REFUGEE

Dec 15, Colombo: Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the United Nations Dr. Palitha Kohona said political reconciliation with the Tamil community is a critical goal of the Sri Lankan government and the government is already engaged in discussions with the Tamil political parties in the country.

In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Ambassador Kohona said the government provided food, shelter, healthcare, and even educational facilities to the almost 300,000 civilians displaced by the war.

Kohona strongly rejected the allegations that the government had violated the human rights of the refugees by confining them in the camps.

Joining the interview Sir John Holmes, the UN Under Secretary-General for humanitarian Affairs said the early on the government had legitimate security concerns to restrict the people to the camps but now progress has been made and people have been given the freedom to move out of the camps.

Kohona stressed that it's only six months after the war ended and now almost 60-70 percent of the inmates have returned to their own homes.

"At the end of last week, there were only about 114,000 still remaining in the camps," he said.

When questioned about the high figure of civilian casualties, Kohona said the government had a policy of not firing at the civilians and the 7,000 casualty figure is not accurate.

Sir Holmes said the UN cannot verify the number but what they know is that the civilian casualties were unacceptably high.

Holmes accepted that the LTTE was holding the civilians as hostages and the Sri Lankan government had a difficult task.

"The government had a real problem which we need to accept," Sir Holmes said pointing out the need for an inquiry on the accountability for the civilian casualties as both sides were committing violations.

Referring to the allegations that the government shot the LTTE leaders who were surrendering Ambassador Kohona said that scenario never occurred.

When asked then how were their bullet-riddled bodies were found Kohona said "If you are caught up in a firefight and you are the one engaged in the firefight, it is quite likely you get shot." Under Secretary-General Holmes confirmed that there were messages from senior LTTE leaders to the UN officials regarding surrender and they relayed those messages to relevant contacts.

Holmes said the UN officials had no time to mediate any surrenders as the last stages of the battle happened within 24 hours and they had no access to the site or time to act.