Britain has a moral obligation towards Tamils – as much as Kosovans or the people of Darfur.

Despite its track record on human rights and contempt for international laws and practices, Sri Lanka received USD 1.05 billion in the first five months of the year in foreign aid according to a fiscal report published by Sri Lanka’s treasury.

The report classed USD 959 millions as projects and USD 90 million as grants.

Although western donors have been threatening to cut aid to Sri Lanka because of worsening human rights abuses and escalating violence in the civil war, the report shows Sri Lanka had no problem attracting funds.

Iran has emerged as Sri Lanka’s biggest donor this year, knocking Japan from the position of being the war-torn island's main benefactor.

The treasury said foreign aid would have almost halved if Iran had not chipped in with USD 450 million to build a hydro power project and upgrade the island's sole oil refinery.

The Uma Oya Multipurpose Development Project (UOMDP), to be funded by Iran, will provide 100-150 MW of hydro power and irrigate around 4,000-5,000 hectares of dry land near central Sri Lanka.

Other key donors included Denmark (USD 155.2 million), India (USD 109.2 million), the Asian Development Bank (USD 90 million), World Bank (USD 43.1 million) and Japan (USD 42.2 million).

Government of Denmark committed US$ 155 million for Kelani Right Bank Water Treatment Plant Project and Oluvil Port Development Project. Kelani Right Bank Water Treatment Project will improve the water supply around 350,000 people who are presently experience an unsatisfactory supply and provide new water supply connections around 100,000 people.

Danish assistance will be utilised to construct Oluvil Port as a transport and fishery harbour and thereby promoting the development in the Eastern region.

Government of India committed US $ 109 million. Of which US$ 100 million is to finance imports from India and US$ 8.5 million for the construction of a district hospital in Dickoya, Hatton consisting of 150 beds.

The balance US $ 0.5 million is for the improvement of facilities at Rural Vocational Training Centre at Nagawillu, Puttalam.

Iran is willing to share nuclear technology for peaceful purposes with Sri Lanka, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told The Island newspaper.

Mottaki, who was in Colombo to attend the 15th SAARC Summit told The Island, that Iran and Sri Lanka are long standing friends and Tehran was willing to assist Colombo in all fields, including uranium enrichment for peaceful purposes. He also called for the establishment of an Asia parliament on the lines of the European Parliament as a first step towards regional integration.

Sri Lanka must act to prevent human rights abuses including abductions, the intimidation of media personnel and the recruitment of child soldiers as it fights a 25-year civil war against Tamil Tigers, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher told reporters in Colombo last week.

"We have been concerned about the continuing reports of abductions, disappearances, the detention of some people and reports of intimidation against the media," Boucher said.

"All these things need to be stopped. The government needs to take action against the perpetrators," he said.

Boucher was in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo as an observer at the 15th summit of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC), from July 27 to August 3.

Asked if the US was disappointed as the peace process between the government and the Tigers now seemed to have hit a roadblock, Boucher said, "We’ve had these periods before. It has not always been positive and with great momentum. We've had periods when it looked frozen, we've had periods when they were fighting and killing -- I hate to see it, I mean these bus bombings are horrible and the things that are happening to ordinary Sri Lankans and what they have to put up with..." reported Sunday Times newspaper in Sri Lanka.

However, he added, "Whatever is going on in the peace talks, the democratic government has a responsibility to all of its citizens. As military gains are made, as the areas are opened up and come under government control, all citizens in the area need to benefit from democratic government and respect for their human rights -- Tamil community, Muslim community."

"The government needs to reach out to them", Boucher said and argued, "It is pushing forward in military areas. It needs to push forward in political areas as well, in the end the political arrangements in the island need to have a place for all citizens", the paper quoted.

Sri Lanka was ranked the world's third deadliest place for journalists last year, after Iraq and Somalia, by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), a Paris-based organisation promoting media freedom worldwide.

This year alone, 12 journalists have been attacked, with one hacked to death. Media groups say the government has failed to apprehend any of the attackers.

"We have made it clear we are concerned about the human rights situation here," Boucher said, saying reports of abuses should be fully investigated and legal action taken.

Boucher also urged Sri Lanka to demobilise its paramilitary forces and stop the recruitment of child soldiers.

