|
|
|
  |
| Sunday, 27 March 2005 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
The buffer zone of tsunami politics Light Refractions by Lucien Rajakarunanayake It is strange how at times politicians and political parties tend to have certain fixations in their political thinking and activity. After all, the death and devastation wrought by the tsunami the UNP seems to have hitched its wagon for the next presidential election on the 100m coastal buffer zone.
Suddenly the UNP, which did not bother asking the residents there whether they agreed to submerge the entire town of Teldeniya and its environs, as well as several other villages and townships in carrying out the accelerated Mahaweli Diversion, is concerned about the involuntary displacement of persons who earlier had their homes on the threatened coastline. When it is for the UNP's questionable development projects, compulsory displacement of people from their homes is in order, but not when it is done for the safety of people from the possible ravages of nature. So much for the UNP's concern for the people! Ranil Wickremesinghe is determined that his electoral buffer against his main rival, whoever it is, will be the 100m buffer zone, where he and the UNP are promising to resettle, back in their own threatened places, the people who have been shifted out by this government's buffer zone. Knowing that a larger number of these victims of the tsunami belong to fishing communities, Ranil W may be looking for a big catch of votes with such promises. Whatever their hopes being placed on this buffer stock of votes they are trying to build on the coastline, had a major shakeup just two weeks ago with the tidal wave action on the New Moon Day when those who had gone back to the prohibited area were seen scampering for safety to higher ground, with the sea water coming up to 200m at some places. The UNP leader who was so alarmed about the pledges of aid that the Government was receiving that he traveled to Europe, to make a plea that the aid pledged should not be given in haste until a suitable mechanism to involve the LTTE in relief efforts is worked out, is certainly concerned about the impact of tsunami relief on his chances for election at the next presidential poll. That is why the media that is backing him, is so determined to give coverage to reports that no tsunami relief of any sort has yet been received by large sections of the affected victims, when the truth is proving to be otherwise. Some of the buffer zone media specialists are now resorting to showing library shots of people complaining of not receiving any assistance in the early weeks after the tsunami, long after they were first shown, without revealing that they are in fact from the library. As for the buffer zone settlement and construction itself, there is no doubt that the very idea of people who had their homes there when the tsunami struck will be getting alternate land, with clear title to it which many of them did not have for the land that the waves forced them out of, as well as Rs. 250,000 to build one's own home and another Rs. 500,000 by way of an easy payment loan from the banks, will be hard for the UNP to match. Not even a "ma-del" will help the UNP to haul a catch of such people back to the buffer zone. Even if all their massive corporate donors pool all their resources to re-house the buffer zone voters at alternate locations, as the Government is doing, the green jumbos of the UNP will not find it so easy to now change their buffer tune and tell all these people to forget going back to the buffer zone and settle down elsewhere. Hoist with one's own petard in the form of the buffer zone, Ranil and the UNP are now trying to have some diversion in their campaign tactics by threatening to bring the people to the streets against a referendum on constitutional reform. Whether a referendum is on the cards or not, it is indeed strange to see the UNP, which held the first ever referendum to postpone a general election in 1982, now oppose even a non-binding referendum on the need to change the constitution. Some may call this political duplicity, but the better description is the absolute lack of principle. It looks as if in the coming days, trapped between the politics of the buffer zone and the possibility of a referendum, Ranil Wickremesinghe will be caught between the rise and fall of the tide both in politics and the sea. It's time he built a buffer to protect himself.
|
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
The jumbo party that was hardly seen active in providing relief to the
tsunami victims, by way of its own volunteers, except for a few trucks of
possibly throwaway goods from the richer homes of Colombo, has suddenly
awakened to the needs of the tsunami victims, and topping it all is the 100m
buffer zone decided on by the Government. 
