UN political chief to visit Sri Lankan Refugees

(September 17, 2009) The U.N.'s political chief promised to press Sri Lanka to speed up the release of nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians held in displacement camps since the end of the civil war, the United Nations said. U.N. Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe, who began a visit to Sri Lanka on Wednesday, also said he would urge the government to address allegations of human rights abuses during the fighting. International rights groups have said holding the civilians in military-run displacement camps since the country's civil war ended in May is an illegal form of collective punishment and urged the government to let them live with relatives, friends or host families in the area. Aid workers fear conditions will become dire in the camps when monsoon rains start next month. The government says it cannot release the civilians until it finishes screening them for potential rebel fighters left over from the war, and until land mines are cleared from their villages in the north. Pascoe plans to see the refugee camps to «obtain a firsthand view of the situation of internally displaced persons,» the U.N. office in Colombo said in a statement. Pascoe will also meet President Mahinda Rajapaksa and will focus discussions with him and other government officials on «the resettlement of internally displaced persons, political reconciliation and the establishment of a mechanism of accountability for alleged human rights violations in the context of the conflict, » the U.N. said. He will also hold talks with political and civil society leaders during his three-day visit, it said. Pascoe said Monday that the U.N. was «particularly concerned» about the nearly 300,000 Tamils detained in the military-run camps and wants them out and home «as soon as possible. »