SHOULD WE SEND THE ICRC OUT ? Gamini Iriyagolle It was reported recently that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had asked the Sri Lanka Army to follow the rules of combat in fighting with the Tamil Tigers. The ICRC thus raises a terrorist organization to the level of the army of a sovereign state and implies that the SLA violates the rules that it must obey in fighting terrorists. The LTTE has, as a matter of policy since December 1984, carried out terrorist attacks on and massacred Sinhala civilians both within the areas claimed as the territory of a Tamil state as well as outside them. These outrages, the most recent of which was in Polonnaruwa earlier this year, as well as the shooting and burning alive of wounded government soldiers by Tamil Tigers leave the ICRC unmoved. The Chief of Staff of the SLA was at fault in accepting booklets and posters intended to educate soldiers thrown into battle about the rules war. The "gift" and the insinuation implicit in it should have been rejected; the rules of war are expected to be taught by the Army itself to both officers and men in training. Now are they expected to read this edifying literature while on the alert in their bunkers? Who educates the terrorists? Certainly not the ICRC which has rather given them encouragement further to launch terrorist attacks and to continue to wreck the writ of the Government of Sri Lanka. If the rules of war are to be followed every Tamil Tiger caught out of uniform should be shot as a spy; instead they are brought to camps where the ICRC rush in to succour them ;and are the Tigers entitled to recognition of even their uniform as that of a legitimate army so as to attract the rights under the laws of war? The ICRC is in this country on the invitation of the government and under an agreement with it. The SLA is the army of this government has been constitutionally obedient to a fault thus far. If the ICRC had any exhortation to make it should have been to the government not directly to the army and to the world at large. A major failure of the ICRC flowing from its partisanship was the failure to make the University Hospital of Jaffna available to soldiers when Jaffna was Peninsula under the control of the LTTE. The hospital and its staff were entirely financed by the government but only Tamils could be treated there. Had the ICRC insisted on its rules Gen. Kobbekaduwa and so many others could have been flown there in minutes from Palaly ;and the general would not have succumbed to the injuries suffered in the mine blast. The government should have demanded that the ICRC ensure treatment in safety to all in the hospitals Jaffna owned and maintained at government. expense or leave the country. It is no wonder that soldiers of the SLA and the general public are highly suspicious of the ICRC. Sending out this partisan organization should be seriously considered at least now. A Note from SPUR : |
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