This is to inform you that we had a picketing to support the strike of the plantation workers on yesterday. It took 10days but no permanent solution yet. The discussions going on. The biggest union is with the government (thondaman). There are several campaigns going on and police attacked some of them.

The demand is to increase of daily wage up to 500/= rupees. Present wage is 200/= rupees per day. There are lots of grievances in the plantation sector. Inadequate health, education, water etc;

Our campaign was at city of Ratnapura. Socialist Plantation workers headed it. Some other unions also supported. Participants were nearly 100. We got publicity in main T.V. channels too. They announced that the socialist plantation workers union headed the campaign. This is the first time we got publicity in public tv CHANNEL.

T
For more than five months. They have arrested my whole family, my neighbours and friends and brought us all to the camp. My two children are still under arrest, but we are not allowed to have any kind of contact with them. I don’t know how they are feeling, if they are dead or alive. They are more than 5.000 people who are missing since they were arrested. Nobody knows if they are still in the camps or if they have been killed or if they have died because of illness or hunger. Who knows – maybe both my children are also among these missing ones. At the moment I have no chance to find it out.

NG
Have they told you why you were arrested?

T
No, they don’t tell us these things, but it is more than obvious that they kept us because we are Tamil people. There is this huge propaganda against my people going on. The media and the politicians present us all as terrorists. But how can it be that the ten thousands of us are all terrorists? That is ridiculous!

NG
How was life in the camps?

T
Hell on Earth. We are kept in small bungalows. Ten people put together in ten square metres. Some of them put together because they are relatives, some of them by accident. The walls of the bungalows are made from a material that is similar to iron, they are no windows. In Sri Lanka the weather in that time of the season is awfully hot, about 36 Celsius (96.8. Fahrenheit). The walls get so extremely hot that one cannot touch them. It is like sitting in a cooking pot.

Because we just have so little space in the bungalow no one can lay down. If you want to sleep, you have to crouch down without taking to much space away. There are no special places for pregnant women, little children or old people. All of them have to be in the same bungalows like the others.

NG
Is it possible to go out and have a walk?

T
No, it is forbidden to leave the bungalow, except to go to the toilet. It is like prison. The whole time soldiers are outside, guarding the bungalows. If someone tries to go out, they force him back. If he rejects going back they have the right to punish him. Most people don’t even think about trying to go out.

Sometimes they took groups of people away, but we never know why some of us can go home and others are still kept. The soldiers also don’t tell us how long we have to be in the camp, so a lot people think it is just for short time. But like in my case or the case of my children it can take half a year and more.

NG
Is there enough to eat?

T
They gave us just one bowl of rice and some spices, sometimes once a day, sometimes every second day. No vegetables or fruits, just rice. Often we have troubles to get water, especially in the hot season.

When someone collapses, they bring him to the doctor of the camp. The problem is that the doctors don’t speak Tamil. I was translating often for the doctor because I was one of the very few people who can speak both – Sinhalese and Tamil. If someone gets badly ill they bring him to the next hospital, but they keep him under guard. During the time I was in camp a lot of people got chickenpox and had to be taken to the hospital.

NG
Is there any kind of possibility to visit the camps?

T
No chance. Press and NGOs are not allowed to enter the camps and even relatives cannot visit their families or get at least informed about their situation. I think that there are still about 80.000 of my people kept in this kind of camp. No one can visit them or find out why they are kept and how long they will be arrested.

Some of the camps are under control of a police chief; some of them are supervised by a military officer. It depends on luck if you come to a camp where the situation is “better”, like in the camp I was kept. Or if they arrest you in one of these camps where soldiers rape the women, people suddenly disappear and water is just given every three days.

NG
What is the main experience you have made out of your horrible arrest?

T
You need a perspective, a hope that keeps your mind clear. Some people pray, but there is no God to come and help you out of the camp. For me it was the perspective to organize help for my people. It was thinking that the SPSL will do everything it can to make these circumstances and these suffering of my people visible, that we can organize ourselves for a future where these things will not happen anymore, for a socialist perspective. This is the only reason why I don’t break down although my children are still kept.

Ever since the final defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) President Mahindra Rajapakse and his Defence Minister brother have imposed a shroud of secrecy over conditions in these camps. Humanitarian organisations such as the Red Cross are not allowed to see what is really happening. However, even concentration camps are supplied and maintained by workers and among them are trade unionists who are sickened by what they have seen.

PD Saranapala, an official of the Joint Health Service Workers’ Union (JHSWU) heard first-hand from members of the union in Vavuniya about conditions in four camps in the district. Three of the camps, two for men, one for women, each hold 1400 prisoners regarded by the government as LTTE fighters, ‘Tigers’, the fourth is for non-combatants. In these camps just 50 kilos of gramm, one of the staple cereals of the island, are provided each day. Only one sarong, or a shirt, is issued for three or four prisoners who consequently have to tear them into strips to provide any clothing at all.

Some 15 kilometres from Vavuniya lies the town of Setticulam which is the scene of even worse privations. Again there are four camps but penned within them are between 40 and 50,000 Tamils. These are the survivors of the last enclave. As far as the government is concerned ‘they are all Tigers’. Contact to these prisoners is even more difficult than in Vavuniya. All supplies are controlled by the military. Visitors seeking news of relatives are often kept waiting for up to three days because the camp authorities have no records of who they are holding. Instead, the name is announced over a single loudspeaker and relatives have to rely on this being relayed by word of mouth around the camp.

