resettlement programs and “re-integration” projects.

Now, the unfolding Kombavil tragedy, which is nothing but an extension of the same genocidal policy of the state has got the same backing from the same international bodies. Under the new scheme, helpless Tamil civilians are going to be relocated to Kombavil without considering their true grievances and genuine concerns.

In Kombavil, 600 acres will be cleared or prepared by the military to "resettle" the Tamils who are now waiting to be moved out from the Manik Farm. In a meeting held in Mullathievu with the Government Agent of the area and the Sri Lankan Army(SLA) Commander in early August this year, it was decided that Kombavil will be a permanent 'settlement' for the people who were earlier detained in Manik farm. The government and its military are determined to make this happen before the end of 2011. As to a humanitarian aid worker active on the ground, “the people do not want to go to another Manik farm, they simply want to go back only to their places of origin (home)."

At this meeting, UN Resident Coordinator Subinay Nandy also took part after visiting Kombavil area. Even though the government has already hinted to the international community that they have laid the final plans to empty the camps, in reality the camps will only be moved into an area which will be almost inaccessible to many concerned parties.

Kombavil is going to be another militarized area and freedom of movement of the Tamil people will be further restricted. Each and every step regarding the Kombavil relocation will be carried out under the close scrutiny of the occupying Sri Lankan military, including the so called “Go and See” visits. According to a reliable source on the ground, the people from Manik farm have clearly opposed the decision to move them from Manik Farm to Kombavil. They told to the Additional Government Agent (AGA) of Puthukudiyiruppu (PTK) that “we would like to return to our own lands rather than moving to another camp situation.” But the AGA has assured them that the relocation will be “temporary” and it’s only until the demining work is completed. However, no one including AGA, UN or OCHA is aware how long will it take to complete the so-called demining operations. The AGA, who is functioning under strict instruction of the government, is planning to initially relocate at-least four hundred families before end of this year.

Many have earlier criticized the living conditions in Manik Farm voicing concerns over the detained population. But Kombavil situation will be worse than that. According to a leaked document, 7,506 individuals are still remaining in Manik Farm camp. Currently no health care services are available inside the camp (a clinic is available 5kms out) and only few teachers are available to educate several hundred children. Food rations provided by the WFP have been drastically reduced. UNHCR sources confirmed about cases of malnourished children “passing out” at school during the morning sessions. Individuals inside the camp are able to transit in and out, but have to use the old unwieldy pass system which needs multiple signatures and military approvals, plus a payment of 20LKRs, which effectively curtail the freedom of movement. If this reflects the grim reality prevailing in relatively well known Manik Farm, there is more than enough evidence to believe that the situation in unknown Kombavil will be far more horrifying.

Therefore, a concrete action to prevent another humanitarian tragedy is immediate and important.

According to the Mullaithivu map (below), the demining operations in 8.5 Grama Niladhari(GN) divisions are yet to be completed. However, as to the information coming from sources close to the SLA Commander confirms , that the 3 GN divisions in the costal belt (marked in the Map) will never be returned to the people. Unconfirmed sources say that the plans are underway to convert these 3 GN divisions into a High Security Zone (HSZ) and later into a special economic zone following the plans previously implemented in the East.



According to TNA Parlimentarian Sivashakthi Anandan, the IDPs from Puthumathalan, Mullivaikkal West, Mullivaikkal East, Ambalavanpokkanai, Valaignar Madam and Anandapuram in the Mullaitivu district who are presently at the Manik Farm camp at Chettikulam or with host families mostly living in and around Vavuniya will not to be resettled in their original home-towns. He also accused the government of preventing people from returning to their original lands in a desperate bid to cover up war crimes. He further said that “these were the areas where the final phase of war took place and thousands of people died. The government is depriving these people the right to return to their lands, in order to cover up the evidence that would confirm the atrocities committed during the last days of war.”

