Authorities will begin resettling the 78 Sri Lankans involved in the Oceanic Viking stand-off next week after finding all of them to be genuine refugees.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has finished assessing the Tamils' refugee claims and is now looking for suitable third countries to take them in.

Senior Australian sources say resettlements are likely to begin in the middle of next week. But they will not say how many of the Tamils will end up in Australia.

Australia picked up the Tamils in international waters inside Indonesia's search and rescue zone in October and took them to the Indonesian island of Bintan.

But the Tamils refused to leave the Australian vessel and enter Bintan's detention centre, sparking a four week stand-off.

The Rudd government finally enticed them ashore with the promise of rapid processing and resettlement in a third country.

Under the special deal, the government promised that those previously assessed as refugees would be resettled within six weeks of coming ashore - a deadline that expires on Christmas Day. The others will be resettled by the end of January.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison says the deal makes it likely that the Tamils will end up in Australia.

"If all of these people whose claims have been upheld end up in Australia, then clearly they were offered a special deal and that sends a very unhelpful message to people smugglers about what can be gained if they choose to call on the Rudd government," he told AAP.

The Greens welcomed the UNHCR's decision and said Australia should resettle all 78 refugees.

"It is now time for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to give up the game, give up playing politics, and allow these 78 people to have some peace and a future here in Australia," Senator Sarah Hanson-Young told reporters in Adelaide.

"It is in the prime minister's hands now to ensure those people are brought to Australia."

Australia should resettle more people found to be refugees, she said.

"Last year we only took 35 people who were given official refugee status by the UN," she said.

"Yet these are desperate people who have every right to seek freedom, protection and safety for themselves and their families. Australia should be doing much more."

A senior United Nations envoy has asked the Sri Lankan government to release all detained Tamil Tiger child soldiers and reunite them with their families.
The UN special envoy on children and armed conflict made the call while on a five-day visit to the island.
Maj-Gen Patric Cammaert said that examples from across the world showed that children recovered better from trauma when living with their families.
The envoy met nearly 300 children forcibly recruited by the rebels.
"Hundreds of children are still missing or separated from their parents. They must be reunited as soon as possible," the Dutch UN official told reporters.
"The best practice in other parts of the world show that children recover better from traumatic experiences when living with their loved ones."
He said children in government-run camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) were also at risk.
The government recently allowed tens of thousands of civilians held in IDP camps to move about more freely from 1 December, but aid agencies and reporters are still barred from entering them and speaking with inmates.
"The aftermath of the conflict makes children extremely vulnerable," he said.
"Women and girls are particularly vulnerable and preventive measures have to be taken to protect them from any form of abuse such as sexual violence."
Mr Cammaert said that the UN, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Save the Children should be allowed into all camps to help unaccompanied and separated children.
The Sri Lankan military declared victory over the rebels in May this year.

A top United Nations envoy for children held talks with senior Sri Lankan officials on Monday after meeting former child soldiers, an official said.

Retired Major General Patrick Cammaert, the UN special envoy on children and armed conflict, met nearly 300 children who were forcibly recruited by the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels, UN spokesman Gordon Weiss said.

The Dutch UN official is due to tour Batticaloa in the island's east and then Vavuniya, in the north, where hundreds of youngsters previously involved in the fighting are undergoing vocational training.

The Tamil Tigers, who were defeated in May after waging a decades-long campaign for an independent state, were accused by international rights groups of forcibly recruiting under-aged fighters.

Major General Daya Ratnayake, Sri Lanka's commissioner general of rehabilitation, said around 11,000 former rebel fighters, including children, were undergoing vocational training at state-run centres.

