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COLOMBO, 29 May 2008 (IRIN) - Sri Lanka expects a shipment of rice this week from cyclone-battered Myanmar will help offset the high retail price of the island’s staple food.

Some 8,000MT will be sold to consumers immediately through government-run stores, the Sri Lankan secretary of trade and consumer affairs, RMK Ratnayake, said.

Ratnayake said the shipment was part of a 50,000MT consignment that Sri Lanka had ordered from Myanmar in March at US$400/MT. The 3 May cyclone delayed the arrival of the first shipment and it was unclear when the rest of the delivery would be made.

“Sri Lanka has no shortage of rice,” Ratnayake told IRIN. “Unfortunately, there is hoarding going on. So we ordered this shipment to show the big businessmen that the government can supply good quality rice at a reasonable price.”

Rice prices in Sri Lanka hit an all-time high in March due to rising prices on the world market. The government accused local rice mill owners and shop-keepers of stockpiling and imposed price controls in April.

Sri Lanka produces most of its annual requirement of two million MT of rice. “At any time, the maximum deficit is only about 100,000MT,” Ratnayake said, adding that this was the first time the island was importing rice from Myanmar after several decades.

Prices of the popular parboiled “samba” variety have topped Rs100/kg (just less than $1) while the cost of other types of rice similarly went up, pushing the staple beyond the purse of many Sri Lankans.

Government-imposed price controls

Government price controls were imposed to limit the surge to Rs70/kg, but the open market has maintained its own level. The authorities have criticised rice millers for releasing poor quality rice to the market while reserving the superior grades to be sold at high prices.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) and UN Children’s Agency, UNICEF, and other international NGOs warned recently that skyrocketing food prices would compel them to cut back on food assistance to needy sectors of the population, such as people displaced by the ongoing conflict.

“Anything that reduces the pressure on food stocks here is to be welcomed,” said UN spokesman Gordon Weiss of the government’s move.

Nonetheless, some consumers were concerned that the arrival of the shipment was untimely, given the emergency in Myanmar.

“It seems unfair that we are getting rice from Myanmar when their own people are suffering,” said Marina Ismail, a retired sociologist based in the capital, Colombo. “Sri Lanka should have offered to suspend the contract for some time till Myanmar was ready to send it.”

Ratnayake said the government was also set to negotiate with Thailand for 25,000MT to maintain a buffer stock, which will tide it over a lean period expected around December.

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)

Flash floods displace thousands in war-torn area

More than 50,000 people have been hit by flooding in northwestern Mannar District in Sri Lanka since 12 March, the government said. The area has witnessed intense clashes between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the last six months, restricting access to relief agencies.

[Women wade through pools of water to reach the polling station in Ichchanthivu recently-Photo: Amantha Perera/IRIN]

Flooding caused by torrential rains has affected 173,909 people in nine districts of the country, including 120,000 in the eastern Batticaloa District, and left five dead, the National Disaster Relief Services Centre (NDRSC) said on 19 March.

“Floods have caused immense damage to affected areas, interrupting all economic and social activities,” the NDRSC stated in a situation report. “It is also reported that there is tremendous damage to infrastructure facilities in the areas [of Mannar]. About 14,010 families or 54,323 people have been affected.”

The report also stated that 40 houses had been destroyed and 155 damaged in the eight districts. The NDRSC said the government had allocated three million rupees (US$27,000) as emergency funds for affected districts and Rs2 million ($18,000) for Mannar District.

Crops damaged

Initial assessment reports by the NDRSC said damage to crops could be high as the rains came just before the harvesting season.

“There are 12,000 acres of paddy land that were to be harvested when the floods hit,” A Nicholaspillai, the government agent for Mannar, told IRIN. “We still don’t have exact figures, but damage to the harvest is something we will have to deal with.”
Nicholaspillai also said seed would have to be provided to farmers for the upcoming season.