Asian Center for Human Rights (ACHR), a New Delhi-based human rights watchdog, in a rights report covering the South Asian Association for Regional Cooporation (SAARC), released Friday, said "Sri Lanka ranks South Asia’s No.1 human rights violator," adding, "Sri Lanka’s human rights indicators must be considered within a context of very high levels of impunity which tend to suggest a worsening over the human rights picture over the long term."

ACHR determination of ranking "is based on comparative assessment of records of the governments in 2007 on nine thematic issues crucial for enjoyment of human rights: political freedom, right to life, judiciary and administration of justice, status or effectiveness of National Human Rights Institutions, press freedom, violence against women, violations of the rights of the child, violations of the rights of the minorities and indigenous/tribal peoples and repression on human rights defenders," the report said.

In ACHR's analysis, "Sri Lanka scored the highest negative points for the right to life, the rights of the child, attacks on human rights defenders and violations of the rights of the minorities."

On press freedom, it [Sri Lanka] ranked No.2 violator only after Bhutan – which has no independent press – because of the systematic attacks on the freedom of expression and journalists, the report said.

"Discrimination lies at the heart of the problem and the introduction of restrictions on Tamils travelling to Colombo are a powerful symbol of government intent. The political ramifications of the exclusion - not least in terms of prospects for a peaceful settlement of the conflict - of an entire ethnic group from the nation’s capital are of deep concern," the report added.

Documenting that "540 persons disappeared across Sri Lanka from January to August 2007," the report pointed out that, "Tamils again suffered disproportionately from disappearances."

Criticizing the judiciary and the endemic lawlessness, the report said, "[t]he rule of law had weakened since the appointment of Justice Sarath Nanda Silva, former Attorney General and Legal Advisor of former President Chandrika Kumaratunga as the Chief Justice. Justice Silva has a long legacy of political, rather than legal, judgements and has regularly interfered with political processes in Sri Lanka."

Commenting generally on the worst rights violators that included, in the order of decreasing rank, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, Maldives, Nepal, and India, the report said, "[d]iscrimination is endemic, institutionalised and in many cases legalised. Human rights violations are integral to counterinsurgency operations conducted by the military in the sub-region. Human rights are routinely violated in police detention including the routine use of torture. National security laws tend to be poorly framed, routinely abused and used as blanket cover to silence legitimate dissent rather than tackle security. These are not the assertions of one organisation but repeatedly confirmed by national and regional and international NGOs and the various UN bodies established to monitor human rights."

Asian Centre for Human Rights is dedicated to promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the Asian region, according ACHR's website. 

Abkhazia and South Ossetia near independence on Russian ‘u-turn’ after Kosovo

The label “frozen conflict” as applied to the wars that accompanied the breakup of the Soviet Union implies that, some day, they may well “unfreeze.” This is what happened in Georgia.

Current events in the Caucasus could be blamed on renewed Russian assertiveness, provocation by the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili seeking Georgia’s entry into NATO, and support from the West in the stand-off with the powerful neighbor – even on the geopolitics of pipelines.

But the fundamental issue and the immediate spark of what became a wider war was the unresolved status of the breakaway province of South Ossetia. In this sense, the broader context is the delineation of the borders of the republics of the former Soviet Union and former Yugoslavia, issues which in some cases remain no different to what they were 17 years ago. So what are the implications of the “unfreezing” of the conflicts in Georgia for other such conflicts?

The fate of Abkhazia will most likely be the same as that of South Ossetia. Beyond Georgia, the most direct implications may be for the comparable frozen conflicts of Nagorno-Karabakh (Azerbaijan) and Transdniester (Moldova).

These are breakaway regions which asserted their independence leading to war in the early 1990s. They have attempted to create the institutions of statehood, but remain unrecognized. This limbo status has also contributed to isolation, economic decline, poverty, and organized crime.

Recurrent attempts to negotiate solutions run aground on the rock of the irreconcilability of the two sides’ demands: on the one hand, the separatists declare the sovereignty of their “state” and recognition of independence as the precondition for any agreement, while the larger state insists that its territorial integrity be preserved and demands that the province be under its sovereignty (albeit with autonomy).

Meanwhile, the status quo is preserved by the balance of forces on the ground: in the case of Nagorno-Karabakh, supported by Armenia, and in the case of Transdniester, by Commonwealth of Independent States peacekeepers (effectively, Russia).

None of these breakaway regions has been recognized as independent by outside states because so far all governments have operated in line with the principle that the republic borders of the Soviet Union became the international borders when that state dissolved.

