Background (Hiram Ruiz)
We began by approaching the Government of Sri Lanka through the embassy here for permission to officially undertake the visit. One of the things want to say is that we were quite pleased and surprised by the level of access that we were given. We had said, when we requested the visit that we really wanted to go to the Wanni and Jaffna, and that it would be pointless for us to undertake the trip all the way to Sri Lanka without being able to visit these areas. The Embassy after some time said yes, but we were a little bit skeptical. However, when we got there we met with a representative of the Foreign Ministry and we were told that we would be given all the permits and our visit facilitated. In fact, we got not only permission to visit Jaffna but we were provided transportation through the air force to get up to Jaffna and we were given transportation back. Without the air force transportation we would have had to rely on the ICRC ship which would have meant we had to spend a week to get there and a week there and that was very helpful in terms of our logistics.

In Vavuniya we were given full access to all of the camps for the displaced persons which many NGOs recently found difficulty in obtaining. We felt very lucky about that and we also got the chance for me to cross over into the Wanni and I was able to visit there for several days. On top of all of that when we were in Jaffna, and quite to my surprise, we were allowed to move freely within Jaffna without any military or police escort. We were able to interview people of our choosing privately. This was as much as we could possibly hope for and expect from the visit.

Although we will be talking about a lot of the shortcomings, I think it is important to recognize that the Sri Lankan government has continued to assume responsibility for assisting the displaced who live in areas outside of government control. We have a lot of concern around that assistance, but I think it should be recognized that it takes place. And while that assistance may not be what it needs to be, it is also substantial.

1) Jaffna
In April, when the Government military took control of Jaffna town, many of those who had fled the town into other areas of the Jaffna peninsula returned to Jaffna town. Some of the others who had fled further south, especially into Kilinochchi and other areas of the Wanni, also returned. We were interested to see what was the situation of those who had returned to Jaffna, not only for themselves, but what implications that would have for others who may return to Jaffna from other places in the Wanni.

For those who returned and who have been back essentially since late April, a number of areas need to be looked at:

· Humanitarian issues such as food needs, health, education, etc. The situation with regard to this is OK, and we did not come across any descriptions of food problems. Health care may not be as good as people like but it was not a major problem. Medicines have reached without too much problem, in comparison to the Wanni.

· Schools are open. The University is functioning. They calculated that as many of 80% of students have returned. The percentage of faculty returns is about 60%. At least 60% of the students have come back to schools. At least at that level, things were pretty much under control.

· As far as day to day commercial activity is concerned, you see quite a lot of commercial activity. There is, of course, quite a lot of destruction in Jaffna town. But where, for instance, the top of a building is blown away, the bottom has been utilized for trading. You see people moving about in the streets, etc.

On the one level you might think that there is some degree of a return to ‘normalcy’ but in fact that is not the case at all. What is extremely obvious is that Jaffna is a city under military occupation. It feels that way, it looks that way and it is to all effects and purposes.

There were several issues that were raised most often in Jaffna. First the issue of security. It has two components. One is that of check points, which is a major issue, and the second is the issue of arrests, detention, and disappearances. Other issues are rape and sexual harassment.

We met many people in private and we were very impressed with the openness and the fairness with which they spoke. The people we met made a very concerted effort to speak in as objective a sway as was possible, given their situation. They reported the following:

Checkpoints
In the early stages, there were many problems of sexual harassment—women being inappropriately searched (body searched by male soldiers; searches behind curtains that were flimsy where everybody could see). These problems were addressed. Now only women soldiers make the searches and these are behind some kind of enclosure. There are still concerns about being searched, but this part of it is improved.

Most people we talked to said that during the period from April to the beginning of July there was a tangible feeling that the military, from the top down to the soldier, were making a concerted effort to be civil and establish a positive rapport at the checkpoints. But that changed dramatically in July. First there was the LTTE attempt on the life of the Housing Minister in Jaffna on the 4^th of July, and later the LTTE attack on Mullaittivu. The effect of these two things was to really change the dynamics of the attitudes with Jaffna. On the one hand, both the military and the population in Jaffna was able to see that the LTTE was indeed there; that they were able to get in and that they could carry out attacks, and for the soldiers, this made them that much more tense. This ultimately made the population more tense as they came in contact with the soldiers. The Mullaittivu attack added an element of anger to that tension and made the situation that much worse. Between late July, August and September, the level of tension at the checkpoints was the highest. It has improved again somewhat.

