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UN lashes Sri Lankan army, Tigers over offensive in civilian sanctuaries
The Australian - April 19, 2011
Mark Dodd – War crimes were committed by the Sri Lankan army and Tamil Tiger rebels as the bloody 26-year conflict drew to an end in 2009, a damning UN report has found.
A copy of the report obtained by The Australian found credible allegations that tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were killed deliberately targeted by Sri Lankan artillery firing into "no-fire zones".
It suggests as many as 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed by the shelling in the offensive that destroyed as a fighting force the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
The report, handed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week, also accused the Tamil Tigers of mowing down civilians, using them as human shields and recruiting children to fight.
The 10-month investigation found a very different version of the final stages of the war then that claimed by the government.
"The government says it pursued a humanitarian rescue operation with a policy of zero civilian casualties," the report says.
"In stark contrast, the panel found credible allegations, which if proven indicate that a wide range of serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law were committed both by the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE, some of which would amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity."
The report alleges deliberate shelling by the army of the UN hub and food distribution lines close to International Committee of the Red Cross facilities.
Other targets of government shelling included ships coming into the area known as the Vanni to collect wounded Tamil civilians.
"It shelled in spite of its knowledge of the impact, provided by its own intelligence systems and through notification by the UN, the ICRC and others. Most civilian casualties in the final phases of the war were caused by government shelling. The government systematically shelled hospitals on the front lines.
"All hospitals in the Vanni were hit by mortars and artillery; some of them were hit repeatedly, despite the fact that their locations were well-known to the government.
"On or around 19 to 21 January, SLA shells hit Vallipunam hospital, located in the first NFZ, killing patients. Throughout the final stages of the war, hospitals on the frontlines were repeatedly hit by artillery. While some may have been swept up in the SLA advance, others that maintained wings for wounded LTTE appear to have been targeted."
Tamil Tiger cadres were present in the no-fire zones, but none were in the UN hub. Radio calls for a halt to the shelling went unheeded, with hundreds of shells raining down on the complex in the early hours of January 24.
"When UN staff emerged from the bunker in the first morning light, mangled bodies and body parts were strewn all around them, including those of many women and children. Human remains of babies had been blasted upwards into the trees. Among the dead were the people who had helped to dig the bunker the previous day."
The government could not be trusted to investigate allegations of war crimes because responsibility reached to the highest offices, including President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother Gothabaya, the Defence Minister.
Last night, BBC reported Mr Rajapaksa as calling for mass protests against the report, which is equally scathing of the LTTE.
Despite the grave dangers for an estimated 330,000 Tamil civilians trapped in the conflict zone, LTTE cadres refused to allow civilians to leave, using them as hostages and at times as a "strategic buffer" between themselves and the advancing army. The LTTE implemented a policy of forced recruitment throughout the war, including children as young as 14.
"The LTTE forced civilians to dig trenches for its own defences, thereby contributing to blurring the distinction between combatants and civilians and exposing civilians to additional harm. All of this was done in a quest to pursue a war that was clearly lost."
As their situation deteriorated the brutality of the Tigers increased. Tamil civilians trying to flee a second no-fire zone were fired on with automatic weapons.
"Some were killed on the spot; others flailed in the shallow water or incurred terrible injuries from stepping on landmines. Small children drowned in the lagoon. While it is not known precisely how many people died this way, the number was significant and rose as the conflict progressed."
Desperate for troops, an LTTE commander in Trincomalee, known as Ezhilan, conscripted hundreds of young people from the Valayanmadam church and bused them to the frontline near Mullyvaykkal. "Parents begged and cried for them not to be taken away to fight and to an almost certain death, but to no avail." The final days of the conflict saw a steep rise in the number of civilian casualties. At the hospital at Vellamullivaykkal, hundreds of patients lay on the floor, bleeding from terrible wounds. The dead lay among them. Relatives caring for the wounded were themselves weak with malnutrition.
As the battle drew to a close between May 16 and May 19 the remaining civilians trapped in the zone made their way south, out of the coastal strip, crossing the Vadduvahal Bridge into the government-controlled area.
The shelling continued and large fires were burning, including from destroyed Tiger arms caches. The dead were strewn everywhere; the wounded lay along the roadsides, begging for help from those still able to walk, often not receiving it. Some had to be torn away from the bodies of their loved ones.
The smell of the dead and dying was overwhelming.
May 18 2009 marked the end of the conflict in the Vanni. In the words of the ICRC, the final days had culminated in "unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe".
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