REFUGEE

Sri Lanka’s defeat of terrorism with its victory over Tamil Tiger rebels shows the country will uphold human rights, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said.

“All Sri Lankans enjoy the freedoms they were denied for a very long period,” Rajapaksa said in a statement late yesterday marking Human Rights Day. The anniversary “is of special significance at it takes place when the entire country is liberated from the clutches of terrorism.”

The army won a 26-year war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in May, ending the group’s 26-year fight for a separate Tamil homeland in the South Asian island nation of 20 million people. The U.S., European Union and India, along with Sri Lanka, designated the LTTE as a terrorist organization.

Rajapaksa’s government has faced international calls to improve human rights with the U.S. and United Nations citing abuses by the army and rebels in the war. Sri Lanka must do more, especially ensuring free speech and a free press, Robert Blake, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, said during a visit to Colombo two days ago.

“We shall continue to work together with the UN and all the other agencies that seek to advance human rights,” Rajapaksa said in his statement.

The U.S. State Department in October released a congressionally mandated report listing accounts of army shelling of civilians and killings carried out by the LTTE in the final weeks of the war.

Sri Lanka’s government has ordered an investigation into the allegations while saying the report is “unsubstantiated.”

Press Freedom

Killings, abductions and disappearances have been reduced since the conflict ended in May, Blake said at a news conference in Colombo.

“More has to be done, particularly on the press freedom front,” Blake said. “Journalists should be able to write their perspectives and report on events freely, without fear of reprisal. Individuals should be able to voice their differences openly and people who have violated the rights of others should be held accountable for their actions.”

Sri Lanka has called on western nations to help it rebuild after the war and stop raising the issues of human rights abuses and the speed of settling more than 280,000 mainly Tamil refugees held in transit camps in the north when the conflict ended. Navi Pillay, the UN Human Rights Commissioner, said in September the Tamils were being kept in “conditions of internment,” an assessment the government rejected.

Settlement Program

About 94,000 people remain in the Menik Farm camp at Vavuniya in the north and the government says it wants to have all displaced people returned to their towns as villages of origin by the end of January.

Their return was delayed by the need to clear about 1.5 million mines from conflict areas and secure the north, the government said. The U.S. has provided $6.6 million for the mine-clearing program, Blake, a former ambassador to Colombo, said at his news conference.

While Sri Lanka in July received a $2.6 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, the end of the civil war has boosted agriculture and tourism that will help the country’s $41 billion economy.

The central bank forecasts it 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 country’s exports that include tea, rubber, textiles and clothes may start to grow in the first quarter of 2010 after dropping for 10 consecutive months, he said.