Meanwhile, a considerable section of the international relief agencies which are otherwise allowed to provide humanitarian assistance, have been prevented from getting involved in Kombavil relocation program. The government is already in the process of setting up new military camps surrounding the area to closely monitor the day to day activities of the war affected population, effectively maintaining a climate of fear among the people. It is obvious that the Sri Lankan state is determined to pursue the same old genocidal strategy against Tamil people by carrying out forced population transfers even two years after the war. But the important question is how the reputed international organizations, such as UN and its affiliated OCHA can support such a project backed only by the naked military might of the state.

If timely action is not taken by the responsible parties , the entire Tamil areas will end up by being transformed in to a huge military run camp like Manik Farm.

© JDS

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Call to investigate Sri Lanka disappearances

BBC News
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A human rights group has called on Sri Lanka's government to investigate the disappearance of two activists in the northern city of Jaffna.

Lalith Kumar Weeraraj and Kugan Muruganathan disappeared last week. They organised demonstrations on behalf of the families of missing people.

Civil society activists in Sri Lanka say they fear for the lives of the men.

Police in Jaffna say they have no information about the whereabouts of the two men and are investigating.

The BBC's Charles Haviland in Colombo says that this is just the latest in a series of disappearances in recent months.

The Asian Human Rights Commission issued a statement on Monday highlighting the latest case and calling on the government to ensure that cases of "forced disappearances" are thoroughly and effectively investigated.

'Anonymous calls'

Our correspondent says that for several months Mr Weeraraj and Mr Muruganathan were part of a group that had been organising protests in Colombo, bringing mothers, fathers and wives of missing people from the north to the capital to highlight their desperation.

These families are searching for relatives who disappeared during and after Sri Lanka's civil war, which ended in 2009 after government forces defeated Tamil Tiger rebels fighting for a separate homeland.

A similar rally had been planned by the two men for the northern city of Jaffna on Saturday but before it could happen they went missing - apparently abducted while travelling by motor bike.

Mr Weeraraj had been detained and questioned about his activities and recently told the BBC he was being tracked by state security officials.

An associate of the two, Nuwan Bopage, said that because of the heavy security presence in Jaffna, the security forces must be responsible for the abductions.

But the military spokesman told the BBC that, according to his information, the security forces were not involved. The military was ready to help the police trace the missing men, he said.

The police said they had no information but were investigating.

Mr Weeraraj's father is quoted by colleagues of the men as saying his son had received anonymous phone calls saying he would be "eliminated" from politics if he continued his political involvement in the north.

'White van' abductions

Separately, there are reports of at least nine other men being abducted within the past couple of months, all of them in or near the capital.

The local Sunday Times newspaper quoted eyewitnesses as saying they were bundled away in white vans - unmarked vehicles of a type used for many unexplained past disappearances.

The newspaper says one person was released, one was found dead and the others are unaccounted for. The report quotes opinions blaming the incidents on state-sponsored hit squads, drug cartels or contract killers.

Our correspondent says it appears to mark the reappearance of a trend of abductions that had diminished since the war ended two years ago.

© BBC News

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SL Army launches ‘Geo-Citizen Information System Project’

Cartoon courtesy of awanthaartigala.blogspot.com

By Cheranka Mendis | Daily FT
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The Sri Lanka Army, in a first for South East Asia, has developed a citizen information collection scheme known as the ‘Geo-Citizen Information System Project’ at a cost of Rs. 2.5 million.

Run under the authority of the Defence Ministry and created by the Centre for Research and Development and Sri Lanka Army, the project aims at creating a digital data base on all citizens living in the country.

IT Advisor to Sri Lanka Army and Head of IT Centre for Research and Development of Ministry of Defence Colonel Dr. Thiran De Silva told the Daily FT on Wednesday that the pilot project of the ‘Geo-Citizen Information System Project’ had been conducted in Gampaha.

