Civilians flee as Tamil Tigers squeezed

Thousands of terrorized civilians crossed into government-held areas in northern Sri Lanka yesterday, but an unknown number remain pinned on a tiny patch of land in the middle of a vicious war, a situation the International Committee of the Red Cross called "utterly catastrophic." As has so often been the case in Sri Lanka's grinding and bloody civil war, both sides seem equally indiscriminate in their brutal treatment of civilians. The military has trapped the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which fought for an independent homeland for the country's marginalized Tamil population since 1972, on what is now no more than six square kilometres of land. The rebels–which many countries, including Canada, consider a terrorist organization–have dragged civilians with them as they steadily lost territory in the northern region they once controlled in the course of a massive government military offensive over the past eight months. These families, originally some 300,000 people, are living in makeshift shelters on swamp land and along a sliver of white-sand, palm-lined beach. On Tuesday, after giving the rebels 48 hours to surrender, a deadline the Tigers ignored, the government pushed into their last redoubt. After the army demolished some huge earthen embankments, civilians began to make their way out–in rickety fishing boats, or wading down the sea coast with children, old people and the injured and a few possessions carried on shoulders. The government says more than 80,000 have come out this week, but the ICRC confirms only 29,000. When they get out of rebel-held areas, the civilians are forced into government holding areas ringed by soldiers and barbed wire–the government calls them "welfare centres." Tamil and some international critics say they can more accurately be described as concentration camps. However many have come out, it is clear that tens of thousands remain. The U.S. government has released satellite images showing 25,000 tents or shelters; each may house five or six people. No food has been delivered into the area where the displaced people are trapped for more than three weeks, there are few or no sources of clean drinking water or sanitation, there is no longer any medical care available, and the war rages all around, indeed in the middle, of the makeshift shelter camps. The government calls it a "no-fire zone" but has, Human Rights Watch says, shelled into the middle of it; the Tigers have positions in the middle of it, too. "It's nothing short of catastrophic," Sarasi Wijeratne, spokeswoman for the ICRC, said in a telephone interview from Colombo. Hers is one of the few agencies with staff able to work anywhere near the conflict. "There is intense fighting in a densely populated area and these tens of thousands of people are trapped in a rapidly shrinking area–there are elderly, children, many wounded and sick with minimal access to medical care." The United Nations and other agencies have called on the government to halt the offensive on the now massively outgunned rebels until all of the civilians have been secured, a plea the government is ignoring. The government says the LTTE is holding the civilians hostage, physically preventing them from fleeing so they can act as human shields, and has opened fire on those who try to escape. The rebels, on their websites, say the government has shelled into the so-called no-fire zone and aid groups say government troops used civilians as shields as they fought their way into the rebel strip. "We have rescued 95,000 people and the government is looking after their welfare," Lakshman Hulugalle, spokesman for the Ministry of National Defence, told The Globe and Mail by telephone from Colombo yesterday. "We believe there are about 20,000 more who are LTTE hostages and so the government is going in with humanitarian operations to rescue to those people." Independent journalists, and nearly all international observers or employees of humanitarian agencies, are being barred by the government from going anywhere near the fighting and so it is impossible to assess the accuracy of either side's accusations. The government yestereday mounted a full assault on the Tiger territory, seizing the middle of it and isolating the remaining rebels into two pockets. The LTTE leadership reiterated its position that it will never surrender. However, two senior rebel officials, including former spokesperson Velayudam Dayanidi, surrendered to the army Tuesday. There is still no word on the whereabouts of the Tigers' infamous leader, Vellupillai Prabhakaran; the government says he is still trapped in the tiny rebel-held enclave. The United Nations says at least 4,500 civilians have been killed since January. The Tigers Tuesday accused the army of killing more than 1,000 civilians this week. The government says 43 rebels were killed this week, and acknowledges there were also army casualties but refuses to say how many. More than 70,000 people, the vast majority of them civilians, have died in this war, the longest-running conflict in Asia. While the government has been vowing for months that military victory is only days away, the Tigers do now seem to be facing their last moments as a conventional force. However, the rebels, who have strong support from the huge Tamil diaspora, seem certain to continue as an insurgent force. International aid agencies are calling on that diaspora to press the Tigers to release civilians. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says both sides may be guilty of war cries for their treatment of civilians. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned that "tens of thousands of lives" are at risk in Sri Lanka and the senior UN official in Sri Lanka describes the situation as an imminent "bloodbath." Nevertheless, international attention to Sri Lanka's escalating crisis has to date been limited now, despite outrage in the large Tamil diaspora, including the community in Canada, estimated to be some 600,000 people. James Traub, chair of the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect in New York, wrote earlier this week that this may be because "the party that is perhaps more culpable–the rebels–answers to no one" while "the Sri Lankan government has been able to operate with virtual impunity because it is fighting 'terrorists.'" "But states engaged in combat do not have the right to perpetrate atrocities; nor does the cruelty of armed opponents absolve states of their responsibility to protect citizens," he noted, calling on the UN Security Council finally to take up the issue of Sri Lanka's war to push for international and humanitarian access to the conflict zone and to remind both sides of the possibility of war crimes prosecution.