AI diverts attention from KP capture
At the height of the LTTE's final battle for the survival of terror
through the holding of thousands of civilians hostage and as human
shields for the safety of the terrorist leaders, and was using all
available civilian from children to the aged to carry weapons for the
cause of terror, Amnesty International (AI) was among the international
organizations, along with some western countries, that tried to do their
best to extend a lifeline to Prabhakaran and the other leaders of the
LTTE.
The method they used was to call for a ceasefire allegedly for the
safety of the civilians. Much was done to move international opinion,
and powerful world bodies against Sri Lanka in this last ditch move to
help the leaders of the world's most ruthless terrorist organization, so
described by the US State Department.
Resettling IDPs, the Government’s main concern. Picture by
Ranjith Jayaweera |
The war in Sri Lanka is now over, after nearly 30 years, because the
Government did not give in to the pressures brought on it at that time
and also did not give ear to those pleaders like AI, for the cause of
the LTTE, under the guise of pleading for the safety of Tamil civilians.
The result was that no sooner a path to escape was opened nearly
300,000 Tamil civilians, who are citizens of Sri Lanka, crossed over to
Government held territory, in a life and death escape to freedom, with
LTTE cadres shooting at them from behind as they fled their captors of
the past several years.
The call for a ceasefire was a craftily thought out tactical move by
AI and similar organizations, who were ready to risk jeopardizing their
image of being fair, to please the expatriate Sri Lankan Tamil community
in the West, with all the financial resources that were available to
these forces that had been funding the LTTE's terror through nearly
three decades. Amnesty International failed in its bid to help the so
called "Tamil Diaspora" on that occasion, as did some prominent western
political leaders, too.
But AI does not give up on a cause, especially if it is directed
against a country that has a guts to stand up to international pressure,
whether it comes from states or high profile crusaders for human rights,
with their own agenda. So AI has launched a new campaign against Sri
Lanka.
The KP diversion
It was on the night of August 6 that the story began breaking out
about the arrest of KP - the successor to Velupillai Prabhakaran and the
holder of the finances of the LTTE. By the morning of August 7, it was
widely known that KP had been arrested by Sri Lankan undercover
operators in daring operation in a South East Asian capital and been
brought to Colombo for questioning.
The Tamils abroad who were thinking of reviving the LTTE through KP
and the funds, sources for arms and other assets he had control over
were dismayed. It was another major defeat to the forces of terror and
separatism.
It was time for AI to step in to the scene. The interest had to be
taken away from the arrest of KP and the further humiliation of the LTTE,
and its troopers scattered abroad, especially in the West. AI's
International Council meeting took place in Turkey last week and on
August 7 it issued statement launching its new campaign against Sri
Lanka. AI's Secretary General, Irene Khan, launched the new campaign -
the "Unlock the camps in Sri Lanka". It was a well timed diversion to
take the media focus away from KP and what he may be telling the Sri
Lankan authorities; to distract world opinion from the existence of the
remnants of the LTTE in so many countries of the West, who could very
soon be dangers to those societies. So Irene Khan and AI have once again
decided to use the Tamil civilians who fled the ruthless grip of the
LTTE, to further its campaign against Sri Lanka.
Irene Khan |
The fact that the IMF had also not given too much credence to the
appeals and at times demands that Sri Lanka not be given the Special
Drawing Rights it sought for reconstruction and rehabilitation work,
would also have prompted AI and others who think alike to have a new
campaign to vilify Sri Lanka. So the nearly 280,000 Tamil civilians who
are still in relief villages in the North of Sri Lanka, awaiting
relocation to their homes in congenial surroundings are being made use
of to attack Sri Lanka again.
Not real
There is precious little that is new in the AI campaign to "Unlock
the camp in Sri Lanka". It's all a regurgitation of what has been said
before, with little concern for the reality of steadily improving
conditions in the relief villages, and the steady, although not large
number of civilians leaving for resettlement and to start new
livelihoods.
"Hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the recent war in North
East Sri Lanka and living in camps are being denied basic human rights
including freedom of movement", said AI in its opening remarks in the
statement launching the new campaign.
It adds that: "Two months after the end of the fighting, the Sri
Lankan authorities are still not addressing properly the needs of the
newly displaced. The camps are overcrowded and unsanitary....In
addition, these are effectively detention camps. They are run by the
military and the camp residents are prevented from leaving them; they
are denied basic legal safeguards. The Government's claim that it needs
to hold people to carry out screening is not a justifiable reason to
detain civilians including entire families, the elderly and children,
for an indefinite period."
AI is obviously not bothered about reality. Yes there is still much
crowding in the relief centres. It is still barely two months since that
massive influx of people from the terrible experience of being held
hostage by the LTTE. They do lack the complete freedom that other
citizens of Sri Lanka have.
Screening is a necessary process, after a war that lasted 30 years,
and in which the LTTEer indoctrinated and trained so many to carry arms.
Each day the security forces are discovering hidden LTTE arms in places
as far away as Colombo, and very close to the relief camps in Vavuniya,
in parts of the East and North too.
The absence of legal safeguards for the citizens in the relief
villages is disproved by the fact that some of them have in fact sought
relief from the courts against some of the conditions they considered
unsuitable.
The camps may be considered insanitary by those who are used to the
comfort of western cities, but not in the more deprived areas of those
cities, and the WHO itself bears witness to the fact that conditions
regarding health are showing steady improvement.
There are mass vaccination campaigns being carried out and there are
no epidemics that have broken out in the relief centres, contrary to the
dire warnings of such possibilities made.
The health conditions have improved to the point where India had
decided to take back its team of medical personnel who set up a field
hospital, and later a permanent facility, for the people fleeing the
LTTE from April this year, and has said that facility can now be manned
by Sri Lankan medical personnel.
AI is so blind to reality in these places that it calls "detention
camps" where there are cooperative stores, banks, a large flow of goods
from outside given by donors hundreds of miles away, and irrespective of
race, creed or caste.
It is also totally unaware, or does not want it known, that the
authorities there have made arrangements for nearly 180 students to sit
the GCE Advanced Level, the main school leaving examination in Sri
Lanka, at Vavuniya earlier this week, having arranged for special
tutoring in the earlier weeks. Some "detention camps" this must be.
These are the actual conditions in the relief villages that AI wants
unlocked. It does not say where all these people are to go if set out.
Are they to wander into mine infested fields to start cultivations, and
be killed or maimed? Who is to give them sufficient craft to resume the
fisheries that a large number were engaged in? How can people be asked
to go and fend for themselves where there are still no proper roads, no
electricity, no easy access to potable water, and no schools and
hospitals and other necessary facilities and utilities?
AI may have thought it timely to talk of unlocking the camps in Sri
Lanka, as a catchy slogan. But is only proof of how much it is locked in
a determination to vilify Sri Lanka, for the benefit of the remnants of
the LTTE and the organizations that supported the terrorist organization
which caused so much death and destruction in Sri Lanka for so long.
AI may have thought it timely to try to take the focus away from the
capture of KP - an internationally wanted criminal; wanted for financing
terrorism, gun running, illegal arms purchases, drug dealing and the
assassination of democratic political leaders, including India's Rajiv
Gandhi. There are many more doors to lock in Sri Lanka and elsewhere,
before the world is truly made safe from the LTTE and the remnants of
its forces of terror.
AI should take a closer look at such realities before calling to
unlock the camps in Sri Lanka. This is a game as cheap and unbecoming of
an organization such as AI, as what it tried to do to humiliate Sri
Lanka at the last Cricket World Cup played in the West Indies. AI and
Irene Khan must know better than to divert world attention from KP and
the remaining terror network of the LTTE. |