The top United Nations relief official Thursday repeated the world body’s concerns over the safety of civilians – numbering as high as 190,000 – trapped by fighting in northern Sri Lanka between Government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Addressing reporters after an interactive Security Council discussion on Sri Lanka, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, characterized the situation as “extremely worrying.”
According to the UN, the conflict zone shrank from 300 square kilometres to nearly 58 square kilometres in February, with many civilians – Mr. Holmes today put the number between 150,000 and 190,000 – sheltering in a 14-square kilometre “no-fire” zone in the Vanni region.
Those uprooted by fighting who are trapped in the no-fire zone have limited access to food, safe water, sanitation facilities and medical assistance, with the International Red Cross delivering a two-week supply of medicines aboard a ship to the zone and the World Food Programme (WFP) preparing to send 1,000 tons of food to the area by the end of the week.
“Our first appeal is to the LTTE to let the civilians out in a safe and orderly fashion,” Mr. Holmes said.
He also called on the Government to do all they can to avert civilian casualties and to not use heavy weapons in the area.
The official said he also reiterated a call for a “humanitarian pause” in fighting to allow much-needed relief in and to allow people to leave.
Since January, over 40,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have escaped the conflict zone into makeshift camps, located mostly in Vavuniya, as well as Mannar and Jaffna, and nearly 4,000 shelters have been constructed at various IDP sites in Vavuniya District, where the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is setting up a temporary medical facility.
“We have a separate set of concerns over the situation in the camps and transit centres,” Mr. Holmes said today, calling for conditions in these sites to meet international standards.
Following a visit to Sri Lanka, he told the Security Council last month that movement into and out of these camps is “currently highly and unacceptably restricted.”
Mr. Holmes "didn’t say anything new in his latest briefing other than reflecting on the escalation of the crisis and the pathetic impotency of the UN in handling the situation," Roy Gardiner Wignarajah, a spokesman of the Canadian Tamil activist group, International Human Cultural Union (IHCU), told TamilNet Friday.
He also referred to a recent statement by Professor Francis Boyle, a leading expert in International Law, who said that it seemed as if the UN is now repeating one of the 'most shameless and disgraceful debacles in its entire history in today's Vanni Pocket by becoming complicit in Sri Lanka's genocide.'
Mr. Holmes in his brief on Thursday said: "I call on all who can exert any direct or indirect influence on the LTTE, for example through the Tamil diaspora, to use that influence now to persuade them to give people the choice to leave and to stop forced recruitment and the use of civilians as human shields."
Roy Gardiner who provided TamilNet a copy of Mr. Holmes' brief, which he had received from a diplomatic source in Colombo, said the brief reflects the "helplessness" of the UN.
"Holmes is turning to the help of the diaspora, which has been unjustifiably victimised all these years as ‘terrorist supporters’ just for sympathising with the liberation struggle of their kith and kin," he said and blamed the top UN official for "grasping at straws leaving the tail' (a saying in Tamil: Vaalai viddu thumpai pidiththal).
“This diaspora has already said and is saying loudly and clearly what it wants for its kith and kin: A ceasefire and negotiations, the diaspora demands to end the human tragedy," the Canadian Tamil activist further said.
"The members of Tamil diaspora have already spoken for their blood relatives and no one else could have spoken better on behalf of the civilians of Vanni."
“Why can’t the UN listen to the diaspora that voices for their own kith and kin rather than asking the diaspora to do something else in ending their people in concentration camps for an indefinite period."
The UN is the apex body of humanity enjoying all powers, privileges and jurisdiction to act on a situation like this. "But it has a problem in perception," he said.
"Holmes is hiding a big truth why the UN is unable to act," blames Roy Gardiner.
"It is the policy followed by the powers, branding a liberation struggle as 'terrorism' and branding the genocidal war of Colombo as 'war on terrorism', that is preventing the UN from engaging Colombo and the LTTE in a positive way to end the conflict."
"Holmes should be first asking the powers to revise their outlook to facilitate UN handling the situation in a positive and humanitarian way. These powers are responsible for this war by their abetment. They can always stop it if they want. Why can’t Holmes ask them to do so," questions Roy Gardiner.
Meanwhile, the Inner City Press (ICP) at the UN reported Thursday that Holmes' equivocation has contributed to the claims by the Sri Lankan government that "no one in the UN has criticized their conduct in the conflict, neither from the UN Secretariat nor from UN member states."
ICP also brought to light the evasive stance of the UN in crucial matters such as the number of casualties in the safe zone and on the probable duration for running the internment camps for civilians who leave the combat zone.
The ICP reported that Holmes "wouldn't like to put a time frame" on how long the UN would fund the camps.
Likewise, he declined again to confirm his own agency's figures of 2,683 civilians killed from January 20 to March 7, a number that only came out because the document was leaked to the ICP earlier, the agency report said.