Georgia can therefore claim to be asserting its legal right to sovereignty over its territory, by attempting to bring South Ossetia under the control of Tbilisi and to affirm the Georgian state’s monopoly on the use of force within its borders. On the other hand, Russia accuses the Georgian authorities of reneging on the original cease-fire agreement and resorting to force, with resulting civilian casualties, after having ostensibly agreed to hold negotiations.

THE BALKANS EXAMPLE

There are echoes here of August 1995, when Croatia forcibly reclaimed control of the breakaway Republic of Serb Krajina despite talks being planned for its future. This was supposedly a UN protected area, but UN forces failed to protect it from the Croatian offensive. Western governments urged caution but implicitly condoned the action, noting that the region was part of Croatia, while Russia called on the United Nations to uphold the cease-fire agreements, and suggested that NATO should consider using force to protect the region. As the guarantor of the cease-fire agreement in South Ossetia, Russia is effectively claiming now to do what it said the UN should have done in Krajina in 1995.

Yet, in 1995, Russia’s argument was weakened by the fact that, not long before, it had resorted to force itself to reassert sovereignty over its breakaway republic of Chechnya. That time it failed, but in 1999 it was more successful when it again overrode an interim peace agreement with Chechnya, justifying it in terms of regaining control of Russian territory and restoring order in a lawless region whose actions threatened the security of the rest of the country.

It is therefore difficult to discern any consistency of principles on the part of Russia with respect to observing cease-fires or interim peace agreements and not resorting to force in frozen conflicts. In fact, in relation to South Ossetia, Russia is acting more in line with NATO’s response to Serbia’s attempts to crush separatism in Kosovo, as shown by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s use of the term “genocide” to describe the initial Georgian offensive.

Until now, there has been more consistency over the status of breakaway regions. Russia may have provided economic support and security guarantees to places such as South Ossetia, but it has not recognized them as independent (unlike Turkey in relation to Northern Cyprus, for example).

Russian policy-makers have, until now, argued that the principle of territorial integrity should be sacrosanct, thus justifying their action in Chechnya and condemning countries which have recognized Kosovo as independent.

However, Russian policy-makers have long made it clear that if Kosovo did effectively become an independent state there would be implications for comparable breakaway provinces in the former Soviet Union. It is quite possible that this change is now occurring, and that Russia will recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent or incorporate them into the Russian Federation.

Russian policy-makers always accused their Western counterparts of double standards in their application of principles of territorial integrity and self-determination in the Balkans, and attributed the differing outcomes in different political entities of the former Yugoslavia to NATO’s selective use of force.

But we may now see the outcomes of secessionist conflicts in the former Soviet Union also being determined by the selective use of force: on the part of Russia, crushing separatism in the Russian Federation itself, but supporting it in neighboring Georgia. And, if these conflicts are beginning to unfreeze, other cases may be settled by relative power if not actual use of force. Where the state is strong, autonomy may be the outcome; where it is weak, or where the separatists are supported by a strong neighbor, independence may result.

President Ilham Aliev of Azerbaijan, for example, has also threatened to re-take Nagorno-Karabakh by force, and may be more successful than his Georgian counterpart as Russia has no direct interest, Armenia is weak and isolated, and Azerbaijan has a larger, well-equipped and -trained army and, like Russia, huge revenues from energy exports.

Russia always accused Western countries of acting inconsistently and partially in relation to the conflicts in former Yugoslavia, by condoning the use of force by Croatian and Bosnian authorities to reassert control of their territories, yet condemning it in the case of Serbia in Kosovo, and indeed intervening in support of the separatists in the name of humanitarian values. But this present conflict directly contradicts the principles used to justify its previous war (in Chechnya). Rather than look for consistency of abstract principles, it is probably more realistic to understand events in terms of Russia asserting its right to use force in its immediate neighborhood and striving to demonstrate that its influence still counts; indeed, pursuing the Kosovo parallel, Russian credibility is at stake in Georgia in the same way that NATO’s was in former Yugoslavia.

PASSPORT DIPLOMACY

Most alarming is the deliberate ploy of extending Russian citizenship to the inhabitants of breakaway regions of other states – as was done in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This has always seemed to be a step toward legitimizing a potential intervention. Will the model now be applied elsewhere? What, for example, if Ukraine continues to seek NATO membership, and ethnic Russians in Crimea are granted citizenship?

