President has ordered the commissioner of essential services to take necessary steps to confirm the transport and food and other essential items through the A9 highway. According to a press release of the Presidential Secretariat, the President has taken this step to resolve the food crisis in Jaffna on humanitarian grounds.

This crisis started with the closure of the A9 highway on August 11th. The people of Jaffna including children and elders suffered enormously as a result of the closure. There were agitations from all communities in Sri Lanka and human rights organizations to resolve this crisis.

In fact India, Norway and the international community expressed concern over the humanitarian problem in the peninsula. However the proposal of the President to send a reasonable quantum of food provisions is a matter of solace.

The humanitarian problem of the Tamil people is the result of a tendency among the authorities that does not recognize Tamils as fellow citizens of this country. Closure of the A9 highway and the resultant starvation of the Tamil people in the peninsula are looked upon as a measure by the government to punish the people.

Meanwhile TNA Parliamentarian Sampanthan has written to the President that although the government assured to send relief to the suffering people of Kathiraveli in Vaharai, it has not been done.

It is the duty of the government to ensure that no people are starved. Therefore, people in authority must take effective steps to dispatch food supplies to the Tamil areas, whether it be Jaffna in the North or Vaharai in the East.

While people take pride that Sri Lanka is a Buddhist country, it’s the moral duty to alleviate the sufferings of people due to starvation according to the Buddhist philosophy

An English translation of the Editorial in Virakesari, a Tamil daily, based in Colombo

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