Officials of the Sri Lanka Red Cross (SLRC) said there were indications of damage to crops in at least one other southern district. “The initial reports we have indicate that there have been significant crop losses in the southern district of Badulla,” Merik Peiris, executive director, communications and humanitarian values at the SLRC, told IRIN.

Government officials in Mannar told IRIN they had began distributing relief items and were awaiting assessment reports to decide on additional assistance. “We started distributing meals almost as soon as the first displacements were reported over the weekend,” Nicholaspillai told IRIN. “We have made initial plans to continue the distribution for three days at least.”

Restricted access

Increasing clashes between government forces and the LTTE along the line of control in Mannar District and other security concerns had already restricted access to the district before the latest flooding.

“Since 4 February, access has been restricted to vehicles north of Madawachchiya checkpoint, creating additional challenges for civilian travel across Mannar District,” the Inter-Agency Standing Committee stated in a situation report released on 15 March.

However, Peiris said the SLRC did not foresee the security restrictions limiting the relief effort in Mannar. “We already have a network there and plan to work through government agencies.”

He added that while the immediate needs of the victims, such as cooked food and clothes, would be provided, SLRC would need additional assistance, such as non-food items, as the flood waters receded and the displaced began returning home.

“There will be lot of demand for dry rations and baby food after they return home,” he said. “We also will have to look at health concerns and loss of livelihoods.”

UN human rights commissioner in the firing line

Protests in front of the UN compound in Colombo usually call for more assertive action by the world body, but this week was different: The People’s Liberation Front (PLF), the second largest opposition party, held a demonstration calling on UN Human Rights High Commissioner Louise Arbour to mind her own business, and her language.

The PLF’s criticism of Arbour stems from comments she made in recent speeches that human rights violators in Sri Lanka, even those in senior government posts, could be charged in international criminal courts.

“The high commissioner warned that violations of these rules by any party could entail individual criminal responsibility under international criminal law, including by those in positions of command,” the UN said in a statement on 15 January.

Arbour’s statement reflects her concern over the possibility of increased civilian casualties with the end of the ceasefire between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers on 16 January.

The PLF and other groups, including the pro-government National Patriotic Movement (NPM), said they took Arbour’s comments as a veiled threat to discourage military operations by government forces to dislodge Tamil Tigers from areas under the latter’s control in the north.

“Arbour directly threatens the political and military leaders who are involved in taking measures for national security,” the National Patriotic Movement (NPM) said in a statement on 18 January. “What she says in diplomatic language is that if anyone takes steps to liberate the Wanni and Killinochchi areas [under Tiger control] they would be branded as war criminals and brought before international law. This is clearly a threat.”

The PLF also came out strongly against Arbour’s statement and said it was “international terrorism” to attempt to influence the actions of a democratically elected government.

“If any politician or military officer is taken before international law for taking decisions on behalf of the motherland,” PLF leader Somawansha Amarasinghe said on 16 January, “they would have to take them over our dead bodies.”

The NPM warned such statements could endanger the lives of UN staff and requested UN officials to be more careful. “We also call upon all responsible officials of the UN in Sri Lanka, considering the safety of the employees of the UN and its assets, to refrain from making such utter[ly] foolish statements that would enrage the people in this country,” it said.

Government reaction

The government reaction to Arbour’s statement has been more measured. Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said the decision to pull out of the ceasefire was taken after lengthy deliberation and the government would not condone or support rights violations by its forces.

“As in the past, even at the cost of delay in the implementation and successful completion of military operations, the government will take all necessary and meaningful measures to avoid civilian casualties and hardships to civilian populations,” Saramasinghe said in a statement on 16 January, adding, “the government is compelled to indicate to the UN high commissioner for human rights that it considers her statement on the end of the CFA [ceasefire agreement] containing warnings on ‘individual criminal responsibility’ as being untimely, inappropriate and unacceptable.”

