Supplies
To Tamil Rebel Areas
Firmly In Gov't Hands
By Amantha Perera
22 September,
2008
Inter
Press Service
COLOMBO , Sep 20 (IPS) - With the United Nations and other international humanitarian agencies vacating the Tamil rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi, now under army siege, the onus of maintaining essential supplies to tens of thousands of civilians in the area called the Vanni has fallen on the government.
"We will have to work harder now to get the supplies in, there is no shortage yet, but if the World Food Programme (WFP) convoys get delayed then we will have problems," Nagalingam Vedanayagam, the government agent in Kilinochchi in Tiger-held areas, told IPS.
But according to reports appearing on the LTTE-backed website ‘TamilNet,’ the Sri Lankan army, on Wednesday, stopped 15 lorries from delivering supplies to internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Kilinochchi. No indepndent confirmation was possible.
On Sep. 5 the Sri Lankan government served notice on the U.N. and other international humanitarian agencies to relocate from the Vanni to Vavuniya town on the grounds that it could not guarantee the safety of their staff.
Colombo has vowed to capture the Vanni in the north of the island as a follow up to wresting the east, a year ago, from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which has been fighting to create a separate Tamil homeland in these areas of the Sinhala dominated island.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse has declared that the Vanni would be captured by the end of the year, though analysts say the group may then retreat in the jungles and wage a guerilla war against the government.
According to government sources, the LTTE has about 5,000 fighters but defence analysts have said the highly motivated and trained group may have about twice that number and are already entrenched in the jungle terrain around Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts.
"We moved all our international staff and offices, we do not have any permanent staff there (in the Vanni)," Gordon Weiss, U.N. spokesman in Sri Lanka, said. The last convoy of U.N. and international humanitarian officials left the LTTE’s political capital of Kilinochchi on Sep. 16.
The relocation had been suspended for three days before that owning to public protests that blocked the only access road out of the Vanni. U.N. officials then held discussions with the LTTE to secure safe passage, Weiss told IPS. Government forces had also ensured safe passage for the convoy through areas of fighting south of Kilinochchi.
The relocation is the latest development in two-and-a-half months of heavy fighting in the Vanni, especially on the western flank, with government forces driving into Tiger-held areas on multiple fronts.
According to U.N. statistics there are at least 160,000 IDPs in the Vanni and at least 70,000 have been displaced since June. At least 150,000 persons had benefited from supplies moved to the Vanni by the WFP in August.
The Sri Lankan government has appealed to the civilians to move out of the Vanni and reach government-controlled areas, but as fighting closed in on Kilinochchi -- official sources said that they were less than 10 km south of the Tiger showpiece -- civilians were moving deeper into Tiger-held areas, the Kilinochchi government agent said.
"Six thousand five hundred and twenty one families have moved out of 14 villages in the Killinochchi district due to heavy shelling early last week," he said. "They have moved to areas north east of Kilinochchi."
Other human rights and civic bodies have warned that the lack of any permanent presence of international agencies in the Vanni, barring the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), has further endangered the civilians.
This withdrawal will leave the displaced people even more vulnerable to being in the line of fire of the advancing Sri Lankan armed forces as well as further restrictions of movement, forced recruitment and other abuses by the LTTE," the Christian Solidarity Movement (CSM), a church-based group, said in a report released on Sep. 17.
The report, based on information from priests and laymen inside the Vanni, said there was also the fear of forced recruitment. "We heard from several aid workers and priests that people live in fear of forced recruitment by the LTTE. The present policy of one person recruited per family seemed to be strictly implemented and there were fears that this would be extended to extend to two per family. Even older men are being recruited by the LTTE," it said. The CSM said that there was very little chance of civilians moving out to government-held areas soon.
Agencies that relocated out of the Vanni also said the security fears had made it impossible to work in the battle zones.
"We need to be mindful of what we do, when, where and how in a militarised zone. There is an element of physical risk in the current situation," Jeevan Thiyagaraja, executive director of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies, a local umbrella group of national and international NGOs, said.
A local resident in Vanni who worked with the international NGOs (INGOs) said he and others like him will now be working under the two government agents of Kilinochchi and Mulaithivu districts as volunteers.
"All (agencies that worked in the Vanni) are present in Vavuniya. None has operationally travelled back in. The local staff in the Vanni is in the process of linking with government agents as volunteers and ceasing to be INGO employees."
Kilnochchi government agent Vedanayagam said that his office was awaiting the list of names from the INGOs and that the U.N. also had not commenced work after the relocation.
"The INGOs and the U.N. agencies have not started to carry out their functions after relocating to Vavuniya. Everything is at a standstill at the moment following the relocation of these humanitarian agencies."
Weiss said the U.N. was keen to help the ongoing government efforts to supply the Vanni. "We are determined to assist in the humanitarian effort and the WFP will play that vital role." He said that discussions were taking place between the government and the U.N. at the highest levels to map out modalities of moving supplies.
The government has also expressed its keenness to continue the WFP supplies into the Vanni without a break. The WFP has a trucking capacity of 240 tons and has, in the past year, developed warehouse capacities close to the Vanni.
The ICRC remains the only international agency with a permanent presence in the Vanni. The government said the ICRC will remain because its officals function as observers at the only crossover point linking the Vanni with the rest of country and also facilitate the exchange of bodies of dead combatants.
"We are constantly in dialogue with both parties, but we are committed to fulfilling the ICRC’s role to help the non-combatants in the conflict areas," Aleksandra Matijevic, ICRC spokeswoman, in Colombo said.
The ICRC is also evaluating its own security on a daily basis.
Copyright © 2008 IPS-Inter Press Service
