Asia-Pacific, Headlines, Human Rights

SRI LANKA: Monitors Accuse Military of Killing Aid Workers

Amantha Perera

COLOMBO, Aug 30 2006 (IPS) - When the Nordic Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) held government troops responsible Wednesday for the cold-blooded executions of 17 workers from a French charity earlier this month, few were surprised.

Since December, the level of brutality exhibited by the Sri Lankan army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has reached new highs, although both belligerents claim to be still observing a February 2002 ceasefire that the SLMM is monitoring.

"The killing of the 17 civilian aid workers in (eastern) Muttur on the 4th of August 2006 is ruled as a gross violation of the ceasefire agreement by the security forces of Sri Lanka," the SLMM, currently led by Swede Ulf Henricsson, stated on Wednesday.

Sweden, Denmark and Finland, all Nordic members of the EU, are expected to leave the island in early September because the LTTE, in reponse to a EU ban on the militant group in May, has asked them to leave. That would leave Norway, which brokered the ceasefire, and Iceland to monitor the tattered truce.

Henricsson has been openly critical of the EU decision to ban the LTTE. "I think the EU thought that the government of Sri Lanka was a responsible government, who could take the appropriate decision and work for peace instead of war," he has been widely quoted as saying in the media.

Henricsson himself will be replaced shortly by former Norwegian army chief Lars Solvberg who is expected to carry on the monitoring work with a team reduced from its present 57 members to 30.

The SLMM, which was denied entry into Muttur to investigate the massacre, said in its Wednesday statement: "Taking into consideration the fact that the security forces had been present in Muttur at the time of the incident it appears highly unlikely to blame other groups for the killing. Provided that was the case it would in particular be illogical for the security forces to prevent the SLMM from entering the area and making proper inquiries in order to find the perpetrator(s)."

The aid workers were attached to the France-based Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger) or ACF, which has been working in Sri Lanka since 1996. Their bodies were discovered by a fact-finding mission by the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies that reached Muttur on Aug. 6 and reported finding 15 of the bodies lying face down and shot at close range. Two others were apparently shot down while trying to flee.

Describing the Muttur massacre as "one of the most serious recent crimes against humanitarian aid workers worldwide", Henricsson urged the Sri Lankan government to "take all necessary actions to immediately stop any kind of violence against the civilians of Sri Lanka".

Government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella has rejected the SLMM findings, saying they lack scientific basis. And the judicial medical officer who carried out the post mortem, and who placed the deaths around Aug. 4, says the LTTE was in control of Muttur during the 72 hours between Aug. 3 and Aug. 5.

A situation similar to what happened in Muttur is building up around the northern Jaffna peninsula, which has been taken over by the Sri Lankan armed forces and from which foreigners are being evacuated by the International Committee for the Red Cross.

There are reports of mine attacks, artillery exchanges and aerial strikes, as well as claims of recruitment of child soldiers, abductions and killings.

"We are heading towards an isolated, unknown and silent death. Are we going to be a people forgotten? Not cared for? Is the world going to keep silent now and count our bones from mass graves later to sit in judgment?" reads a letter written a by a group of Catholic priests in Jaffna and circulated by the Asian Human Rights Commission.

Jaffna has remained virtually cut off from the country since fighting commenced on Aug. 11 between the armed forces and the Tamil Tigers (as the LTTE is known). Casualty figures have reached close to 1,000, but the impact on the civilian population has remained underreported due to lack of access. Reports indicate that more than 100 civilians may have been killed in the fighting and, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency, 10 percent of Jaffna&#39s population of 500,000 is on the move because of the fighting.

Several instances of deliberate attacks on unarmed civilians have been reported over the last eight months. Five Tamil students were killed with bullets to their heads in Trincomalee in January, while 64 civilians were killed in a claymore mine attack in north-central Kapathigollawa in June.

The government and the Tigers blame rising civilian casualties on each other. The Tigers have alleged that the air force bombed an orphanage in Jaffna, killing 61 adolescent girl students undergoing first aid training. The government responded to the charge by saying the children were Tiger cadres.

With such claims and counter-claims, observers have called for greater international involvement in Sri Lanka to avert massive disaster. But Sinhala hardliners that back the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse are opposed to foreign involvement and have shown hostility towards international non-governmental organisations.

Rajapakse won the November elections narrowly on a mandate to review the ceasefire and, since he took office, his supporters have been pressing for a military solution to the conflict that dates back to the early 1980s.

But already the protracted conflict has taken a heavy toll on the civilians, claiming the lives of at least 65,000. The numbers of those who have gone missing, especially civilians, remains contentious, but the UN Human Rights Commission once estimated that more than 16,000 may have disappeared during a quarter century of civil strife.

The Sri Lankan army alone lists more than 3,000 soldiers and officers as missing during the fighting. Though peace held for the better part of four years, open warfare has once again erupted in pockets in the north and east and bombings have returned to the capital.

Since December, more than 1,500 have been killed, including at least 650 civilians.