LTTE cautions against war zone resettlement

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 June 2001, 18:10 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers called on the people of the Thenmaradchi division in Jaffna not to resettle in their villages as the area is still a war zone. The Tigers, in a leaflet released in Jaffna Friday, said "the enemy and his lackeys are trying use our people as human shields. We do not want our people to suffer again from the calamities of war and destruction. Therefore we request them not to resettle in Thenmaradchi until we issue an official announcement."

The LTTE said that it has on many occasions in the past requested the people displaced from the Thenmaradchi division last year not resettle in their villages until there is an official announcement from the organisation on the matter.

"The Sri Lanka army tried to use the people as human shields when the war erupted in Pallai and other areas last year. But we were able to minimise casualties with our careful tactics and the co-operation of our people," the leaflet said.

The Thenmaradchi division of Jaffna has been ravaged since last May by the most intense artillery and multi barrel rocket launcher barrages by Sri Lankan government forces who are trying to wrest control of the peninsula's southern sector from the Liberation Tigers. Thousands of civilians fled the shelling and bombing.

Attempts have been made recently to resettle the displaced civilians in villages and towns in the rear of the SLA's current front line in the Thenmaradchi sector.

The Liberation Tigers say that this is not motivated by humanitarian concerns but dictated by strategic exigency whereby the resettled civilians would actually constitute a human shield in the immediate rear of the SLA's second line of defence in Thenmaradchi.

A ruined college building in Chavakachcheri.TamilNet Library photo

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