Civilians come trickling in again

The flow of civilians into Army's hands has again increased thanks to the efforts of the 55 Division. This week alone some 8,000 civilians escaped the LTTE's clutches. 1,400 escaped and handed themselves over to the Army today. Some of these civilians have escaped with gunshot wounds caused by LTTE attack teams along the way.

The IDPs often have blood-chilling experiences to tell. They claimed today that at least 25 bodies of Tamil civilians killed while escaping from forced LTTE detention centers within the last few days by the LTTE were now floating on the Chalai lagoon.

Many Human Rights groups and NGOs have criticized what they are allowed to see, which is the rehabilitation centers operated by the government. They claim the civilians are being held in "Illegal Detention Centers" in Vavuniya. The western experience of Nazi concentration camps does not apply to the centers in Vavuniya as the former is to herd people to slaughter while the latter is to keep them from harms way.

These organizations have little or no firsthand experience on what is actually happening inside LTTE controlled areas. They charge the centers are heavily guarded by the Army and question why civilians are held inside impenetrable camps surrounded by barbed-wire fences.

The reality these organizations do not understand is that the fortifications are for the protection of the civilians themselves, who have turned their backs on the LTTE and made a perilous journey to safety. The LTTE considers them to be traitors and will make every effort to 'punish' them. These civilians have to be protected at all costs since the motivation to escape from the LTTE's clutches was the lack of security in the first place.

A large number of hardcore LTTE cadres hiding among the civilians have been identified by the Army and, due to prevailing political conditions, have been handed over to the Police where they have been produced in court in accordance with the law. From that point onwards the Vavuniya Magistrate would take-over and dispatch these cadres to either rehabilitation camps or to their respective families.

The government, at this point in time, is willing to overlook the possibility of the cadres reorganizing themselves as part of an insurgency/terrorist movement. The Army has to tag this line of the government without questioning. This is despite MI warnings of buries LTTE weapons and explosives dumps and suicide cadres hiding among the civilians.