A top United Nations envoy for children held talks with senior Sri Lankan officials on Monday after meeting former child soldiers, an official said.
Retired Major General Patrick Cammaert, the UN special envoy on children and armed conflict, met nearly 300 children who were forcibly recruited by the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels, UN spokesman Gordon Weiss said.
The Dutch UN official is due to tour Batticaloa in the island's east and then Vavuniya, in the north, where hundreds of youngsters previously involved in the fighting are undergoing vocational training.
The Tamil Tigers, who were defeated in May after waging a decades-long campaign for an independent state, were accused by international rights groups of forcibly recruiting under-aged fighters.
Major General Daya Ratnayake, Sri Lanka's commissioner general of rehabilitation, said around 11,000 former rebel fighters, including children, were undergoing vocational training at state-run centres.

Ever since the long-running civil war there ended six months ago, Sri Lanka's government has been under pressure over an estimated 300,000 people made homeless by the fighting.

But the head of Humanitarian Affairs for the United Nations, John Holmes, has just visited the refugee camps and says more than half of those who were staying there have been able to move home.

Mr Holmes and the United Nations have been at loggerheads with the Sri Lankan Government but Mr Holmes says now there is a more encouraging tone coming from the UN.

"The situation has changed a lot since I was last here because the number of people in that camp is less than half what it was, and that begins to make a difference," he said.

He estimates there are now 135,000 people still in the camps and he says their mood is changing as they see that many around them are getting out.

"The whole atmosphere of the place has changed; you can sense a virtual degree of confidence about what's going to happen to people," he said.

"When you talk to them, they know they're going to go back - they don't know when necessarily, and there perhaps hasn't been enough consultation with them about that, but it feels different."

Returning to peace
Mr Holmes told the BBC that conditions outside the camps are far from ideal but basic services are becoming available again.

"I was also able to go back to places where people have returned and they're very glad to be out of the camp, obviously, even though they face a lot of difficulties in re-establishing their lives and their livelihood," he said.

"The local authorities are there, the schools are reopening remarkably quickly, there are mobile clinics where the hospitals or the fixed clinics have not been properly repaired yet.

"So it's not all there, it's not perfect, but I think people are still happy to go back.

"We're beginning to see, slowly, no doubt too slowly, the kind of normalisation and reduction of militarisation which should go with the real peace," he added.

"And my impression is that both sides if you like - the government and also the Tamils - are beginning to come to terms with the fact that there is now peace, the LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam] is no more and things can start to change."

'Not freedom'
The Australian Tamil Congress has been outspoken about what it says are the ongoing human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.

Spokeswoman Brami Jegan acknowledges there has been some progress.

"The relief of the people, of the Tamils, is definitely heading in the right direction, absolutely," she said.

"But what that relief exactly means at the moment - it's not freedom. Or it's not the freedom of being able to be a free man in your own village."

She says her own family members as well as friends have struggled to survive in the camps.

"Some of them are missing from the camps, they've just been taken away never to be seen again, and some have been released," she said.

"They haven't been released back into the areas that they came from, which is the former conflict area known as the Vanni or the greater area known as the Vanni.

"They're being released into areas that they weren't previously living in."

The Sri Lankan government argues that it is not yet possible to return people to areas where mines have not been cleared or where the damage to infrastructure makes an area uninhabitable.

No peace without justice
Ms Jegan says a lasting peace will prove elusive while discrimination exists against ethnic Tamils.

"Peace is not going to come until there's justice, there's reconciliation and the Tamils are treated as all other Sri Lankans, are treated as equals, and that has not happened since 1948 and that was before the LTTE," she said.

Politicians in Australia in recent weeks have been pre-occupied with the boat journeys of Sri Lankan asylum seekers as they seek to flee their country for a new life in Australia.

The Federal Government puts some of this down to the so-called 'push' factors arising from the aftermath of Sri Lanka's civil war.

Ms Jegan says Tamils will be more likely to stay in their own country when they are treated better.

"There is a change in the way the Tamils are being treated, and definitely there is going to be no need for the Tamils to leave their own country, to leave their own families behind and get on rickety old boats and risk their lives in the dangerous seas to try and get to another country," she said.

"They'll stay there. It's our land; I would go back and live there if I could because it's my country. It's where my family were born, it's where my parents were born, it's where I was born.

