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SRI LANKA: Delay in Parley Deepens Humanitarian Crisis

Amantha Perera

COLOMBO, Oct 6 2006 (IPS) - As the Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebels quibble over where and when to hold peace talks, a massive humanitarian crisis is building up in the Jaffna peninsula where half a million people are short of food and fuel and where bombing raids by the air force have been continuing for the fourth day, Friday.

As the Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebels quibble over where and when to hold peace talks, a massive humanitarian crisis is building up in the Jaffna peninsula where half a million people are short of food and fuel and where bombing raids by the air force have been continuing for the fourth day, Friday.

The ‘A9′ arterial road connecting the peninsula to the rest of the country has remained virtually cut off since fighting erupted between government forces and the militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on Aug. 11. Supply lines, including air and sea transport, have been disrupted and international agencies such as the Red Cross have stopped accompanying government convoys, citing security reasons.

While the government, under pressure from an international donors’ group, announced on Wednesday readiness to resume talks with the LTTE on Oct. 28-30, the two sides are yet to agree on where in Europe the meeting would be held. The LTTE favours Oslo while the government prefers a venue in Switzerland.

Meanwhile, the government has kept up military pressure on the LTTE by bombing its positions in Jaffna and exchanging artillery fire. Except on paper, the fighting has ended a February 2002 ceasefire between the two sides brokered by Norway.

Heavy fighting was also reported Friday from Mankerni town in the eastern district of Batticaloa, threatening to cut supplies to some 34,000 refugees camping in the area ever since they lost their homes following pitched battles between the LTTE and the army in August to gain control over Muttur town that overlooks Trincomalee harbour.

The ceasefire, aimed at ending three decades of violence between the Sinhalese majority and the minority ethnic Tamils, has been under strain ever since parallel negotiations abruptly ended in April 2003. At least 65,000 people are believed to have died so far in the ethnic conflict centred around the drive to create a separate homeland for the Tamils in the north and east of the island.

Although government agencies have continued to sporadically supply the peninsula, aid agencies warn that if the two sides do not reach a compromise soon, the results could be disastrous for the civilian population consisting mainly of ethnic Tamils .

‘’No citizen of Sri Lanka should be forced to depend on uncertainties, such as if a ship will arrive in the coming weeks or not,” the head of the Nordic peace monitors in Sri Lanka, Lars Solvberg, told IPS earlier this week. Solvberg, just back from a tour of Tamil areas in the north and east, described the situation as ‘’totally unacceptable.”

The government maintains that there are ample supplies in Jaffna. The commissioner general of essential services, S. D. Divarathana, said that by the end of this week Jaffna’s monthly need of 10,000 metric tones of food should have landed. “There is absolutely no shortage, we have been supplying using ships. No one has complained of shortages,” he said.

However, the United Nations and other agencies estimate that only about 6,000 metric tonnes of food has reached the peninsula between August and September, putting severe strain on the civilian population caught in the fighting.

‘’The sum of food supplied by the government after Aug. 11, of 6,014 metric tonnes is approximately half of the food required to meet the World Food Programme/government minimum food requirement,” the Inter Agency Standing Committee Country Team said in one of its reports late August.

Both the government and the Tigers have been accused of turning a blind eye to the sufferings of the civilians by a growing chorus of international actors. “It is an obligation of the parties to the conflict, according to International Humanitarian Law, that the civilian population is guaranteed access to basic necessities such as food, water, shelter and medicine, even in times of war,” Red Cross’s Peter Krakolinig said.

The Red Cross stopped accompanying supply ships to the north when the LTTE warned them in writing in mid-August that they could not guarantee the safety of the vessels. “The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) can only operate in transparency with all parties, and only when all parties agree and give the necessary security guarantees. This is not the case currently for maritime movement and the ICRC can only continue its negotiation efforts,” Krakolinig said.

“It is the ICRC that has stopped accompanying the ships. What are we to do? As a government we keep supplying with or without their participation,” defence spokesman and minister Keheliya Rambukwella said commenting on the Red Cross’ reluctance to operate under prevailing conditions.

Aid workers have been deterred by the fact that the fighting has not spared them. On Aug. 5, 17 aid workers from Action Internationale Contre la Faim (ACF) were lined up and shot dead in and around their office in Muttur town.

On Wednesday, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) expressed concern that the Sri Lankan government has refused to allow its official representative to enter the country and observe an inquest into the slaying of the aid workers.

‘’It is regrettable that the government has chosen not to allow our independent international observer to attend this vital inquest,” said Nicholas Howen, secretary-general of the ICJ in a statement. ‘’At a time when the (U.N.) High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions have warned that investigations and accountability mechanisms have failed to bring justice to victims in Sri Lanka, it is particularly important for the government to demonstrate that every stage of its processes, including inquests and trials, are open, transparent and credible.”

Hopes for resumption of regular supplies are now being pinned on the late October meeting. The LTTE’s political wing leader S.P. Tamilselvan has said in a statement that if the talks fail it could mean all out war and that the violence could spill into the Sinhala-dominated south.