Vol. 73/No. 29      August 3, 2009

The government’s actions in the wake of its military offensive clearly demonstrate that its war is aimed not solely at the Tamil guerrilla group but more broadly at the Tamil people. Following the country’s independence from Britain in 1948, Tamils were subject to discrimination and violence under governments dominated by the Sinhalese majority.

Camp boundaries are drawn by razor wire and armed guards. No one can leave. Access for journalists and human rights investigators is very limited.

The International Committee of the Red Cross in mid-July closed four of its offices in the east after the Sri Lankan government ordered all international agencies to scale back operations.

Press reports indicate that water, food, and sanitation are inadequate in the crowded camps, resulting in deaths from disease and malnutrition. Aid workers report allegations of physical and sexual abuse by the military. Protests have broken out in some of the camps, according to al-Jazeera news service.

The camps are dotted throughout the country’s Northern Province, an area that had largely been under the control of LTTE.

Although the government has stated it will resettle 80 percent of the interned Tamils by the end of the year, evidence of construction at the main camp suggests that at least some areas are being set up as permanent settlements.

The government justifies the prolonged internment as necessary to vet the population of those with connections to the LTTE, whose central leadership and many of its members were wiped out in the five-month offensive.

Some 20 to 30 young people are fingered by hooded informants and taken from the camps each week, according to Sri Lanka Information Monitor, a Sri Lankan human rights organization. Sri Lanka ranks second in the world in the number of disappeared persons, according to UN reports.

The January-May offensive by the Sri Lankan military was the latest round in the government’s 26-year war with the LTTE and other armed Tamil groups, which has claimed the lives of as many as 100,000 people.

Despite the fact that the LTTE has effectively been wiped out, the Sri Lankan military announced its intention to increase its forces to 300,000 from 200,000 in order to establish a garrison force in the northern Tamil region.

A Sri Lankan group called University Teachers for Human Rights has reported atrocities from both sides. According to the group, witnesses say government forces used bulldozers to bury wounded along with the dead and massacred LTTE fighters, including women and children, after they surrendered and disarmed.

According to the group’s report, the LTTE also intentionally killed civilians and unnecessarily sacrificed many of its young fighters. “Even as the LTTE leaders were discussing surrender terms,” it said, “they were sending out very young suicide cadres to slow down the army advance.” The report condemned the LTTE, saying they “suffocated alternative voices” and conscripted children into its armed forces.

The United Nations estimates that 7,000 civilians were killed and 14,000 wounded during the five-month offensive.

At the time of the last government census in 2001, the number of Tamils in Sri Lanka was estimated at 3.1 million people—about 16.5 percent of the population. About three-quarters of the country is Sinhalese.  
 
 
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