The Sri Lankan army’s final offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) did little to pave the way for a resolution to the conflict between the country’s Tamil community and the nationalist Sinhala-chauvinist government of Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Between January and May of this year, 20 thousand Tamil civilians lost their lives due to relentless bombing by the Sri Lankan army. Since the end of the offensive, between 250 and 300 thousand civilians have been held captive in internment camps with neither freedom of movement nor even the right to family reunification. This has enabled the government to try to hone in on and capture supposed members and supporters of the LTTE within the camps’ civilian population.
NGOs such as the Red Cross have not been allowed to deliver aid and support to Tamils detained in camps lacking even the most basic necessities. Amnesty International has even alerted the international community to the danger of a humanitarian disaster.
Mahinda Rajapaksa recently decided to bring forward presidential elections to early 2010 in the hope of capitalizing on his victory against the Tigers. Since this announcement was made, the camps have been opened and Tamil detainees gradually released. They have been authorized to return to the areas where they lived previously, including to those places in the North heavily affected by fighting. The government has even announced that the camps will be permanently shut down by the end of January 2010 at the latest.
The decision to authorize freedom of movement for civilians trapped in the camps is an important step towards relieving the burden of hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilian victims of the war. But these displaced persons cannot return home unless they receive genuine assistance. The needs in the northern part of the peninsula are enormous. The land has to be cleared of mines; the areas destroyed by war have to be rebuilt; homes have to be erected for those no longer having either a place to live or the financial means to rebuild; basic services have to be restored; and food and clothing has to be provided to destitute civilians. According to humanitarian organizations on the ground, these basic conditions will not yet be met in many places by late January 2010. This is why the Sri Lankan government must substantially improve living conditions in the camps in order to help those people who are not in a position to return immediately to their places of residence.
It is all the more urgent to improve the conditions of Tamils affected by the war given that hundreds of Tamil refugees have risked their lives on makeshift vessels in order to seek political asylum in neighbouring countries. For several weeks now, more than 250 Tamils, including children, have been held in extremely precarious conditions on a boat in the Indonesian port of Merak, while 68 Tamil refugees have been interned on a boat from the Australian customs service in the Indonesian port of Tanjung Penang. Malaysia hasn’t been any more welcoming, with 207 refugees held in an immigration detention centre at the Kuala Lumpur international airport and another 108 refugees at a similar facility in Johor. On November 1st, 12 refugees perished when a boatload of Tamil refugees sank near the Coco Islands, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean.
The Malaysian, Indonesian and Australian governments have refused to accept this new wave of refugees fleeing war and oppression and have treated them like common criminals. They seek to return the Tamil refugees to their country of origin despite the dangers they face and in contempt of their human rights.
Despite the total military defeat of the Tigers, the Sri Lankan government has increased its military budget by 20 percent to a record 1.6 billion dollars. This hasn’t stopped the IMF from going ahead with a 2.6 billion dollar loan over 20 months to help rebuild the economy.
The government has not shown any signs that it is prepared to grant any kind of autonomy to majority non-Sinhala regions.
No lasting peace is possible without the recognition of the Tamil people’s right to self-determination. Autonomy must be granted to majority non-Sinhala regions and equality between all citizens must be guaranteed. This is the only way to achieve peace and democracy in a multiracial and multicultural state.
The minorities, journalists and opponents of the regime have been victims of war crimes, extrajudicial killings, disappearances and arbitrary detention. No lasting peace is possible until those responsible for these crimes have been brought to justice.