Sri Lanka: The Next Phase of the Crisis

UPDATE: Gethin Chamberlain writes in this morning's The Guardian of London on reports coming out of the camps, including claims that 15,000 people died in the last three months of fighting.

Understandably, most of the US and British media focused yesterday on the Sri Lankan Government's military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the deaths of LTTE leaders including (probably) Velupillai Prabhakaran. Some, such as The Washington Post and The Times of London added calls for a "political process that is fully inclusive and democratic".

Today, however, some outlets are noting the immediate humanitarian (and longer-term political) issue: the more than 250,000 refugees now in overcrowded camps. The United Nations Children's Fund has demanded access to the shelters: ""People are arriving into camps sick, malnourished and some with untended wounds of war....Water and sanitation needs are critical."

On 5 May, Britain's Channel 4 aired a video report on the situation in one of the camps (secretly filmed before the arrival of another 65,000 people in recent days.) Below that is an article by Andrew Buncombe of The Independent of London, published last Sunday, on the plight of the civilians, including at least 50,000 children.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN4e9ZbxP1s[/youtube]

No one is safe as Tigers fight to the death

Some stare, others frown. Some smile at the camera, though there is remarkably little for them to smile about. As these youngsters trapped in Sri Lanka's war zone stand in line with their bowls and cups, waiting patiently for soup, there are reports that food is running low and that children are dying almost every day from sickness and injury. All the while the fighting continues. Shells explode, gunfire rattles.

These children are just some of the victims of a conflict that is all but hidden from view of the outside world. Unofficial UN estimates suggest 150,000 people are still trapped in the battle zone, confined to a tiny strip of land measuring no more than 7.7 square miles that, with all the terrible Orwellian irony of war, has become known as the "no-fire zone". In truth, but for a brief two-day pause over the Sri Lankan new year, there is shelling and artillery fire every day. Of these civilians, an estimated 50,000 are children.

These photographs and others, taken inside the war zone and passed to The Independent on Sunday, give just the barest insight into the misery being endured by the trapped civilians in what would otherwise be a tropical paradise. Seemingly used as human shields by the rebel fighters and unable to leave, they are caught between two unyielding forces. Other, more gruesome photographs taken inside the zone's basic medical facilities appear to confirm reports that civilians are regularly being killed and injured. The UN says 4,500 civilians have been killed in the past three months. A senior envoy who recently visited Sri Lanka said that figure was rising daily.

A swelling chorus of international voices has called on the rebels to release the civilians and on the government to enact a longer ceasefire. Foreign Secretary David Miliband said last night that he was "gravely concerned" by the continuing conflict. "The British Government maintains its calls for an immediate ceasefire in Sri Lanka," he said. It is the 50,000 children trapped in the war zone for whom concern is greatest. Many mothers are too weak and enfeebled to produce breast-milk. Diarrhoea, always the affliction of the weakest, is taking lives almost every day. Health officials inside the war zone have said that malnutrition is an increasing danger for the children - though their claims are denied by the government.

The international aid community, parts of which have until now preferred to express their concerns privately rather than seek a head-on confrontation with the government, is increasingly speaking out. Paul Castello, head of the Red Cross in Sri Lanka, said last night: "We have 100 staff trapped in there. These people are exposed in the middle of a battlefield, so every day people are dying from bullets and shells. There are no medical supplies, very little food and hardly any drinking water. There is no soap and no toilets. The only shelter is from tarpaulins or tents. The children have diarrhoea, chicken pox, respiratory infections. The Red Cross has evacuated 10,000 people from the conflict zone since February."

The civilians are caught in the bloody endgame of one of the world's longest-running conflicts. After three decades of civil war between government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), President Mahinda Rajapaksa last year undertook to crush the rebels, who are seeking an independent homeland for the Tamil community to escape what they say is widespread discrimination.

Since January 2008, when a faltering, internationally brokered ceasefire agreement officially ended, the rebel Tamil fighters - waging a brutal war using suicide attacks against civilian and military targets - have been pushed back. Late last year, the de facto LTTE capital, Kilinochchi, fell, and the rebels have been increasingly squeezed by government troops. The rebel army, which once controlled the entire north of Sri Lanka and parts of the east, is now confined to a small strip of land on the coast at Mullaittivu in the country's far north-east.

