Sri Lankan NGOs, Human Rights Groups, and INGOs should realize that Sri Lankan army is the world’s only army (humanitarian army) who is feeding its enemy and fighting it at the same time. In every other conflict in the modern world, including even the US operations of Kosovo and Iraq, the US army and the NATO cut off power, energy and food supplies to enemy before and while fighting. This is an undeniable and well documented fact. The power stations and other civilian infrastructure were heavily targeted at the first hours of these wars. The NGOs, INGOs, press (except for the embedded kind), and even the ICRC were not allowed access to operation areas.
[ad#200×200]A report by AFP quotes UN spokesperson Gordon Weiss as saying ” We have temporarily suspended withdrawing our staff, vehicles and other equipment. Large groups of civilians continue to block our offices in the Wanni since Friday.”
This is despite the government’s directive to pull out from the troubled region. Is Mr. Weiss the President of Sri Lanka? In the same report, he indicates that crowds of men, women and children were protesting outside UN and other international aid agency offices in Kilinochchi to stop aid workers from leaving.
“Every army walks on its stomach,” said Napoleon. If the civilians pulled out of Wanni, LTTE will be starved to death. So they need ICRC, UN, and others to feed them. ZOA and Norwegian Aid’s heavy machinery to build bunkers and trucks to move their terrorist to and from battle front, and ICRC medicine and personnel to attend to their injured.
By Tilak Dias