{"id":115378,"date":"2021-06-19T17:36:03","date_gmt":"2021-06-20T00:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=115378"},"modified":"2021-06-19T17:36:03","modified_gmt":"2021-06-20T00:36:03","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-20-c3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/06\/19\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-20-c3\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 20 C3"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

It is\nnecessary to examine thoroughly the allegation that the government denied food\nand medicine to the Tamil population in Vanni during Eelam war IV. This is a\nlie, Sri Lanka never deprived the north of food and medicine, reported\nShamindra Ferdinando. Even during the Vanni offensive they received supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never in the\nhistory of world has warfare had a government of any country provided food for\nthirty long years to people living in a territory that was controlled by the\nenemy, said Lt Col Anil Amarasekera. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\na party to the conflict the Government of Sri Lanka was not obliged to supply\nhumanitarian aid in terms of food and supplies, though it did so, to areas\nunder the control of the LTTE. This would sustain the conflict and be counter\nproductive to the military objectives, observed Neville Ladduwahetty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Mahinda\nRajapaksa had set up a Consultative Committee on Humanitarian Assistance (CCHA)\nin Oct 2006  to ensure essential supplies\nto the Northern Province.  This Committee\ndecided on supplies to the LTTE held area. The\nCCHA consisted of government, diplomatic, NGO and INGO representatives. The\nCommittee was chaired by the Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President\nMahinda Rajapaksa  had included the\nfollowing in CCHA:  the US (Ambassador Robert Blake), EU (Ambassador\nJulian Wilson), EU Representative (German Ambassador Jorgen Wert and UK High\nCommissioner Dominic Chicot), Japan (Kiyoshi Araki), UN (Frederick Lyons and\nNeil Buhner), UNHCR (Joanna Van Germen and Philippe Duhamel), UN Office for the\nCoordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Valentine Gatzinski, Zola Dowell), WHO\n(Dr. Agnostic Borra), WFP  (Taft Dick, Mohamed Salaheen and Adhnan Khan),\nFood and Agriculture Organization (Marc Bellemans), ILO (Tine Staermose),\nCountry Security Advisor, UN Department of Safety and Security (Chris du Toit),\nEuropean Community Humanitarian Office (David Verboom) and ICRC (Toon\nVandenhove and Paul Castella). In addition to foreign representatives, CCHA\naccommodated Jeevan Thiagarajah and Firzan Hashim, both executive  directors of the Consortium of Humanitarian\nAgencies, to ensure   local participation, reported Shamindra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Gotabaya Rajapaksa, then Defence Secretary, said\nthat no one had complained about shortage of food and other essential items. There\nwere requests for zinc sheets, cement and iron. \nCCHA minutes could confirm measures taken by the government to move\nrequired supplies overland and by sea. These\nminutes were available, verification could be made.   The minutes\nwould also show that the UN and Western governments never complained about food\nand medicine shortage. ICRC also had clear records of the food and medicine the\ngovernment sent in until the end of the war, noted Rajiva Wijesinha. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Commissioner\nGeneral of Essential Services had continued throughout the conflict to provide\nsupplies in terms of the numbers agreed upon with the UN. A substantial amount\nof food and other essential supplies had been shipped to Puthumathalan, from\nFebruary 10, 2009, to May 9, 2009, in accordance with a joint plan implemented\nby Sri Lanka and the international community. In addition the government had\narranged to purchase vegetables  from\nfarmers in the war area. Therefore there was more than enough food. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supplies sent\nby the government were in accordance with the amounts specified by the UN. The\nCommissioner General of Essential Services had worked in   accordance with these figures, while also\nensuring that extra medicines were sent. I have seen the medicines that were in\nthe hospitals. Doctors who worked there, including those in the LTTE hospitals,\ntold me they had adequate supplies including anesthetics, said Rajiva.  When Rajiva visited the north later on he\nfound that there were stocks of unused medicine outside the hospitals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were deliberate obstructions to the supply of food. The\nsenior UN official who had taken effective measures to store sufficient food\nstocks in the north was moved out and sent to Japan on a false pretext. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Government was sending about 20 lorries each day with food, to\nthe war zone, said Rajiva. LTTE had fired at these food\nconvoys. LTTE also\nattacked two government   ships that had\ntaken food to Jaffna. Bags of rice sent\nby the government were used by the LTTE to strengthen their bunkers in the NFZ,   said Anil Amarasekera. After the war we\nfound unopened sacks of rice piled up, said Rajiva.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Channel 4 said that there had been a deliberate denial of food. It\n showed David Milliband claiming that\nonly 60 tonnes of food was delivered to the  war zone between April 1st and 27th<\/sup>,\n2009.  If so little food was sent in that\nperiod, then everyone would have been dead, observed Rajiva. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Channel Four statement is incorrect, said Rajiva. Over\n1,000,000 kilograms of food went through the ICRC into the war zone in April,\n2009. There is a letter from the Commissioner General of Essential Services to\nthe ICRC asking them to expedite delivery of the food he had got ready. That\nletter   mentions 1000 tonnes of food\ndelivered in April. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, buffer stocks had been put in place. It is precisely because\nof this that so many of the displaced survived, and were able to make their way\nto safety. I myself saw bags of rice that had been used to make bunkers, which\nsuggests that if there were shortages, it was not due to us, concluded Rajiva\nWijesinha. (Continued) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS It is necessary to examine thoroughly the allegation that the government denied food and medicine to the Tamil population in Vanni during Eelam war IV. This is a lie, Sri Lanka never deprived the north of food and medicine, reported Shamindra Ferdinando. Even during the Vanni offensive they received supplies. Never in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}