Q&A: Sri Lanka crisis

Concern over the plight of civilians is increasing

The Sri Lankan conflict in the north-east has developed into one of
accusation and counter-accusation on civilian casualties.
Tamil Tiger rebels and medical sources say the army has shelled hospitals and
medical facilities during the fighting. The military strongly denies the allegations
and blames the rebels.
The military says it has pierced rebel defences and is advancing along a coastal
strip to the small remaining tract of land still controlled by the Tigers.
Why is there so much concern over civilians?
Thousands of people - troops, Tamil Tiger rebels and Tamil, Sinhalese and Muslim
civilians - are estimated to have been killed since fighting escalated after 2005.
Thousands more have been displaced.
But as the war seems to be drawing towards its
conclusion, the level of violence has increased.
The UN described the situation in May as a
bloodbath with hundreds of people reported killed
or injured.
The death toll of civilians in 2009 overall could
run into the thousands, the UN and aid agencies
say. The government says its aim is to
defeat the rebels on the ground
Many have warned that the plight of Tamil
civilians will worsen as the Tamil Tigers defend their last area of land.
Although there are displaced civilians in government and rebel-held areas, there is
particular concern for those who are trapped in this area.
Estimates of their number vary. The UN and aid agencies say it could be as high
120,000. The army says that the number is 15,000 people in addition to around
400 rebels.
Whatever the total, these people appear to be in mortal danger. Not only do they
lack food and basic medical facilities, but there are accusations that they have been
inadvertently fired upon by the army - eager to eliminate the last of the rebels -
and the Tigers themselves, who are accused of using them as human shields.
The government - no doubt sensitive to the growing demands from the
international community for civilians to be afforded better protection - says that
100,000 people have fled rebel-held areas throughout 2009.
But if there figures are correct, this number exceeds its earlier estimates of the
number of civilians trapped.
How serious is the violence?
Seldom has the Sri Lankan civil war been as hard-fought as it is now. The army is
pushing to defeat the rebels as soon as possible.
The capture of Mullaitivu so soon after the rebels' de facto capital of Kilinochchi fell
was a huge symbolic victory for the army.
From the beginning of 2009 it has repeatedly stated that the total defeat of the
Tamil Tigers is imminent and while most analysts agree that is now only a matter
of time, the longer it takes to get the the job done the more pressure it will face.
This pressure will come from the international community concerned over the
plight of civilians and domestically from a war-weary population.
In May military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara once again denied that the
army was using heavy artillery or heavy weapons.
He said that if was not for concerns over the safety of civilians, "it would take
about 72 hours" to defeat the rebels.
Independent confirmation of the situation in the war zone is impossible to verify -
access to the area is strictly controlled by the government.
Why the upsurge?
It increased after President Mahinda Rajapaksa's
hard-line election campaign in November 2005,
when he ruled out autonomy for Tamils in the
north and east and promised to review the peace
process.
In between then and now the military offensive
against the rebels has been ratcheted up, with
the government formally abandoning a six-year-
The army may be winning the battle,
old Norwegian brokered ceasefire at the but it might not win a guerrilla war

beginning of 2008.
Some analysts argued that the rebels provoked the government into retaliation and
war by staging attacks despite the truce, but others said they wanted to negotiate
from a position of strength.
Peace moves
The two sides held six rounds of direct talks following the 2002 truce agreement.
They agreed to exchange prisoners of war for the first time and the rebels at one
stage even dropped their demand for a separate state. It was arguably the closest
the country has ever come to a lasting peace settlement.
But the Tigers pulled out of talks in 2003 and again in 2006 - claiming they were
being sidelined - and between then and 2008 both sides accused each other of
numerous breaches of the ceasefire as the country slid inexorably towards all-out
war.
As hostilities in the north-east have intensified, fears have risen for civilians caught
up in the conflict. The UN, the Red Cross, aid agencies and human rights groups
have expressed concern over the plight of up to 250,000 people trapped in rebel-
held areas.
In February 2009 key international backers - the US, EU, Japan and Norway -
urged the rebels to consider laying down their arms and discussing an end to
hostilities with the government.
In April 2009 the UN again called on both sides to pause hostilities so aid can be
sent in and people evacuated.
What do the rebels want?
It could be argued that given their parlous military position, the rebels will be
happy today to survive as an armed force.
They started fighting in the 1970s for a separate state for Tamils in Sri Lanka's
north and east.
They argued that the Tamils had been discriminated against by successive majority
Sinhalese governments.
They are a proscribed terrorist group in many countries.
Are the rebels finished?
With its advances in the east in 2007 and progress in the north in 2009, almost all
of Sri Lanka is now under government control.
But even though the army is now in a commanding position after taking Mullativu,
Kilinochchi and Jaffna, the rebels have shown on innumerable occasions their
capacity to fight a guerrilla war through the use of suicide bombings,
assassinations and even aerial attacks carried out by planes operating from secret
jungle bases.
On 20 February an aerial attack involving at least two planes against the capital,
Colombo, was blamed on the Tigers.
On 26 April the Tigers declared a unilateral ceasefire due to an "unprecedented
humanitarian crisis".
The move was immediately rejected by the government, with the defence secretary
describing it as "a joke".
Gotabaya Rajapakse said the rebels should release all civilians - an estimated
50,000 - within the conflict zone immediately.
What is the current military balance?
Analysts say the recent success of the government can be explained by a number
of factors including:
Increased government spending on the latest military assault
Crackdowns across Europe, Canada and the US on overseas fund-raising for
the Tigers
 Much reduced arms supplies for the Tigers because of stringent joint patrols
by the Sri Lankan and Indian navies searching for vessels smuggling arms from
south-east Asia
What is the human and economic cost of the war?
The conflict has killed has now killed well in excess of 70,00 people, displaced
thousands more and held back the island's growth and economic development.
Both the military and the Tigers have been regularly accused of gross abuses of
human rights by organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights
Watch.
In October 2007, the government announced that it planned to increase defence
expenditure in 2008 by nearly 20% to 166.4bn rupees ($1.48bn) from 139.6bn in
2007.
Why does the government refuse to allow independent journalists into the
war zone?
The government says that it cannot guarantee the safety of reporters which is why
the ban has been implemented. Unofficially however there is little doubt that it
does not trust foreign reporters to report the war accurately or fairly.
In May, a news team from the British station, Channel 4, was deported from Sri
Lanka after reporting claims of abuse in camps for displaced Tamils.