Sri Lankan Tamils: A Ray of Hope amidst encircling Gloom

A ten-member delegation
of MPs undertook a five
day visit to Sri Lanka to find out the condition of over 2.53 lakh war-displaced Tamils there and returned on 14th October. The team led by former Union Minister T.R.Baalu comprised five DMK members, four Congress members and the leader of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi, Thol. Thirumavalavan. While talking to the media on their arrival in Chennai, Kalaignar M.Karunanidhi, the Chief Minister,  informed that Sri Lankan Government had agreed to send back to their homes 58,000 internally displaced persons with in a fortnight and that the process of resettlement would begin from 15th October. He described the gesture as a piece of consoling news and an immediate outcome of the delegation’s visit.

After meeting the Chief Minister on 18th October, the Union Home Minister P.Chidambaram told that the Central Government would take steps to ensure that all the Tamil civilians in camps for the displaced were properly resettled.  In his view the process of resettlement had started in a slow manner and had to be speeded up. The Indian Government had already released Rs.500 crore for rehabilitation. It had promised another Rs.500 crore towards resettlement if necessary. “We are ready, but are yet to receive a project report from the Sri Lankan Government,” the Home Minister said.

The news that  in the process of resettlement started on 15th October, sofar till 22nd October  totally 54,000 Tamils have been sent back to their homes from the camps, gives some comfort. Let us hope that all the remaining Tamils in these camps will be resettled soon in their homes.

In the meanwhile Thol. Thirumavalavan, the VCK leader, said on 19th October that any human being with a sympathetic heart would not be able to stomach the tragedy that the Tamils were undergoing in the camps that he described as “concentration camps”. He told about the pathetic conditions and blatant human rights violations prevailing there as Sri Lanka had denied access to the media,  local leaders and human rights activists for the past five months. Those in the camps were staying in cramped tents behind barbed wires without adequate food, water and sanitary facilities. It was a pitiable scene that people were yearning for their next meal. Being at the mercy of the Sri Lankan army, a mood of subservience was spreading among the civilians in the camps. The VCK MP wondered how the international community and India could remain a mute spectator on the issue of mitigating the suffering and ensuring the human rights and dignified existence of Sri Lankan Tamils.

Kalaignar Karunanidhi’s intensity of feeling and his deep involvement to ensure the legitimate interests of Tamils everywhere are well known. Being a seasoned statesman he voices his views in a restrained manner and undertakes constructive measures. But do the Sinhala authorities respond to his positive moves in a responsible manner and to an adequate extent?

Walter Kaelin, a representative of the U.N.Secretary General, toured the relief camps in the last week of September. He asked Sri Lanka to comply with its international obligations. He said a clash between the troops and a group of the displaced raised serious human rights issues.

The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated at the U.N.Security Council on 30 September that Sri Lanka used rape as a war weapon. Her intention was to raise awareness of such brutality as rape and sexual violence, just as in other conflicts.

To the group of parliamentarians from Tamil Nadu, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) team told that the Sri Lankan Government was not serious about the resettlement of the Tamil refugees as it had other plans for the Vanni area. Suresh Premachandran, the TNP MP for Jaffna district, told that the Sri Lankan government has plans to settle Sinhalese in Kilinochi and Mullaitivu districts so that at least 30 percent of  the population would be Sinhalese.

When the Tamil Nadu MPs were in Sri Lanka, they were told that only 20,000 refugees had been moved out of camps. Even these had not been sent back to their villages but to transit camps! Are the Sinhalese authorities serious and honest in honouring their Commitment. The TNA delegation pointed out that in war-torn Vietnam and Cambodia, mines were no bar to resettlement and that demining was going on for years after the warhad ended.

In the meanwhile there are reports about a serious move of putting up the current Chief of Defence Staff and former Army Commander Gen. Sarath Ponseka, as the joint candidate against Mahinda Rajapaksa in the Presidential election. The aim of the Sinhala politicians is to subject the Tamil minority nationality of the island to a tyranny worse than it is at present. Now is the time for India and international community to act in a decisive manner to do justice.