If events in Georgia are an indication of a wider shift in Russian thinking toward reconsidering the borders of the former Soviet republics, then it could have alarming implications.

However, there are no clear ethical reasons why the borders should not be changed if a significant majority of the population of a province wish it.

After all, the borders were often designed on the principle of divide-and-rule by Soviet authorities or, in the case of Crimea, transferred to Ukraine on the whim of Nikita Khrushchev in 1954. Of course, such moves threaten stability in the former Soviet space; but the existence of frozen conflicts shows that that stability is sometimes only ice-thin.

Around Hundred Tamils were arrested by the Sri Lankan security forces in cordon and search operations around Colombo and the south of the country in the space of 5 days. The arrests comes as a Supreme Court filing showed that about 1200 Tamils are languishing in Welikade prison without being charged.

On Monday August 4, 61 Tamil civilians were taken into custody in overnight cordon and search operations conducted by the police and the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in several parts of Negombo, 40 kilometers north of Colombo.

Although the police sources claimed that the arrested had been residents of North, East and upcountry in the central province, relatives of the arrestees told civil rights groups and activists that police had taken into custody several residents who had been residing in Negombo and its suburbs for several years and who possess national identity cards and valid documents to prove their identity.

Five days earlier, on Wednesday, July 30,  11 Tamil civilians were arrested in a cordon and search operation conducted from 6:00 a.m. till 10:00 a.m. in Mt.Lavinia area in Colombo division by the Police with the assistance of about one hundred members of the Civil Volunteer Force (CVF).

Police used sniffer dogs and metal detectors to trace explosives in vehicles and in public places, sources said.

Over five hundred vehicles entering into the Colombo city were subjected to thorough search during the operation. The search operation covered several areas including Ratmalana bus and railway stations and bus stations at Kattubedda and Mt.Lavinia, police sources said.

Police said most of the arrested had failed to prove their identity and provide valid reason for their stay in the location.

On the same day, 11 civilians including two Tamils and a Muslim were taken into custody in a cordon and search operation conducted by the SLA in the Gampaha town.

A day earlier, on Tuesday, July 29, 17 Tamils including three women were taken in to custody in a cordon and search operation conducted in Wellawatte area in Colombo by the police with the assistance of the SLA.

All of the detainees were natives of north and east provinces and had been working in shops and staying with their relatives, friends and some in lodges in Wellawatte to go abroad, human rights sources said.

Prior to these arrests, on Monday July 28, Sri Lanka's Supreme Court was told when the Fundamental Rights violation petition filed the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) was taken up for further inquiry that about one thousand two hundred Tamil civilians are still being detained in Welikada prison without any inquiry.

The counsel for the petitioner begged the court to take steps to release these Tamils, legal sources said.

The Chief Justice Sarath Silva, presiding over a three-member bench directed the Attorney General to appoint a special committee comprising a State Counsel and a police officer to expedite the inquiry against them, legal sources said.

The CWC has filed the FR petition against the indiscriminate arrest of Tamil residents of Colombo and suburbs without any reason.

The petitioner has cited the Defense Secretary, Inspector General of Police and several police officers as respondents.

The bloody conflict over South Ossetia will have been good for something at least if it teaches two lessons. The first is that Georgia will never now get South Ossetia and Abkhazia back. The second is for the west: it is not to make promises that it neither can, nor will, fulfil when push comes to shove.

Georgia will not get its separatist provinces back unless Russia collapses as a state, which is unlikely. The populations and leaderships of these regions have repeatedly demonstrated their desire to separate from Georgia; and Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, made it clear again and again that Russia would defend these regions if Georgian forces attacked them.

The Georgians, like the Serbs in the case of Kosovo, should recognise reality and formally recognise the independence of these territories in return for a limited partition and an agreement to join certain Georgian-populated areas to Georgia. This would open the way either for an internationally recognised independence from Georgia or, more likely in the case of South Ossetia, joining North Ossetia as an autonomous republic of the Russian Federation. For the Georgians, the resolution of their territorial conflicts would make it more likely that they could eventually join Nato and the European Union – though after the behaviour of the Georgian administration, that cannot possibly be considered for many years.

Western governments should exert pressure on Georgia to accept this solution. They have a duty to do this because they, and most especially the US, bear a considerable share of the responsibility for the Georgian assault on South Ossetia and deserve the humiliation they are now suffering. It is true that western governments, including the US, always urged restraint on Tbilisi. Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s president, was told firmly by the Bush administration that he must not start a war.