Dr. De Silva said: “This project aims at collecting all information about persons living in the country, even a month-old child, and putting it together on a database.” This system would cover not only personal information but also what is known as ‘spatial information,’ which would offer satellite images of the residencies of the people as well.

“The data collection would have personal information, family background and even household data coupled with satellite images of their homes. We have added in to the system, details such as the road network, electricity, water and even the drainage system to compile a comprehensive data book.”

The technological application for the project has been designed and developed by the Sri Lanka Army free of charge along with the Centre for Research and Development of the Ministry of Defence. Additionally 140 students have been recruited from Kelaniya University for collection of data etc.

The pilot project had been initiated over a year ago in Gamapaha, according to Dr. De Silva. He revealed that it took 12 months for the training of the grama niladaris and district secretaries and for collection of data.

Currently, the project is in Phase Two, at which spatial data is being collected. Data collection of other districts will happen soon, when the signal is given from the top hierarchy, Dr. De Silva expressed.

“The project is a brainchild of Economic Minister Basil Rajapaksa, who wanted to have a central database for the country,” he noted.

The project once completed will be distributed among key Government bodies such as the other military organisations of the country and the Urban Development Authority (UDA) for their purposes.

© Daily FT

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Dead bodies in Sri Lanka's exclusion zone - British MEP

By Charles Haviland | BBC Sinhala
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A Member of the European Parliament who’s just led a delegation visiting Sri Lanka says he believes there are many bodies of dead civilians buried in exclusion zones where the final fighting of the civil war took place in 2009.

Member of European Parliament Richard Howitt said there should be full access to the areas. But the government says the zones are off-limits because there are landmines there. The number of civilian war deaths remains hotly disputed.

The delegation of Socialist Euro-MPs was permitted to pay a visit right up to the edge of the exclusion zone in north-east Sri Lanka, where tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were held by the Tamil Tigers and subjected to bombardment as the government fought the separatists.

Dead bodies are buried

No one is being allowed to resettle in that zone for the foreseeable future and a sense of fear prevails in nearby villages, the delegation’s leader, Richard Howitt, told the BBC.

“What everyone says is that it’s because [it is] literally where the bodies are buried, and that if people with forensic skills go in and investigations start, then the true horrors of what happened in those final days with so many innocent civilians said to have been killed absolutely unnecessarily, that that would come out and that the Sri Lankans will do everything to prevent that” MEP Richard Howitt said.

Army pretty disciplined

In a response to MEP’s comment Sri Lanka’s defence spokesman, Keheliya Rambukwella, told BBC that certain areas were still excluded for resettlement because of landmines, not because of bodies or whatever else was alleged.

“There had been no landmine deaths since the end of the war and it would be risky to send people into those zones” Minister Rambukwella said. He also expressed his “surprise” at the MEP’s remarks.

The government has built a new village for people from those areas but they’ve complained that it’s too far from the sea.

Richard Howitt had warmer words for the army who he said appeared “pretty disciplined”, although too pervasive in the north.

© BBC Sinhala

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Missing persons' parents stage protest amidst harassment by SL military

Tamil Net
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For the first time in Jaffna, kept under the iron fist of occupying SL military, parents and relatives of the missing persons, braved SL army barriers and harassment by the occupying soldiers and riot police and staged a protest in front of Jaffna Bus stand on Wold Human Rights Day seeking global attention on the plight of those reported missing since the end of Vanni war in 2009. The SL military and police blocked the organisers from Colombo, the Civil Monitoring Commttee of missing persons, at Veampadi in Jaffna, for hours blocking them from reaching the site of the protest. The protestors managed to intuitively stage the rally without the organisers, political observers in Jaffna said. In the meantime, a JVP dissident group member, Lalith Weeraraj, who was on his way to the protest site has been reported missing at Aavarangkaal. The SL Police attacked reporters covering the protest.

