Sri Lankans take civil war despair on to the streets

Two Sri Lankan groups demonstrating in Auckland tomorrow will present conflicting views on who is responsible for the suffering in their island homeland's civil war.

After a 10,000-strong Tamil demonstration outside the UN's European headquarters in Geneva this week, the local Tamil community will be staging a vigil at Aotea Square to keep the international spotlight on what they say is the Sinhalese-majority Government's "genocide of Tamils".

But at the same time, the United Sri Lankan Association, which represents mainly the Sinhalese, will be demonstrating in Botany, accusing the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam of terrorism.

"We don't have a genocide concept. The genocide concept was basically established by unfortunately the Tamil Tiger terrorists," said association secretary Wajira Dassanayake.

"They are the people who killed a majority of their army and political leaders, we have all the proof."

But Tamil community spokeswoman Nirupa George said her community did not agree with the views of the USLA and said there was "a bit of animosity" between the two groups.

She said the behaviour of some USLA members in a Wellington demonstration last month had been "threatening" to Tamils

The Sri Lankan Government has this week rejected a European Union appeal for an immediate ceasefire, saying it would allow the besieged Tamil Tiger rebels to regroup.

But Ms Nirupa said the Aotea Square protest was also a call to the New Zealand Government to continue pushing the EU ceasefire appeal, so that urgent humanitarian aid could be allowed in.

"We may be far away in New Zealand, but we feel the pain of our family members back home," Ms Nirupa said.

"Tamils are being used as human shields, and there is a critical lack of food, water and medicines."

The rebels have been fighting for a separate homeland for the country's minority Tamils since 1983. About 70,000 people have been killed , and the UN says between 150,000 and 180,000 civilians are trapped in the combat zone.

Unicef also said children and their families caught in the conflict zone are at risk of dying from disease and malnutrition.

"The rights of the children caught in the conflict must be fully respected and every effort should be taken to prevent civilian casualties," said Unicef executive director Ann Veneman.

Last week, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said she feared both sides could be guilty of war crimes.

Police say the risk of clashes between the two groups tomorrow is minimal because of the distrance between their demonstrations.