The world is finally realising that these are “internment camps”, not “welfare villages”. Interestingly enough, V Anandasangaree in early February was rubbishing claims made that these were internment camps. Now, even he is up in arms about it and is using the words “internment” and “detention”.

Some interesting snippets from the article that vouch for the claims made by the eyewitness account in this page:

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“Aid workers and foreign diplomats increasingly fear that Manik Farm, a facility they helped build, is actually a military-run internment camp where 210,000 ethnic Tamil civilians displaced by the civil war are being held indefinitely.”

“”At best, it is at the edge of all kinds of international principles,” said one Western diplomat based in Colombo, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the government. “But more likely, it is illegal.”"

“In June, chicken pox was rampant and cases of typhoid, tuberculosis, skin and respiratory infections, hepatitis A, scabies and diarrhea have begun cropping up, according to U.N. reports. More than 35 percent of children under 5 are suffering from wasting, or acute malnutrition, according to a July 3 government presentation leaked to the AP.”

“Signs of unrest are growing. Several weeks ago, inmates held a protest demanding they be reunited with family members in other fenced-off sections of the camp, aid workers said. Military troops shot in the air to disperse the angry residents.”

“However, aid workers say the military officer in charge told them almost no war refugees would go home this year, and the screening process is dragging on, with even civilians who fled the war in January still confined to the camps.Mano Ganesan, an ethnic Tamil parliamentarian, said the government sealed the camps to keep those inside from telling the world about the final months of the war, when human rights groups say the military killed thousands of civilians with heavy shelling.”There is no other logical reason to understand the government’s position,” he said.”
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While some people talk about landmines and miracles etc., one of the most vexing questions remains as to why the SL Gov is not letting family members reunite _within_ the camps. That’s just inhuman and it does not take a “miracle” to just let it happen.

TCK you seem to be a good sort but i thoght you had commonsense. anybody can see it was a “typho” and i missed a “o” and it should have been good doctors and not god doctors.. we are after all human arent we. it is not like as if i typed “dog” in the reverse or something.
the only one i consider as god is god.
of course the ltte could have pressured them. that is why the world is clamouring for an independent inquiry into what happened, right from the start of the srilanka offensive.if the government never allowed war correspondents , how can you blame the doctors. their job is to treat patients , not become reporters. in the absence of reporters they would have been under a lot of unnecessary pressure. do you think in that envronment they can save lives and also go and count al the casualties with shell dropping and fighting all over. they will also rely on others foor information. the government will have to take the full responsibility for misinformation because they banned war correspondents.
i asked mahinda and he invited me for lunch and gave me that delicious indonesian dish nasi goreng but did not want to talk about this issue. he said he had lot of pressing prblems on his mind at the moment. apparntly the wife is hounding him to trim his moustache because she says it reminds her of prabaharan and sometimes she thinks she is sleeping next to him.it was mostly about food we were talking about.

My contention is that the current regime has an ulterior motive in holding 300K IDPs behind barbed wires. I do not think they will ever be allowed to move from the camp sites even if the wires are removed. Or they may just be dispersed and intersprersed among established communities in other parts of the country (anywhere but where they truly belong).

Killinochchi and Mullaitheevu will easily be converted to garrison towns with 25K Sinhala soldiers in each. Now with their families, support structure etc. there could eventually be 200K Sinhalese in the two districts. So, there goes the Vanni heartland.

I was 13, studying in Bangalore (India), when Prabhakaran decided to go against the Indian army in 1987. One of my teachers who is a Kannadiga told me: “Ceylon Tamils just blew their only chance for working out a settlement. You may never be able to return home”. How prophetic. In the last 22 years I have traversed the globe several times over but, sadly, never set foot on Sri Lanka. Many Tamils are in a similar situation now.

My fear: in 50 years Tamils will have only a token presence in the island. Now, its over to our well-meaning Sinhala brethren to not let that happen.

You can ask Mahinda about independent verification yourself. Why do you need me to do it?

Some people blaming diaspora not doing enough, but your thugs in power refused the aids sent by the diaspora for some silly reasons, they want to extort money by blackmailing diaspora and foreign governments to fill their bank balance.

Extortions wing are franchised by Gotha to former paramilitaries, if any of you interested contact Gotha.

The government is keeping them in the camp, so that they can show this people and get money from the west and siphon some of the money to their bank accounts.