REFUGEE

Sri Lanka’s government must ensure that all communities are involved in next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections, including Tamils displaced by the civil war that ended in May, the U.K. said.

“Free, fair and credible elections will allow Sri Lanka’s communities to have their say in shaping the country’s future,” U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband told Parliament yesterday. “It is important for all those who want to play a role in Sri Lanka’s future to agree to an inclusive political solution that addresses the underlying causes of the conflict.”

President Mahinda Rajapaksa called presidential elections for Jan. 26 two years before his mandate expires as he tries to capitalize on his government ending the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s 26-year fight for a separate Tamil homeland in the north and east of the South Asian island nation. Parliamentary elections must be held before April.

Sri Lanka’s government has called on western nations to use their energies to help the country rebuild after the war rather than criticize its human rights record and the slow pace of settling more than 280,000 civilians displaced by the conflict.

About 94,000 people remain in the main transit camp in the north and the government aims to have all displaced people returned to towns and villages of origin by the end of January.

The election will allow people in the northern region to go to the polls after being deprived of the right by “LTTE terrorism,” Rajapaksa said last month. Resettled people will be able to vote, senior presidential adviser Basil Rajapaksa said on Nov. 24, according to the government Web site.

Legitimate Grievances

“The U.K. has consistently maintained that one of the prerequisites for lasting peace in Sri Lanka is a political settlement that fully takes into account the legitimate grievances and aspirations of all communities,” Miliband said, according to a statement on the Foreign Office Web site.

Tamils make up almost 12 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 20 million people. Sinhalese account for 74 percent, according to a 2001 census. As many as 600,000 Tamils fled Sri Lanka to escape the conflict, more than half of them going to the U.K. or Canada.

Rajapaksa will face General Sareth Fonseka, the former army chief, who is standing as the candidate for the main opposition parties Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, or the People’s Liberation Front, and the United National Party. The general, who resigned in November as chief of defense staff, says there have been moves to take the credit for the defeat of the LTTE away from the army.

Rajapaksa, who leads the United People’s Freedom Alliance, has pledged to rebuild a united country after the civil war.

Tamil Candidate

A Tamil lawmaker, K. Sivajilingam, will stand as an independent candidate in the presidential election, according to TamilNet, a Web site that gives reports from the Tamil perspective.

Sivajilingam, a member of the Tamil National Alliance in Jaffna district in the north, said he has made an “individual decision and not a position taken by the TNA,” TamilNet reported. The TNA, the main group of Tamil parties, has 22 seats in the country’s 225-member assembly.

While Sri Lanka in July received a $2.6 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, the end of the conflict has boosted agriculture and tourism.

The central bank forecasts the country’s $41 billion economy will grow as much as 6 percent next year after expanding about 3.5 percent in 2009. Overseas investment in Sri Lanka rose about 10 percent in 2009 from about $3 billion last year, Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal said last month.