REFUGEE

A chance encounter behind the wire offered the cook an opportunity to serve exquisite revenge on his would-be killer. He was a prisoner, one of 280,000 Tamil civilians interned in Sri Lankan detention camps this year, when the moment came. Memories of his earlier escape from the strip of land held by the Tamil Tigers during their last stand in May were still vivid.

“The Tigers killed between 20 and 30 people in the group I was with as we tried to run,” V. Sivalingam, one of the final Tamil detainees released on Tuesday, recalled. “There were four or five of them. At first they argued with us. Then the crowd around them grew bigger. They began to panic. People started to push past them. Then they opened fire. Close range. Waist high. Directly at us. It was chaos. The military were shelling us at the same time.”

Sivalingam, a cook from Mullaittivu, had miraculously survived, and succeeded in reaching the army’s lines with his wife of 20 years and five children after an epic flight that involved wading through neck-high sea water for ten hours. Within a matter of days he and his family found themselves interned by the authorities in a Zone 2 camp of the infamous Manik Farm complex, where they remained until Tuesday. Most of his fellow detainees were strangers but on one glorious day Sivalingam had recognised a familiar face.

“It was one of the LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] fighters who had shot so many people that day,” he said. “He was a young man, who had managed to escape too, and now disguised himself in the camp as a civilian. I walked up to him and said, ‘Remember me? I was in that crowd you shot at. Think of what I could do to you now’. The man hung his head.However, instead of beating up the Tiger, or revealing his identity to the camp guards, Sivalingam said: “I did nothing. I told nobody of his identity. I could have had him arrested but I didn’t. The LTTE had fought long and hard for us. At the end of it all they did terrible things — we know that. But they didn’t have much choice.”

Such ambivalence towards the Tigers, even among those who suffered directly at their hands, is typical among the civilian former detainees now struggling to pick up the threads of their life since their release.

“When I first heard that Prabhakaran [leader of the LTTE] was dead I felt nothing either way,” explained Jegathees Sridtharan, 34, a teacher from Kilinochchi, released after spending six months in a Zone Zero detention camp in Manik Farm with her husband and two infant sons.

“But later, as a Tamil woman, I felt deeply worried about his death. For 30 years the LTTE had fought for our freedom, right up until disaster.”

Yet these words came from a woman who by her own account had endured a horrific battlefield ordeal in which she had waded through the sea with her husband, clutching their sons aged 2½ and 7 months, escaping a war zone in which she described seeing hundreds of bodies of civilians killed by artillery and airstrikes, simultaneously under fire from both the Tigers and the army.

“I could see the LTTE shooting at us as we entered the water with a huge crowd,” she said. “People were hit and falling into the water.”

These mixed loyalties pose a complex and time sensitive challenge that the Sri Lankan Government must surmount speedily if it is to transform its military victory of May into a lasting peace.

Detaining 280,000 civilians for six months, whom it first claimed to have liberated from the Tigers in “one of the largest hostage rescue operations in history”, was not an auspicious start to winning their support. Though life in the camps does not seem to have involved systematic physical abuse, it could nevertheless be one of hardship, overcrowding and poor sanitation.

“Our camp was particularily bad,” Sivalingam said. “People fought over water, food and space. We felt like prisoners because that’s what we were: third-class citizens.”

All returnees, including the final 130,000 released on Tuesday, are technically offered an immediate resettlement package, which includes a World Food Programme ration card, the first of two $220 (£133) handouts and essential non-food items such as blankets.

However, the plan is flawed in its application. Some people receive cash and rations, some do not. In Trincomalee not a single returnee spoken to by The Times had managed to draw the weekly ration allowance, despite being issued cards, owing to administrative errors by local authorities.

“Each time I go to the authorities they tell me that they have received no rations to give us yet,” said Rajneedevi Visavalingam, 32, the wife of a 40-year-old Tamil farmer who had been blinded in both eyes by shrapnel in April (but who nevertheless had been detained in a Zone 4 camp with his family the moment he was released from hospital).

“I took a letter to the UNHCR [United Nations Commissioner for Refugees] here, saying I have three small children, a blinded husband, no home of our own and no money. They sent me to the IOM [International organisation for Migration], who sent me back to the local divisional secretary, who sent me away with nothing. The Government has washed its hands of us.”