On the other hand, the Bush administration armed, trained and financed the Georgian military. It did this although the dangers of war were obvious and after the Georgian government had told its own people that these forces were intended for the recovery of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The Bush administration, backed by Congress, the Republican presidential candidate John McCain and most of the US media, also adopted a highly uncritical attitude both to the undemocratic and the chauvinist aspects of the Saakashvili administration, and its growing resemblance to that of the crazed nationalist leader Zviad Gamsakhurdia in the early 1990s.

Instead, according to European officials, the Bush administration even put heavy pressure on international monitoring groups not to condemn flagrant abuses by Saakashvili’s supporters during the last Georgian elections. Ossete and Abkhaz concerns were ignored, and the origins of the conflict were often wittingly or unwittingly falsified in line with Georgian propaganda.

Finally, the US pushed strongly for a Nato Membership Action Plan for Georgia at the last alliance summit and would have achieved this if France and Germany had not resisted. Given all this, it was not wholly unreasonable of Mr Saakashvili to assume that if he started a war with Russia and was defeated, the US would come to his aid.

Yet all this time, Washington had not the slightest intention of defending Georgia, and knew it. Quite apart from its lack of desire to go to war with Russia over a place almost no American had heard of until last week, with the war in Iraq it does not have an army to send to the Caucasus.

The latest conflict is humiliating for the US, but it may have saved us from a catastrophic future: namely an offer of Nato membership to Georgia and Ukraine provoking conflicts with Russia in which the west would be legally committed to come to their aid – and would yet again fail to do so. There must be no question of this being allowed to happen – above all because the expansion of Nato would make such conflicts much more likely.

Instead, the west should show Moscow its real will and ability to defend those east European countries that have already been admitted into Nato, and to which it is therefore legally and morally committed – notably the Baltic states. We should say this and mean it. Under no circumstances should we extend such guarantees to more countries which we do not intend to defend. To do so would be irresponsible, unethical and above all contemptible.

The writer is a professor in the War Studies Department of King’s College London and a senior fellow of the New America Foundation

This comment was published August 13, 2008

For centuries, the status of South Ossetia has been a nagging irritant on Russia’s southern border — sometimes akin to a canker sore, and sometimes an ulcer.

The Ossetians, who number about 60,000, are part of the patchwork of ethnic groups that inhabit the mountains of the Caucasus. They have long yearned for separation from Georgia, appealing to Russia, their northern neighbor, for support.

Over the years, ethnic tension became a way of life in Tskhinvali, the provincial capital of South Ossetia, a city ringed by highlands where concrete street barriers were sometimes erected to keep the groups apart. During flare-ups, gangs of young men would ambush convoys on mountain roads.

But global politics have breathed new life into the conflict, making it a flash point for resurgent tensions between former cold war rivals. Russia, especially, sees a threat of creeping American influence as its former satellites seek to join NATO.

When Kosovo won Western backing for its bid for independence from Russia’s historical ally Serbia, the Kremlin answered by vowing to win similar status for South Ossetia and for the Black Sea enclave of Abkhazia, which fall inside Georgia’s borders. Georgian leaders, meanwhile, hoped to quiet the conflict once and for all before applying for NATO membership.

Although Abkhazia has far more strategic importance to both sides, the city of Tskhinvali is in a valley ringed by Georgian-held villages, on terrain easily navigable by tanks.

Mountains seal off the region to the north, toward Russia, so separatists rely on a single key route — the Roki Tunnel, which cuts deep through the mountains — for commerce, military aid and evacuation to the north.

Georgian leaders have long felt they could take the enclave swiftly, pushing north in one or two days to the Russian border.

“Without heavy reinforcement from Russia, the general sense is that Tskhinvali is not defensible,” said Svante E. Cornell, research director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

Ossetians have long held themselves apart from ethnic Georgians, who make up more than 80 percent of Georgia’s people; the Ossetian language has Persian rather than Caucasian roots, as Georgian does.

In the early days of the Soviet Union, many Ossetians supported the Bolsheviks in suppressing a period of Georgian independence, giving rise to furious and lasting grudges. Ossetians can still reel off the names of villages that were burned by Georgian neighbors in the 1920s, and Georgians like to deride Ossetia as a den of smugglers.

