The conflict between the Sinhalese majority and the LTTE lasted for almost three decades. The celebration for this first year of ‘peace’ commenced on May 12, 2010 as the 'Week of War Heroes', and more elaborate festivities are in store to celebrate this first year’s memorial of the defeated LTTE on May 20, 2010.
A Few of Sri Lanka’s War Crimes According to the International Crisis Group
The Sri Lankan civil war began on July 23, 1983, and by the time it was over, 26 years and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of lives had been pointlessly wasted and thousands of families destroyed. The government has kept the figures very low, but more accurate numbers are becoming known. Needless to say, the casualty count is much higher than the government concurs.
Today those Tamils who survived are still shell shocked trying to pick up their lives, though most don’t even have homes. Others are desperately searching for loved ones, because during the last phase of the war, events became particularly brutal. Families were forced into IDP (internally displaced persons) camps, which were out of control with torture and rape, while medical treatment was virtually nonexistent.
On May 17, 2010, the International Crisis Group, a non-governmental intervention organization based in Brussels, released its report “War Crimes in Sri Lanka, Asia Report N°191”. It is a 54-page report with a focus on the last months of the war in great detail.
In September 2008, the Sri Lankan government fairly kicked out all humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations. The government cut down on deliveries of food and supplies to hundreds of thousands of displaced Tamils. This situation caused severe shortages and greater suffering among these helpless civilians. However, national UN staff members, who stayed behind, worked to continue moving supplies to the IDP camps. Unfortunately, their operations from Vavuniya to the Vanni came under fire by the Sri Lankan security forces, which, of course, the government has always denied. The artillery fire destroyed crucial supplies, but these attacks also killed women as well as children.
The Final Phase of the War in Mullivaikal, Mullaitivu District, Sri Lanka
During the final days of the war in May 2009, the security forces became even more ruthless and brutal. They had no thought or consideration for the tens of thousands of civilians who had nowhere to go. The Tamils in the Vanni were ordered to go to the No Fighting Zone (NFZ) in Mullivaikal, northern Sri Lanka, which became a bloodbath massacre of unarmed civilians attacked by heavy artillery, killing and wounding more than 40,000 innocent people.
According to the ICG, “The final NFZ that the government declared on May 8, 2009 was only a few square kilometers. In it were approximately 100,000 civilians, and whatever LTTE cadres remained. The next ten days saw some of the most intense shelling and fighting of the entire conflict. Witnesses have described scenes of immense devastation and civilian suffering.
The security forces were firing from the west across the lagoon, from the air and from the ocean. For days those civilians who had bunkers were trapped in them, unable to go out to cook or get food or water. On May 14, 2009, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced that for the third consecutive day it had been unable to evacuate any of the wounded because of continuous heavy fighting.
Those fortunate enough to survive and emerge after the security forces took the area saw hundreds, perhaps thousands of severely wounded and dead civilians – women, children, the elderly and men – on the ground. Many more are believed to have been killed or buried alive in bunkers or left to die without medical treatment.”
Sri Lanka considers May 18, 2009 a day of triumphant conquest over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and cause to celebrate a ruthlessly earned victory. It is a remembrance day of overwhelming sadness for the Tamil, Sinhalese, and Muslim civilians, to whom the futile loss of their loved ones, their friends, and their neighbors will always be a part of who they are. The international community has ignored their dire need for intervention and has forsaken them.
Heike Winnig - Ms. Winnig is German, born in Bad Kreuznach, Rheinlandpfalz, Deutschland, and has lived in the United States since she was a child. ...
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