There are basically only three entrance points into Jaffna town. This is a big problem because a good percentage of the urban population of Jaffna live outside of those checkpoints and have to cross through them in order to get into town. The week we were there—the week before "martyrs week" the checkpoints into the city were not permitting anyone other than those with government business or business in the city to enter. People who had to go shopping in the city or had business in the city could get in. But the checks of these three checkpoints are the strongest. Once you get into the city there are also numerous checkpoints. They tend to be somewhat more cursory. The continuing complaint at these check points tends to be about the time it takes for young girls to get through. Some of the people we spoke to were willing to say that maybe at that level, these were soldiers, young men who were acting like young men. We went through a number of checkpoints ourselves in the Government Agents car, but nevertheless it was not very friendly - the attitude as you come through. It struck me that whatever the security situation there were many more checkpoints than was necessary within the city. The effect that they create is very much that of a garrison city.

Detention and disappearances
We talked to many people who had made lists of those who had gone missing and if you add those up it totaled about 700 people. Some of these may be dead. Some bodies have been found. Many of the others may be alive, they may be somewhere in military custody, but the military don’t acknowledge them. This is one of the big sources of complaint. People don’t know whether their son or daughter is alive, where they are, what conditions they are held under, why they are being detained, etc. Again the people we spoke to in Jaffna were extremely fair. They said that they recognized the military had security issues and concerns, but they need to question people, and that they may even want to arrest some people. But there are procedures and there are laws that should be followed, for example, that the military can’t hold people for more than 48 hours without handing them to the police; that people can’t be detained even by the police beyond a certain number of days without them being charged; that the military has to acknowledge when asked why they were detaining individuals. These were extremely reasonable requests, which we will make in our recommendations.

Rape and sexual harassment
The issue of sexual harassment is in relation to the checkpoints. The issue of rape is a really serious one. We had differing opinions from people who said rape was very widespread to not as widespread as people thought or feared that it was. One was the case of a girl who had been murdered together with her mother and relatives who went to look for her. This was by soldiers. This case has received incredible national attention. The Government is in fact charging those concerned and following the legal procedures, but it is also a showcase response, and my biggest concern was that it could detract attention from the fact that rape is a widespread problem and not jut one case. But the impact is that, both in Jaffna and in the Wanni, anybody you talk to about the situation in Jaffna, the two things they mention are the issue of disappearances and the rapes. When I asked in the Wanni if people would go back, the response would be "I can’t go back, I have a young daughter." So the perception is that any girl or a young woman is a potential victim. Add that onto the other security concerns and the checkpoints, where if you go through you might be disappeared or if you were a girl you might be taken off and raped, and on top of that the soldiers cannot speak Tamil. So that there is no way of communicating. So you can see that those are actually flash-points.

The day we got to Jaffna was also the first day the Human Rights Task Force had gone to Jaffna. This was an opportunity for people to express their concern, particularly about the disappearances.

(Katie Hope) I spoke to a woman who was the head of a women and children’s NGO in Jaffna that wasn’t active at the moment, but was a focal point for women who had had any kind of experience of sexual abuse or rape. She came up with the example from the night before where a married woman with three children had been taken out of her house by some soldiers after curfew, which is from 6 PM to 6 AM. She felt that because of the curfew soldiers had more leeway to actually get away with abuse of citizens. This is not a issue of top down orders, this is an issue of soldiers who had nothing to do in the evenings. The curfew was stopping people from being protected by their families, because once they were dragged out of their homes and taken somewhere else, the families couldn’t run out after them because they would be breaking the curfew. This is an example she gave me. She felt that it was widespread and that people were coming to her and giving her examples of this happening. The woman who was taken out the night before was not actually raped, she was able to escape. But soldiers in groups of two did occasionally take these types of actions.

