Pro-LTTE and anti-Sri Lanka lobby:

It is time you take a 360° turn

Ranjith Jayawardana

With the exhaustion of the popular pet controversial topics regarding Sri Lanka, now the favourite topic of the international and national community used to flame the anti-Sri Lanka feeling throughout the world is the letters IDP. These three letters have become a gold mine for the said communities as well as for NGOs and their local acolytes. Thus the common and favourite slogan is ‘Resettle IDPs soon’.

Original dwellings

When the innocent civilians or the so-called IDPs were forcefully herded by Prabhakaran from Mannar to Mulaitivu through a route that is over 150 km, no Human Rights Organizations, Hypocratic Western Democracies or NGOs protested about this action of Prabhakaran for uprooting these people from their original dwellings.

Literally speaking these civilians became the prisoners of Prabhakaran or more precisely they could be called POPs. When Prabhakaran’s defence lines were broken and his controls over the civilians were lost, thousands fled towards Sri Lanka Government control area and entrusted their safety and security in the hands of Sri Lankan Defence Forces.

The Government was faced with the task of looking after these helpless civilians and had to provide immediate relief measures to accommodate this exodus of over 280,000 men, women and children. The Armed Forces and the Government Departments worked day and night to erect camps, tents, dormitories to house them.

The pro-LTTE and the anti-Sri Lankan lobby should thank the Sri Lanka Government for providing all basic facilities within a fortnight for over 280,000 people without any help from anybody.

The said lobby expected the Government to fall under the weight of this exodus and expected to cry for help from the outside world. This never happened and the Government bravely faced this situation.

It is a pity that most of these International Organizations, NGOs, Human Rights bodies and pro-LTTE so-called Western Democracies are criticizing the Government’s action program of resettling the POPs without studying the real ground situation.

Resettlements

The Sri Lanka Government considers that the Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims are its own people and specially the President does not want any person in welfare centres to be resettled without clearing all the mines planted within a land of over 5000 Sq. Km in the North.

Because during the so-called one sided Ceasefire period, LTTE planted hundreds of thousand land mines in their controlled areas.

Land mine blast

Now it is a heavy task and a big responsibility of the Government to uproot these mines before resettling these POPs. One wonders, why these pro-LTTE and anti-SLG lobby are clamouring and pressurizing to resettle these people in a hurry? Surely they waiting hopefully to raise a hue and cry and blame the Government if some person gets injured due to a land mine blast or some other mishap.

Ironically the so-called Super Power pro-LTTE is still struggling to bring back normalcy to the lives of the people who were displaced by floods in that country.

This super power categorized terrorists into two groups calling one group who are sponsored by them as good terrorists and the other as bad terrorists because they attacked that country. It is like cholesterol classified as bad (LDL) and as good (HDL) and for them LTTE is HDL!

There is no question that the Government should quickly resettle these POPs in their original dwellings as early as possible. The Government is spending over rupees 1.4 billion to rupees 1.8 billion per month to feed and maintain these innocent civilians in welfare centres and provides the following facilities such as:

A) Providing three meals per day for over 180,000 people.

B) Water for drinking and for ablutions.

C) Toilet facilities.

D) Health and hygienic facilities.

E) Supply of electricity.

F) Recreation and education for children in welfare centres

G) Vocational training for elders.

H) Welfare facilities for all.

I) Provision of security

J) Vehicles and fuel to be used for day to day administration and for transport.

K) Payment of salaries for all the services rendered by all people involved.

L) Maintenance of welfare centres

For all those facilities the Government has to provide funds without any outside help. The Government is very happy to send back these people to their original places without spending billions of rupees in maintaining these centres. The advocators of quick resettlement want these people to be sent back without a plan so they could fish in trouble waters if the program fails.

Everyone should know that it is the duty of the Government to take proper planned action in resettling these people after clearing all the mines and booby traps without heeding the foolish calls of pro-LTTE and anti-Sri Lanka lobby. The task of resettling is a big responsibility on the shoulders of the Government and have to address the following areas before doing so.

A) The biggest problem which consumes a lot of time is to clear an area of over 5,000 sq. km. mined by the LTTE specially during the CFA.

B) The roads which were damaged by the terrorists have to be rebuilt.

C) Almost all the culverts and bridges that were damaged by the LTTE to prevent the movement of SLG Armed Forces have to be repaired and reconstructed.

D) New houses should be built and the damaged houses should be repaired before resettlement.

E) School buildings are to be repaired and new buildings should be constructed for the children to attend school as soon as they return to their home towns.

F) Damaged Base, District and Rural Hospitals have to be repaired and provided with medical equipment, beds and medicine etc.

G) Rebuild the damaged Government administrative buildings and supply with furniture and other electronic items, stationery and equipment to commence civil administration.

H) Make arrangements to provide basic needs for the families to begin a livelihood.

I) Repair damaged irrigation work for the farmers to start their agricultural work.

J) To provide basic requirements such as agricultural equipment, seeds, fertilizer, pesticides and loans/funds for the farmers to begin their agricultural work.

K) Most of the Northerners are engaged in fishing industry and therefore they must be provided with fishing boats and fishing gear that they have lost during the terrorist war for them to start a new career.

L) To rebuild and maintain Churches and Hindu temples for these people to worship.

A reasonable thinking man could fathom the amount of money that the Government has to spend in maintaining over 280,000 and former POPs and the amount the Government will have to spend before the resettlement of these people in their home areas.

Some of the International VIPs who come to inspect and observe the conditions of these former POPs have praised the Sri Lanka Government for doing a good job and some of them have criticized the Government program.

Crocodile tears

The best and the funniest part of all is that no International Government, HR organization or NGO who criticize the work done by the Government and shed crocodile tears for POPs have not parted with a single cent to help the Sri Lanka Government on its program on resettling.

I would like to appeal to the United Nations, the rich countries and NGOs who were sympathizers of the LTTE to grant at least over US $ 02 billion for the resettlement program of the Government, if they are genuinely concerned about the welfare and the well being of these innocent Tamil civilians.

United Nations, USA, England, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Holland and Scandinavian countries, here is the opportunity for you to help the program of the resettlement of innocent Tamil civilians in their original dwelling places.