THE Australian government went to
One was material: $11 million towards de-mining the former northern conflict zone and resettling about 250,000 civilians still held behind razor wire in internally displaced people (IDP) camps.
The other was less tangible: rhetoric that pandered to the Sri Lankan view that most asylum-seekers are Tamil Tigers seeking to reinvigorate the separatist struggle from distant shores.
Both bore the whiff of appeasement.
While the EU is poised to withdraw Sri Lanka's tax exemption status for textile exports, worth $US3.3 billion annually, because of reported human rights abuses there, and the US administration has called for the camps and former conflict zones to be opened to international scrutiny, Australian officials say they prefer a more "constructive" approach.
In a joint news conference late on Monday night to announce a memorandum of understanding on people-smuggling, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith emphasised the importance of apprehending and prosecuting criminal and terror syndicates behind the people-smuggling trade.
"We face a heightened challenge from the criminal syndicates behind people-smuggling and we need to up our efforts to combat that, and that's what our agreement is about today," Mr Smith said.
Australia's latest financial contribution will provide $6m to clear mines in resettlement areas, $2m for food assistance to people who have been resettled and $3m through the UN for housing reconstruction work.
In announcing the aid grant, Mr Smith welcomed the Sri Lankan government's commitment to moving people out of IDP camps and back into their communities "with all the freedoms associated with that, particularly the freedom of movement".
That will be news to people such as Pawani, a 25-year-old Tamil woman who lost both her legs in March during heavy government shelling of Killinochchi, the administrative capital of the former LTTE-held north.
She was released into her parents' care only last month after spending five months in an IDP camp but enjoys none of the freedom of movement Mr Smith referred to this week.
Confined to her family home in a tiny fishing village in eastern
"I have been advised by the authorities that I have to live at the one address I have been released to," she told The Australian.
"When I want to leave this village, I have to inform the authorities.
"Even to go to hospital, I have to get permission.
"I have many relations who live in neighbouring villages but I can't visit them. Even if I get permission, I am not allowed to stay the night."
Neither Pawani nor her family has received compensation for her life-changing injuries and she has no idea whether the government will help pay for artificial limbs and rehabilitation.
Colombo-based human rights lawyer Gowry Tharawasa has little faith Australia's latest aid contribution, which brings Canberra's total financial aid package since the war's end in May to $49m, will find its way to the people most in need.
"IDPs who have been released have not been given any proper facilities," Ms Tharawasa said yesterday.
"No aid has been provided. There's been big publicity about people released but they have been dropped in villages without even basic facilities."
