Having closed the land route to Jaffna, the Sri Lankan government is using Tamil civilians traveling to and from the northern peninsula as human shields on ships transporting military personnel and material to and fro Jaffna, the Liberation Tigers warned this week.
The full text of the statement by LTTE Spokesperson for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs follows:
The Geneva II talks in October 2006, between the LTTE and the Government of Sri Lanka, broke down because the Government of Sri Lanka refused to open the A9 route to allow Jaffna civilians land access to the rest of the island and the world.
Prior to the permanent closure of this A9 route, it served as a life line to the people of Jaffna as well as Vanni. Seriously ill medical cases from Vanni were taken in ambulances to the Jaffna hospital. Every day ambulances plied seven to eight times a day, carrying around six patients in each trip. This is necessitated by the poor medical resources in Vanni. Even the Jaffna hospital resources are very poor in comparison to what is available in the south of island. Many very seriously ill patients were taken to Colombo for treatment through the A9 route.
Presently the Jaffna civilians have no land route even to seek emergency medical treatment. The only option available to them is the "passenger" operated by the Sri Lanka Navy. It is a well known truth that each time this "civilian passenger" ship plies to and from Jaffna and Trincomalee, invariably the Sri Lankan military personal traveling in the ship is many times more than the number of civilians in the ship.
It is also well known to the Jaffna population the difficulties one must go through to first obtain a pass from the military to travel and then obtain a seat in the ship. Reports of the Sri Lanka military demanding every civilian wishing to get a seat in the ship to give the military a name of an LTTE supporter in Jaffna have surfaced many times.
Indeed, innumerable violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention is taking place as a result of the closure of A9 route and the cutting off of the 500,000 civilians in Jaffna from the rest of the world. Denial of humanitarian access to the children is also a violation that comes under the monitoring of Resolution 1612 of the Security Council. Transporting military personnel using civilians, especially the ill, is also a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