It is in Mullaittivu that the civilians are trapped - and the rebels are refusing to release them. Having once promoted themselves as the legitimate and sole defenders of the Tamil population, the fighters are now using those same civilians to protect themselves against what would otherwise most probably be a final, crushing onslaught by the government troops. The UN said it learned that during the two-day ceasefire earlier this week, LTTE fighters shot six civilians trying to leave the war zone. Other civilians may be too afraid to leave.

Some of the beleaguered civilians are living inside concrete buildings, but many others find themselves confined to squatter camps on the beach and in the jungle. They hide from the blistering daytime sun under plastic sheets and tarpaulins. When the tropical rains come, as they have done recently, the zone is turned into a filthy, flooded quagmire. In a land that has suffered months of war, they are dependent on food shipments from the government and the UN. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is the only aid group with regular access to the area, all others having been forced to withdraw last September. "There is a lack of food. Sanitation is abysmal," said one despairing aid worker based in Colombo.

The most compelling evidence has come from two government health officials working in the area who stayed on after the fighting intensified - a rare source of first-hand information about the situation inside the war zone.

Speaking yesterday by phone from the area's makeshift hospital, one of them, Dr T Sathyamurthy, said he believed as many as 300,000 people were trapped and that the fighting was continuing. "Today we can hear the gunfire and shelling. Yesterday, another 80 civilian casualties were brought to the hospital. Today at around 5.30am we heard the sound of artillery fire. We don't know who is firing," he said.

He said there was a lack of food and that government shipments were insufficient, something that represented a particularly pressing danger to the war zone's children. "The small children are dependent on their mothers' milk. They cannot eat rice or dahl," he said. "In this area mothers usually feed their children up to two years, but they are saying they do not have enough breast-milk."

Asked about government claims that he was unable to tell the truth because he was living under the threat of the LTTE, he responded: "I am a government official. We are the eyewitnesses. We are talking about the situation that the government is not accepting ... The main problem is that the Tamils are voiceless." He said that while some in the government may not approve of the doctors speaking out, they decided they had no choice. "We want to talk about the situation. We saw that thousands died and more were injured. There is no free media. That is why we decided to talk about the situation," he said.

The government rejects the reports of malnutrition. Athula Kahandaliyanage, the Health Secretary, said the claims were "scientifically" not credible. He referred to a report quoting Dr Sathyamurthy saying that 69 per cent of children below the age of five in the war zone were malnourished, and said that previously the highest recorded rate of child malnutrition in Sri Lanka was 24 per cent. "Malnutrition is not something that can happen overnight," he said.

Asked about the plight of the children and the calls for a ceasefire, Dr Kahandaliyanage said: "We are very much concerned about their safety, their nutrition and health ... The whole international community should just call on the LTTE to allow these people out." Yet journalists are banned from visiting except on a handful of military-organised tours, and the ICRC is the sole aid organisation allowed to operate there.

On Friday, with no sign of any let-up in the fighting, Sam Zarifi of Amnesty International called for a ceasefire and for the LTTE not to allow civilians to be used as a buffer. He said: "The government of Sri Lanka needs to allow independent monitors to ensure that civilians feel safe to come out of the Tamil Tiger-controlled areas."

Meanwhile, the thousands of children of the war zone stand in line for their bowls of kanchichi, a traditional soup made from rice, coconut milk and a pinch of salt. It doesn't seem like very much.

Afghanistan Civilian Deaths: US Military Un-Apologises

Related Post: Obama Fiddles, Afghanistan and Pakistan Burn

Al Jazeera's headline this morning cleverly uses scare quotes: "US Military 'Confirms' Afghan Deaths".

The raised eyebrows over "confirm" are justified, however. While "a senior military official" told the press, in advance of a formal briefing on Friday, that, yes, US airstrikes had killed civilians, he was quick to shift responsibility.

According to CNN, the official said that the "buildings and compounds" hit by the U.S. had been "identified as areas from which insurgent fighters were firing on Afghan and coalition forces". The insurgents were holding residents in those buildings "as a means of causing civilian casualties". And, just for good measure and a good headline, he added that there was "separate intelligence that some civilians in a nearby area were killed with hand grenades by militants who then displayed the bodies".

