Some of the thousands of Tamil civilians interned behind barbed wire at the Menik Farms refugee camp in Sri Lanka. A UN official expressed concern that the camps were militarised and no-one was allowed in or out. Photograph: Gethin Chamberlain. From the Guardian, London, May 29 2009.

I am still not paying attention to the Sri Lankan situation: are you? I posted about it here way back in May when it was much more in the news. Even with Google it’s not as quick as I expected to get updates on what’s been happening to the 270,000 Tamil refugees locked up in a hastily constructed camp in May, when the government won the war against the Tamil Tigers.

At the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, which describes itself as nonpartisan (“this Campaign has no ethnic, religious or regional affiliations – its concern is the well-being of all Sri Lankans”) and has Noam Chomsky among others on its Advisory Council, the overview is now a couple of months out of date:

The starting conditions were appalling but they have become even worse. By October, when the monsoons arrive, these camps will become killing fields — this time it will not be bombs but water borne diseases like typhoid and cholera.

Several sources, including the Asia Times dated tomorrow, say that all the refugees are planned to be resettled back to their homes by January. Will it happen? 421 US Congresspeople urged them earlier this month to get on with it. This piece says that 130,000 remain today. The problem is the number of mines still in the ground in the villages the people need to return to. A US congressman also argues there may be “10,000 terrorists” still hiding in the camp. The Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice blog asks today:

Without any basic facilities (proper shelter, hospitals, transport, schools, drinking water, electricity and access to any form of livelihood activities) and basic right to freedom of movement, one has to wonder what it means to these IDPs to come back home.

I just emailed Raj Thameromam, who gave me some info for my earlier post, regretting my inattention and my feeling of being overwhelmed by trying to grasp the world’s problems.

His response was to mention two points that might make us want to pay attention:

The first was to ask “why those outside Gaza who care so much about Gaza don’t care about situations which are much worse?” While Tikkun has had a major focus on Israel over the 23 years of its existence, one of Michael Lerner’s consistent points has been that while Israel and its supporters need to fully face up to Israel’s unethical actions, it is grossly unjust to act as if Israel is the worst human rights violator in the world, as the amount of critical global media coverage often seems to suggest. To gain a balanced view of Gaza, we need to understand the other human rights crises and why they do not get such airtime.

Raj’s second question was to ask “why the USA plays soft ball with bullies and tyrants and consistently sacrifices justice and truth for so called peace.” He says “the Burmese military are paying a lot of attention about how to implement the Sri Lanka Model and they aren’t the only ones.”

See the blog dated 09/10/2009 on http://blog.srilankacampaign.org/blog.html