Resettlement of Tamil Refugees in India within Lanka in process

Chamikara Weerasinghe, in the Daily News, 1 September 2011

Also SEE the note circulated by an NGO friend of mine re the bureaucratic process of settling land rights in the Northern and Eastern Provinces which has been appended at the end of this item. Web editor.

With the resettlement process in the North reaching its final-phase, the Ministry of Resettlement has stepped up its resettlement drive by making moves to bring back to this country Displaced Sri Lankans living in some 31 camps in Tamil Nadu. Resettlement Ministry Secretary Uthpala Basnayaka yesterday said the Sri Lankan High Commission inNew Delhiis currently working with the concurrence of the Indian authorities to bring back the Sri Lankan Displaced living in camps in Tamil Nadu.The Sri Lankan Deputy High Commissioner’s office in Chennai has been asked to speed up their repatriation by organizing the necessary documents. They will be issued with non-machine readable passports as a means to expediting the returning process, he said. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees(UNHCR) inColombois assisting the repatriation process and the Ministry’s efforts to resettle them in the North, said Basnayaka. UNHCR sources in Colombo said a number of foreign governments have provided financial support to the UNHCR’s important work in Sri Lanka this year.Basnayaka said on the resettlement process of the Displaced persons living inside the country, that out of a quarter million Displaced persons, they are now in the process of resettling 7,000. “They too will be resettled in three months. We have procured 600 acre land in the Kombavil area in the Mullaitivu district to resettle them. We are clearing the land to build houses for them,” he said. Each displaced family will be given a 40 perch block of land, he said.

Asked about the refugees inIndia who are expected to return to their homes in the North, Basnayaka said they too will be treated as their brethren who have been internally displaced. He said the resettlement process could be brought to an end without delay no sooner the demining process is over and basic infrastructure and services are restored.

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MEMO from a Tamil person [kept anonymous]

Take Care
God Bless

      ************

the first lines of the first document referred toabove run thus:

3/Dev/1/Policy 2011.07.22

Circular No: 2011/04

 To All Divisional Secretaries/ Assistant Government Agents in the Northern and Eastern Provinces

 Regulating the Activities Regarding Management of Lands in the Northern and Eastern Provinces