Sri Lankan police round up and evict ethnic Tamils from Colombo

[PopHistorian]

Police evict Tamils from Colombo

_http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6729555.stm

This is significant not just because the possibility of civil war has been rising (especially since the separatist Tamil Tigers got hold of an aircraft this year and have used it in fighting), but because of the Colombo gov't's new tactic of rounding up and evicting people that they consider to be potential troublemakers, based on ethnic profiling. The gov't is actually packing people onto buses and running them out into the country. And they've adopted the popular Western pretexts, saying it's for security and the safety of the evictees. As we've been saying, bombs may not yet be dropping in your yard, and the police may not yet be breaking down doors in your neighborhood, but it certainly is happening to others.

Human rights groups have condemned the evictions

Police in Sri Lanka have forced hundreds of the minority Tamil community out of the capital Colombo for what they say are security reasons. They launched overnight raids in Tamil areas of the city and forced guests staying in budget hotels onto buses.

Police said that Tamils who were in the capital "without valid reasons" were made to board buses bound for the north and east of the island. Police said that the move was necessary amid fears of renewed civil war.

'Bad example'

They said that the crackdown was part of continuing efforts to stop the Tamil Tigers infiltrating the city of 600,000 people. They also said the measure was being taken for the safety of the Tamil community amid a rash of abductions across Colombo blamed on the rebels and the security forces.

[...]

One man forced to board one of the buses called the private local radio station Sirisa FM from a mobile phone. "The police came and took us and put everyone on the bus," he said, saying the bus was about 32km (20 miles) outside the capital, heading northeast. "We don't know where we are being taken."

Human rights campaigners and other observers say they are shocked at what they say is a serious violation of human rights.

"This is almost like a variation of ethnic cleansing," Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu of the independent Centre for Policy Alternatives think-tank told Reuters.

"It is quite appalling."

Almost like ethnic cleansing? We'll see if it escalates.