The most pressing concern just now - although as I write this, perhaps only for a few hours - is for the plight of civilian Tamils trapped in the fighting. Many thousands are confined with the LTTE in a tiny coastal strip, surrounded by the Sri Lankan army and navy, and prevented by the Tigers from leaving.
They are being shot, bombed and shelled by the army. They are being herded about as human shields by the Tigers, and shot if they try to escape. If they do get away, they are put in prison camps by the army. They are traumatised and starving.
The army has the area encircled, but is continuing to prosecute the war. It claims to be using small-arms only, but this is a lie: reports from non-combatants in the zone, aerial photography and the nature of injuries, which include blast, burn and shrapnel wounds, all point conclusively to the continued use of shelling and bombing.
The area has not been carpet-bombed, and there has clearly been at least some attempt by the army to limit civilian casualties while continuing to take the fight forcefully to the LTTE. But the shelling and bombing have been savage nonetheless, and seem to have become more intense as the army has sought to “finish the job.”
For some weeks, most Western nations have been calling on the Sri Lankan state to cease military operations, to provide the beleaguered civilians with humanitarian aid, and to try to negotiate their release and the peaceful surrender of the trapped LTTE cadre. The Sri Lankan state has refused.
Since the continued action is (a) unnecessary and (b) killing civilians in large numbers, it is probably a war crime.
Nonetheless, a ceasefire is almost certainly not going to happen. All one can hope for is that the army will complete its operations swiftly and with minimal loss of life to civilians, LTTE cadres and its own soldiers.
A second major concern is what is happening to Tamil civilians in the North once they fall into the hands of the Sri Lankan army.
Much of the northern Tamil population under the age of 60 is being imprisoned in camps. This incarceration is supposedly for “humanitarian” reasons, but also for screening to identify Tiger cadres.
Moreover, the entire operation has been proceeding without international observers. The Sri Lankan government has called on international agencies to help supply food and medicine, and is belatedly inviting the UN to inspect a few of the camps, but what it is offering is far too little and much too late.
It is difficult to escape the analogy with Western-style concentration camps. In particular, Sri Lanka’s prison camps are reminiscent of the camps used by the British to confine the Boer population during the Boer War. These too were established with ostensive “humanitarian” functions when their true purpose was to control and vanquish a population.
There is also a major concern about what happens to young Tamil men and women, both at the pre-camp processing stage, and after they are placed in these camps. There are worries that suspected Tiger cadre are being “disappeared” by the army – that is, interred or secretly murdered.
There are worries too of what is happening in the camps themselves – rapes, systematic starvation, denial of access to medical services, and “disappearances” have all been reported.
There is no proof of these reports, and we must hope that they are false. The government has been extremely effective at denying access to the press, UN or humanitarian and human rights organizations. Their refusal to permit comprehensive independent monitoring is extremely worrying, since in the past the Sri Lankan army had killed thousands of civilians in atrocities documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
The international community needs to exert all the pressure it can to secure detailed and extensive monitoring of what is happening in the North. Ideally, an independent, international force should be sent in, but unless there is a radical policy shift in India, that is inconceivable.
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