by Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha  

The Peace Secretariat was shocked by the attack last week by the LTTE on two merchant ships carrying food and other supplies to civilians in Jaffna.

It was not however entirely surprised, for the deprivation that was intended, and that will inevitably result, has been a significant tool of the LTTE in its relentless struggle against both the Tamil people and the Sri Lankan state.

For too long, the myth has been propagated that the Government is not concerned about its citizens who are still prey to LTTE tyranny. For too long, it has been claimed that the LTTE is the sole representative of the Tamil people, and will look after them if only the Government would go away. Last week’s attack, however, showed clearly that it is the Government that strives to look after its own. It is the LTTE that will use even food as a weapon against the people on whose behalf it claims to be fighting.

We have been here before. In 2006, after it launched the two attacks that precipitated the current operations, the LTTE attacked a ship carrying SLMM naval monitors. This led to a halt to such monitoring. Since the LTTE had used a bus apparently carrying civilians to attack the checkpoint at Muhamalai, the Government decided that it could not run such a risk again, and accordingly it closed that checkpoint. In order to ensure food supplies, it asked the ICRC to accompany supply ships. After one such journey, the ICRC was forced to withdraw, since ICRC conditions require that both parties sanction its operations.

The Government nevertheless continued to supply food through ships that it had to protect. This tied up naval personnel and resources that could have been used to prevent terrorist activity and stop restocking of munitions, but of course the welfare of the people of Jaffna was a priority.

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MV Nimalawa with essential cargo to Jaffna. The ship sustained slight damages due to the blast caused by an LTTE suicide boat which was destroyed by the Naval attack craft. (22nd Oct 2008) - (Picture courtesy by Defence.lk) 

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It has been almost forgotten now how the LTTE did its best to discourage such supplies. In December 2006, LTTE Sea Tiger cadres forcibly boarded a Jordanian merchant vessel ‘MV Farah III’, detained the crew and commandeered the supplies. A month later, they attempted to ram the ‘City of Liverpool’, which was anchored just outside the Kankasanthurai harbour after unloading essential food supplies in Jaffna.

These actions precipitated a lack of confidence in making such journeys, and some shortages, with an escalation of prices in February. It was only the strenuous efforts of the Commissioner General of Essential Services in maintaining supplies continuously that stabilised prices. Despite this, the LTTE kept claiming and shouted loud enough to convince some of its international interlocutors that the people of Jaffna were being starved. However, as a UN report on Jaffna Welfare Centres made clear, food had continued available, and also affordable, as far as essentials went.

It is this success that the LTTE sought to disrupt by attacking the ‘Ruhuna’ and the ‘Nimalawa’. If they had succeeded, it would have been the people of Jaffna who would have suffered. As it is, given the damage one ship suffered, it will not be smooth sailing to ensure continuous supplies. Fortunately, the people of Jaffna can be confident that our public servants, who have done their best for them over the last couple of years, will continue to ensure their welfare.

Similarly, it was the LTTE that also restricted supplies through Omanthai to the Vanni. Until September 2007, the checkpoint there was open only three days a week, on the recommendation of the ICRC, which required guarantees from both parties for its operations. Requests from the Government to extend opening found no response until the matter was raised publicly at the CCHA in the presence of Sir John Holmes. This obviously proved that the LTTE claim, made internationally, that the Government was restricting supplies was false and, soon enough, the ICRC was able to facilitate opening throughout the week.

Throughout this period then, the Government has ensured adequate supplies to the Vanni. Concerns about IDPs, and the free food the Government sends them with the assistance of the UN, have meant that the regular supplies the Government facilitates for commercial purposes are forgotten. Yet the Commissioner General of Essential Services has throughout ensured that about twenty lorries go into the Vanni each day bearing food for sale, mainly through the Co-operatives. Any intelligent person could understand that, if such supplies are going up, there must be people able to purchase them. But listening to LTTE supporters worldwide, and naïve idealists who believe that what they are told several times over must be true, the impression is that no food will ever reach the Vanni unless it is in the hands of anyone other than the Government.

This is truly a case of biting the hand that feeds it. The Government has long known that the free supplies it sends up are far more than are needed by the internally displaced in the Vanni. It has asked for accurate figures, but found that even the UN was not in a position to supply these. It  took much asking to clearly establish earlier this year that a figure of 40,000 had been counted twice. In actual fact, it is clear that there is much more inflation of figures, but the Government knows that officials are under pressure and it is better to go by their figures, since otherwise they or the actually displaced will suffer. To ensure the safety of such people, it is a small price to pay to overfeed LTTE cadres.

The Government will therefore continue to ensure that supplies are sent, difficult though this might be. Everybody knows that the plight of the displaced civilians would ease if the LTTE allowed them to move to cleared areas, but obviously, while they can be used for propaganda and worse, the LTTE will not let them go. Recently, however, even the International NGOs, liberated from the silence clamped upon them when they worked in the Vanni, have begun to speak out.

Save the Children, for instance, recently declared in a press release that ‘the LTTE has not yet permitted more than 300,000 civilians to leave the area’. It has also been bolder than it used to be about child recruitment, declaring that ‘The work in the Vanni had led to a general trend in reduction in child recruitment by the LTTE over the last year as indicated in the UNICEF report, but we fear that all this could change as there are no external parties to verify what is happening to children there’. This is an unusually clear admission by what is termed the international community that child recruitment had continued over the last year, and that this self-same international community could not stop it absolutely. The old habit obviously dies hard, and it is feared that now it will increase, which says a great deal about the pledges the LTTE is supposed to have given.

Whether their newfound freedom from fear will enable these NGOs to categorically criticise the LTTE attack on food supplies is, however, another question. Having seen no evil, heard no evil and spoken of no evil while the LTTE recruited one and then two members from each family, disbanded marriages, built its great wall of defence using NGO equipment, it is unlikely that courage will come all in a flash. But little by little it is to be hoped that all apologists for the LTTE, all unthinking critics of the Government, will realise and acknowledge who has been responsible for all the humanitarian supplies sent to our fellow citizens in the North, who was responsible for health and education services far in advance of those even in non-conflict situations in many countries in the world. And perhaps finally, they will realise and acknowledge who has been disrupting all these for so long, who will use every trick in the book to ensure that they can continue to disrupt them in the future.

Rajiva Wijesinha

Secretary General

Secretariat for Co-ordinating the Peace Process 

(Courtesy : SCOPP )