UN calls for reducing army's role in Sri Lanka

Colombo: A UN rights expert on Thursday exhorted Sri Lanka to step up urgent and concrete reconciliation efforts and reduce the army's presence in the former war zones in the Tamil dominated northern areas.

"The government must put in place some urgent, important and concrete measures to clearly demonstrate its political will and commitment to better protect Sri Lanka's minorities," the visiting UN minority rights expert Rita Izsak-Ndiaye said at the end of her 10-day visit.

She also asked the Lankan government to return military-occupied land and reduce the role of the army in northern areas, a long-pending demand of the ethnic Tamils since the end of the nearly three-decade-long separatist war led by the LTTE in 2009 in which thousands of civilians were killed.

The UN rights expert also asked Colombo to free Tamil detainees held in custody for long periods without charge. Asking for stepping up of reconciliation efforts in the war-battered nation, Rita said: "The Sri Lankan identity and the notion of nationhood must be strengthened to foster a stronger sense of belongingness and togetherness of all Sri Lankans.

"While the country is undergoing an important reconciliation process... the devastating impact of the war and violence on psychological well-being cannot continue to be ignored."

She lamented that past acts of "repression of culture and expression, ethnic intolerance and discrimination" have severely damaged social and cultural norms in the country.

"Truth-seeking, reconciliation and healing takes time and cannot be done overnight.

"This includes continued return of land to their owners, charging or releasing all security-related detainees, making progress in finding disappeared persons and taking visible steps to gradually transfer military powers to civilian authorities," she added.

She said nearly 6,000 acres of private land was still occupied by the military in the Northern Province and must be returned to their previous owners.

The Hungarian human rights expert also met the foreign minister Mangala Samaraweera and other senior officials to assess the situation in the island seven years after the end of fighting.