Frank Pleske explains the trip.
The journey ends in Vavuniya
"Where are you from ?", a man asked me while I was sitting on a bench at Colombo Main Station waiting for the train to Vavuniya and reading the paper. "Germany" I responded automatically, so often had I heard this question that morning. "Can you take me there?" Now I looked up into the motionless face of a man in his sixties. "Why?" I asked. "I hate this place" he replied.
During the following conversation I found out, the man, a Jaffna Tamil, was on his way to Vavuniya to visit his son in one of the camps around the town in the North. Officially these camps are called Welfare Centres or Transit Camps, although he chose to call them detention centres. In fact, he was going to try to get his son released.
In August 1996 large numbers of people, mostly Jaffna civilians who had fled to the uncleared area of the Vanni after the operation Riviresa II, started coming into Vavuniya. Due to the restriction for those aged 15-35, many families could not get to cleared areas. Since the removal of the restriction on 22 October 1996 these families have been moving to the cleared areas in order to escape the terrifying living conditions in the Vanni. Most of the people intended to go to different places such as Colombo, the South, or abroad. However, only a few families were able to obtain the necessary permission for travelling to these areas. In order to prevent LTTE infiltration south of Vavuniya Tamils from the North have been confined in "Welfare Centres". Due to the lack of independent accommodation the government used the schools in the area. Approximately 10.000 to 14.000 people were housed in about 35 schools in and around Vavuniya. As a result 5.000 school kids had been deprived of their right to education, although this may have improved recently. Besides, students miss a day of school each week because they only get a one week pass.
"Can we see one of the camps?" we asked the government official. "What do you want to do there? How can you help these people?" He asked the same questions we have been asked by other people so many times before. We looked at each other briefly then started the usual explanation of our work. He did not seem convinced about the effectiveness of our role but picked up the receiver to call the camp manager of one of the transit camps. Five minutes later we were on the way to the transit camp "Goodshed".
At the transit camp Goodshed we spoke to the camp manager and to the Coordinating officer for resettlement in the North. He provided us with information about all 12 camps in general, and this camp in particular. At the time of our visit, in mid February 97, there were about 13.000 people staying in 10 "Welfare Centres" and two Transit Camps. People are provided with shelter, sanitary facilities and an amount of Rs 30( under 12 years) or Rs 50 (over 12 years) for food. All of these essential needs seem to be rather insufficient considering the large number of people held together on very limited space, so it is no surprise that diseases such as malaria are increasing constantly. The people have nothing to do but to wait. Their movements outside the "Welfare centres" are restricted and the police make sure that nobody "escapes". Everybody has to seek permission to move outside the camps. They usually are given a pass which allows them to leave the camp for three hours each day in order to buy food and other essential items. To leave the camps permanently, detainees have to undergo registration procedure to get the obligatory documents from the government. This procedure has been implemented in different ways. The registration for people who want to go back to Jaffna seems to be rather uncomplicated and quick. Almost all of the 900 people in the transit camp "Goodshed" were willing to return to Jaffna. Normally they have to stay there for approximately 4 days and after the registration they will be taken by bus to Trincomalee to be shipped to Jaffna. According to our sources there are currently 2300 people registered as voluntary returnees for Jaffna. About 300 of them have been leaving the transit camp every day to go to Trincomalee. On the other hand there are 500 to 800 people coming to the camps daily. Most of them, at the moment about 10.000, want to go to the South rather than to the North. However only people with blood relatives permanently living in other areas, and people who are able to obtain the necessary papers such as visas, work contracts etc. are allowed to go. There are ways to buy such documents but certainly this is an option for only a very limited number of people since most of them left everything behind when fleeing from the Vanni.
The people in the transit camp seemed for the most part to be voluntary returnees for Jaffna. Certainly the few people we spoke to confirmed that they want to go back. Unfortunately we did not get the opportunity to speak to some of the people held in "Welfare Centres" who are not willing to go to Jaffna and cannot do anything but wait to be released.
Although it was obvious that these people in the camps were in urgent need of support I realised that, due to the very limited mandate, PBI cannot do anything to help them. There is neither an organisation amongst the people to work for nor do we have the necessary permission from the government. For me it was an interesting but, once again only an informative journey.
However I am not sure whether the only solution for these people is to go abroad but I certainly got a better understanding of what the old man told me in Colombo.