Government accepts it will not be able to resettle IDPs within 180 days

By R. Wijewardene

In statements made at a forum for regional security in Thailand Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama has accepted that the government will not be able to meet its original pledge to resettle the IDPs currently held in Vavuniya's camps within six months. Under intense international pressure to allow those displaced in the fighting to return to their homes in the Wanni as soon as possible the government had previously insisted that civilians would be allowed to leave the camps within 180 days. The statement from the Foreign Minister indicates however that the government now accepts the process might take longer.

Almost 300, 000 civilians are being held at the camps. The legitimacy of the camps and the effective detention of the Wanni's entire civilian population remains a sensitive political and legal issue.

In post war talks with the Indian foreign minister the Government of Sri Lanka committed to resettling displaced civilians within a six month time frame.

The Centre for Policy Alternatives CPA has filed a fundamental rights petition claiming that the camps are illegal as they violate the IDPs' right to freedom from arbitrary arrest. The legality of effectively detaining over 300,000 people by denying them the right to free movement remains open to question.

Addressing parliament on Wednesday UNP MP A. M. M. Naushad urged the government to state openly that the 300,000 people held at the camps were detainees rather than IDPs as they did have homes to return to but were being held only because of fears regarding their LTTE sympathies.

Recent reports have also claimed that infectious diseases including meningitis, encephalitis and hepatitis are rampant within the camps and that mortality rates among the IDPs are extremely high with SLFP(M) Wing Leader Mangala Samaraweera claiming that hundreds of IDPs were dying every week.

The admission that resettlement will take longer than originally planned will only add to the pressure on the government and bring issues of legality sharply into focus. However in his statement Bogollagama claimed that 60% of the detainees would be re-housed within the original 180 day time frame.