While rights activists expressed scepticism at the project, organisers said it would reveal the true cost of one of Asia's bloodiest conflicts which ended when troops routed the Tamil Tiger rebels in May 2009.
The start of the six-month "census" comes after the dispute over the scale of the killings in the final phases of the conflict dominated a Commonwealth summit hosted by Sri Lanka earlier this month. UN bodies have said as many as 40,000 civilians may have died in the final weeks of combat -- a claim that has been repeatedly rejected by President Mahinda Rajapakse and his mainly ethnic Sinhalese regime. "The government has nothing to hide," PB Abeykoon, the top civil servant in the ministry of public administration, who will supervise the census, told a presser Thursday. "A lot of people have come out with various accusations with their own figures. We will come out with the real facts," Abeykoon added.
The president announced the start of the census on his website in a brief statement on Wednesday evening.
The statement said the department of census and statistics would conduct what it called an "island-wide census to assess the loss of human life and damage to property", adding that work would begin on November 28. The six-month census would see some 16,000 officials fan out across the island to conduct the survey in more than 14,000 villages, including in the mainly Tamil north of the island.
Rajapakse has previously insisted no civilians died in the finale to the war and has said there was no need for international Sherlocks to conduct their own separate inquiry.
But international pressure has been steadily building and Rajapakse was sorely embarrassed when the leaders of Canada, India and Mauritius all boycotted the Commonwealth meet in protest at Colombo's rights record.
Britannia's Prime Minister
David Cameron... has stated that he is
certainly a big Thatcher fan, but I don't know whether that makes me a Thatcherite,which means he's not. Since he is
not deeply ideologicalhe lacks core principles and is easily led. He has been described as
certainly not a Pitt, Elder or Younger,but he does wear a nice suit so maybe he's Beau Brummel ...
did attend but he infuriated Rajapakse by paying an historic visit to the war-torn Jaffna region.
After meeting survivors and relatives who had lost loved ones during the war, Cameron warned he would lead a push for an international probe unless Sri Lanka produces credible results of its own by March.
Asked about the claims of 40,000 civilian deaths, Abeykoon said the census showed the government's determination to seek the truth.
"Why should we go for a census if we have anything to hide? We are trying to get a clear picture for ourselves," he said.