The author identifies four dominant themes that seriously impact on the sustainability of resettlement in the Batticaloa district. These are:

1. Lack of consultation and clarity
2. Lack of Preparedness and Planning
3. Restriction of Access and Mobility
4. Protection Concerns of the Displaced and Resettled Communities
This first part looks at the first three, while the second and third parts of this article (to be published in the next issues) look at the fourth theme.

Introduction

The East is ‘liberated’. It has been so since last June when the government requested it to be celebrated with ‘patriotic joy’. Over 300,000 civilians were displaced in the process and a majority have been ‘resettled’ since then. But a significant minority still remain in the IDP or transit camps with uncertainty hanging over their future.

This report, based on short visits and a series of discussions with a number of people in the area – including some of the displaced people themselves – is to communicate some pressing issues and concerns in this process. It aims to highlight aspects of the human rights and humanitarian situation in the District with a specific focus on the internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the newly resettled villages in Vaharai and West Batticaloa. In doing so, it hopes to inform and influence concerned policy makers and practitioners to think through solutions.

This is not a general analysis of the political and security situation in Batticaloa. The military and STF are consolidating their recent gains, the LTTE is intent on destabilizing, the security forces are retaliating, the multiple splits in the Karuna faction and their overall ‘control and influence’ of communities by coercion, their simmering confrontations with the Muslim community and the impending local government elections - all make up for interesting times ahead.

What happens in the next few months could have serious ramifications for the future peace process. The situation urgently calls for a thorough social, political and security analysis. But that is not the purpose of this note or the visits. Neither is it a compilation of the severe hardships and harrowing stories.

This is primarily a collection of articulated concerns, observations and reflections of and about the ‘displaced’ and ‘resettled’. It is evident that there are several pertinent issues that need a rapid, effective response by protection and development actors advocating on behalf of these communities that are struggling to cope with simply living in the ‘liberated’ East. Several complaints and concerns were reported.

1. Lack of consultation and clarity

There are several plans doing the rounds in Colombo – but IDPs in the ground are completely unaware of them. Despite repeated requests the government is yet to come out with a clear policy and guidelines on what each resettling family is entitled to. Not a single family whose members have been killed or injured in the conflict in 2006 or 2007 have been given compensation (compared with the prompt dispensation of compensation to the civilian victims of the Nugegoda blast). It is absolutely essential that at least now the government clearly articulates through effective public information campaigns the entitlements of the displaced who have been resettled.

The most precarious situation is that of the families displaced from Muttur area whose villages have been declared High Security Zones. Despite the unreasonable disproportionateness of the demarcated areas and dubious intents (where some accounts say that it is to be an economic development zone) what is most appalling is that the displaced villagers have not been told what their fate is going to be. They live in complete limbo. Similarly there have been several instances of military occupying public and private property without providing any alternatives or compensation in the ‘liberated; areas. This type of insensitivity on the part of the Government which cannot be explained by the ‘fight against terrorism’ leads to further alienation of the Tamil population.

It was also noted that despite agreement and repeated reminders about the guiding principles for internally displaced people – the process of resettlement often fell far short of the minimum required standards. After the flagrantly forced resettlement of the Vaaharai area, the military and the STF did improve their conduct for the subsequent rounds of resettlement – but still fell short of the agreed upon standards. The hasty endorsement of some phases of the resettlement by UNHCR was also pointed out by some people as having set a bad precedent. One of the common sense suggestion by a displaced community members was – “if the return is voluntary, all they have to do is arrange for regular bus service. We long to go back to our homes. If we know public transport is available, we will go, see the place ourselves, if satisfied, come back prepare, pack and leave’. Whereas in almost all the phases of return the families never got a chance to assess the place – they were dumped there.

The most egregious aspect was that the families returned to find that their houses had been vandalised and looted to the core. Since the LTTE fled without even taking their heavy equipment, the blame is squarely placed on the military that captured and remained in control of the area till the people returned. The list of items lost due to this looting runs into thousands of complaints in the newly established Vaaharai police station.

Now that a majority of the people have been resettled, looking back, it leaves a bad taste about how the process was handled by the military and the civil authorities (who always are relegated to taking orders from the military).

2. Lack of Preparedness and Planning

It came out clearly that the Government was not prepared for this scale of displacement or for the subsequent logistics of resettlement. It could have been. Displacement is never voluntary. The displacement in the Batticaloa District was principally caused by the military operations of Sri Lanka Army in a majority of cases and LTTE in some instances, who also used trapped communities as human shields. It seems to have happened in an environment where the International Community, the UN and others had resigned to the fact, and at times condoned, that causing displacement as a by product of the ‘fight against terrorism’ is the sovereign right of the Sri Lankan Government. In this backdrop massive displacement caused by areal bombardment, relentless shelling and blockades was seen as a necessary evil and as overriding international norms on protection of civilians in armed conflict and principles of proportionality.