Like Abkhazia, South Ossetia declared self-rule after a war in the early 1990s, but its status was never settled. Under a 1992 cease-fire agreement, it was managed by the Joint Control Commission, a body made of Georgian, Russian, North and South Ossetian representatives, with involvement from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Many ethnic Georgians fled, and with Russian and Georgian peacekeeping teams patrolling the region, 12 years followed with no military confrontation.

In 2004, the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, began a push to retake South Ossetia, including an antismuggling campaign aimed at shutting down a vast market that fueled much of the local economy. Tensions nearly led to full-scale war.

Hostilities routinely flare in the region late in the summer, when scarce water supplies pit neighbors against one another, said Sabine Freizer, the director of International Crisis Group’s Europe program. Though women and children have evacuated Tskhinvali in recent days, many of those who remained were probably prepared to wage urban warfare when the Georgians arrived.

“Basically, they just had to march in,” she said. “But I don’t know what’s going to happen afterwards. Ossetians are all armed, and they’re going to fight back.”

The target of the artillery attack of the Sri Lanka Army in the early hours of Friday, August 9, in Mullaiththeevu was a residential enclave located within 500 meters radius of the Mullaiththeevu General Hospital, housing the Mullaiththeevu Government Agent (GA), the Medical Superintendent (MS) and many other government officials, who coordinate the essential services of the district. The attack was timed before a token protest scheduled for Friday by the government servants to voice against the killing of the Deputy Planning Director, Poonakari, in a claymore attack two weeks ago. TamilNet’s Vanni correspondent talked to the GA and the MS on Friday noon.

Both the GA and the MS, the apex officials coordinating administration, humanitarian assistance and essential services of the district narrowly escaped the artillery barrage.

The Government agent Ms. Imelda Sukumar and the wife and son of the Medical Superintendent Dr. V. Shanmugaraja sustained minor injuries in the attack that claimed the life of an 18-month-old child and injured many others.

The residence of the GA was just 25 meters from the hospital premises. The residences of the District Medical Officer, District Secretariat officials, the office of the Veterinary Surgeon and several residences of government officials were located in the enclave that was targeted by artillery barrage.

Ms. Imelda Sukumar said she was blown out of her bed around 1:00 a.m. when an artillery shell hit her residence. She was alone inside the residence at the time of the attack and chose to stay inside with injury till the shelling ceased, hoping that somebody would come to her assistance.

Until 8:00 p.m. Thursday night she was discussing with officials the token strike planned for the following day to protest the killing of the Deputy Planning Officer of the Ki’linochchi district.

She had instructed them that their protest should not disrupt the basic services in the district. Amid the insistence by her officials, who argued that they needed to express solidarity with the protesting government officials of the neighbouring Ki'linochchi district as the government officials in Ki'linochchi had earlier extended solidarity by protesting against the Claymore attack that claimed the life of a Mullaiththeevu District Secretary Nanthakumar, she had no other option than urging them to keep their protest as short as possible saying that their concerns had already been conveyed to the secretaries of all ministries in Colombo with English translations of their appeals.

Describing the artillery barrage, Ms. Sukumar told TamilNet that around 25 shells hit the area within 300 meters radius of the hospital. At least 6 of the shells exploded inside the residences. Scores would have died, had the area been densely populated, she explained. At least one shell continued to explode every 2 minutes and nobody dared to move out.

One of the last shells had hit the residence of the Medical Superintend Dr. V. Shanmugarajah. Yet, it was the MS, who came to her residence, just a few minutes after he himself along with his wife and 3 children, narrowly escaped from a shell that hit their bedroom, wounding his wife and a son.

The MS, after attending his family rushed to the residences of his fellow medical staff and the residences of the government officials located in the close proximity of the hospital.

The GA finally realised that she had an injury in her hand. While at the hospital, she witnessed a boy being brought dead to the hospital. His mother was stricken by shock. There were more than 15 wounded civilians, most of them women and elderly besides a child.

She also suffered from blood pressure after the attack and was taken to a peaceful location later.

Dr. Shanmugarajah gave exact figures on the casualties. One child was brought dead. There were 18 wounded. There was a pregnant mother among the wounded. Three elderly had fractions, one of them had to have a hand amputated by him. A child was among the wounded. He also had to attend the pregnant woman who was wounded in her stomach. Luckily, the womb of the mother had narrowly escaped from injuries, he said.

