UN chief visits Sri Lankan refugee camp

Published on Saturday 23 May 2009 18:59

UN SECRETARY-General Ban Ki-moon toured Sri Lanka's largest war refugee camp yesterday during a trip to press for wider humanitarian access and political reconciliation.

In the highest-level international visit to Sri Lanka since the government declared victory last Monday over the Tamil Tiger rebels in a 25-year war, Ban later flew over the final battleground and was due to meet President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Ban said he would encourage open political discussions between the majority Sinhalese and minorities including Tamils when he met Rajapaksa in Kandy, the historic seat of Sinhalese kings and a Buddhist holy site.

"I hope that President Rajapaksa and government leaders will reach out with inclusive dialogue with the minority groups," Ban insisted. "Now that the long decades of conflict are over, it is time for Sri Lankans to heal the wounds and unite without regards to ethnic and religious identity."

Rajapaksa has already pledged to strike a political deal with Tamils, and said he does not want Sri Lankans viewing the victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a defeat of the Tamil minority.

Ban toured Manik Farm, home to 220,000 refugees, and visited a field hospital for civilians wounded in the war.

Aid agencies have complained the government is restricting access to the camp, allowing in only essential supplies of food and water. Chicken pox and skin diseases are sweeping through the camp and hepatitis is a growing problem. "I was humbled by what I saw," Ban said afterwards.

Sri Lanka has pledged access to the camps and greater freedom of movement for residents, but says it needs time to weed out potential Tamil Tiger infiltrators. It plans to resettle most of the refugees within six months.

"We will try to work hard to keep that promise realised," Ban said as he toured the country's largest camp.

Asked what he thought of Sri Lanka's efforts running the camps, Ban said: "There clearly seem to be some limitations in their capacity."

The government has already asked for international help and launched a $151 million appeal with the UN to improve the camps and care for those inside.

Shortly after, Ban took a low-level helicopter flight over the coastal strip where the last battle was fought.

Observers on the trip could see craters filled with water, burned-out vehicles, uprooted and smashed trees and closely packed tents that appeared to have been abandoned in a hurry.

Ban and other UN officials repeatedly criticised the government and Tamil Tigers during the final months of the war, saying the actions of both had resulted in unnecessary deaths of thousands of Sri Lankans trapped in the conflict zone.

Unofficial and unverified UN tallies say more than 7,000 civilians were killed and thousands more wounded in the war's waning weeks. That has prompted Western calls for a probe into potential war crimes and humanitarian law violations. Rajapaksa in a speech on Friday dismissed the calls as an attempt to stop the final offensive, and said he was "not afraid of walking up to any gallows, having defeated the world's worst terrorists".

The Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council is due to meet this week on Sri Lanka and may want to launch a probe.

The UN estimates the civil war killed between 80,000-100,000 people since it erupted in 1983. The military said on Friday it had lost 6,200 troops and killed 22,000 Tigers in the nearly three years of the war's final phase.

Ban's visit could put him in a delicate position between offering assistance to a war-torn nation and appearing to be part of Rajapaksa's victory dance.

But B Lynn Pascoe, the UN's political chief, said: "Why shouldn't the Secretary-General of the United Nations be there trying to make things better?"