But the concern aired by many was, if the Government had resolved to pursue the military strategy, it must also have been prepared to take care of its citizens who were sure to be affected. There were no such plans or resources. The military agenda of the Government matched by the counter strategies of LTTE always creates displacement and misery for civilians. In almost all the cases in the East the Government was terribly under prepared and it was left to the UN and other NGOs to rush to fill in gaping holes in the response to IDP situation. If Government is clear on its military strategy of ‘defensive offence’, ‘retaliation’ or ‘pre-emptive strikes’ they must also have a clear strategy and preparedness to take care of its own citizens who are displaced as a direct result of their action. Time and again the Government failed and left it for the external agencies to fill significant gaps. Similarly even when it came to resettlement, the Government was woefully under provided moving back people without even the basic of needs in place. More on this later, but suffice to say that the people see, and justifiably so, the state more as ‘military liberators’ than as one caring for their needs and looking after their welfare.

It appears that civil administration mechanisms (the GA and DS) are caught off guard most of the time regarding the timing of displacement and resettlement, making it difficult to prepare in advance. In the current context it is imperative that the resettlement/reconstruction plan is completely owned, lead and coordinated by the civil authorities headed by the Government Agent and the Divisional Secretary. In the current context the civil administration in the district – mostly Tamil – seem as marginalised and helpless as the communities they support.

3. Restriction of Access and Mobility

Normalcy cannot return if there is undue restriction on access and mobility. Sustainable resettlement is meaningless if access is arbitrarily refused or restricted. While the security imperative does warrant some protection procedures what is currently prevalent in the East is beyond reason. Recently resettled villages in Vaaharai and Batticaloa West are subjected to layers of restrictions. There are several aspects in this that deserves mention

Firstly, free access of goods, services and people is a sine qua non for sustainable resettlement –given the geographic and settlement characteristic of the Batticaloa district – with highly concentrated human settlements in the Eluvankarai area and vast cultivation land in the Paduvankarai area. To mark out people based on DS divisions and to have different registration process, different identity cards (in addition to the national ID) and to set in place security procedures to move from one DS division to the other is causing severe impediment to thousands of people whose daily living is dependent on crossing these boundaries. The lack of clarity as well as the constantly changing procedures brings in a great deal of uncertainty and misconception that limits mobility. In effect it traps them in ‘Bantustans’ with heavy military and paramilitary presence (and the inevitable harassment) is creating more misery. The security gains from such a hassle and harassment is not clear. The growing frustration though is very evident.

A full six months after ‘liberation’ and capture, now to demarcate areas and to consider formerly LTTE-held territories as restricted or no-go areas defies logic. It did make some sense to stringently regulate movement across borders when some areas were controlled by the tigers. But, not any more. To restrict access into these areas for humanitarian agencies, Sri Lankan civil society and for even ordinary citizens of the district now is beyond reason. Given that the whole area is now under the control of the military, to claim that access is denied to ‘prevent infiltration’ sounds strange. Infiltration from where? Isn’t the rest of the district under the military control any way? The other reason given is to ‘prevent assistance getting into the wrong hands’. Aren’t these places cleared of ‘wrong hands’ and even if any one still remains having survived the long period of blockade, he sure must have figured out or is being sustained by other supply routes. The point is that the demarcations and restrictions do not seem to have a compelling security logic which could not be managed by the other military architecture like check points and cordon and search operations. What it ends up doing is frustrating the resettlement and humanitarian work and delaying the integration with the rest of the district and country.

Even more baffling is when humanitarian agencies had been denied access ‘for protection reasons’ to very places where the ordinary people were resettled – some of them forcibly. The delays in access contributed to the lagged response to the resettled and more often than not the agencies were presented with crisis situation – lack of shelter, lack of water, lack of food etc- which could have been easily avoided with easy access and adequate time for suitability and needs assessment. Bureaucracy and red tape are commonplace and many agencies continue to face problems of access. Clearance procedures, when they are clear, are said to take anywhere within 48 hours to a week and only agencies working on ‘development’ are allowed access to West Batticaloa – as a result, addressing protection issues of IDPs and the resettled has become a serious concern. Access to humanitarian assistance in areas like Vellaveli, Paddippalai and Vavunatheevu was severely delayed and agencies are still subjected to cumbersome procedures in order to obtain permission for access. Having permission is no guarantee for access which also depends