2011-12-14 SRI LANKAAlmost three since the end of the civil war, the northern peninsula has one one soldier for every 11 civilians, that is 40-50,000 troops out of a population of 600,000. About 39,000 war widows and 200,000 internally displaced people are still waiting. Tamils too are waiting for the government to provide housing, jobs, land and aid.
Jaffna (AsiaNews) – Two and half year since the end of the 30-year civil war, Tamils in northern Sri Lanka complain about the area’s militarisation and the slow pace of the government’s development projects, and this despite the promises made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. In Jaffna peninsula, the ratio between military and the civilian population is 1 to 11, which means about 40-50,000 soldiers out of a population of 600,000. Thousands of Tamils and representatives of 40 NGOs marked Human Rights Day by asking the authorities to pursue pacification and solve the problem of displaced people and war widows.Even though the interethnic conflict ended in 2009, military defence in 2010 stood at LKR 250 billion (US$ 2.1 billion). For Kumarvadiwail Kuruban, a professor in the Faculty of Law at Jaffna University, that level of “spending is too high. [. . .] “It is designed to maintain the military’s hold on the country and the welfare of their families.” Full Story>>>
