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RIGHTS-SRI LANKA: Civilian Lives Going Cheap

Amantha Perera

COLOMBO, Feb 7 2008 (IPS) - This week, as Sri Lanka celebrated the 60th anniversary of its independence from British colonial rule, over 60 civilians were reported killed in the raging ethnic conflict on the island.

The violence has led observers to comment that a culture of impunity has taken hold of the country and that the belligerents, the Sri Lankan army and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), have given up any pretence of being responsible for the lives and safety of ordinary citizens.

"What we are seeing is a situation dipping even further with more violence on the cards," executive director of the National Peace Council (NPC) Jehan Perera told IPS.

"Unless there is a will on both sides to end the violence, the trend is likely to continue," he added.

Among those who have expressed concern for the plight of civilians is British Foreign Secretary David Miliband who, in a statement released in the Sri Lankan capital on Thursday, said that the government&#39s withdrawal from a 2002 ceasefire agreement with the LTTE rebels did not absolve the warring sides of a duty to protect ordinary people.

"I call for an immediate end to practices which target civilians or put them in peril," Miliband said in the statement. "A sustainable solution to Sri Lanka&#39s conflict can only emerge through a just political process involving all communities."


The targeting of civilians increased after the collapse on Jan. 16 of the 2002 ceasefire between the government and the LTTE, Colombo pulling out of the agreement unilaterally. In the ensuing weeks, over 100 civilians were killed with ‘Independence Week’ proving to be the worst.

The latest killing spree started on Feb. 2, two days before the independence anniversary, when a powerful parcel bomb ripped apart a bus in central Dambulla, about 160 km from the capital Colombo. The attack left 20 dead, 16 of them women. A majority of the passengers were pilgrims heading to the sacred Buddhist town of Anuradhapura.

The next day a suicide bomber blew herself up inside the main railway station in the capital. The blast killed 14 people, including seven school boys, and left at least 100 others injured.

Within three hours of the suicide attack, a claymore mine went off on the roadside in north eastern Kapethigollawa, about 200 km from Colombo. The explosion took place as a bus passed by, leaving 13 dead and 17 injured.

The attacks were the latest in the month that has seen any gains from the truce evaporate fast. In a series of attacks in the south east of the country, starting Jan. 16, 48 civilians were killed. And on Jan. 29, some 20 people died in a claymore mine attack that targeted a school bus near the Madhu shrine, sacred to Christians, in Tiger-held north-western Mannar district.

"The multiple bombings in different parts of the country have brought anguish and uncertainty to the lives of people, be they in Weli Oya, Mannar, Colombo, Dambulla, Buttala or the Wanni. All these attacks have targeted civilians in which dozens have died and hundreds have been injured. It appears that some of the attacks were timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary celebrations of the country’s independence. But there is fear that the attacks will continue unabated in the future as well," the NPC said in a statement soon after the attacks.

"What we have seen is yet again innocent civilians have been killed like in so many other instances in the past," Rev Rajappu Joseph, the Catholic bishop of Mannar, told IPS following the claymore attack at the Madhu shrine. ‘’We have requested on so many occasions that both sides treat the Madhu Church compound as a ‘peace zone’… yet this happened."

The rights group Amnesty International said this week its fears that intensification of government operations could trigger retaliatory attacks by the LTTE have proved true.

"Both the Sri Lanka government and the LTTE are failing to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law and are killing civilians on an increasingly regular basis. With no perpetrators brought to justice, a climate of impunity is becoming entrenched: unless these patterns are reversed the future appears bleak,’’ Tim Parritt, deputy programme director for Asia-Pacific, said following the latest series of bombings.

Fighting between the two sides has also raged along the northern lines of control that separate government-held areas and the Wanni, a swath of land in the north under LTTE control. Dozens of combatants from both sides are reported killed on a daily basis. Independent verification of the casualty figures is almost impossible due to access restrictions.

The government and the LTTE have been blaming each other for the recent wave of attacks targeting civilians. Colombo says the LTTE is responsible for all the recent attacks carried out in the south, but has vowed not to waver in pursuing on-going operations in the north, aimed at dislodging the LTTE from its stronghold in Jaffna.

"Our security forces are today achieving victories against terrorism, unprecedented in history. Terrorism is receiving an unprecedented defeat," President Mahinda Rajapakse said during his speech at the main Independence Day event. "In less than two years we have liberated the large Eastern Province that was under the clutches of the terrorists and confined them to two districts only. It will not be wrong to say they are confined to one-and-a-half districts," he added.

On Jan. 30, B. Nadesan, the LTTE political head, wrote to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon saying: "The pace of civilian killings by the Sri Lankan state, after unilaterally abrogating the ceasefire agreement of February 2002, after evicting the ceasefire monitoring mission, the SLMM, and after adamantly refusing to allow U.N. human rights monitoring body continues to increase.’’

The LTTE is blaming security forces for bombings in the Wanni area. "In effect the Sri Lankan state is repulsing all efforts by the international community to rectify the appalling rights situation in this island," Nadesan said.

Rajapakse, however, enjoys the support of powerful pro-Sinhala political partners in the south who are unequivocal that the operations against the LTTE should not be stopped.

"In intensifying attacks against civilians, Tiger terrorists display impotency in their military prowess," the parliamentary group leader of the People Liberation Front (PLF) Wimal Weeravansha said on Feb. 5.

"The LTTE now desperately needs international intervention. There is much false propaganda to bring the armed forces to disrepute and one recent attempt was the allegation that the army in Mannar killed school children in a claymore attack," he said. ‘’The LTTE is about to be militarily defeated and their desperation needs to be understood."

 
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