Sri Lanka’s Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva called Arbour’s comments gratuitous and biased. “The high commissioner has once again proven one point - how unqualified the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is in monitoring and reporting human rights in Sri Lanka as an independent actor,” it said on 17 January.

The government has had a long-running disagreement with Arbour, who visited Sri Lanka in October 2007, over the latter’s proposal to set up a field presence of the high commissioner’s office in Sri Lanka to monitor and report on abuse.

Civic groups speak out

Civic groups in Colombo see the latest attack on the UN official as an extension of recent efforts by political groups and sections of the media to discredit international agencies, including the UN.

A group of 13 national organisations including the Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Law and Society Trust and the Free Media Movement have banded together to defend Arbour and others who have come under criticism for advocating international human rights monitoring. They said attacks like the recent one on Arbour could hamper assistance to the most needy in Sri Lanka and endanger the lives of humanitarian workers even more.

“Where it concerns the war-affected civilian population in the north and east, it is the humanitarian organisations that have often been the main source of institutional solace to the people,” they said in a statement on 17 January.

“Over the last two years humanitarian agencies have faced multiple incidents of violence, including killings and disappearances of humanitarian staff, attacks against offices and vehicles, and threats and intimidation, which has made working in Sri Lanka all the more challenging.” [irinnews.org]-[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

Bombs and bullets greet end of ceasefire

An upsurge in violence, including a spate of bombings in the last few weeks of 2007, led the government on 2 January to declare it would be pulling out of the 2002 ceasefire agreement (CFA) on 16 January.

This it has now done, and the prospects for an improved humanitarian situation and lasting peace look gloomier than ever.

On 28 November 2007 a parcel bomb at a shopping arcade in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, left 17 dead. Since that blast, the violence has escalated at breakneck speed throughout Sri Lanka. Two parliamentarians were assassinated on 1 and 8 January, and the number of clashes between government forces and the Tamil Tigers have increased sharply.

On 2 January a bus carrying government soldiers to a military hospital in Colombo was targeted in a claymore mine attack. It was then that the Sri Lankan government informed Norway, the facilitator of the 2002 ceasefire, that it was withdrawing from the CFA as of 16 January.

Mutual recriminations

“Let it not be said that the government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa didn’t try to engage the LTTE [Tamil Tigers] in negotiations towards ushering in peace,” Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama told parliament on 10 January. “However, once again underlying its lack of commitment to the peace process, the LTTE has shown no inclination to arriving at a political settlement and continued its duplicitous action of escalating violations of the ceasefire agreement.”

The Tigers have in return blamed the government for undermining the truce. “With no regard to the CFA, the government of Sri Lanka began undertaking large-scale military offensives, creating immense human misery in the Tamil homeland,” the Tiger Peace Secretariat said in a 10 January press release.

Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission

The ending of the CFA also ends the presence of the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM), which has been staffed by Nordic nationals. This could lead to more violence, according to observers.

“There is very likely to be an escalation of the violence in intensity and frequency,” Jehan Perera, executive director of the Colombo-based peace advocacy forum National Peace Council, told IRIN. “The removal of the truce and the SLMM has taken out the last deterrent on the ground.”

Clashes have increased in the north between government and Tamil Tiger-controlled areas. According to statistics released by the Defence Ministry and the Tigers, the number of casualties in fighting on the northern battlefront in the first 10 days of 2008 could be over 200.

The final day of the truce was one of the bloodiest: 32 civilians were killed and over 50 injured in attacks in Buthala, about 250km southeast of Colombo. Twenty-six of those killed died in a claymore mine attack on a civilian bus. Survivors said that after the blast, gunmen had fired at the bus for about five minutes.

Bleak humanitarian, economic outlook

Security has been tightened in major Sri Lankan urban areas with the government anticipating more attacks. Since mid-December the UN and other international agencies limited their work in some areas under Tiger control, after Tiger warnings that their safety could not be guaranteed.

