Sri Lanka vows to resettle 300,000 Tamils

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-22 08:10

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka said yesterday it planned to return most of the nearly 300,000 civilians displaced by civil war to their homes this year as the president called on the country to be magnanimous in victory.

The fate of the ethnic Tamil civilians in the overcrowded, fenced-in camps has caused great concern among the minority throughout the country. Aid groups say their access to the camps has been greatly restricted and human rights groups accuse Tamil militias of abducting children there.

India's foreign minister and national security advisor officials met with President Mahinda Rajapaksa to express their concerns about the humanitarian situation in the area.

In a joint statement, both governments said they had agreed on the urgent need to resettle the civilians in their villages in the north as soon as possible.

"The government of Sri Lanka indicated that it was their intention to dismantle the relief camps at the earliest and outlined a 180 day plan to re-settle the bulk of (displaced) to their original places of habitation," said the statement from the president's meeting with Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan.

India promised help with de-mining the former war zone and rebuilding homes and infrastructure, said the joint statement.

An estimated 280,000 civilians were displaced in the recent government offensive that routed the Tamil Tiger rebels on the battlefields of the north and quashed their more than quarter-century war for a separate state.

The UN estimates at least 7,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the final offensive this year and between 80,000 and 100,000 people were killed throughout the war.

With the conventional war over and the rebels' leadership slain, many Sri Lankans have spent days celebrating, especially in neighborhoods dominated by the Sinhalese majority. Many among the Tamil minority worried that the security crackdowns they faced during the war could worsen.

Rajapaksa called yesterday for Sri Lankans to set aside their differences and make sure not to offend one another.

"The celebration of this victory, as deep as it is felt, should be expressed with magnanimity and friendship towards all," he said in a statement.

Rajapaksa has called in the past for a political compromise with the Tamil community, which has long felt marginalized by the Sinhalese. However, it is not clear what sort of power-sharing deal he is willing to offer.

Meanwhile, aid groups and the United Nations have complained that their access to the camps has been severely restricted, and the Red Cross has said aid shipments to the largest camp have been stopped.

(China Daily 05/22/2009 page11)