Sri Lanka fleeces kith and kin of IDPs

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 August 2009, 06:52 GMT]
Family members and kinsfolk of IDPs in the internment camps had remitted 100 million rupees in the past two months, according to I.D. Weerasena, Deputy General Manager of Bank of Ceylon, reported Sri Lankan state owned Daily News, Saturday. In the past four to five months, 500 million rupees had been deposited by the IDPs, said Mr. Weerasena, whose state-controlled bank had opened banking units with online and ATM facilities in the internment camps and deals with 21,000 new account holders.

While it is the responsibility of the state and the international community that badly wanted the civilians to end up in the internment camps to look after them well, the Colombo government keeping them in sub-human ways has started looking at them as ducks laying golden eggs, said a social worker in Vavuniyaa.

As state receives foreign exchange through diaspora remittances and through foreign aid meant for the IDPs, the local money reaches the IDPs is fleeced from them in various ways from business of the southerners to bribery of the military.