Internally Displaced People:

Ticking time bomb or Tiger breeding ground?

by Rajan Philips

According to United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), there were an estimated 800,000 displaced people in Sri Lanka in 2002 when the Ceasefire Agreement was signed. Most of them were in the Wanni area straddled across the districts of Vavuniya, Mullaitivu and Mannar. The bulk of them had moved to the Wanni following their evacuation from Jaffna 1995, and it was in Wanni that the LTTE would establish its seat of control.

There are also camps of displaced people in the Jaffna Peninsula. They have been there since the late 1980s comprising mostly of coastal area people evacuated from their homes to create High Security Zones for the army. These camps are living tales of destroyed livelihoods, devastated families, and children growing up not knowing anything outside their camps.

Eviction of Muslims

In 1990, the LTTE ordered the Muslims of Jaffna to vacate the peninsula. 75,000 of them who left their traditional homeland are still displaced and homeless. The war and fighting did not leave the Sinhalese in parts of the North East Provinces alone. They too have been displaced and killed if only to a lesser extent than the Tamils and the Muslims.

The displacement of people has not been entirely internal. Starting with the riots of 1983 well over half a million Sri Lankan Tamils have left the island over the last two decades. About 70,000 Sri Lankan Tamils were estimated to be living as refugees in Tamil Nadu in 2002. The majority of them constitute Tamil diaspora in western countries. The pundits dismiss them as economic (as opposed to political) refugees and accuse them at the same time for politically supporting the LTTE.

The 2002 ceasefire agreement brought about a reversal of this displacement process, although the agreement itself gave hardly any consideration to the plight of the displaced. For example, it was the old TULF MPs and not the LTTE who wanted the matter of the High Security zones addressed in the CFA.

But the TULF's concerns were brushed aside. On the positive side a large number of people returned to their homes both internally and from India. The count of the displaced people dropped to about 350,000 in two years after the CFA according to UNHCR. That was before the tsunami.

More than 30,000 people died and nearly 800,000 people were washed out of their dwellings as the fury of nature dwarfed the hate of man. Along with the war affected North East Provinces, the tsunami hit the Southern, and parts of the Western Provinces.

The expectations that the tsunami experience would push the government and LTTE decision makers along the path of peace proved to be false. Aceh and Indonesia who were still fighting when the tsunami struck Aceh have since then reached an agreement not only over post-tsunami reconstruction but also over political power-sharing.

Displaced left in lurch

Sri Lanka went backwards. Not only were the peace talks abrogated but even the PTOM framework for coordinating humanitarian relief operations was dragged into courts and buried in legal pettifogging. Left in the lurch are over three quarters of a million Tamils and Muslim displaced people in the North East provinces.

They have now been joined by another 220,000 newly displaced, the direct result of the most recent fighting. A gross total of over a million displaced people out of a population of 2.6 million in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, means that 40% of the people in the two provinces - or four out of 10 - are now displaced.

No wonder the UN officials have been raising alarms about an impending humanitarian disaster. The Red Cross has described the Jaffna Peninsula as "choking" without essential supplies of food and medicine. The relief operators in the Eastern Province are concerned about the displaced Muslim people being encouraged to return to their homes without firm assurances that they will not be targeted again.

Providing relief to the displaced people and arranging transition shelters until their safe return home are not tasks that governments are usually equipped to perform efficiently and effectively. The almighty US learnt that tragically and embarrassingly over Katrina in New Orleans. The Red Cross and Wall Mart led the relief operations.

The NGO-tsunami

The NGOs are more equipped than government agencies for quick-response relief operations. Before the tsunami, the Sri Lankan government had entered into agreements with UNHCR in regard to providing assistance to the displaced people. The tsunami brought in its wake the NGO-tsunami and NGO controversies. The mistake, however, was not in allowing NGOs to do relief operations, but in allowing them to take the lead in reconstruction and building infrastructure.

The mistake itself was the result of the inability of the state to directly take charge of reconstruction work and the criminal failure of the government and the LTTE to make use of the internationally committed funds for relief and reconstruction. Over seven billion dollars went begging because of their pig headedness.

Challenges

The challenges now are exacerbated by the worsening working and security conditions of NGO relief workers, both local and foreign. Without these workers the displaced people will have no access to relief and assistance. Their working conditions should be improved and their safety assured by the government and where necessary by the LTTE.

Neither can be achieved without stopping ceasefire violations and open war. After taking control of Sampur, the government has indicated that it will not continue with military offensive against the LTTE. In so declaring the government has resisted pressures to continue with the offensive and 'finish the work.' There was even a call for a 24-hour solution - to bomb Jaffna and other Tamil areas.

But the government's commitment not to attack the LTTE will be only 50% useful unless the LTTE makes a reciprocal commitment. To ensure that happen is the task of the international community.

The government, for its part, has to address the problems of the displaced people, by coordinating and facilitating the work of the UNHCR and other relief agencies. Failure to do so will only create anxiety, resentment and anger among the displaced people, fomenting radicalism among the Muslims and creating a breeding ground for the LTTE among the Tamils.