Never mind that there was no evidence, in eyewitness accounts and from the International Committee of the Red Cross, who had officials on the scene, that the dead civilians were human shields. Never mind that tribal elders who contacted the ICRC made no reference to civilians held by insurgents in the bombed buildings, as they asked for help to deal with casualties.

Forget the possibility that American officials could say what, at this point, is the likely scenario. In the battle between Afghan insurgents and the Afghan military, there was crossfire. That crossfire included US bombs. And crossfire is not always accurate or discriminate. In war, stuff happens.

No, the "collateral damage" --- not to the innocent but to the US military --- must be limited. So Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will say, with a straight face, ""We regret any, even one, Afghan...innocent civilian casualty." The US senior official will frame the "real" issue, "The question now for investigators, the official said, is how much information was available at the time of the strikes about the potential presence of civilians and whether those in charge should have known civilians might be in the vicinity."

And that will do until the next incident.

Beyond the Summit: Dan Froomkin on Afghanistan and Pakistan

Latest Post: Obama Fiddles, Afghanistan and Pakistan Burn
Related Post: Pepe Escobar on Obama-Bush in Afghanistan-Pakistan

From Dan Froomkin's excellent overview blog "White House Watch" on The Washington Post site:

What the 'Military Solution' Looks Like

There's a tremendous sense of urgency surrounding President Obama's meetings today with the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. And a sense of urgency often leads people to focus primarily on military solutions.

So it's worth stopping to consider what the "military solution" has been looking like recently in that region of the world.

Rahim Faiez writes for the Associated Press: "The international Red Cross confirmed Wednesday that civilians were found in graves and rubble where Afghan officials alleged U.S. bombs killed had dozens....

"Women and children were among dozens of bodies in two villages targeted by airstrikes, the International Committee of the Red Cross reported Wednesday, after sending a team to the district. The U.S. military sent a brigadier general to the region to investigate.

"A former Afghan government official said up to 120 people died in the bombing Monday evening...

"The first images from the bombings in Farah province emerged Wednesday. Photos from the site obtained by The Associated Press showed villagers burying the dead in about a dozen fresh graves, while others dug through the rubble of demolished mud-brick homes."

Matthew Lee writes for the Associated Press that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton this morning said "the Obama administration 'deeply, deeply' regrets the loss of innocent life apparently as the result of a U.S. bombing in Afghanistan and will undertake a full review of the incident."

But the damage is done, both to the victims and to our goals. Consider what Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed in February: "We have learned, after seven years of war, that trust is the coin of the realm -- that building it takes time, losing it takes mere seconds, and maintaining it may be our most important and most difficult objective.

"That's why images of prisoner maltreatment at Abu Ghraib still serve as recruiting tools for al-Qaeda. And it's why each civilian casualty for which we are even remotely responsible sets back our efforts to gain the confidence of the Afghan people months, if not years."



And now let's take a look at what's going on in Pakistan, where, as Warren P. Strobel and Margaret Talev write for McClatchy Newspapers, "Obama and his team are urging [Pakistani President Asif Ali] Zardari to mount a sustained offensive against the Taliban and its allies, who're imposing a brutal form of Islamic rule across the country's northwest."

The problem: "Religious militants, who aspire to fundamentalist religious rule like the Taliban maintained in Afghanistan for five years until 2001, took advantage of a cease-fire with the government to win control over the scenic Swat valley and have since moved into neighboring districts, some of which are 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad."

But here is what Zardari's solution looks like. As Saeed Shah wrote for McClatchy Newspapers on Monday: "The Pakistani army's assault against Islamic militants in Buner, in northwest Pakistan, is flattening villages, killing civilians and sending thousands of farmers and villagers fleeing from their homes, residents escaping the fighting said Monday...

"[R]esidents' accounts of the fighting contradict those from the Pakistani military and suggest that the government of President Asif Ali Zardari is rapidly losing the support of those it had set out to protect."

Strobel and Talev write that the "heavy-handed military force...could further undermine support for the government.