International donors have also expressed fear the violence will lead to further deterioration of the humanitarian and human rights situation in the country.

“This decision [to pull out of the CFA] and the current military campaign further deteriorate the country’s already difficult situation, including the humanitarian and human rights situation,” the European Union said in a statement on 7 January. “Without the CFA, the prospects of negotiating a lasting, peaceful solution to the conflict in Sri Lanka are narrowed further.”

If the situation slides further, countries, including EU members, may impose economic sanctions, Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, a Colombo-based economist said.

“Duty free access of garment exports from Sri Lanka to the EU is up for renewal this year. It is likely it would not be renewed because of the poor human rights record of Sri Lanka in recent years,” he told IRIN.

Sarvananthan also fears the economy would not be able to withstand an extended conflict. “The year 2008 is going to be extremely challenging for the security, economy and polity of the country,” he said. “High defence and public expenditure in general cannot be sustained for long.”

The immediate prospects are so dire that some professionals are already looking at leaving the country. “What else to do? The only good option is to go somewhere else,” assistant bank manager Sujeewi Jayasuriya told IRIN.[irinnews.org]

Humanitarian agencies in Sri Lanka are increasingly concerned that the government’s withdrawal from a ceasefire with Tamil Tiger (LTTE) rebels, which takes effect on 16 January, will unleash fresh violence that could not only impact civilians but also impede aid delivery and jeopardise the safety of humanitarian workers.

Some 118,000 people displaced by hostilities between the separatist LTTE and government security forces in northern districts would be at risk if a surge in fighting restricts movement and cuts off supply lines, aid agencies said.

“We do have serious concerns that the conflict will intensify,” said Zola Dowell of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) which oversees the UN’s response in emergency situations. “That would have implications for humanitarian access to those most in need of assistance and for the safety and security of staff.”

She said UN agencies were reviewing their aid delivery strategies and preparing contingency plans for the security of humanitarian workers.

“It is very important that we retain the ability to provide humanitarian assistance to the affected population, especially the children and women affected by the conflict,” said Gordon Weiss, spokesman of the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF. “In doing so, the safety of our staff must be guaranteed by all parties to the conflict.”

The government announced last week that it was pulling out of the 2002 Norway-brokered truce with the LTTE, saying it was no longer effective. The supervision of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, a group of Scandinavian monitors which reported on truce violations, will also end.

The government has said its military campaign to rid the east of the LTTE last year was a success, and has vowed to continue its operations in the north.

Over 23,500 people have fled their homes in the northwestern district of Mannar in the last few weeks, according to the UN’s weekly report on internally displaced persons (IDPs). Agencies are also assisting IDPs in the northern rebel-held districts of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu, and in government-held Vavuniya.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has designated Sri Lanka a “high intensity conflict area” and has contingency plans for assisting up to 400,000 IDPs.

Child soldiers

Concern has also been expressed over the prospect of an increase in the recruitment of child soldiers by the LTTE if fighting escalates. “That would be one of the implications if the conflict intensifies,” said OCHA’s Dowell.

UNICEF has charged the LTTE with continuing to use children as combatants, despite assurances that it would release all underage soldiers.

According to current figures in a database maintained by UNICEF based on reports by parents and independent verification, there are 1,448 children in the LTTE’s ranks. Of these 290 are under 18, while others were underage when they were recruited and are now over 18.

UNICEF has also blamed a breakaway faction of the LTTE, the Karuna group, for conscripting youngsters in eastern districts. UNICEF figures show there are 233 child soldiers in this group, 169 under 18, and 54 who were under 18 when they were recruited.

The numbers have been disputed by the LTTE and the Karuna faction, but UNICEF says its figures are only one-third of the number recruited.

“There is a clear policy of zero tolerance to the recruitment and use of children by armed groups,” said Weiss. “We will continue to advocate for the recruitment of children to stop, and for all recruited children to be released.”

