Suspended in a benign limbo?

by Ajith Samaranayake

The ceasefire has held. This is the central truth of the last year as a country tormented by a fratricidal war slowly began its progression to normalcy. Unlike in the past when expectations of a negotiated settlement were raised only to flounder on the rock of mutual distrust this time round the ceasefire has held.

That it has held in the face of all kinds of problems (surely aggravated during the last several weeks in all kinds of directions) is a tribute both to the political maturity and patience of the Ranil Wickremesinghe administration as well as the new-found sagacity of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam. That this should take place in a situation of almost impossible co-habitation between a President and a Cabinet of different political colourations also makes this a fascinating experience in political engineering.

What many people perhaps fail to appreciate is the fact that both the Sri Lanka armed forces as well as the LTTE have had to surmount numerous psychological obstacles during the last year. For the LTTE it was a question of acclimatising itself to a situation where its long struggle had to be suspended for a political solution while the armed forces were left in a limbo to which they had to accustom themselves. In that sense both entities were subjected to a loss of identity and hence perhaps the problems such as the LTTE's women cadres wearing military belts and the soldiers fraying into LTTE -held areas with weapons. Both sections suffer from a sense of loss having been denied their traditional occupation and seek to assert themselves in their own peculiar ways.

While the LTTE must come to grips with the problem of transition from a military outfit to a political organisation it is also incumbent on the rest of the country to treat the organisation with understanding. While this might be difficult given its past violent record what has to be recognised is that in the final analysis they constitute a vital part of our polity and have to be treated with understanding.

Those who have met the LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran (a most select crowd) say that he gives the impression of being a man who will do his best not to go to war again.

On one hand he is in his middle age now and the conflict itself must have sobered him. On the other hand he is caught in the spotlight of international attention and here is a chance for him to gain the political legitimacy he had desired. It is surely then incumbent on all parties to give him the chance to prove himself while for his own part he has to act with circumspection and a sense of leadership.

As the ceasefire enters its second year the negotiations between the Government and the LTTE will move into its most crucial stage in Japan with the nature of the federal system coming up for discussion. Again what is vital is that there should be a consensus between the Government and the LTTE and between the southern political parties themselves on the nature of the desired solution. While the fact that wide-ranging powers will have to be invested on Tamil political interests is undisputed the question of political plurality within the Tamil policy will also be crucial.

Also central to the whole conundrum will be the safeguarding of Muslim and Sinhala interests in the Eastern Province. Again a sense of statemenship on all sides will be called for.

The question then is twofold. The first is the southern consensus the chimera which the country has been pursuing since 1983. This assumes even sharper relevance in the context of the projected SLFP-JVP alliance.

President Kumaratunga who has made the most far-reaching gesture so far towards power sharing with the Tamil people cannot surely cede the moral high ground for the sake of an alliance with the JVP? It is possible that she might call on the JVP to adopt a conciliatory position but again a Southern consensus among the main parties will be absolutely necessary to convince the LTTE of the credentials of Sinhala opinion.

On the other hand Velupillai Prabhakaran is faced with the highly unenviable task of convincing his junior cadres to give up the struggle and opt for a federal solution, the original cry of the Tamil movement. Perhaps the benign shade of SJV Chelvanayakam the father figure of federalism will hover over Sri Lanka as she enters this last great climacteric moment of her destiny.

by S. S. Wijeratne

After the first year of the Ceasefire Agreement there is growing confidence among the war-weary people both in the North & the South that the bloody stage of the Sri Lankan conflict has finally abated. But the people in the immediate theatre of war who had been directly affected are still rather septical about the durability of the ceasefire.

No one can blame the sceptics in the North East, North Central or the displaced thousands in Puttalam district for their caution for two reasons. Firstly, they have seen 'ceasefires' before only to be broken with a vengeance after a few months and due to continuation of certain tensions on the ground arising out of competition to divide the spoils of ceasefire.

Secondly, the poverty stricken traumatized population is yet to receive multifaceted support to recommence their normal lives disrupted during the past 19 years. They are yet to benefit materially from the 'Peace Dividend'. Absence of large-scale military activities alone, even though an important factor, is found by the war affected people at the grass roots level as insufficient to believe that normalcy had returned to them.

A lot needs to be done to restore their normal secure village life that they enjoyed two decades ago.