"You don't want to leave that security, that family life, that village life you have and risk your life to go anywhere else if you can stay in your own country."

But Ms Jegan says she does not think there is enough optimism in Sri Lanka to dissuade people from taking to the seas.

"I don't think there's that much of a confidence within the Tamils in Sri Lanka that things are going to get any better for them," she said.

"It's going to take a lot from the Sri Lankan government to actually build the confidence of the Tamils in Sri Lanka and elsewhere to hope that there's going to be some kind of peace and resettlement and justice in Sri Lanka."

Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Sri Lanka asked the United Nations for help resettling civilians displaced by the country’s civil war as a UN envoy visited camps where mainly Tamil refugees have lived since the defeat of Tamil Tiger rebels in May.

The number of displaced people is “declining on a daily basis due to the rapid pace of the resettlement process,” Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama toldJohn Holmes, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, in Colombo. The country needs help clearing mines from conflict zones and building infrastructure in the north, he said late yesterday.

Holmes said the government should work on the process of reconciliation, according to the Defense Ministry Web site.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government says more than half of the 280,000 displaced people have left the transit camps where they were held after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were defeated, ending a 26-year fight for a separate Tamil homeland. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in September that prolonging the detention of the civilians risks increasing bitterness in the Tamil community.

The government has cited the need to clear mines and ensure security in the north as a reason for delaying the release of people from the camps. The government said at the weekend that 137,000 people remain in the centers.

January Deadline

The settlement program may be completed by the end of January next year, the government says. About 28,000 civilians have been returned to homes in the Kilinochchi district in the north, an area that was heavily mined as the LTTE had its headquarters in Kilinochchi town. Civilians are also returning to areas in Mullaitivu district on the northeastern coast, the site of the last battle between the army and Tamil Tigers.

More than 1,000 health workers are operating in the transit camps and surrounding areas, Bogollagama told Holmes. Special attention is being paid to rehabilitate child soldiers and former Tamil Tiger combatants, he said.

Holmes is scheduled to meet with Rajapaksa in Colombo tomorrow, according to the UN.

The government yesterday eased security controls for people traveling from the north to Colombo in the south, the Defense Ministry said. The move “fortifies the reconciliation efforts undertaken,” it said.

Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake said last week that state of emergency regulations will remain in force in the country because the “shadows of terrorism” still exist after the LTTE’s defeat.

Travel Alerts

Japan relaxed a travel alert for its citizens planning to visit Northern Province, the embassy in Colombo said in an e- mailed statement today. A recommendation for people to “defer all travel” is now changed to a recommendation to “consider whether or not to travel,” it said.

The U.K. still advises its citizens against all travel to Sri Lanka’s north, according to the Foreign Office Web site. The State Department’s alert“specifically warns Americans against travel to the Northern Province,” citing the presence of mines and the possibility of renewed insurgent attacks.

Government ministers have told Western nations to stop criticizing the slow pace of settling civilians and highlighting alleged human rights abuses in the civil war and help the South Asian country’s development and security.

Countries criticizing Sri Lanka are expecting changes “to happen overnight,” Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa said at the weekend.

Sri Lanka’s central bank forecasts the island’s $41 billion economy will grow as much as 6 percent next year after expanding about 3.5 percent in 2009, helped by rebuilding efforts after the war. Colombo’s All-Share Index hasoutperformed all other benchmarks in Asia this year with a 98 percent gain, buoyed by the end to the conflict that killed about 90,000 people.