(Hiram Ruiz) None of the local NGOs ion Jaffna are allowed to function and there are no international NGOs.

Recommendations for Jaffna
The number of checkpoints and the need for those checkpoints should definitely be reviewed.

1. The question of language needs to be addressed.

2. More consistent and appropriate behavior by soldiers at checkpoints-the need for training of soldiers in appropriate behavior.

3. The need to civilianize the situation in Jaffna. The need to give the civilian administration responsibility.

4. Local NGOs allowed and encouraged to operate.

5. International NGOs permitted to operate.

People do also have concerns about the LTTE. There have been killings by the LTTE. So-called "lamp post killings." The LTTE has also made threats against people who are involved in any kind of major reconstruction. That has two kinds of effects. When the Sri Lankan government had put out an appeal for funds for reconstruction there was no response from donors feeling that their project would be targeted. At the same time, for any individual in Jaffna who might become involved in any of these projects, there is the fear that is this activity considered relief or is this major reconstruction and will I be targeted. Is the reconstruction of a bombed out wing of a hospital considered relief or is that considered reconstruction? Will I be targeted if I am involved in any aspect of that?

Vavuniya - (Katie Hope)
Before the 22^nd of October 1996, people would cross into Vavuniya from the Wanni, but in small numbers. People would wait at the border to cross into Vavuniya. However on the 22^nd of October, the Government made an announcement that it was going to let anyone in who wanted to come in. Some 14,000 people within two weeks did that. They went into Vavuniya and the local administration there had to react very quickly. They closed seven schools and to create so-called Welfare Centers. They are trying to improve infrastructure around the schools. There is also the College of Education and 2 transit camps, so there are altogether 11 "Welfare Centers" for people in Vavuniya.

The conditions at these centers are pretty bad. I went to four of them. (Two Transit Centers and two of the so-called Welfare Centers). One was a camp that split youth and families, called Veppankulam. This was a focal point of security clearance. Anyone who came into the city and hadn’t been cleared at all went into these camps. The men were separated from the women at the youth side and they were basically kept in large storage centers. The storage centers were open - no privacy; mats on the floor; extremely hot; flies everywhere: four toilets for men, four for women and the numbers there were about 500 each-so about 100 people to a toilet. They were given food in Vavuniya by the Government. Some had a canteen but people were not buying anything. I guess they didn’t have much extra money to buy anything.

The main concerns of the people at these camps were not the conditions, but that they were being kept there without any information. They didn’t know when they were going to be released. They didn’t quite understand why they were being kept. All they knew was that they had been invited by the Government on the 22^nd of October and suddenly they were being held. I interviewed people, like a sixty-eight year old woman who was just trying to collect her pension and got caught up in the camp because she didn’t have the right documents to get her through Vavuniya. There were people who wanted to get through to Colombo. They wanted to get a visa, but they couldn’t leave Vavuniya to get to Colombo to get the medical exam for the visa. As of November, there are about 8,000 people at these camps. They are confused. There is illness because of the overcrowding and basically they want to be let out.

The local administration has certain categories of people who are allowed to be released from the camps. This includes people who have a visa and passport and ticket out of the country. But the categories haven’t been thought out carefully. In order to get a visa you had to get out of the camps to get a medical and you couldn’t get out of the camps to get a medical.

Another category were people who were sick and had to get to a hospital. To do that you had to have a companion. But, to give an example, one man whose shoulder had been dislocated a month ago was waiting for his daughter, who was his companion, to be cleared in one of the other camps. So for many people they are caught in a Catch 22 situation. They are stuck there. They don’t know when they are going to get out. They don’t know how quickly they are going to be cleared and at the moment the process seems very slow.

