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SRI LANKA: Gov’t Pledges Steady Supplies to Trapped Tamils

IPS Correspondents

COLOMBO, Oct 5 2008 (IPS) - The Sri Lankan government will organise weekly food convoys and maintain supplies to 220,000 civilians trapped by fighting between Tamil rebels and the army for control over Kilinochchi town and the surrounding area known as the Vanni.

“The plan is to move at least one convoy per week, we have already made arrangements,” commissioner for essential services, S. P. Divaratana, told IPS.

On Thursday, a convoy of 51 vehicles carrying supplies from the World Food Programme (WFP) reached the Vanni, being the first relief after the United Nations and other international agencies working in the area moved out on Sep.16, following a government directive and deteriorating security.

“We are committed to providing supplies to the displaced in the Vanni, we will try to organise another convoy next week,” U.N. spokesman in Sri Lanka, Gordon Weiss, told IPS as the convoy carrying 650 tonnes of supplies travelled across the Vanni to reach areas deep inside Tiger-held areas.

“It is crucial that a regular flow of humanitarian supplies is provided to conflict victims who are extremely vulnerable and in need of the most basic necessities,” Azeb Asrat, WFP acting country director in Sri Lanka, said.

Seven U.N. officials accompanied the convoy to monitor the internally displaced persons (IDPs) at four different locations, according to Nagalingam Vedanayagam, government agent for Kilinochchi, who accompanied the convoy.

Vedanayagam had, last week, warned that if supplies were further delayed ration stocks in the Vanni would come under pressure.

The latest U.N. humanitarian reports said there were signs of shortages. “Government agent – Kilinochchi reported on Sep. 24 that dry ration distribution was temporarily suspended in Kilinochchi district, due to shortages, for IDPs who have been registered in the district, ” the Inter Agency Standing Committee, a collective of U.N. and relief agencies, said.

Nine vehicles that were due to be part of the convoy were detained by government authorities after banned items, including explosives and 20 global positioning systems, were located hidden among the supplies. The U.N. said that the detained vehicles were among the 30 organised by local government officials.

“The convoy was reduced from 60 trucks to 51 after explosives and other illicit items were discovered on government-provided trucks that were due to join the convoy. The U.N. has reiterated that humanitarian convoys are protected under International Humanitarian Law, and has condemned the attempt by persons unknown to disrupt the aid effort,” the U.N. office in Colombo said in a statement.

The Oct. 2 convoy transported only food supplies such as rice, pulses, sugar and flour, Divaratana said. “Food is the priority in the Vanni at the moment, that is why we have given preference to transporting food stocks,” he told IPS. He added that non-food relief items were to be transported in the third convoy, probably later this month.

Divaratana said that government authorities and security officials were also allowing 20 trucks with non-emergency supplies into the Vanni on a daily basis. “These are not the supplies for the displaced; these are what the cooperative societies in the Vanni take in to resell.”

Other international humanitarian agencies that moved out of the Vanni said that they were not part of the first supply convoy but were prepared to assist future convoys.

“We submitted details of what we possessed as assets and resources and agreed on an imaginative set of steps to deliver assistance,” Jeevan Thiyagaraja, the executive director of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies, an umbrella body of international and national NGOs said.

Heavy fighting has been reported near Kilinochchi, at the centre of the Vanni, and the food convoy had to take a circuitous route to avoid being caught in the fighting. It took a road branching out east, about 50 km south of Kilinochchi, which serves as the headquarters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to reach IDPs who now remain to the northeast of it.

The defence ministry in Colombo said that a series of air attacks on Oct. 2, the day the convoy travelled, targeted installations in Kilinochchi used by top LTTE operatives, including its intelligence head Pottu Amman and the head of the political division Balasingham Nadesan.

The LTTE said that their administrative installations, including the Peace Secretariat office, the main political office, and the main office of the ‘Tiger Police,’ had come under aerial attack.

“This latest attack came after heavy artillery and Multi Barrel Rocket Launcher barrage by the Sri Lankan army, targeting in and around Kilinochchi town,” the LTTE said in a statement, adding that two civilians were killed.

Heavy clashes in Kilinochchi have resulted in the town being abandoned by the civilians and civil and administrative facilities being relocated to areas where they are accessible to the displaced persons.

Tangamuttu Sathyamurthi, the director of the Kilinochchi hospital, said that the staff has been cautioned to take evasive action during air attacks and shelling and said that the hospital would likely be relocated if fighting further intensifies.

“I will write to the health ministry in Colombo, it is too dangerous for us remain near the fighting zone,’’ Sathyamurthi said.

At least 14 health institutions with a total bed capacity of 200 have already been relocated from areas southwest of Kilinochchi due to fighting.

The arrival of Sri Lankan forces on the outskirts of Kilinochchi is ‘’the beginning of the end of LTTE terrorists,” defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said in statements.

But there are expectations that the LTTE may survive as a fighting force by falling back into the thick jungles around Mullaittivu, said to be where its reclusive leader Velupillai Prabhakaran operates from.

Claiming discrimination by the Sinhalese majority in Sri Lanka, the LTTE has been fighting since 1972 to carve out a separate Tamil homeland in the north and east of the island. The east fell to the army last year and efforts are being made to capture the last strongholds of the LTTE in the north.