Chilling stories from Sri Lanka

The government reasoning has raised concern about the well-being of innocent civilians trapped in the war zone. After all, if the all-out war posed a threat to the liberty and life of aid workers, what would be the fate of an estimated 2.5 to 3 lakh internally displaced people (IDP) in the Wanni?

Innumerable sanctimonious statements have come from government functionaries about the supreme focus of the Army to wage the war with zero human casualty and ensure a steady supply of essential commodities to the internally displaced, at the least at the minimum level of subsistence. But is it practicable? How has it worked on the ground in the last eight or so weeks? The Wanni has been deprived of independent observers to monitor the ground situation (barring the four forays by U.N. observers for a few hours accompanying food and medicine convoys).

Herein lies the enormous significance of Special Report 31 of the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), or UTHR-J, released on October 28. The UTHR-J, whose reports are based on grassroots inputs from a band of relatively unbiased observers, has an impeccable track record in collating facts and figures to the extent possible in a battle situation. The organisation has acquired a reputation that is hard to tarnish. It is known to call a spade a spade and is never deterred by the Tigers’ terror tactics. Hence the latest UTHR-J report, titled “Pawns of an un-heroic war”, makes chilling reading. Neither the LTTE nor the Mahinda Rajapaksa government makes a pretty picture of itself, while the miseries of ordinary citizens are painted completely on the UTHR-J canvas.

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