The people who wanted to go back to Jaffna have left. Some 6,000 who wanted to go back on the Government program have gone back. The ones who remained, who I spoke to, who were from Jaffna, were reluctant to go back. They said that if they couldn’t remain in Vavuniya or go south to Colombo, they would go into the uncleared areas of the Wanni. About half of the people who are displaced in the camps at Vavuniya want to go and live within the district of Vavuniya, as they have relatives or friends there. But they were still not allowed to leave. So in many of the camps you see relatives visiting their people in the camps. They are very security conscious around the camps. If you are in the camps, you are allowed a two hour pass. People line up to get these passes. They are gold in the area, and it is very hard to get them. One of the people I spoke to said that each family could get a two hour pass each week.

Our main problem with Vavuniya were the mixed messages from the Government. The Government invited people to come in, but were clearly not prepared for this number of persons to come in. The continuing policy is not clear either. Construction work was going on in the camps I visited. They were building new latrines. They have plans for a new camp that will hold between 5,000 and 6,000 people. Obviously the number of people coming into Vavuniya has slowed down completely as they have heard of the dead end situation.

Each camp has an army and a police officer who runs the camp. There was a little bit of mis-communication between the local police, who might be Tamil speaking, and the army who were mostly Sinhalese. That was a little bit of an issue in the camps. There was also a representative of the Government Agent at each camp.

Recommendations for Vavuniya
1. That all the people in the detention centers be released and allowed to proceed to wherever they intend to go.

2. That the Government make a clear policy pronouncement on any future arrivals from the Wanni, so that people know what they are choosing.

3) The Wanni - (Hiram Ruiz)
The Government assistance does go up to the Wanni but one of the problems was that it was felt that the amount that goes in is constantly too low for the need. For example, the amount of medicines that the government sends is that which was requested in 1995 for the fiscal year 1996, based on the displacement population of 1995. The amount that goes in is also delayed by months. The first quarter of 1996 was not so much a problem. The second quarter was tremendously delayed. In the third quarter only about 20% of what was supposed to go went.

Food Assistance
In terms of food it is said that 50 trucks go up a day. But in terms of need it has to be much higher than that. The government says that once food goes up, the LTTE takes what it needs and that the food is sent even knowing that the LTTE is going to take some. But what is going up is not enough.

The biggest problem is that about half of the people displaced into the Wanni are not registered for food assistance. Commercial food goes into the Wanni. There is a lot of food commercially available, but the problem is that a lot of people don’t have the money to buy the food. A lot of people who are not registered and who don’t have the money as well have become the most vulnerable. So, although technically there might be enough food in the Wanni for the people there, there is no co-relation between the amount of food there and the processes of how it would get to the population. You have people who are registered for government-sent provisions, and people who can afford to buy food on top of this, and those who are not registered for the government food aid, and those who have no means to buy food or are not assisted by the LTTE, who have essentially nothing.

The issue about assistance going up to the Wanni—the NGOs despair about it. The constant delays, the process of trying to get permits for this and that, and for example, on the issue of medicine. At one point MSF was saying "we’ll provide the medicines, we’ll take it up," but the government was saying that they’ll provide all that was necessary and that they did not need MSF to provide anything extra although the government was not getting it there.

With other kinds of supplies that NGOs would need, they would get clearance from the civilian government, as it were, but getting authorization from the military may either not come about or might take months by the time they get it. And then once they get that authorization, they may not be able to get the last set of approvals. Eg on medicines the military may clear it, but when they get to the Health Ministry, they can’t get delivery scheduled.

There was a range of opinion about what all this was about - both NGOs and local people. There are those who think that there is a deliberate government policy of only sending just enough food and supplies into the north to be able to avoid a disaster - to be able to sat that they are giving the minimum necessary for people to survive. Some people say that the civilian part of the government is O.K. and have good intentions, but that the military blocks everything. Others say that even after that you have to contend with the whole issue of the bureaucracy, that the bureaucrats cause delays out of incompetence or are deliberately obstreperous. There are a lot of different interpretations as to the why. The reality however is that the needs are not met.

The biggest concern are the large numbers of people, maybe 200,000 who are not registered for government assistance. These are basically two categories of people:

1) People who had left Jaffna town and had fled to Kilinochchi or other parts of the Wanni. With them came people who were residents of that area. Those people who came down after April, the government did not register for assistance. The explanation was that the government considered these people supporters of the LTTE, if not why did they not go back to Jaffna. That is not the official position. The official position is that they do not exist. The GAs report indicates what that number is but the military refuses to acknowledge it and the official government line comes from the military.

