India concerned about Sri Lanka's war-displaced
Source: Reuters
By Simon Gardner COLOMBO, Nov 24 (Reuters) - India has voiced concern to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse about the plight of hundreds of thousands of people affected by fighting with the Tamil Tigers, government and diplomatic sources said on Friday. Visiting Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon told Rajapakse late on Thursday India was worried about the humanitarian situation, amid complaints from aid groups that efforts to deliver food and aid to the displaced were being hampered. In the eastern district of Batticaloa, tens of thousands of minority Tamils are in camps in rebel and government-controlled territory. At least 23 civilians were killed when army shells hit their camp in the east earlier this month. Each side accuses the other of using civilians as human shields. In the remote northern Jaffna peninsula, cut off from the rest of the island by rebel lines, the 500,000-strong almost-entirely Tamil population are living on rations shipped in by sea and are unable to leave due to fighting. Abductions and murders are now commonplace in the north and east, and Nordic truce monitors say some elements of the military have been involved. "They are concerned about the humanitarian situation, certainly," said one government source on condition of anonymity. "The concern is about humanitarian relief and safety of IDPs (internally displaced persons)." Rajapakse is due to head to India this weekend to inaugurate an Asian mayor's conference and is expected to hold talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday. However India, mindful of a disastrous peace-keeping mission in the 1980s that turned into all-out war with the Tigers in which 1,000 Indian troops killed, has turned a deaf ear to Rajapakse's public calls for closer involvement in Sri Lanka's failing peace process. India banned the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as a terrorist group after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by a suspected rebel suicide bomber in 1991, and has given the island's conflict a wide berth ever since. Analysts say that is unlikely to change any time soon. "Basically they discussed the humanitarian situation, the peace process, and his visit to India. It was more like a preparatory visit for him," said one diplomatic source. "The humanitarian situation is bad -- so what can be done to alleviate that situation right now? That is the most urgent issue right now." Menon's visit coincided on Thursday with battles between the military and rebels in the east, in which army tanks and air force fighter jets were called in. He flew back to India early on Friday. More than 3,000 civilians, military personnel and rebel fighters have been killed in battles, ambushes and aerial bombings so far this year alone, leaving a 2002 ceasefire that still holds on paper in tatters. Rajapakse has rejected rebel demands for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in the north and east where the Tigers already run a de facto state.
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