Among the inmates of the Vavuniya camps there are some 300 civilian health workers and the union is launching a campaign to allow them to use their skills and experience to provide at least basic health support for their fellow-inmates. PD Saranapala has proposed to the Director of Health Services in the district and to the Coordinator of the Human Rights Commission that these health workers be attached to the general hospitals in Mannar, Vavuniya, Setticulam and Murungan. The union also supports calls for civilian administrators to replace the current military regime controlled by the Defence Ministry.

In an interview with the Sri Lanka Trade Union Solidarity Campaign, Saranapala referred to President Rajapakse’s recent speeches in which he claimed that his government, ìwanted to be friends with the Tamilsî and commented, ‘if that is really true he could begin by agreeing to allow these health workers to organise medical support in the camps’.

Back in the capital, Colombo, the union, which organises both Tamil and Sinhalese workers, has already approached the ‘Rehabilitation Ministry’ and the Ministry of Health on behalf of the health workers and raised the demand for a civilian administration.

However, as Saranapala explained, its main emphasis will be on campaigning within the working class for assistance and support for those still trapped in the camps. ‘We see even a very basic medical service as an example of what is possible, workers taking control themselves. It is a step towards self administration of the camps by those who live in them, they are displaced people, refugees, not criminals and we support their right to organise and take control.’

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After decades of fighting, the Sri Lankan Army have forced the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) back into their last stronghold, some 30 square kilometres on the north coast. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (I. C. R. C.) and UNICEF, as many as 150,000 civilians are trapped in the war zone. For them, the situation is already a disaster. They are suffering from starvation, lack of shelter and health services. Relief organisations such as ICRC have difficulty providing any support because there is no letup in the army offensive. No one, apart from government-approved reporters, is allowed to witness the real situation. The international media have continued to carry reports from relief workers, despite opposition from the government, but have no independent access to the war zone. The government web site, directly monitored by the Defence Secretary, presents very different statistics. They estimate the civilian numbers at around 75,000 and insist that it is the Tigers who are preventing them escaping from the war zone.

The government has defined a ‘safe zone’ in which civilians can be accommodated and at which no bombardments are directed but there are constant reports in recent months of civilians being killed in this area. According to the government, the Tigers are responsible for all these killings.

Although they are now on the brink of defeat, until recently many regarded the Tigers as an invincible organisation. The dramatic change is the result of the decision by the government of Mahinda Rajapakse to launch an all out offensive despite the huge cost and inevitable loss of thousands of soldiers and civilians. In preparation for the offensive, Rajapakse secured a legal banning of the LTTE which effectively prevents any public discussion of any aspect of the widespread oppression of the Tamil population throughout the island. In addition, the free media movement was crushed by the killing of the journalist Lasantha Wicramatunga.

Having whipped up nationalist sentiment amongst the Sinhala majority, Rajapakse is now a hero among the nationalist and chauvinist forces as the war reaches its climax. On the political front, he has used this to gain majorities in five provinces and is now concentrating on elections to be held in the Western province where Tamils and Moslems form a majority.

Throughout the country, the minority Tamils, who have always faced oppression from the Sinhalese majority, now face a worsening situation.

Anybody who speaks in defence of the Tamils or against the war is automatically denounced as a terrorist, a ‘Sinhala Tiger’ as the pro-government media put it. The government justifies its offensive as a ‘liberation’ of the region previously controlled by the Tigers, claiming it as a ‘humanitarian mission’ and part of the ‘War against Terror’. The reality is of continuous bombardment from the air and ground artillery against a population of thousands of children, parents and grandparents. As the army advances, these people are now facing a catastrophe. The hardship our fellow citizens face is now dreadful and all the reports by the international media seem to guarantee that the disaster will get worse as the territory shrinks.

We appeal to all democrats, radicals and trade unionists around the world to protest against this genocide. We need to mobilise against the Sri Lankan government to stop the killing of innocent Tamil people in the war zone and the constant oppression of the Tamil community throughout the island. As revolutionaries we have a responsibility to defend and protect the Tamil people and to do this we need to build a solidarity movement against their continuing oppression.

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General Secretary PD Saranapala addresses a session of the conference

The conference discussed the political situation in the country and the government attacks on the health sector. PD Saranapala said ‘We are going forward with a campaign in the health sector demanding the abolition of the salary anomalies made by the ministry of health across the sector.’

It was agreed to organise a protest on 9th of September, around the following demands:

- Salary increase for all the workers in private and public sector.

- Allowance for cost of living index

- Stop the oppression of the trade unions

- Stop the judicial action against the trade unions.

December 08, 2008

Dear Comrades,

Protest Against Long Standing Salary Anomalies

As one of the leading trade unions in the education sector, we, The Independent Ceylon Teachers Union, along other trade unions on the island were fighting against a long-standing salary anomaly that affects some 200,000 teachers. For the past ten years we have appealed to the highest authorities against this. But since there was no positive response we had to fight for change with street demonstrations, sick-note campaigns, a boycott of government exams and also a one-day general strike. Still our demands have not been met.

The ruling party of Sri Lanka has now resorted to legal action, filing a case with the Supreme Court. They are demanding an amount of LKR100,000 for bail.

Under these circumstances, we appeal for your international solidarity in our fight against this grave injustice

In comradeship,

SARATH KAHAGALLA,

General Secretary,

Independent Ceylon Teachers Union

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