Distribution of relief supples: Tucker's report

Saturday, January 15, 2005


It was in many ways the longest day. We awoke at 5:30 a.m. from our stopping place of the night before, after only a few hours’ rest and a tremendous task in front of us. We had to cross over into LTTE territory and all the accompanying checkpoints along the way, locate a suitable refugee camp to distribute our aid, and return to Ratnapura at a reasonable hour. It turns out that we were able to do all but the latter.

The security checkpoints were formidable indeed, with political tensions, suspicions of arms and other illicit materials being smuggled, language barriers, and the pervading bureaucracy all conspiring to play a role in our inevitable delay. Indeed from our resting place of the night before to the final destination of Kilinochchi the distance was a mere 48 miles, but it took us the better part of 12 hours to make our return voyage there, distribute our aid and return to the point from which we started.

We managed to make it to the beach after dozens of questions about our destination, the composition of our party, my role in the relief effort, the reasons for our journey, our affiliation, and so forth by the various security checkpoint officers. It is important to recall that at one point the military personnel in charge change from Sinhalese army officials to the cadres of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam. We in fact spent most of the day in an area which was heavily affected by the war, where land mines were still a part of every day life, and where some of the nation’s poorest children live.

The devastation on the beach was total, and served as a fitting preface to the conditions of the refugee camp, which were nothing short of depressing. Dozens of families were congregated in the main hall of a school. They seem to be well fed and taken care of, but a certain sense of the joy of life had deserted them. Children were crying, parents seemed apathetic and listless, and the lack of activity and purpose had drained their faces of the joy so typical to Sri Lankans. Having said that, the children were happy to see us, and even more so enjoyed the brief activity I planned for them.

The distribution of the aid was amazingly well coordinated, and we were thankful that we had enough school bags with the accompanying items for all the children present. Items included: notebooks, pens, pencils, and paper, rubber slippers, toothbrushes, cloth for school uniforms, caps, socks, and other sundry items. The proceedings at this camp (and indeed all camps in Elam territory) come under the direct supervision of the TRO (Tamil Relief Organization) and, as such, have no connection with the Sri Lankan government. One of the directives from the hierarchy of the LTTE organization which our members (including myself) ran afoul of on several occasions was the prohibition against taking photographs inside the Camp.

As we departed the scene, I reflected on the conditions of the people in the Camp, and especially the children, and it occurred to me that future efforts should be concentrated on them alone, with a view towards lifting their spirits again through participation in one of our English Education Camps, in addition to bringing them valuable donations of school-related items. The return journey to Ratnapura was long, slowed again by the various checkpoints who questioned the fact that we were plying a road which had been closed, by official order of the security forces, at 5:30 p.m. We of course had special dispensation due to our status as a relief team. This did not, unfortunately, speed up the process of verifying our documents.

We drove through the dark night and the bus of 25 members finally reached Ratnapura at about 6 a.m. in the morning, exhausted and in much need of rest and recuperation.

Tucker

[Webmasters' Note: The following pictures are related to this report. The captions for these photos were supplied by Tucker]