COLOMBO — The United Nations on Thursday stepped up pressure on Sri Lanka to free thousands of war-displaced civilians held in state-run internment camps.
"Months after the conflict ended, our main concerns haven't changed. People are still not given free access to leave these camps on their own free will," UN humanitarian chief John Holmes told AFP after a visit to the camps.
Holmes, who ended a three-day visit on Thursday, said some 130,000 men, women and children remained inside the tightly-guarded camps.
More needs to be done to improve their living conditions, the UN under secretary general for humanitarian affairs added.
"We are very much encouraged by the government's progress to resettle people. There were about 288,000 people in May (when the conflict ended) and now its much less," Holmes said.
He asked the government to allow those returning to their villages a greater say in their resettlement.
"People need to be consulted as much as possible on where they are going, the status of their homes, their livelihoods."
"But I must say that those who have been allowed to return are quite relieved to get out of the camps and rebuild their lives with what little they have."
He inspected demining efforts and visited the Manik Farm area in the island's north where most of the displaced civilians are being held.
He said the government appears to be on track to resettle displaced people by January 2009.
"But we have some doubts. There are bound to be areas where demining is not finished. Our concern is what's going to happen to these people who cant go back to their villages. Where will they stay once the camps are emptied?"
He said some may opt to live in the state-run makeshift shelters until their villagers were cleared of mines.
"In that case, freedom of movement becomes more crucial. People should be free to leave the site for jobs or visit friends and relatives until its safe to return."
During a news conference with Holmes, Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama repeated Colombo's promise to allow war-displaced people leave the camps at their will.
The foreign minister did not elaborate, but sought more assistance from the UN to clear mines.
Sri Lanka's military in October estimated that there could be up to 1.5 million mines scattered across the island's north.
In May, Sri Lankan troops defeated the Tamil Tiger rebels who were fighting for a separate homeland since 1972.

UN confirms Tamil exodus from Sri Lanka refugee camps

UN aid chief John Holmes says those who have returned are glad UN humanitarian chief John Holmes has confirmed that more than half the Tamils who were in refugee camps in northern Sri Lanka have now left them. The camps were set up to house Tamils who fled the final stages of Sri Lanka's 25-year civil war, which ended in May. Mr Holmes, who has just visited the area, said fewer than 135,000 people now remained in the camps. The government had been under pressure to speed up their resettlement. Mr Holmes said it was clear those who had been able to go home were glad to be going back to their villages. "I welcome very much the recent paces of releases and returns of internally displaced people from the camps. It's very good to see that the number of people in the Menik Farm camp, the main camp, is now just under half what it was at its peak," he told the BBC. "That process of releases and returns is continuing and… that's extremely welcome." 'Lack of consultation' He expressed the hope that the issue of freedom of movement for those remaining in the camps would be tackled soon - and said the Sri Lankan government had indicated some flexibility on this. And he still had concerns about the nature of the returns process; there had been some lack of consultation with the Tamils themselves, and with the UN. It has been a difficult year for relations between Sri Lanka and the UN Mr Holmes said the safety of the returnees, and their access to basic services, had to be ensured. "They face major problems in terms of shelter. Most of the houses I think which people have left, they find in ruins when they return so there are big issues there," he said. His trip has taken in the areas most scarred by the conflict and its aftermath - including the displacement camps near Vavuniya, and Jaffna, once held by the Tamil Tiger rebels. The rebels started fighting in the 1970s for a separate state in Sri Lanka's north and east, arguing that Tamils had been discriminated against by successive majority Sinhalese governments. Resettlement from the camps has been so rapid that the Tamil National Alliance, a pro-Tiger party, has accused the government of abandoning people without proper infrastructure. Schools and other facilities in Vavuniya town are now reported to be overcrowded. The BBC Colombo correspondent says this has been a difficult year in UN-Sri Lankan relations and Mr Holmes is sticking to quiet diplomacy so far, with meetings with top officials on his agenda after he returns from the north.

United Nations (UN) Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-coordinator, John Holmes wvisited the Menik Farm camp in Settikulam, Vavuniya today (18).


Holmes arrived in the country this morning for a four-day official visit on the invitation from Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama.

He also visited the Kadirgamar, Arunachulam and Ananada Coomaraswamy relief villages in the North and said that he was pleased with the facilities offered to the citizens by the government of Sri Lanka.

He is scheduled to meet Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama today (18) evening

UN official is also to meet senior Sri Lankan officials including President Mahinda Rajapaksa Basil Rajapaksa and several other senior government officials tomorrow (19).