“The situation is crazy,” admitted Father V. Yogeswaran, the Jesuit priest who is director of the Centre for Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Trincomalee. “There is no clear procedure for the rehabilitation or resettlement programme. We don’t know it. The returnees don’t know it. The UN hasn’t a clear plan either. Why? There’s no answer yet. It’s like the blind groping for a way out.”

The Sri Lankan Government has undermined its own ability to cope with the situation by restricting the access of NGOs to the north and east of the country, organisations that would be far better skilled at delivering resettlement aid than local authorities.

Meanwhile, even the exact freedom of movement status of the final 130,000 released detainees remains unclear. Many have no homes left to go to. Some from the Manik Farm camp complex have been told to report back within ten days, others within 15 days. The total closure of camps is not due until January 31.

Most of those released on Tuesday were happy just to savour even limited freedom after six months’ incarceration rather than brood on their more distant future, although for the cook Sivalingam, the day was one of mixed fortunes.

“I said goodbye to my wife of 20 years for good when I walked out of the camp gates,” he said. “We had been through so much together. We had escaped through the fighting knowing it could be the end of our lives. But we survived. I loved her. But in the camp she consorted with the military for extra rations. That association disgraces her. She’s gone to Jaffna. I’ll never have her back.”

On Tuesday, the Sri Lankan government temporarily released thousands of Tamils and the international community is now responding to the progressive closure of the internatl displacement camps.
On December 1, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa opened the internal displacement camps that housed over 300,000 Tamils. The President also announced in the same week that the camps, that have been dubbed “concentration camps,” will be entirely closed by January 31, 2010.
As thousands of Tamils are leaving the camps, the international community has responded such as the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, who recently said, according to Nidahasa, “This is a decisive step in the return to a normalized situation for the civilian populations who were victims of a bloody armed conflict.”
Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister, Rohitha Bogollagama, spoke with the BBC on Thursday to discuss the recent release of Tamils and said that they were free to leave temporarily but only if they provided details so they can be monitored by the government.
The Christian Science Monitor notes that freed Tamils may have their voice heard in the recently called early elections by Rajapaksa, which will most likely be held in January. Rajapaksa is quite popular in Sri Lanka because of the end of the 30-year civil war. The former Chief of Sri Lanka’s army, General Sarath Fonseka, announced on Sunday that he will be the main challenger against Rajapaksa.
A new poll released on Thursday, reports the United Press International, suggests that 64 per cent of Sri Lankans are optimistic about their economy but economic growth in the region slowed to 3.5 per cent in 2009, which is down from 6 per cent in 2008.
The Sri Lankan government also announced last week that they want to host the next Commonwealth Summit but the international community is strongly against such a bid. Digital Journal reported that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will try to block the move.
Dev Fakruddin, a Toronto Tamil demonstrator, told Digital Journal in an e-mail on Thursday evening that the entire situation is a “quagmire” and the entire world will know exactly about the situation in the next several months “most likely after the election.”
“Whenever I read or hear news about Sri Lanka, I always have a frustrated look on my face because I know it’s never the correct news or unbiased. I know that Tamils aren’t being released 100 per cent but the major news outlets are saying the chaos in Sri Lanka is over. But that is not true. I don’t like it one bit. Until Tamils worldwide tell others they can travel peacefully, live their lives and earn a living then I will not worry and believe news reports.”

Sri Lanka's government freed hundreds of thousands of Tamils from vast internment camps in the north of the island Tuesday – prompted as much by upcoming elections as concerns over human rights, say analysts.

In May, when the Army finally routed the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from their northern stronghold, much of the population of that area – close to 300,000 people - was imprisoned in overcrowded camps. Tuesday morning, fewer than half that number were thought to remain.

As conditions deteriorated, international pressure mounted, along with warnings that continued detainment would make reconciliation between the island's Tamil minority and Sinhalese majority increasingly elusive. That ethnic conflict was the root of the LTTE's long war against the government.

But internal politics are likely to have done more to secure the freedom of the northern Tamils than foreign pressure.

"[For] the first time in a long time, the government has been forced to focus on the minorities," says Jehan Perera, executive director of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka, a nonpartisan advocacy group.

That change was ushered in last month, when Sri Lanka's Army chief, Gen. Sarath Fonseka, stepped down as head of the military and announced he would run as the opposition candidate against President Mahindra Rajapakse in general elections in January.