Tension prevailed in the city of Jaffna as the SLA personnel were deployed at several checkpoints questioning and harassing people asking the travellers where they were heading. Each and every traveller on Point-Pedro Jaffna Road were stopped and checked at 8 check posts by the SL military reminding the days of 2007.

When people gathered at the site around 10:00 a.m., the Police officers present at the site dispersed the demonstrators saying that they had no permission to protest. Former parliamentarian S. Kajendren of TNPF, came to the protest site and argued with the Police saying that people had the right to stand along the road side and stage a protest on Human Rights Day. As TNA MP Vinyagamoorthy, former MP Sivajilingam and TNA MP Mavai Senathiraja managed to reach the site, the SL police had to end the harassment at the site of the venue.

Around 50 persons who had come from South, representing various parties and the organising committee, were blocked at Nelliyadi and were only allowed to attend the protest at the last minute after they staged a protest at Nelliyadi. The organisers and parties were not allowed to bring in their placards.

Several parents of the persons reported missing since the end of genocidal war on Vanni in 2009, said they had witnessed their kith and kin, now reported missing, reach the Sri Lanka Army controlled territory. There were parents of missing who had been taken away from the barbed-wire detention camps in Vavuniyaa. A number of persons have also been abducted after their release.

One of the main demands of the protesters was to pressurise the Sri Lankan state to publicly release the names of those under their detention.

© Tamil Net

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JVP presents 13-point plan for reconciliation

By Shamindra Ferdinando | The Island
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The JVP on Saturday (10) said that those held for their alleged involvement with the LTTE should have been tried before Tamil speaking judges.

Launching a special political campaign in the Northern Province, the JVP lambasted the UPFA government for keeping LTTE suspects in the dark as to what was going on in courts.

At a media briefing in Vavuniya on Saturday, the JVP presented a 13-point plan to deal with problems faced by people, particularly those living in the two provinces and those struggling to make ends meet irrespective of their ethnicity. It also envisaged restoration of democratic freedoms.

Addressing the media in Vavuniya, JVP Colombo District parliamentarian Sunil Handunetti accused the government of double-standards in dealing with former members of the LTTE. Referring to former LTTE commanders, Karuna and Pilleyan, Handunetti said that, while some terrorist leaders had been rewarded by the UPFA, those languishing behind bars for years for their alleged involvement in terrorism were denied the right to a fair trial.

The JVP action plan comprises restoration of political freedoms, release of political prisoners, resettlement of the internally displaced persons, removal of military bases from Northern and Eastern Provinces to facilitate restoration of civil rule, release of the names of those political prisoners, safeguarding cultural identity of people living in different provinces, ending state take-over of land in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, settling disputes over land owned by IDPs, employment for all, restoration of health and education sectors, protection of media and right activists, compensation package for those who lost their loved ones due to war and compensation for the loss of private property.

Former JVP National List MP Ramalingham Chandrasekeran said that in spite of the conclusion of the conflict in May 2009, the government was yet to restore normalcy in the Northern and Eastern Provinces.

Human rights, democracy and the media freedom had been under severe threat, while a semi-military rule imposed on the Northern and Eastern Provinces was causing immense hardship to those who suffered due to a three-decade long war, Handunetti alleged. The JVP would step-up its campaign both in and outside Parliament to pressure the government to change its style of governance, he said, urging the people to rally around the party to topple the Rajapaksa regime. The parliamentarian warned the government of street protests to highlight their grievances unless tangible action was taken immediately to redress them.

The JVP asked the government not to play politics with the national issue and to take remedial measures to ensure that there wouldn’t be a fresh armed conflict. The JVP alleged that the government had failed to steps to address the grievances of those affected by the conflict.

The JVP alleged that those living in Northern and Eastern Provinces had been denied the opportunity to work on development projects in the region. In an obvious attack on UPFA Gampaha District leader Economic Affairs Minister Basil Rajapaksa, the government was accused of favouring Gampaha at the expense of war-torn districts.

© The Island

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