Sri Lanka waging 'war' on civilians: Human Rights Watch

Kelsey McGalliard
Feb. 20, 2009
3:40

The Sri Lankan government is "slaughtering" civilians with indiscriminate shelling in its effort to eradicate Tamil Tiger rebels in the island's northeast, Human Rights Watch said Friday. In a report that followed a covert, two-week fact-finding mission to northern Sri Lanka, the New York-based rights group said those civilians who escaped the combat zone were herded into squalid, military-run internment camps and allowed no freedom of movement. "Sri Lankan forces are shelling hospitals and so-called safe zones and slaughtering the civilians there," said, James Ross, legal and policy director at Human Rights Watch. "This 'war' against civilians must stop," Ross said. Tens of thousands of non-combatants are believed to be trapped in the narrow strip of coastal jungle where the Sri Lankan military has cornered the rebels from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The government says the Tigers are using the civilians as shields, while the rebels say they are protecting them. The report was compiled from the testimony of civilians who had managed to flee the fighting. The Sri Lankan government has barred journalists and rights monitors from the war zone. Human Rights Watch condemned the LTTE for preventing civilians from leaving the war zone and subjecting those in areas under its control -- including children -- to forced recruitment and forced labour on the battlefield. "With each battlefield defeat, the Tamil Tigers appear to be treating Tamil civilians with increased brutality," said Ross. One local resident interviewed by the fact-finding team described how the Tigers took people to the front lines and made them dig bunkers and collect weapons from dead fighters on both sides. "About 25 of my neighbors were killed while doing this work. They did not receive any training," the resident said. "The LTTE cadres fetched them from their homes and the next day brought their dead bodies back."
Reading this it really upset me because these innocent people are being dragged into a conflict that doesn't concern them. These innocent people whom are trapped and have no idea what to do and are forced to be do the jobs that are the most risky for the LTTE. Reading that they were taken by the LTTE and in most cases the next day their dead bodies are brought back. That is so hard to hear I don't know what I would do if I was in that situation.

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