2) The other group of people were the people from Kilinochchi who fled the offensive there and also not get registered.

In the Wanni, in particular areas, all along the road you see people have cleared the land and built some sort of shelters. As people fled, they first moved into public buildings such as schools. But over time, people who had the means moved from there and built whatever shelter they could with permission of the owners of that particular plot of land or in general available land where people have just gone ahead and cleared it. Those remaining in the so-called welfare centers are the most vulnerable. Those people are not registered and don’t have the means are often families headed by women and elderly people and the most vulnerable are there and there is no assistance at these centers. Nothing - no food, health care, sanitation. At this point there is still not an alarming level of malnutrition. But the concern is that can definitely come about. There are no jobs available for many people to get an income so if they are not registered and they are not getting any kind of food aid from the LTTE they have no means to survive.

Some of the food that comes up is taken by the LTTE. They feed their own people;

stockpile some amount and distribute some about. The balance theoretically goes to the Government Agent (GA) who does the distribution. I could not understand the system. Some people were able to get food on a regular basis. Some people got it on a one off basis. I am not sure what the actual system is.

Health care and the shortage of doctors and medicines.
There are only two hospitals. One at Malavi and the other at (unclear). The hospitals are severely overcrowded and there are shortages of everything. They were treating 2,000 to 4,000 out-patients a day. At some point in time going for weeks and months without any medications to give people. But those who can get to the hospitals are the lucky people. There are many who can’t afford to get to the hospitals. There is no money for transportation. Clearly, problems here have the potential of getting much worse.

Return to Jaffna?
Talking to people, there are those who say they will not go back to Jaffna under any circumstances while the military is there while others say they are afraid to go because of the rapes and disappearances. We encountered a lot of hopelessness. People saying her we are now but there might be another offensive and we may get displaced yet again and where are we to go next. What’s there for the future. There is no education practically because the schools are being used by the displaced. There is no likelihood of economic activity. The people see no future. You can feel that strongly.

Going to India therefore becomes a practical objective. There they have safety, there is food, although not adequate and there is the possibility of education for the kids. So going to India becomes a sensible alternative.

South India (Katie Hope)
5,000 people have gone to India since July. There are 112 camps in Tamil Nadu State and I visited 5 camps. Some date back to 1990 and the conditions vary. In all of the camps universally the roofing was very bad. It was metal roofing that had massive holes in it. It was baking hot inside and the rain was coming through. They were not comfortable but the camps were run by camp committees and they were very clean. Some of them had women’s groups and libraries, daily newspapers, canteens, and hair-dressers. The camps that had been there for some time were organized and people really took care of them and this was purely down to the refugees themselves who were organized and using their own power.

I was traveling with a medical team and it was pointed out that there was under-nutrition in t he camps. The government of India does supply money for the refugees bu the level of food was just sufficient to keep people from falling ill. There were some supplements given by OFERR for lactating mothers. So those who needed supplements were getting it.

But the main concern with India was that of the interception of boats of people who were trying to leave Sri Lanka and get to India. In October, some 300 people were stopped on boats. Two occasions were reported in the press on the 7^th and 16^th of October. The boats were stopped within Sri Lankan waters and taken back to Mannar island. The reason given for this was that people had been coerced by the LTTE to leave. We have no actual confirmation of those reports, but from my understanding form having talked to the refugees was that they were leaving after being displaced many times. We didn’t feel that people were not coming to India out of coercion. There was no evidence of that. But people being stopped from fleeing is a vital human rights issue. The Indian government has also been making statements to try to stem the flow of people into India. They haven’t done anything as much at the Sri Lankans have, but their complicity is large and they have said that they will impound any boats that bring refugees. Therefore families of refugees buy the boats putting all their money together, knowing that they are going to lose the boat when they get to India but feeling that it is worth it.

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