The Government will resettle all internally displaced people by January 31, next year, Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights Mahinda Samarasinghe said on Thursday.

"The Government has consistently maintained that IDPs will be screened and released in a structured and well managed manner. We are hopeful of achieving our target of resettling a majority of IDPs by 31 January next year," he said during his address to the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) Brand Excellence Awards 2009 at the Water’s Edge, Battaramulla.

Excerpts of his speech: "We face a number of important challenges in the present era. Having overcome the threat of terrorism and achieving military mastery over a ruthless organization which has blighted our national life for nearly three decades, we have a unique opportunity to forge a new Sri Lanka in which all citizens’ human dignity is fully safeguarded, where all are treated equally and share a common cohesive identity. This new Sri Lanka will celebrate our rich diversity and multifaceted social make-up. Our multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi- religious and multilingual society is source of strength and we must come to view it as such. These precepts must not remain confined to words but must be made a reality. This is perhaps our biggest challenge in the post-conflict phase.

Just as marketers live by the four "P"s that comprise the marketing mix, our Government has a comprehensive programme to ensure recovery from the conflict and set us on the road to renewal, development and a brighter future for all Sri Lankans. I characterize this programme as encompassing the five ‘R’s. They are relief, reconstruction, resettlement, reconciliation and reintegration. There are several underlying issues that must be addressed if we are to ensure that the five "R"s are successfully accomplished. The primary requirement to ensure that this programme continues smoothly is the guaranteeing of security of people in the conflict affected areas as well as in other parts of the country. To further buttress and support this process and also to sustain the programme through the inevitable difficulties that we will encounter going forward, we need to build the Sri Lankan brand to achieve several key objectives. Image building is as important to support national renewal as any component of the Governmentprogramme. Building Sri Lanka’s image will help us in many ways. It will make Sri Lanka a attractive destination for tourists, investors and will also help draw in the vast pool of human and capital resources that is available among the Sri Lankan expatriate community. Raising our national profile will also help us immensely in our interactions with the global community of nations. Marketers will play a key role in this initiative and it is incumbent on the Government to bring together all Sri Lanka’s key stakeholders including the public sector, the private sector, professionals and civil society with a view to build synergies and maximize their contribution to this effort.

All of this should not be a purely cosmetic exercise. We need to work hard to remedy several problems that have afflicted our nation for several years. Poverty, underdevelopment and building mutual trust amongst the constituent parts of Sri Lankan society, are key issues that must be addressed under the programme. This is why poverty alleviation and development is high on the agenda of the Government. We are acutely conscious that services and facilities must be provided to all areas of the country without any area being left under-serviced. Unfortunately the presence of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in some areas of the North and East meant that the Government of the day was unable to develop those areas in the same manner as it did in the rest of the country. This situation is now being addressed through the Government’s programmes called "Negenahira Navodaya" and "Uthuru Wasanthaya" or "Wadakkin Wasantham" as it is known in Tamil. Equally important is reconciliation which will require an effort in social marketing on a grand scale. Years of alienation of communities, exacerbated by the conflict, must be resolved and reversed and this is what the President is giving leadership to through his initiative to kick-start a political process bringing in key political parties to evolve consensual solutions acceptable to the entirety of Sri Lanka. This process will deal with issues of political empowerment and will enable the genuine and legitimate grievances of people in the conflict affected areas to be addressed through home-grown solutions. Your profession can play an important catalytic role in fostering, promoting and supporting reconciliation. It will also contribute to the internal marketing component necessary in brand building. The Sri Lankan Brand that we build must signify that our country and its products and services will be the outcome of a stable democratic polity based on sound economic fundamentals supported by social equity. The speedy restoration of democratic institutions to represent and serve the people of the North is a key aspect of the process of democratization and we have already taken a first step in re-establishing these institutions in that region.