Tamils Now Languish In Sri Lanka Camps

Hundreds of thousands of Tamils remain locked in camps almost entirely off limits to journalists, human rights investigators and political leaders. Keith Bedford for The New York Times

From The New York Times:

CHEDDIKULAM, Sri Lanka — When the piercing whistle and sharp thuds of artillery shells grew faint, S. Theventhran dashed to safety.

After days of cowering in a narrow, open trench on a strip of beach in the northeastern corner of Sri Lanka, he was cheered by the sight of Sri Lankan Army soldiers helping wounded and terrified survivors of the last stand of the Tamil Tiger rebels, who had held nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians hostage.

More than two months later, Mr. Theventhran, a 56-year-old Tamil civil servant, finds himself once again a captive, this time of the people who freed him from the Tigers’ grip.

“We were liberated,” he said in an interview at one of the sprawling, closed camps set up here to house those displaced in the war against the rebel group, known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. “Now we are prisoners again. I lost everything in this war. The Tigers killed my son. I lost my property. Now I have lost my freedom, too.”

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My Comment: The refusal to admit journalists, aid groups, and human rights organizations is an ominous sign of what is happening inside these camps. They do not want any witnesses .... and they are being very blunt about it.

From my perspective, it appears that the Sri Lankan Government has made the determination to break the will of the Tamil people that are in their custody .... and they probably will be succeed.