Sri Lanka: When the whole world isn't watching

Joel Charny
Reuters AlertNet
28 Jan 09

One of the harsh realities of the humanitarian field is that some crises capture public attention, while others do not. The patterns are rather rigid. Crises in Europe and the Middle East, especially Palestine, make headlines. Large-scale natural disasters, even in obscure places, attract interest due to the inherent human fascination with immense forces beyond our control. But crises due to “complex” political conflicts outside the zones of proven public engagement are doomed to obscurity, unless it rises to such a level that “genocide” (read “another Holocaust”) can be invoked.

The contrast between Gaza and Sri Lanka prompts these observations. In Gaza, despite restrictions on international humanitarian and media access imposed by the Israelis, the whole world was watching, counting the civilian casualties minute-by-minute, while the global debate swirled on the legitimacy of Israeli and Hamas conduct in the light of international humanitarian law. The conflict and the suffering that it engendered were daily front page news. Now, with at least a temporary halt in hostilities, assessments of the damage in Gaza will proceed and donors will pledge millions of dollars for the rebuilding process.

While Gaza was the world’s focus, a conflict that raises similar issues and challenges was proceeding in the Vanni region in the north of Sri Lanka. There, the Sri Lankan military is trying to deal the final death blow to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the guerilla movement that has been fighting for an independent state for the country’s Tamil minority in the northern part of the island. As in Gaza, civilians are trapped. Approximately 250,000 people are caught in the conflict zone, people who have already been displaced numerous times and have suffered from the perpetual difficulty of sustaining humanitarian assistance as the 25-year civil war has dragged on.

As in Gaza, the conduct of both sides has been problematic from the perspective of international humanitarian law and human rights. The Tigers are preventing people, including the local staff of UN agencies and their families, from fleeing the conflict zone. The Sri Lankan army is using heavy weaponry to shell areas where civilians are present. An attempt by the Sri Lankan army to set up a safe zone outside its area of operations foundered in the past few days, with dozens of civilians killed amid mutual recriminations by the combatants. Fewer than 5,000 Tamil civilians have managed to escape the Vanni. They are being held in government-run fenced camps in districts bordering the conflict zone with their freedom of movement restricted, even though they are Sri Lankan citizens.

The Sri Lankan government insisted that international staff of humanitarian agencies leave the Vanni in September 2008, and the conflict has drastically reduced the scale of humanitarian operations. There are few independent witnesses of the consequences of the war and the needs of the civilian population. Those present are afraid to speak out for fear of retaliation by one of the parties. The lack of information makes it even more difficult for the world to focus on the conflict, exactly what the government and the Tigers want. They both prefer to act with impunity, while using the atrocities of the other side to score propaganda points within the narrow confines of the national press and the global Tamil solidarity network.

In short, 50% of the civilian population of the Vanni is displaced; humanitarian assistance is sporadic at best; 250,000 civilians are trapped in a conflict zone, and at least 100 have been killed since January 1st; international access is virtually nil. And while on January 26th the Secretary-General was finally moved to issue a statement pleading for respect for international humanitarian law, the world couldn’t be bothered. As of January 27th, not even Relief Web was listing Sri Lanka as an on-going crisis on its home page. The dying and wounded in Sri Lanka won’t have names or faces.

Bemoaning this neglect won’t change it. The blatant disparities in international attention are just part of “the cost of doing business” in the humanitarian field.

To Sri Lankans crying out for solidarity and assistance, there is little to say. The challenge of addressing their needs falls primarily to local organizations with the courage to defy the conflicting parties, while international organizations, with the exception of the International Committee of the Red Cross, are consigned to the sidelines.

Joel R. Charny is vice president for policy with Refugees International, a Washington-based humanitarian advocacy organisation. He has extensive experience in Asia for RI, Oxfam America and the U.N. Development Programme. He has managed and assessed emergency response and post-conflict recovery programmes in Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.