On My Watch

Tigers play the last human trump

Lucien RAJAKARUNANAYAKE

For those who have the least respect for the sanctity of human life, it is easy to use the suffering of humans as a bargaining ploy to save their own lives.

The LTTE was asked to abstain from continuing its activities

This reality is now being played out with the LTTE’s callous disregard to all appeals to allow the civilians it is holding hostage, to be allowed freedom in government controlled areas prepared receive them.

Even worse is the LTTE’s readiness to endanger the lives of every people it has for long claimed to liberate, as shown by their use of heavy weapons from the mid of civilians.

The signs for this savagery of the LTTE were seen for some time. As each of its so-called fortresses such as Kilinochchi, Elephant Pass and Mullaitivu fell like nine pins before the advancing national troops of Sri Lanka, and the once ‘invincible’ tigers retreated into smaller pockets of operation; there was speculation in the international media, about how the LTTE would spring back.

The BBC was almost urging it to hold its guns for the final breakout as Chris Morris, who rushed here from the possible boredom of the Indian fight against terror, had to remind viewers the world over that the LTTE has bounced back from many such defeats before, although it was now fighting with its backs to the wall much more.

Yet those with genuine concern for Tamil civilians understood the bloody climax the LTTE was preparing for.

As the world was recovering from the Israeli-directed carnage of civilians in the Gaza, and the ‘international community’ was jockeying for new focus on Sri Lanka, the Bishop of Jaffna Rt. Rev. Thomas Savundaranayagam made the first serious call to the LTTE to spare Tamil civilians.

Writing to President Rajapaksa last Sunday he said: “We are urgently requesting the Tamil Tigers not to station themselves among the people in the safety zone and fire their artillery - shells and rockets at the army. This will only increase more and more the death of civilians thus endangering the safety of the people.”

US Ambassador Robert Blake, whose government is not for any talks with the LTTE, an internationally banned terrorist organization, speaking at a function to donate food to the World Food Program for internally displaced civilians in the North, said: “The LTTE must immediately desist from firing heavy weapons from areas within or near civilian concentrations.

The Government must also resist the temptation to launch retaliatory shelling into areas populated by civilians.”

The nuance of diplomatic wording showed the reality, though less tellingly that the Bishop of Jaffna. The LTTE was asked to ‘desist’ or abstain from continuing in its action of firing heavy weapons from areas within or near civilian concentrations, while the Government forces were asked to ‘resist’ the temptation for retaliatory shelling into such areas.

The donation of US$ 6.9 million in food aid to the World Food Program (WFP) for distribution to Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) in the North showed that relief is in fact sent to the IDPs.

Last Monday evening the most senior member of the Indian Cabinet, Minister of External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee who met President Rajapaksa, while expressing India’s genuine concern for the plight of civilians caught in the conflict, was equally clear that the battle to wipe out terrorism must go on.

And now the great howl is on conveniently fuelled by a total fabrication by the LTTE propaganda machinery, about 300 deaths and over 1000 injured among civilians in the fighting at Mullaitivu and acute shortage of doctors and drugs there.

These two figures are woven into the barrage of appeals being issued to save the Tamil civilians trapped in the North. Not surprisingly, this gross and malicious fabrication is quoted by a supposed coalition of Civil Society organizations in Sri Lanka issued by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA).

Here it goes: “An Urgent Appeal has been issued in the name of the Regional Director of Health Services in Mullaitivu, the area most recently captured by the Sri Lankan security forces, calling for the most basic of medical supplies to be sent to the region immediately.

The report highlights the killing of around 300 IDPs within the last few days, injuries to many more and that others are not accounted for. Basic emergency medical care for the injured is not available due to the lack of essential drugs and services in Mullaitivu and surrounding areas where the fighting is heaviest. Heavy fighting and travel restrictions imposed by the fighting forces prevent the health authorities from transferring the injured to hospitals outside the conflict zones.”

The CPA and its convenient coalition, are blissfully unaware for its their own profit or satisfaction, and that of their funding channels, of the exposure of this so-called appeal by the RDHS in Mullaitivu as a total fabrication (www.info.gov.lk - Jan 28) and that Associated Press (AP) in a display of journalistic responsibility withdrew its own news items based on this false report, as well as corrected the captions to several of its photographs of operations in Mullaitivu that had been doctored in its Office in New Delhi, to include the same crooked falsehood. These figures have crept into ICRC comments and other statements too.

Hanging its call for immediate help for civilians on the hook of the Israeli-Gaza conflict, the National Peace Council, calls for relief reminding us that: “Sri Lanka can no longer hope to battle a war that is insulated from the rest of the world.

Recently Israel conceded to world opinion and declared a ceasefire in Gaza. Consequently, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, among others, has called for the safety of civilians through the provision of humanitarian aid and the establishment of a safe humanitarian corridor.”

Hold on Peace Councilors, national or not. At the least you are confused. Israel did not concede to word opinion to withdraw from the Gaza. It did so having completed its fell deed by the civilians of Gaza, and also timed the withdrawal to be completed by the time Barack Obama took office as President of the USA.

Also one must not forget that the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has accused Israel of violating the accepted norms of warfare, (which you have forgotten) and is also probing the possibility of charging Israel with war crimes in its Gaza operation. (Why not such a reminder to the LTTE?) These statements are not comparable with the situation in the North of Sri Lanka, however much one may try to twist facts to show it thus.

It is in response to the genuine concerns of the Government of Sri Lanka for the safety of all its civilians, and not about a frenzied self-immolation, lawyers’ protests and such other opportunist political posturing in Tamil Nadu, that President Rajapaksa has made what appears to be a final call to the LTTE to free the civilians it is holding hostage as a human shield: The President’s statement issued Thursday evening concludes: “I urge the LTTE, within the next 48 hours to allow free movement of civilians to ensure their safety and security.

For all those civilians, I assure a safe passage to a secure environment. I also assure all those living in the North and in conflict areas in particular, that vacating LTTE held areas will ensure their physical security and enable peace, freedom and rights for all citizens of this country.”

It is time to see for how long more the LTTE will be able to hold back the civilians within its ever shrinking territory, and whether they will heed the calls by all who believe in the sanctity of human life to have mercy on those people, or use them as bloody pawns in the escape plans for its beleaguered leaders, including Velupillai Prabhakaran, who once vowed to take the suicide path to eternal peace if he failed to reach the goal of Tamil Eelam.