KAMALIKA PIERIS

As Eelam war IV came to an end, the armed forces moved onto Rescue, Rehabilitation and Resettlement. This essay is about the Rescue.

 From mid 2008 civilians from LTTE controlled territory, were entering government controlled territory. They came in small groups, as well as large numbers, wherever and whenever possible. They escaped in the daylight and at night. Sri Lanka army had provided night moves to help them get across at night.

The biggest escape came on 21 and 22 April 2009   when the LTTE embankments were opened up and the hostages came streaming out. Before the day was over, army had rescued around 80,000 civilians. By following morning 174,564 more had come in. Hundreds of LTTE cadres had  also dropped their weapons and joined the large crowd fleeing across the lagoon.  ‘It was like hitting a ‘meevadaya’, the army said later.

On our television screens, we saw them running eagerly towards the armed forces. We also saw how the soldiers compassionately carried across the hostages who could not walk and helped others who could.  The civilians were able to escape because of the assistance offered by Security Forces. Sri Lanka armed forces took the lead role in this emergency humanitarian effort’. This must be recognized and never forgotten.

All those who crossed over to Government controlled areas received immediate care and attention. The army looked after them. As they came in they were given a bottle of water, and immediate medical attention.

Medical teams from the Sri Lanka Army Medical Corps looked at their health status. Dehydration and hypoglycaemia were treated at the initial point of contact, and anyone with bleeding was given emergency treatment to arrest the flow of blood. No distinction was made between civilians and combatants in the services provided.

Those with   injuries and illness were sent to medical stations for treatment. Eight Advanced Dressing Stations were established within 500 meters to 1 kilometre of the front lines for minor surgical procedures. More complex procedures were carried out at the five Main Dressing Stations established in the army divisional headquarters area. Those with severe injuries were sent to hospitals at Vavuniya and Anuradhapura using helicopters.

The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) were then taken to registration centers and registered with assistance of the Red Cross and UN agencies including UNHCR. These were transit centers with medical, food, water, sanitation facilities and clothes. IDPs were processed and accommodated within 5-7 days.  A social profile was prepared for each IDP, which included level of radicalization and socio economic status. LTTE cadres who surrendered were taken to other centres for further investigation and rehabilitation. Former child combatants were looked after separately.

The civilians were   then taken to the shelters prepared for them. Reception centres had been established and detailed preparations had been made beforehand. Government schools and institutions in Vavuniya district with large buildings had been taken over 

Gamini Keerawella observed that the government was able to absorb the initial shock of satisfactorily providing shelters, water, medical care, food supply as well as identification and registration of IDPs. This was a gigantic task, he said.  Around 300,000 civilians were rescued altogether.  This figure shows the magnitude of the operation and the logistic support necessary.

After initial screening, all civilians not requiring medical treatment were sent to the relief villages established by the Government of Sri Lanka at Menik Farm,  a sprawling 700-hectare site outside the northern town of Vavuniya. 100 acres of Menik farm was cleared by the army for the purpose. Menik farm was selected it was only 22 km away from Vavuniya town. The villages in Menik Farm were named   Anandakumaraswamy, Arunachalam, Kadirgamar and Ramanathapura.  262,629   IDPs were accommodated there. Families were kept together as far as possible.

Government took responsibility for the management of the welfare villages and took full control over all activities The Sri Lanka army saw to overall management supervision and maintenance of security. Menik farm was considered the world’s largest camp for internally displaced people. At its peak, it held 225,000 people. Rs 2777 million was spent on these relief villages from 2009-2012

The villages had schools, pre schools, healthcare centers, hospitals, community kitchens, tube wells, water tanks, shops, cooperatives, banks, post office, telephones, libraries, children’s parks and place of religious worship., Many organization and individuals from elsewhere in the country spontaneously and overwhelmingly responded by making donations of water, food and non food items but not the Tamils.

A family from Adampan in Mannar had travelled, on the orders of the LTTE all the way to Nanthikadal. On the way, family got split up. The survivors had later regrouped in Ramanathapuram in Menik Farm,  but one sister  had gone missing after they crossed over.

Menik Farm closed in September 2012. Several schools and hospitals which were located within Menik Farm were retained.  The government of Sri Lanka   said its work at Menik Farm was wonderful. The west which had supported the civil war and deeply resented the defeat, thought otherwise. This is what they had to say, as given in Wikipedia.

 The Sri Lankan government/military describes the camps as “welfare centres” or “welfare villages” but the conditions imposed on the IDPs have prompted others, inside and outside Sri Lanka, to use other terms to describe the camps, said Wikipedia. Western critics have described the camps as “prisons” or “closed camps” because the IDPs were not permitted to leave the camps.

