Colombo ignores Court order to resettle Jaffna IDPs inside HSZ

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 February 2009, 02:13 GMT]
The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from their lands occupied by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) enclosed within the High Security Zone (HSZ) in Valikaamam north are being asked to provide alternate choice of location to be resettled in other than their own lands, Welfare organizations of the IDPs said. Colombo Supreme Court instruction to begin resettlement inside the designated areas within the HSZ is being ignored by this new measure adopted by the Ministry of Nation Building, Plantation, and Infrastructure Development in assistance with UNHCR office, they said.

The Supreme Court had earlier appointed a committee headed by Jaffna High Court magistrate to expedite its instruction and the final list of IDPs to be resettled in their lands had been drawn after the IDPs were interviewed twice with their deeds and other related documents by Jaffna Secretariat.

The new scheme of resettling the IDPs has been introduced as SLA had refused to entertain the proposal of resettlement within its HSZ, the sources said.

The government had made much publicity to the resettlement of the IGPs in the HSZ, raising IDPs' hopes but now new forms have been issued at Village Officer level in each Divisional Secretariat calling for new information on their wishes and opinion on being resettled in areas other than their own lands.

The newly introduced form is devised to gather information from the IDPs of matters like insecurity in the HSZ, landmines, lack of employment opportunity and transport difficulty with a view to discourage the IDPs from wanting to resettle in their lands, the welfare organizations said.