With
UN Silent on Flooding of Sri Lankan Camps, Aid Groups Plead
for Release of IDPs
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, August 18 -- While the UN refuses to address the flooding
of
the Manik Farms detention camps it built and is funding in Sri Lanka,
the aid groups while offer serves there have petitioned not only the
government but also the UN to at least release those imprisoned there
before the September monsoon season. The UN has said nothing. At the
UN's
noon briefing in New York on August 17, Inner City Press asked
Inner
City Press: Over the weekend there was this flooding of the UN-funded
camps, quite bad, and the Government has actually blamed the UN for
it, has said the UN was responsible for building the camps and for
sewage and which is now backed up and has now filled up the tents. Does
the UN have any response either to what it’s going to do to
solve this problem and also to being blamed by the Government for the
problem?
Deputy
Spokesperson Montas: We’ll try to get you something from OCHA. I
don’t have anything from them this morning.
More
the 30 hours
later, the UN has provided no statement and no response, even to the
appeal from aid groups, that
We
fear that once the monsoon rains set in after September there is
significant likelihood of a major humanitarian catastrophe.
Increasingly there is an overwhelming consensus amongst health,
shelter and water experts that significant adverse monsoon conditions
will develop in IDP sites that are well beyond the present capacity
of aid agencies and the government response.
Shelter
and Drainage Monsoon flooding and wind will expose structural
limitations, destroying or damaging the majority of shelters.
Additionally inadequate drainage will increase the risk of disease,
whilst the resultant water logging will severely restrict vehicle
access and hamper interventions to maintain and repair shelters in
many areas.
Food
Flooding will contaminate food supplies and render communal cooking
areas unusable, whilst wet firewood will mean that people are unable
to cook for themselves. This could lead to serious food shortages and
malnutrition among an already vulnerable population.
Water
and Sanitation Effluent and excreta will flood many areas of the
camps contaminating drinking and bathing water and intensifying the
risk of epidemics of life-threatening water-borne diseases, such as
cholera, typhoid and diahorrea. Many sanitation and water
purification facilities will have to be disconnected as a health and
safety measure, threatening the viability of other essential
facilities such as shelter.
Transport
Flooding will make access roads impassable preventing food, dry
clothes, life-saving medicines, and essential machine parts for
restoring water and other essential aid services from reaching the
affected IDP population.
The
breakdown of services in these four vital areas, we believe, will
create an unparalleled health risk threatening many thousands of
lives.
Flooding in the internment camps: what is floating in the water?
...We
increasingly believe that from a technical and logistical
perspective, the present high concentration of people in such a
vulnerable site as Menik Farm is unworkable, unsustainable and beyond
the collective capacity of Humanitarian Agencies, the UN and the
Government to manage in a way that would guarantee the safety and
security of the IDP population.
We
therefore urge the government and the UN to consider additional
response strategies to ensure the health and well-being of the IDPs,
particularly:
--An
accelerated resettlement programme for Menik Farm IDPs under the
government’s present 180–day program.
--Instigating
a host family programme for thousands of IDPs who have access family
in nearby areas. We believe as many as 50% of camp residents have
relatives they can stay with during the monsoon.
We
hope that you will give serious consideration to these proposals and
we wish to reaffirm to you our common humanitarian concern and
continuing cooperation.
But
there has as of
yet been no response. It appears that top UN humanitarian John Holmes
is out of the loop -- his deputy Catherine Bragg is representing OCHA
on the first humanitarian day event at the UN on August 19 -- while
UNHCR's country
representative Amin Awad has appeared to excuse the government's
detention
and torture of UN staff. WFP has
reportedly used Sri Lanka as the dumping place
for employees it should have disciplined -- click here
for Inner City Press' story.
Conditions in the camps
have gotten so bad that there is talk of an attempt to break out to
survive -- or to be killed by the government. This is a low point for
human rights, for the UN and humanitarian law. And it just keeps
getting worse....
* * *
On
Sri Lanka, UN Funds Now Flooded Internment Camps, Still Silent on ACF
Killings
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, August 16 -- As the Sri Lankan government conducts
extraordinary renditions and declares itself the winner of elections
in Jaffna, weeks after it cleared itself and declared over an
investigation into killings including of 17 Action Contre La Faim
aid workers, the UN in New York still has nothing to say.
Inner City
Press on August 10 asked Deputy UN Humanitarian chief Catherine Bragg
about the ending of the investigation into the slaughter of the 17
ACF workers. Ms. Bragg said that "we have only seen bits and
pieces of the report... we would like to ask the government for the
whole report." One wag asked, you'd like to ask the
government -- but have you? another week has passed, and still the UN
has said nothing.
But
as the
internment camps that it funds are flooded, and the government blames
the UN, one expects the UN to belatedly speak out this week. Back on
August 10, Ms. Bragg was more decisive is answering that from the
government's detention camps, the "rate of return is very low"
and that the government should "allow freedom of movement."
But the UN keep raising money for the internment camps. So why should
the government change what it is doing? In fact, the government now
blames the UN for the flooding.
Flooded camps in Sri Lanka, government blames UN
Inner
City Press
asked UNICEF to "describe and quantify UNICEF's work in the IDP
camps, described as without freedom of movement for IDPs, in Northern
Sri Lanka, including what if anything UNICEF is doing to ensure that
its assistance is not supporting a violation of international law and
human rights, the involuntary confinement of IDPs." After two
days, UNICEF replied that "we have contacted our country office
for information on those questions. We will get back to you as soon
as possible."
We
will report the
response upon receipt. So too the upcoming return to the UN of Sri
Lanka's new Ambassador, Palitha Kohona. Despite his hard to
understand statement this year that the UN's High Commissioner for
Human Rights Navi Pillay somehow did not represent the UN system in
her criticism of his government, Kohona previously served as the head
of UN's Treaty Section. At that time, sources tell Inner City Press,
Kohona was not Sri Lankan, but rather a citizen of Australia. Expect
ever greater contentiousness. Outgoing Ambassador H.M.S Paliakara
stopped to say goodbye to Inner City Press, saying he is off to write
his memoirs. We'll wait to fact check them.
On
August 12, Inner
asked about extraordinary rendition, a topic on which the UN system
has spoke in other circumstances:
Inner
City Press: Sri Lanka has arrested, either in Malaysia or in
Thailand, it’s unclear, an opposition leader Mr. (Patmen?), also
known as KP. [inaudible] may extraordinary rendition, i.e.,
he was arrested, there was no extradition trial and now he is back in
the country. Has the UN said, some people say he’s been tortured
but, does the UN have anything to say about that?
Deputy
Spokesperson: I don’t think we’ve received ay reports on that,
but we’ll look into that for you.
No
response has
been provided, even though a senior Ban advisor from the 38th floor
unprompted told Inner City Press that they had been expecting the
question about Pathmanathan and extraordinary rendition. And so it
goes with the UN.
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