Some, including the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights Navaneetham Pillay, have gone further and described the camps as “internment camps” because the IDPs were not permitted leave the camps; access to the camps by independent aid organizations, independent media, IDPs relatives and opposition politicians is heavily restricted or denied completely; and the camps are controlled by the Sri Lankan military, continued Wikipedia.

Tamil activists have described the camps as “concentration camps“, using an image of IDPs standing behind barbed wire fences to liken the camps to the concentration camps of World War II and Bosnian Civil War, added Wikipedia, helpfully. Indian and Tamil MPs, Catholic priests, academics, Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal based in Milan,  Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy and Noam Chomsky as well as the Telegraph and Times newspapers also described the IDP camps as concentration camps said Wikipedia.

The conditions imposed on the IDPs, the conditions inside the camps and the slow progress of resettlement have attracted widespread criticism from inside and outside Sri Lanka, went on Wikipedia. Shelters had been built from tarp and sticks. Much of the displaced civilians were often forcibly detained in camps lacking even the basic amenities.

The IDPs were not allowed to leave the camps initially. Human rights groups believe that this effectively meant that the IDPs were being detained indefinitely without charge or trial, in contravention of international law  continued Wikipedia, citing , nonsensically,  Articles 9 and 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,  which  guarantee the rights to liberty, freedom from arbitrary detention and freedom of movement.

On 1 December 2009 the camps were opened up, giving the IDPs limited freedom. The IDPs could leave the camps for up to 15 days after giving their details to the authorities but they would have to return to the camps on a stipulated day. Some IDPs could leave the camps permanently but would have to report to the police regularly. The Sri Lankan military has threatened to “track down” IDPs who don’t return to camps or report to the police. The camps are being described by some as “open prisons” because of these strict conditions imposed on the IDPs, said Wikipedia.

Access to the camps by independent media is heavily restricted. When the media are allowed into the camps they are monitored by the military and all contact with the IDPs is filmed by the military. Access to the camps by the IDPs’ relatives is also heavily restricted    Wikipedia went on.

Initially the Sri Lankan military denied all access to the camps by NGOs. This was later relaxed after pressure was exerted by the international community. Many local and international NGOs now work in the camps but they continue to report problems with access. However, human rights groups and others who wish provide advice to the IDPs were denied access said Wikipedia.

The Menik Farm site is very prone to flooding because it lies on low ground near a number of rivers and streams including the Aruvi Aru (Malvathu Oya). In August heavy rains flooded the site, causing heavy damage to the tents housing the IDPs and sending raw sewage into the camps and the rivers providing drinking water. There is widespread concern that the north east monsoon season (October to March) will flood the site.

By the end of September 10,000 IDPs had been identified as having some links to the Tamil Tigers. This includes not only former cadres but also their relatives, those who worked in the Tigers’ civil administrative structures and anyone believed to be a supporter or sympathizer of the Tigers They have been moved to separate camps.  The Red Cross and UN have been denied access to them. Many of those being detained as Tamil Tigers are children,  said Wikipedia adding that  In June 2011, government claimed that all former female LTTE combatants were released.

The play ‘Dear Children, Sincerely’  is a play  first performed in 2015 , in Colombo. It was commissioned by Office of National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR)  and funded,  inter alia,  by the Neelan Thiruchelvam Trust and  the Embassy of  Switzerland.

This play had added a new scene into  it when I saw it again in 2017,  Scene 7  ‘the story of Menik Farm’ . The programme note  spoke  of the ‘infamous Menik farm  which not many  saw’. This farm, said the programme note, split the  experience of the end of the war into two isolated camps,  victors and  victims.  This reinforces, at the level of theatre, the notion put  forward by the Tamil Separatist Movement , once the war ended, that the public in the north were ‘innocent  victims’ who had nothing to do with the war.

The inspiration for the scene, said the programme note,  came from an old lady who was displaced at 90 years of age at Menik Farm. This scene was based on a poem written by one of the persons interviewed by the project. She had visited the camp and worked with the people there and the poem was based on the many conversations she had  with them.

Scene 7 condemned Menik farm as an awful, diabolic  place.  Children died there and  IDPs disappeared, never to be seen again.  Scene 7 was delivered as a monologue. Repeated reference to  ‘sweet smelling jasmines ‘ and the inclusion of hymns in Tamil were the main artistic devices used.

 Some of the data in this essay  is taken from  Ministry of Defence report” Sri Lankan Humanitarian Operation, Factual Analysis” (2011) . The full text could be found at  http://slembassyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Sri-Lankan-Humanitarian-Operation-Factual-Analysis.pdf  ( continued)