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.

The U.K. called on Sri Lanka to allow hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tamil civilians held in camps since the end of the civil war to leave and said it will only fund emergency work at the centers after monsoon rains end.

“Freedom of movement for the displaced people is our top priority,” U.K. Development Minister Mike Foster said yesterday after visiting some of the camps.

Foster said progress on returning civilians to their villages had been disappointing and that 70 percent of people held at the largest camp, Manik Farm, could be accommodated with host families to avert a humanitarian crisis when the monsoon season begins in mid-October.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government has said the resettlement of more than 280,000 displaced people depends on ensuring security in the north and clearing mines from conflict areas. He declared victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in May after rebel leaders were captured or killed, ending the group’s 26-year fight for a separate Tamil homeland.

“We are trying to release the refugees as quickly as possible,” Rajiva Wijesinha, secretary in the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, said in a phone interview from the capital, Colombo, today. “Security is of paramount concern. The government has to be responsible to its citizens first. Who will be responsible if someone is blown up?”

‘Conditions of Internment’

Sri Lanka last month rejected an assertion by United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay that the Tamils are detained under “conditions of internment.”

Sri Lanka may resettle 100,000 people from camps by the end of the year, Deputy Finance Minister Sarath Amunugama said yesterday in Istanbul, where he is attending the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

The U.K. is supporting demining efforts and the transportation of civilians back to their homes, Britain’s Department for International Development said on its Web site.

The government is holding 4.8 million pounds ($7.6 million) ready to provide further support to help Sri Lanka meet its commitment to release the majority of displaced people from camps by the end of the year, Foster said.

Freedom of movement is critical to avoid a humanitarian crisis, Foster said. “Heavy rainfall could cause devastation, polluting water and sanitation supplies and spreading disease,” he said.

Once the monsoon season ends in December, the U.K. will only fund “life-saving emergency interventions” in existing camps, Foster’s department said.

Sri Lankan authorities are taking precautions for the monsoon by building better drainage and toilet facilities, Wijesinha said. “By the end of this month about 60,000 refugees will be released, including pregnant women, disabled people and children,” he added.

Lynn Pascoe, the UN’s political chief, visited the country last month to assess the needs of displaced people and said the pace of their release was “too slow.”