Seminar participants stressed that the compensation currently paid to IDPs was inadequate for any meaningful resettlement. Colombo-based Centre for Policy Alternatives said that most IDPs had lost all means of livelihood and compensation should be increased from the current Rs 65,000 to Rs 200,000 ($2060), in addition to assistance to resume occupations. Seminar participants also urged the Army and the LTTE to allow IDPs more freedom of movement in the north-east to enable them to identify their lands.
Passengers continue to face long delays at LTTE checkpoints to enter the Vanni. Vavuniya businessmen made representations to Vanni Army commander Susil Chandrapala on 12 February on restrictions faced in their trades. Lorries with commodities to southern Sri Lanka are checked at Eeratperiyakulam Army camp between 9am and 8pm. Maj. Gen. Chandrapala assured that the checkpoint would be open for 24 hours a day. The commander said that resettlement of IDPs had been allowed in 33 villages in high security zones (HSZ) of Vavuniya.
Pakiyanathan Mohanakanthan, 15, arrested by the Army at Iranai Ilupaikulam for entering the HSZ was produced before the Vavuniya magistrate on 24 February and remanded. He told the court that he was looking for firewood and had not realised that he had entered a HSZ.
In Mannar District, Madona Mark, 29, of Vankalai, who had left LTTE recently, was abducted in a van on 15 February. More than 70 home-owners in six villages in Mannar complain that their houses are occupied by the Army since 1990 and rent arrears have reached as Rs 3 million. The Navy detained 33 refugees from Tamil Nadu arriving in boats to Mannar on 21 February.