LTTE warning

After the government announced it was withdrawing from the truce, the LTTE warned aid agency staff working in the rebel-held northeastern district of Mullaitivu that they would be in danger if fighting broke out in the area.

“There were some security issues and the LTTE indicated that they couldn’t provide any security guarantees,” said Dowell. Some agencies, including the World Food Programme, have taken the LTTE warnings seriously and reduced or removed staff from high risk areas.

The rapidly deteriorating security situation in Sri Lanka has already affected the ability of aid agencies to work in the conflict-ridden north.

In mid-December, all international agencies working in Mullaithivu District and parts of Kilinochchi District (both under the control of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka’s north) were asked by the Tigers to cease operations in those areas and move staff out.

According to officials with the UN and international aid agencies, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) informed them through the government agent in Mullaithivu, Imalda Sukumar, in mid-December that they could not guarantee the security of international staff based in Mullaithivu.

“We take the security of staff very seriously and we had to take the decision to move out,” Deputy Country Head of World Food Programme (WFP) Jean-Yves Lequime told IRIN. “The Mullaithivu staff were relocated to Kilinochchi after we received the information.”

The access restrictions affect 21 international agencies working in LTTE-held areas in Sri Lanka’s north. They include UN agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

WFP unable to deliver food to 32,000

The WFP pullout has meant it has been unable to deliver food to 32,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Mullaithivu District over the past three weeks. The curtailment also meant no food supplies for other programmes, including Food for Education (FFE), Food for Training (FFT), Food for Work (FFW) and Mother and Child Nutrition (MCN), in the district, according to an Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC) situation report released on 20 December.

“Movement restrictions within the Mullaithivu District over the past three weeks are affecting humanitarian activities such as FFE, FFW, FFT, MCN and other livelihood support programmes,” according to a 2 January IASC situation report. [LINK TO IASC REPORT/S]

The IASC report said the restrictions applied in areas east of Kilinochchi, the political and administrative nerve centre of the Tamil Tigers, 250km north of Colombo. The LTTE warning came as confrontations along the line of control southeast of Mullaithivu increased in mid-December.

Limited access

To respond to the impending food shortages in her district, the government agent in Mullaithivu, Imalda Sukumar, undertook to transport WFP supplies brought to Kilinochchi back to Mullaithivu. “I sent lorries to Kilinochchi to bring the supplies,” Sukumar told IRIN. “The agencies having to limit their work here due to security has already had a bad impact.”

The few international agencies, including WFP and ICRC, that continue any assistance projects in Mullaithivu now travel to the district during the day and return to Kililinochchi at night, according Sukumar. “No one stays here overnight any more.”

The WFP sends staff three days per week to oversee distribution of supplies in the district, WFP’s Lequime said. “We told the Tigers and the government agent that WFP officials have to be present when distribution of food supplies takes place,” he said.

Conflict set to escalate?

More fighting is expected in the coming weeks following the Sri Lankan government’s withdrawal from the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA), a truce with the Tigers signed in February 2002. The truce will formally end on 16 January.

“In my view, currently Sri Lanka [government forces] is trying to enter through the A-32 [highway] to Pooneryn [on the northwestern coast], or use the A-34 [south of Mullaithivu] to advance through Oddisuddaan,” senior Tiger leader K. V. Balakumaran said in an interview with a Tiger-run TV station two weeks ago. “One of these highways will result in being renamed the highway of death.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned of an escalation of violence and requested the fighting parties to ensure the safety of civilians. “The Secretary-General urges all concerned to ensure the protection of civilians and enable humanitarian assistance to be provided to affected areas,” the UN said in statement on 3 January.

International agencies, including WFP, are taking each day at a time and constantly re-evaluating the security situation in the north. “As in all areas of conflict we are constantly in touch with all the parties evaluating security; we will only work if there are security guarantees given on our staff safety, not otherwise,” WFP’s Lequime said. [irinnews.org]