It was a miracle that many had narrowly escaped the barrage, he said.

Six of the patients had to be transferred from the hospital.

The GA also witnessed many patients evacuating the hospital area.

At that time there were around 100 patients warded in the hospital, which was upgraded to General Hospital status in November 2006.

This hospital is deprived of enough doctors and nurses. There are around 150,000 civilians depend upon the services of the hospital. Four MBBS doctors and one RMO serve nearly13,000 - 15,000 patients in the district.

The exact coordinates of the hospital were provided to the Health Ministry and forwarded to the Defence Ministry. The ICRC also has confirmed the coordinates, according to the MS.

Friday noon, when TamilNet correspondent talked to the MS, he was still waiting for the ICRC to come to the hospital to take an account of the episode. "The ICRC, which says it should serve the victims of war under any circumstance, is yet to come," he complains.

The GA admits that several humanitarian organisations were concerned of the security of their staff. The GTZ and the UNDP have refused to continue services due to security concerns, she says and adds that the ICRC, Solidar, OXFAM, CARE and several others were continuing amid security threats caused by the Claymore attacks.

"Everybody including the forces knows the location of the hospital. The facilities also carry necessary symbols marking the service places. Our DS vehicles are also stationed inside our premises." The GA relocated her residence along with those of her fellow officials to the present location after her residence was destroyed in 2004 Tsunami.

"I considered this place a secure location, I never expected such an attack" the GA said.

She also confirmed that the [Sri Lankan] 'security establishment' had the coordinates of her residence.

Under these circumstances, how far we can serve the people in the district becomes a question, she says. It is now that the people of the district need her services the most.

The government officials in the district already suffer from shortage of fuel and even batteries needed for torchlight.

There are 11,000 displaced families, including many who were already displaced from Maanthai East into Thu'nukkaay and Paa'ndiyanku'lam. Only one village exists in Maanthai East with around 500 families. All other families have displaced. 3,800 families had gone into Ki'linochchi, others to Oddisuddaan and Thu'nukkaay divisions. They altogether were forced to reside within five GS areas. Now they are again displaced and many of them don't have accommodation except under trees, the GS says. Most of them were heading towards towns (Ki'linochchi, Mullaiththeevu and Puthukkudiyiruppu) from villages.

The cultivation lands of six big irrigation schemes have been abandoned by the IDPs. 4,000 acres of paddy and dry land crops have been abandoned due to the displacement.

She had invited the NGOs and sought the assistance of WFP and the Sri Lankan ministry for resettlement to supply with food stock. Ms. Sukumar says she had secured food supplies till 15th of August. She was appreciative of the response by the ministry.

Dr. Shanmugaraja says that his humble request was that the Government should instruct military to keep 300 meters around the hospital as attack-free zone. "We seek re-assurance from all parties. The Government should cooperate with the continued safe functioning of the hospital," he said.

Amidst intense fighting and spiraling casualties Sri Lankan government in its latest attempts to beef up its security forces numbers announced another amnesty to deserters and warned that this would the last amnesty offered.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the powerful Defence Secretary and brother of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa appealed to over 10,000 soldiers who had left the military for various reasons during the past four to five years to return to fight "for their motherland", the Sunday Island Newspaper reported.

"This is a very decisive juncture when the security forces have got the upper hand and need all the help they can get," Rajapaksa, was quoted as saying.

"I request the soldiers who left the military to return without delay to assist the ongoing operations in the North," he said.

"We have spent a lot of money and time on training these soldiers professionally and they had subsequently left for personal reasons. We can expedite the process for them to return and all that they need to do is to come back," he added.

"The Tigers are in disarray - they are falling apart like a pack of cards and fleeing for safety leaving behind heavy guns and artillery as never seen before," Rajapaksa told the newspaper.

President Mahinda Rajapakse also made a similar public appeal for deserters to return to their ranks.

“We are in the last lap of a decisive war. Therefore, I am appealing to the security forces personnel who have not returned after their vacation to report immediately to strengthen the hands of the troops who are already in the battle field,” President Rajapaksa told a public meeting in Anurahdapura on July 26.

The Sri Lankan military has one of the highest desertion rates in the world and similar appeals in the past have not delivered expected results. According to military sources an estimated seventeen thousand have deserted soldiers are at large.

In their latest drive to persuade the deserters to return to ranks, the military also warned some 12,000 deserters that they will be arrested and court-martialled if they do not return.

