Welcome our displaced back home!

Those who are desirous of speeding-up Sri Lanka’s normalization process are bound to welcome with immense gladness of heart the news that the local state authorities are liaising with their counterparts in India to repatriate to this country the remaining of the displaced from Sri Lanka currently in Tamil Nadu. This is left over business from this country’s conflict which needs to be attended to with a sense of urgency.

It should be recalled that the majority of these displaced persons were compelled to leave our shores decades ago as a result of the destabilizing consequences of the conflict.

There could very well have been some ‘economic refugees’ among them but the vast majority of these persons were victims of the conflict, in that the conditions of war made it impossible for them to remain in their usual places of residence in the North-East. Now that post-conflict rebuilding and rejuvenation have got into top gear, it is up to the whole of Sri Lanka, and not merely the state, to welcome these displaced persons back into our midst. Accordingly, we call for the swift repatriation of these persons.

Thanks to the LLRC, these displaced persons now enjoy the prospect of being given a fair deal, since the Commission made mention of the need for the states of Sri Lanka and India to enter into a consultation with regard to enabling the displaced to return to the land of their birth.

We urge that everything possible be done to ease the lot of these persons because it is most heart-breaking and distressing for anyone to be torn away from their hearths and homes and be thrown into unknown surroundings. However, these displaced persons had to face this predicament for no fault of theirs.

We need to stress this need for the Sri Lankan polity to be considerate towards these persons because very often they are the subject of irresponsible and malicious pronouncements and opinions, originating in sections within our shores.

They are portrayed by these sections as enjoying life to the fullest in Tamil Nadu, whereas, in the case of very many of the displaced, they were leading the saddest of lives amid numerous hardships and odds.

We are thankful to the Indian authorities for fending as best as they could for these displaced persons because caring for these sections of our populace constitutes a good neighbourly act which should not go unrecognized. There is no doubt that it is the continued cordiality between India and Sri Lanka that made this gesture of goodwill by the Indian state possible.

It needs to be also considered that it would be an anomaly to have thousands of displaced persons in Tamil Nadu, while we tell the world that normalization is proceeding apace in this country. If genuine rehabilitation and reconstruction is taking root in Sri Lanka, then, all our displaced should back within our fold, enjoying our warmest hospitality.

It should be our resolve to ensure that there are no more Sri Lankan ‘refugees’ anywhere in the world.

On and off, the presence of our displaced abroad has been exploited by anti-Sri Lanka elements to tarnish the image of this country. They have been turned into pawns in the hands of those engaged in denigrating Sri Lanka in the eyes of the world.

All this could be curbed if the displaced are brought back and made to live dignified lives in Sri Lanka.

The world should also be reminded that it was the terror campaign of the LTTE which led to our citizens being uprooted in the North-East.

The Lankan state endeavoured to ensure the wellbeing of our citizenry in the North-East as best as it could, but the LTTE had sinister plans for them which led to their world being disrupted.