TENN: TNA's meeting with Rajapaksa fails & Cordial

TNA's meeting with Rajapaksa fails to resolve IDP crisis

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 September 2009, 12:24 GMT]

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians who held talks with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his ministers Monday evening at Temple Trees on the issue of resettling Vanni IDPs in their own places, said that the talks ended in failure as Mr. Rajapaksa evaded the main issue by saying resettlement of Vanni IDPs is not immediately possible as demining in Vanni has to be completed before resettlement. The urgent request to resettle the Vanni IDPs in Vavuniyaa internment camps before the monsoon rains was not given any due consideration by Rajapaksa and his ministers, TNA parliamentarians said.
R. Smapantharn, Mavai Senathirajah, Suresh Premachandran, Raseen Mohamed Imam, Sri Kantha, K. Thangkeswari and Sivasakthi Ananthan were the TNA parliamentarians who took part in the talks with the Sri Lankan President Monday from 4:30 p.m to 7:30 p.m.
Rajapaksa was accompanied by his brother and senior advisor, Basil Rajapaksa, his secretary, Lalith Weeratunge, Vavuniyaa SLA Commander, ministers Rizard Badudeen and Susil Premajayantha and Northern Province Governor, former SLA Jaffna Commander, G. A. Chandrasiri.
On being asked as to Rajapaksa's public assurance that the Vanni IDPs will be resettled within 180 days he responded by claiming that his government had completed resettlement of IDPs in the East and that the 'same wonder' may perhaps happen in Vanni too.
The Sri Lankan president dismissed immediate resettlement, saying that his government lacked necessary funds to engage the 600 Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers who were trained in de-mining and ready to do the job as funds for de-mining were not available from the international countries. He was telling the TNA to move matters with the EU in getting the necessary funds for de-mining from the member countries of the EU. There was no mention of engaging independent actors such as NGOs or foreign agencies in de-mining, a TNA parliamentarian who attended the meeting said.
"Mr. Rajapaksa further claimed that around 19,000 IDPs had been already released from the Vavuniyaa camps but we pointed out that this number is only 8% percent while 92% of the IDPs suffer being detained in the internment camps."
The President said that action is underway to release IDPs from Vavuniyaa, Mannaar and Jaffna after confirming that neither they nor their relatives or friends who are ready to take care of them are linked to terrorists. We told the President that this cumbersome process would indefinitely delay the release of the IDPs.
We also asked the President to consider our requests in the issue of resettling IDPs evacuated by the SLA from the High Security Zones (HSZs) in Jaffna peninsula besides the lifting of restriction on fishing and travel but the President and his ministers effectively brushed aside the requests repeatedly stressing on the need for demining, the TNA parliamentarians said.
Though we had some hopes of our requests being heeded the President, employing evasive and sidetracking techniques, did not consider the requests favourably, the TNA parliamentarians said.

TNA-President meeting cordial
Daily Mirror By Kelum Bandara
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) said yesterday its meeting with President Mahinda Rajapaksa progressed satisfactorily and addressed serious issues in a friendly atmosphere.
TNA Jaffna District parliamentarian N. Sri Kantha who participated in the talks told the Daily Mirror that his party raised issues related to the displaced persons. Mr. Sri Kantha said the TNA put forward its proposals and suggestions to address welfare issues of IDPs and to resettle them. The party had also discussed the resettling of Muslim IDPS. However he declined to elaborate what transpired at the meeting.
The Jaffna MP said his delegation also met MP Basil Rajapaksa who is the Chairman of the Taskforce overseeing resettlement and rehabilitation work in the North. Mr. Rajapaksa had also made a detailed presentation on the de-mining operation and how they had progressed.
He had also explained the difficulties involved in the process during the meeting.
Mr. Rajapaksa had reportedly pointed out that some areas were heavily mined.
UPFA General Secretary and Minister Susil Premajantha said the meeting was cordial.
This was the first one to one meeting between the government and the TNA after the LTTE was defeated. Mr. Premajantha said this was a positive development in the post war period.
In addition to President Rajapaksa the Government delegation included MP Basil Rajapaksa, Northern Province Governor Major General G. A. Chandrasiri, Ministers Susil Premajantha and Rishad Bathiuddeen and Essential Services Commissioner S. Divaratne. The TNA delegation comprised party leader R. Sampanthan, Jaffna District MP Mavai Senathirajah, S Sri Kantha, Suresh Premachandran, R. M. Imam, Sivasakthi Ananthan and Thangeswari Kadiragamar.

Sri Lanka: Access denied

The Guardian, Tuesday 8 September 2009

The Sri Lankan government is hugely dependent on outside aid in its efforts to deal with the human consequences of the war which the island had to endure for more than a quarter of a century. High military spending, collapsed tourism revenues, disrupted agriculture, reduced trade, and, to make matters worse, natural disaster in the shape of the tsunami have all undermined the economy.
The government simply does not have the resources to undertake, without international help, the work of repairing infrastructure, restoring economic life, feeding and temporarily housing large numbers of displaced people, and then returning them to their old homes in conditions approaching normality. Long before the war reached its end earlier this year, United Nations agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and scores of voluntary organisations were all present in Sri Lanka ready and anxious to mitigate the impact of the fighting on ordinary people. They were kept at arm's length by the Sri Lankan authorities, who brooked no interference with, or oversight of, their military campaign. There was reason to hope that, with victory, this attitude would change. Unhappily, it has not. Colombo is still severely restricting access to the north, particularly to the area of the final battles, and to the camps where an estimated 280,000 people displaced by the fighting are detained.
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, came to Colombo a week after the war ended to ask for "unhindered access" to those camps. UN agencies have instead found themselves hampered in their attempts to bring in the materials to make life in the camps bearable, particularly vital as the monsoon breaks. Voluntary agencies have similarly found themselves blocked by regulations which seem to change weekly, if not daily, while some ICRC offices have been closed down on government orders. Independent travel by journalists is banned. In addition, the government reacts with fury to any criticism, from whatever source, of its slowness in getting the refugees out of the camps and back to their homes.
The secretary general's reward for the low-key approach he has taken to the Sri Lankan crisis since he assumed office has been to be ignored. Now the Sri Lankans have served an expulsion order on the Unicef spokesman, James Elder, after he warned that the monsoon would cause chaos and suffering in the camps. The Colombo government wants aid but it also wants to micromanage the way it is deployed and to bully those who have the job of delivering it. It is time that the donor nations and the agencies formed a united front to resist this unreasonable and ungrateful attitude.