Military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said the move was aimed at preventing more desertions and getting deserters back to the battle front. He said the government hoped the decision not to offer amnesty in future would reduce desertions and help bring the deserters back to service.

The military is looking at getting back some 12,000 soldiers who have deserted their ranks in the past two years, the brigadier said.

“All these years, we offered amnesty for deserters, because we thought it was better to have trained soldiers than training new recruits. Training is a costly exercise and it takes 16 weeks to train a new recruit,” Brig Nanayakkara said.

He said Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Kandy and Kurunegala and certain areas in the south had been identified as areas where there were high numbers of deserters.

Access to thousands of civilians who have fled fighting between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the northwestern Mannar District between June and July was critical to prevent further hardship, according to UN officials.

As the conflict intensifies in Sri Lanka's north, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called for urgent steps to ensure the protection of thousands of displaced families and unhindered passage for humanitarian aid.

The raging fighting in Vanni is driving civilians out of northern parts of Manthai West in Mannar and Kilinochchi's Mulankavil area. They are travelling further north into Poonagary and central Karachchi, also in Kilinochchi district. This follows population movements within Kilinochchi district earlier in July, with people moving from Manthai East and Thunukkai further north into areas like Karachchi and Oddusudan.

The UNHCR estimates that more than 12,000 families -- 60,000 people in total -- were displaced in July alone as a result of shifting frontlines.

"Although exact figures are still sketchy, more than 12,000 families are reported to have been displaced in July alone," said UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond, expressing deep concern at a press briefing in Geneva Friday, 8 August.

"Movements, including multiple displacements, are continuing as people move ahead of the shifting frontlines to avoid the cross fire and stay out of shelling range."

He added that UN access to the majority of 10,000 internally displaced families in Karachchi has been cut off south and west of Akkaryan due to relief workers' security concerns.

Sri Lankan security forces are blamed for the killing numerous aid workers including 17 working for French NGO agency, Action Contra Farm, in an execution style killing in August 2006.

Need for new sites

The displaced families are being accommodated in several areas in the Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts. A majority are staying out in the open. Some areas have reportedly exhausted their absorption capacity and four sites that were earlier designated and cleared in case of an emergency, could not be used as military operations moved closer.

UNHCR, local authorities and other agencies are distributing emergency shelter kits and tarpaulins to those in need and are looking into identifying additional sites to accommodate the newly displaced.

"We call on both parties to take immediate steps to ensure the protection of those affected; to allow freedom of movement for those seeking safety from the ongoing operations; and to ensure that the internally displaced are neither targeted nor located near military targets," said Redmond.

The call comes amidst Sri Lankan security forces step attacks against civilians. Sri Lankan Army and Air Force targeted hospitals and populous settlements killing 5 civilians and injuring at least 22, last week.

Supplies ‘Dangerously low’

Thousands of families displaced by warfare in Sri Lanka's northern region are in danger because of dwindling emergency aid stocks, Redmond said and appealed to the Sri Lankan authorities to allow unhindered passage for essential supplies as soon as possible, noting that strict restrictions on the transportation of goods into the region have prevented humanitarian agencies from replenishing dangerously low supplies of food, shelter materials, water and sanitation equipment, and fuel for the transportation of civilians.

The UNHCR spokesman appealed, "UNHCR is urging all parties to allow humanitarian access to the affected population, so that those affected can be provided with much-needed assistance in a timely manner and in line with international humanitarian law and practices."

Documenting that during June and July, an additional 70,800 people registered with the Kilinochchi and Mullaitheevu Secretariats as new Internally Displaced People from areas proximity to Mannar, Vavuniyaa, Manalaaru, and Mukamaalai Foward Defence Lines (FDLs), a report released Friday by NorthEast Secretariat on Human Rights (NESoHR), a Vanni based rights group, said that restrictions imposed by the Sri Lanka Government on taking essential items to Vanni have further hampered assistance given by the humanitarian agencies.

The report said a total of 130,123 have been catergorized as IDPs in in different AGA divisions in Vanni from different areas in the North.

The report also detailed the shortfall in the essential items reaching Vanni due to restrictions imposed by Colombo.

22% shortfaill in Sugar, 73% in lentils, 89% in milkpowder, and 20% shortfall in kerosine, add to the woes of the IDPs, and general population in Vanni the report said.