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UN Calls Killings in Sri Lanka a 'Bloodbath'

By Steve Herman
Colombo
11 May 2009

The United Nations has condemned the killing of hundreds of Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil civilians from repeated shelling in recent days, calling the violence in the country's north a "bloodbath." Doctors say they have counted 378 bodies and treated more than 1,100 people but that there are many more casualties.

U.N. officials say the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have ignored calls to release tens of thousands of civilians they are using as a "buffer" between them and the military in the combat zone.

U.N. spokesman Gordon Weiss tells VOA News the Sri Lankan government is also not doing enough to avert such tragic losses of civilian life.

"In lieu of the LTTE releasing people the U.N. Secretary General has called upon the government of Sri Lanka to exercise maximum restraint as it carries the fight to the LTTE in order to protect civilian lives," he said. "So, for this reason, we're saying that a bloodbath has occurred over the weekend."

The rebels blame military shelling for killing 2,000 people in the sliver of coastal land in the northeast it still holds.

The military has acknowledged the deaths of at least 250 people in the shelling, but denies responsibility. Military officials say troops are not using artillery against the rebels because the soldiers are committed to rescuing the civilians being held as "human shields" by the LTTE. They accuse the Tamil Tiger rebels of deliberately firing on civilians and blaming the military.

U.N. spokesman Weiss, here in Colombo, says independent observers are not permitted into the area. Thus, he says, it is not possible to ascertain who is responsible for the shelling or to make a definitive casualty count.

"This is one of the clearest calls repeatedly rendered to the government of Sri Lanka - that the U.N. be allowed to access the area so we can assess independently the situation of civilians," said Weiss. "But in lieu of that we have relied on the reports of government doctors who are inside the zone treating people. And we regard those reports as consistently reliable. It's all we have to go on, at the moment."

Sri Lanka's military says it is on the verge of totally defeating the LTTE, which has waged a violent campaign for decades to split the island and create an independent Tamil homeland in the north.

Sri Lanka has rejected repeated calls to halt its final offensive. It argues that would only allow the rebels, considered a terrorist organization, to regroup and re-arm.

Several prominent human rights groups are now calling on Japan, as Sri Lanka's top aid donor, to apply such pressure on Colombo.