President Rajapakse had called an early election to take advantage of the popularity garnered by his historic defeat of the LTTE. But analysts say General Fonseka's bid threatens to split the president's Sinhalese voter base – forcing Rajapakse to court the vote of the Tamil minority.

Fonseka, an ardent Sinhalese nationalist, has also sought to play to Tamil and moderate sentiments, voicing concern over the current situation of the refugees. In his letter of resignation as head of the Army, he criticized both the "appalling conditions" in the camps and the president's failure to reconcile Sri Lanka's Tamils and Sinhalese.

Mr. Perera says it is questionable whether minorities will back Fonseka, who led a brutal military crackdown on the LTTE in which thousands of civilian Tamils were killed, although "my own belief is that they will be prepared to back someone new," he says.

"His standing for the polls is good for the country, because he has strengthened the opposition," he adds.

FREED TAMILS: TOUGH JOURNEY HOME

Many of the newly freed Tamils face a difficult task returning to their villages hundreds of miles away from the camps in which they have lived for months.

Mr. Perera said their journeys home would not be as easy as the government had suggested, as roads were blocked and there was little public transport. He added that the government's handout of 5,000 rupees ($43) per household was entirely inadequate for people returning to homelands decimated by war, with ruined buildings and patchy sanitation.

Experts also say that with much of the north still dangerously mined, many Tamils will choose to remain in the camps for now.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka's government still has to prove that it is serious about bringing lasting peace by giving Tamils some form of political autonomy.

Over the weekend, Sri Lanka was blocked from hosting the next meeting of Commonwealth leaders in protest of Colombo's military repression of Tamils during the last phase of fighting.

Australia and Britain united to block Sri Lanka's bid for the 2011 summit, which it had formally submitted in 2007. That meeting will now be hosted by Australia.

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The decimation of the LTTE in Sri Lanka has given a big push to illegal immigration involving Sri Lankan Tamils in India. There is a sudden spurt in Sri Lankan Tamils illegally crossing over to India to take a flight abroad. Agents have kept apace by doubling fees for passports and visaInvestigators believe most Sri Lankans trying to cross-over to western shores via India are LTTE cadres or sympathizers. Airport authorities have caught at least 40 Sri Lankan Tamils trying to take such flights from Indian airports.

In a latest case at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport on November 16, Rajan Kumar was stopped from boarding an Air India flight to New York, after the US visa on his passport drew suspicion. The regional passport office in Hyderabad had purportedly issued the passport.

But close scrutiny showed the passport was fake. It would have gone down as another case of illegal immigration had Rajan not told investigators he was a Sri Lankan Tamil who had illegally crossed over to India.

His original name was Sivapalan and apart for his Indian passport, he was also carrying documents to prove his Sri Lankan identity. Sivapalan explained he planned to show his original Sri Lankan documents on reaching America. "He would have claimed to be an LTTE sympathizer and a victim of persecution by Sri Lankan forces," said a source who interrogated Sivapalan. But authorities are undecided on whether Sivapalan was really an LTTE recruit or just trying to get a toe-hold in the US.

Sivapalan had got his boarding pass before he was detained, indicating some kind of connivance with airline staff. It is also clear that Sivapalan got his Indian passport from a gang that catered to Sri Lankan Tamils.

The gang has links to an illegal immigration racket busted in Chennai. On October 22, the Chennai police arrested two agents -- Mahenthiran Kajenthiran and Vellaiyan Tharamalingan -- from Vetri Nagar and recovered 27 Indian passports of Sri Lankan Tamils from their houses. Seven Sri Lankan passports and some visa stamps of UK and other western countries too were found.

The passports were meant for Sri Lankan Tamils but the racket was busted before they could be handed over to clients. What startled the authorities was recovery of LTTE propaganda, indicating the gang was helping Sri Lankan Tamils flee India.

During interrogation, the agents gave details of a well-oiled operation in which LTTE cadres or sympathizers are sent abroad. The gang was led by a person named Kalidass, arrested later.

Kalidass used to take people to exotic European locales posing as film crew. But the crew never returned.Authorities are still clueless on the whereabouts of such Sri Lankan Tamils whose passports the gang prepared. So far, only their names are known.