The United States urged Sri Lanka on Thursday to lift restrictions on access to refugee camps in a strip of land where government forces this week crushed a decades-old Tamil insurgency. “We urge the government to allow the ICRC—the International Committee of the Red Cross—and the U.N. immediate access … to the former conflict area … to assess the needs and welfare of the injured in the area,” said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly. Kelly told reporters the United Nations and the ICRC should be given “full and unhindered access” to the camps housing people displaced by the war. The end of the conflict presents a new opportunity for reconciliation and the making of a “democratic and tolerant Sri Lanka,” Kelly said. “We believe the Sri Lankan government must win the peace by focusing on power-sharing arrangements with the Tamil and other minorities.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton conveyed that message Thursday in a telephone conversation with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, a State Department official told reporters. Specifically, Clinton highlighted the need to promote reconciliation between the Sinhalese majority and the country's Tamil minority following the government's defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the official said. Clinton also spoke by telephone with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to offer “full U.S. cooperation to the U.N. and international efforts to address the humanitarian needs of the Sri Lankan people,” Kelly said. The ICRC on Thursday condemned the decision of the Sri Lankan government to restrict the flow of humanitarian aid to the biggest refugee camp, Menik Farm, near Vavuniya, where about 130,000 people are sheltered.