"'All they're doing is displacing civilians and hurting people,' said a U.S. defense official who asked not to be further identified because he isn't authorized to speak to the media. 'It's not going to work.'"

So what will work? Who knows? As Paul Richter and Christi Parsons write in the Los Angeles Times, Obama seems to have no choice but to "overhaul a painstakingly developed security strategy that was unveiled only five weeks ago but already has become badly outdated."

And the greatest urgency, in fact, is now seen on the Pakistan side of the border. As Richter and Parsons write: "In what is emerging as Obama's first major foreign policy crisis, U.S. officials fear the militants could fracture Pakistan, the far more populous nation, further destabilizing the region and even posing a grave risk to the security of Islamabad's nuclear arsenal...

"Though the situation in Afghanistan may not have improved, it does suddenly seem more manageable. 'By comparison, it looks like Canada,' one U.S. official said in an interview."

Canada? With 60,000 American troops soon to be in harm's way? I don't think so. But you get the point.

Meanwhile, Obama is dealing with two reluctant allies.

As Rajiv Chandrasekaran writes in The Washington Post, "senior members of Obama's national security team say [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai has not done enough to address the grave challenges facing his nation. They deem him to be a mercurial and vacillating chieftain who has tolerated corruption and failed to project his authority beyond the gates of Kabul....

"Vexed by the challenge of stabilizing Afghanistan with a partner they regard as less than reliable, Obama's advisers have crafted a two-pronged strategy that amounts to a fundamental break from the avuncular way President George W. Bush dealt with the Afghan leader.

"Obama intends to maintain an arm's-length relationship with Karzai in the hope that it will lead him to address issues of concern to the United States, according to senior U.S. government officials. The administration will also seek to bypass Karzai by working more closely with other members of his cabinet and by funneling more money to local governors."

And Karen DeYoung writes in The Washington Post: "The Obama administration 'unambiguously' supports Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, even as it puts 'the most heavy possible pressure' on his government to fight extremists in the country, Richard C. Holbrooke, Obama's special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, told Congress yesterday....

"When the three sit down today, Obama will tell Zardari and Karzai that they 'have to work together, despite their issues and their history. That's just what has to be done,' said one of two senior administration officials who briefed reporters at the White House about the visits on the condition of anonymity."

As the New York Times editorial board writes: "American officials don’t have much confidence in either leader — a fact they haven’t tried to conceal. Most Afghans and Pakistanis share their doubts. But if there is any hope of defeating the Taliban, Mr. Obama will have to find a way to work with both men — and find the right mixture of support and blunt pressure to get them to do what is necessary to save their countries."

Tuesday's Mass Killing in Afghanistan: US Military Begins The Lying

All day we've been following reports of the mass killing in a US airstrike in western Afghanistan. The aerial assault was called in after fighting between Afghan forces, backed by coalition troops, and insurgents. Estimates of the dead have varied from a few dozen to 120 --- an accurate count may not be possible because some of the dead have already been buried --- but the provincial governor fears about 100 civilians have been killed.

US officials quickly took the official line that any civilian deaths were regrettable but were at the hands of the Taliban. A fine example of that deflection of blame can be heard in the BBC interview of the American ambassador to NATO this morning (about 1:50:00 into the podcast).

Leaving aside the consequence that relatives of dead civilians are just as likely to blame the Americans who killed them as they are the Taliban, what is already disconcerting is the US attempt to cover up the scale of the tragedy. The US military says that it has "preliminarily concluded that about 11 civilians were wounded and that 11 insurgents were killed".

How do I know that is a blatant lie? Well, because International Committee of the Red Cross officials have seen "dozens of people, including women and children" dead at the scene. The ICRC head of delegation in Kabul confirmed, "Those killed included an Afghan Red Crescent volunteer and 13 members of his family who had been sheltering from fighting in a house that was bombed in an airstrike."

None of this, of course, is to absolve the insurgents of responsibility, giving the proximity of civilians to the fighting. Still, as Afghan President Karzai is in Washington for talks, this is already a glaring example of how the Obama policy in Afghanistan will be undone not only by US military action, but by the attempts to cover up the consequences of those actions.