COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

7 MARCH 2012 SRI LANKA
the Defence Secretary after having been found hiding amongst IDPs in various camps. TID
added that they were awaiting instruction from the AG‘s Department. All those that appeared
were further remanded in custody.
On 18 January 2011 it was announced that President Mahinda Rajapaksa had appointed a four
member committee headed by Deputy Solicitor General Shavindra Fernando to study the cases
of the LTTE suspects currently in detention and to recommend suitable action. The appointment
came following a recommendation from the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission
(LLRC) in its interim report handed to the President.
On 29 March 2011 whilst in Batticaloa I was part of a group from several overseas missions
who met with a group of eight former LTTE combatants who were going through a reintegration
programme administered by IOM and funded jointly by the US and Netherland‘s governments.
There were 6 males and 2 females aged between 18 and 40. There were no government or
security personnel present. Some had spent up to 9 years with the LTTE, others just 3 years.
Some of them told us that they had been forced to join the LTTE as teenagers, one as young as
13. One female had lost a leg during her ordeal and wore a prosthetic limb. The group told us
that they had been held in several different camps and all said that whilst detained their families
had been informed of their whereabouts by the ICRC (Red Cross).
One by one they told us what they were doing. Six of them were in employment as a result of
the programme; carpenters, tailors, grocers, fishermen, the other two had re-entered education,
studying for ‗A‘ levels. They said that since their release they have had no problems with the
police or military, or with their families or the rest of the community. They had all been issued
with a National Identity Card (NIC) and when asked if they were questioned at check points,
they replied that there were no check points. They said that they received no ‗special treatment‘
from the police, but added that they did have to sign each week at their local police station. If
they had to travel away from home due to work they had to inform the police beforehand. We
asked if they felt under pressure to rejoin the LTTE. They replied that they did not want to rejoin,
adding that they were not under pressure.
At a subsequent meeting with senior police officer in Batticaloa we were told that there were
some ex LTTE combatants residing in district, but that monitoring their reintegration was an
army role. He added that these people did not have to report to the police.
Whilst in Kilinochchi on 17 August 2011 staff from this mission met with the team who were
responsible for the reintegration of ex-LTTE cadres following their release from detention. They
gave us the background to the project, saying that initially the Chief Minister of Eastern
Province, Pillayan, had approached IOM to take the project forward, with Ministry of Defence
approval and funded by USAid. This was initially to work with 1,000 cadres. However, the
government had then said that they were to release the so called ‗surrenderees‘ from 22 camps
in the north of the country in a project funded by both USAid and the Netherlands government.
Since then 7,400 surrenderees had been released, although 4,000 still remain in detention in 11
camps.
The team explained that work with the individual surrenderee began in the camps, where socioeconomic
profiling took place. Surrenderees were interviewed in batches, and the notes were
recorded in hard copy and electronically. Surrenderees were then transferred to locations near
to where they were going to be released and went through another circuit of meetings with IOM
staff. Part of the conditions of their release was the requirement to report to the nearest IOM
office. IOM run an outreach programme of verifications to confirm that the information given to
them by the surrenderees is correct. On release IOM undertake another interview with them,
which they often find more revealing as they do not have the same reluctance to divulge things
The main text of this COI Report contains the most up to date publicly available information as at 3 February 2012.
Further brief information on recent events and reports has been provided in the Latest News section
to 2 March 2012.
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