Gota says some political solutions are not solutions for the people
By Shakuntala Perera
Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa asserted yesterday that the government could not be expected to change its military plans to suit the UN or International Non Governmental Organisations (INGOs).
Responding to concerns over civilian welfare in view of the government’s decision to pull out INGOs from the Wanni, the defence secretary told Daily Mirror that the security of the INGO staff, as well as that of civilians, was the responsibility of the government.
“The responsibility of the UN, primarily, becomes that of the host government. We’ve asked them to come out of Killinochchi and relocate in Vavuniya. This is not withdrawal but relocation. The problem is that these foreign analysts don’t know the geography of the country. They think it’s like Africa and this is some 1000-kilometre move,” he said.
He noted that even food and medicines given by the UN are still distributed by government agents (GAs). “Medicines go through government hospitals. This system can function equally effectively from Vavuniya. Then they say they can’t monitor whether it goes to the right people. What is the monitoring that happens with a miniscule staff even now?
Still if they want they can go with the convoys and monitor the distribution. Don’t forget; with no UN system in place, food distribution happened quite effectively in Vakarai and Thoppigala through the AGAs,” he added.
He was of the opinion that ‘most’ of these NGOs were ‘there for various development projects.’ But given the ground situation there was no possibility of continuing this work.
“So they need to come out of there because there is a security threat. This is very relevant when you look at what happened in Muttur. The parents of those killed blamed the NGO’s decision to keep them there despite the situation. We don’t want to get into the same situation. Certainly, when they can do their work again they can go back.
He said the allegations made were the result of a lack of understanding of the ground situation by those who criticised the move.
“Anybody could express concern without understanding this whole process. When you say ‘NGOs and a humanitarian crisis’ you must analyse and see how many of the NGOs were involved in humanitarian work. We have asked them to say what humanitarian work they were doing so we can fill that gap. All we need to do is to arrange the system so that the relevant GAs can come to Vavuniya and collect the goods. The main problem is that people outside don’t know the ground situation here. The fact remains that we can’t change the military plan to suit the UN or NGOs. Military plans must go on. It is then our responsibility to look after the civilians, which is why we’ve asked them to come out,” he said.
Speaking about the increasing criticism that the government’s military offensives were allegedly diverting attention from a political solution, he maintained that what was most important was what the people in those areas wanted.
“Giving different powers to the areas will not solve the problem. The basic problems of the people are far more grave than this. These political solutions are not the solutions the people want -- these solutions are for the interested politicians. This is especially so in this part of the world. The US is demarcated into different states because it’s a huge country. But dividing regions along communal or religious lines is never a solution,” he said.
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