REFUGEE

Sri Lanka is still threatened by separatist forces five months after the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said.

Sri Lankans will defeat separatists and “build a new country,” Rajapaksa said yesterday, according to the Defense Ministry’s Web site. “We shall not fear to take the necessary decisions in the face of dangers we may face.”

Sri Lanka’s army defeated the last LTTE forces in a battle in May on the northeastern coast, ending the group’s 26-year fight for a separate Tamil homeland in the north and east of the South Asian island nation.

Rajapaksa’s government says security needs to be established and mines cleared in former conflict zones before more than 280,000 mainly Tamil refugees are allowed to leave transit camps where they have been held since the war ended. Sri Lanka is breaking its pledge to resettle all displaced people by the end of this year, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.

Rajapaksa, addressing a ceremony in the central town of Matale for heroes of the civil war, said the LTTE was on the verge of achieving its goal of dividing the country when he won the presidential election in 2005.

“Many foreign forces attempted to persuade us that the path to peace was to give in to a terrorist organization which they claimed was invincible,” he said. The government’s move to defeat terrorism was based on an “undivided country, a national consensus and an honorable peace,” he added.

Settlement Plan

Sri Lanka will try to resettle 100,000 displaced people by the end of this year, Deputy Finance Minister Sarath Amunugama said on Oct. 6. The United Nations and U.S. are leading international calls for the swift release of all refugees from the transit camps.

The government is failing to meet its promise to release 80 percent of the displaced people by December, Human Rights Watch said in a statement. It has allowed only about 27,000 people to be resettled, it said.

“It is well past time to release civilians detained in the camps,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of the New York-based group. “Sri Lanka’s international friends should tell the government that they will not accept any more broken promises.”

Many of the refugees could live with relatives or friends if security conditions don’t allow them to return to their homes immediately, the group said, adding that their detention is a violation of international law.

Internment Camps

Sri Lanka last month rejected an assertion by UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay that the Tamils are detained under “conditions of internment.” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon, who sent Lynn Pascoe, his political chief, to the country last month said at the time that keeping people under harsh conditions may create bitterness among the Tamils.

Rajapaksa has called on the international community to stop criticizing Sri Lanka over human rights and the treatment of displaced people and help the country rebuild after the war.

The European Union said yesterday it may consider suspending some trade benefits granted to Sri Lanka, citing “significant shortcomings” in three human rights areas.

The government says it has to undertake security checks of displaced people after receiving information that Tamil Tiger fighters infiltrated the camps.

Remnants of the LTTE are continuing efforts to raise funds abroad, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake told Ban when they met in New York last month.

Investigations are continuing into whether billionaire hedge-fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, one of Sri Lanka’s largest investors, provided any funds to the Tamils Rehabilitation Organization, a group the government says is a front for the LTTE, the government said on its Web site yesterday.

Rajaratnam, 52, was arrested last week in the U.S. and faces charges over insider trading.

The U.S. froze the assets of the TRO in November 2007, saying it raises funds for the LTTE, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S, the EU and India.