Eviction of Tamils

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Even by Sri Lanka’s standards, the forced eviction of 375 Tamils from the capital of Colombo last week seemed a step too far. The June 7 evictions, carried out by police and soldiers in a nighttime raid on areas of Colombo populated by the Tamil ethnic minority, was the latest chapter in the brutal civil war that pits government forces against Tamil- separatist militants in the country’s north. “We were herded into buses like cattle and even when we were told we could go back to Colombo, we were warned to finish our work there and go back to our home towns [immediately],” says a 19-year-old who gave his name as Ramalingam, of the raid in which he was swept up. …

Local human rights groups accused the government of a policy tantamount to ethnic cleansing — some evictees had as little as half an hour to get ready according to activists, and many were bused to places where they knew no one. The government defense spokesperson Keheliya Rambukwella initially said that there had been no forced evictions, and that all those who had left the capital had done so voluntarily. Later, other government officials said that those evicted had been suspected of plotting to bomb government installations in the capital. …

But human rights groups say the new sense of fear instilled in Tamil civilians won’t disappear anytime soon. “When they [Tamil civilians] ask us whether we could guarantee that this would not happen again, we can not give an answer, there is a lot of fear among those who got caught in the drive, it will take some time for them feel safe here in Colombo,” says Rukshan Fernando of the Colombo-based Law and Society Trust, which is helping some of the Tamils who returned to the capital after the Supreme Court ruling.

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Armed Sri Lankan police today packed hundreds of ethnic minority Tamils into buses and drove them from the country’s capital to war-torn northern and eastern districts - an effort, say police, to clear the city of “terrorists”. In a series of night-time raids, police stormed Tamil areas of Colombo and forced people staying in cheap guesthouses to leave at gun point. In all, 291 men and 85 women were sent off in seven buses to districts that are on the frontline of fierce fighting between Tamil separatists and the Sri Lankan army. Human rights groups described the police action as tantamount to “ethnic cleansing”. …

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Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, yesterday, compared the plight of the Tamils under the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration, to that of the Jews in Germany during World War 2 and of Black Africans, during the apartheid era in South Africa. Speaking in Parliament on the government led eviction of Tamils in Colombo, Mr. Wickremesinghe said that Jews and Black Africans had faced similar persecution in the past, at the hands of Germans and Whites respectively.

He said the government’s actions violated the Constitution, which clearly stated that all citizens of Sri Lanka must be free from torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and had the right to free movement and to choose their area of residence. “We are also concerned about the security of the country. If the government suspects anyone they can produce that person before a magistrate and remand the suspect, or release the person,” he said.

He noted that when people were evicted from the lodgings in such an arbitrary manner, they would return in anger to blast bombs. Mr. Wickremesinghe added that the situation would bring shame upon Sri Lanka at the European Parliament sessions, and queried as to why the government was creating such a crisis for the country.

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Correspondents say that hundreds of Tamils, many from impoverished rural areas, live in boarding houses in Colombo while they seek work at home or abroad. Many ethnic Tamils complain they have been deliberately targeted by the security forces, detained and searched.

One man forced to board one of the buses called the private local radio station Sirisa FM from a mobile phone. “The police came and took us and put everyone on the bus,” he said, saying the bus was about 32km (20 miles) outside the capital, heading northeast. “We don’t know where we are being taken.”

Human rights campaigners and other observers say they are shocked at what they say is a serious violation of human rights. “This is almost like a variation of ethnic cleansing,” Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu of the independent Centre for Policy Alternatives think-tank told Reuters. “It is quite appalling.”

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At the last police station in Wellawatte, just south of Colombo, the returnees were made to go through a registration process that took another three hours. “We were herded into buses like cattle and even when we were told we could go back to Colombo, we were warned to finish our work there and go back to our hometowns, and not stay on in Colombo,” said 19-year-old Ramalingam from Jaffna.

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“We have to do search operations and when we arrest suspicious people… you don’t know who is who,” he said. “We can’t arrest 300 people and then detain them,” he added.

“So you tell them: ‘You don’t have any legal business in Colombo, there is a security problem in Colombo, you are the people who are suspected of… we don’t want to detain you, go back to your homes.’”