Development there is a more challenging and a long term task. This gigantic task should be a combined effort by the parties to the war, victims of war and the "Intercom' as distinguished linguist Naome Chomosky refers to 'the Movers and Shakers" of the world, the International community.

The above rhetorical surmise is rooted on information gained from the ordinary war affected persons in their thousands in legal aid clinics and rallies during the past eighteen months conducted by the Legal Aid Foundation (LAF). The teams of lawyers of the LAF have tried to provide a semblance of justice to these people with assistance from the UNHCR. They have talked to people in IDP camps and outside, from rallies in Pesalai in Mannar district to Valachchennai camp in the Batticaloa district.

The ongoing process of legal assistance continues in Jaffna, Trincomalee, Vavuniya, Batticaloa & Puttalam districts as well as in the war hemmed North Central Province. For the war affected, ceasefire is a great blessing but rhetoric associated with peace alone is insufficient. They need tangible results as quickly as possible.

Peace process which is still a top down approach to resolve the national question needs to be buttressed by multifaceted programmes to address harrowing day-to-day problems of the war affected at the grass roots level. Certain degree of band-aid support programs have been launched specially by the International NGOs.

But the effort of these programs which were conceived before the ceasefire are too limited in scope to meet the challenges of the ceasefire era. The Government or the LTTE administrative structures which provided the basics during the conflict have grave resource and structural constraints in addressing the larger challenges of peace. These challenges cannot be met without the active support of the 'peace loving Intcom'.

Institutions

In my view, research and project development institutions to address the issues arising from nearly two decades of confrontational and terrorist war should have been set up years earlier. There should have been a separate institution that should have undertaken this preparatory task with expertise from similar situations in Eritrea, East Timor, Cambodia or even Afghanistan.

The 'Intcom' could have usefully assisted such an endeavour. As the successive governments and the protagonist LTTE were preoccupied in military domination of real estate in the North & North-East until the beginning of 2002, it is not too late to set up such an institution jointly even now.

This should be in addition to the peace process related ad-hoc Sub-Committees.

One of the more fundamental legal challenges affecting resettlement as emanating from the discussions with affected people relate to land. The war has completely dislocated the land tenure laws of the war affected and border villages. In Jaffna peninsula, where land mostly belongs to the private individuals, numerous problems have cropped up.

Security forces have earlier established number of High Security Zones evicting the people from their lands and relocating them as displaced persons in other peoples' lands abandoned due to the war. With ceasefire, many of them have returned to reclaim their lands but the displaced persons in occupation of those lands have nowhere to go. Similarly, abandoned houses have been either destroyed or occupied by trespassers, the military or the LTTE.

Restoration of private property to the rightful owners is a priority requirement to bring about normalcy. So far no serious attempts have been made to address these contentious problems.

Property Issues

The basic problem encountered by an estimated 90 thousand Muslims in Puttalam district is when returning to their properties in affected areas, the difficulty in obtaining restitution and vacant possession of their properties. Batches of internally displaced persons from welfare centres have visited their former habitats in Jaffna, Mannar and Mullativu but due to lack of resources to reconstruct and rebuild their houses and fears of landmines have prevented them from undertaking sustainable return. Even the refugee agency, UNHCR, is reluctant to officially promote voluntary resettlement as security of returnees is still considered uncertain.

Land problems in the rest of the war-affected areas including the border villages in North Central Province emanate out of the archaic Land Development Ordinance (LDO). Displaced persons cannot recover their original lands, nor could they obtain permits for the lands in which they have temporarily settled. Land transfers under the LDO is vested with the Divisional Secretariats and allegations of nepotism and corruption are rampant. In Batticaloa, war affected people who attended legal aid clinics were having a conflict with the Water Works Dept. and the Urban Development Authority who are trying to re-displace the persons from lands they were compelled to occupy during the conflict.

The UNHCR, the Human Rights Commission and the Centre for Policy Alternatives recently concluded studies on property issues of the Internally Displaced Persons. The Legal Aid Foundation lawyers who are dealing directly with these issues on a daily basis provided their input to these studies. But the final outcome of the recommendations could only be realized if legislation could be enacted to establish a Special Land Dispute Settlement Tribunal and suitably amending the Prescription Ordinance. When the LTTE who is in military control of an estimated 60% of the real estate in the North & East is not an active participant in such legislative measures, the recommendation would remain confined to print.

Documentation

Another seemingly unresolvable legal problem troubling the war affected is the absence of legal documentation. Permits or deeds to lands or houses had been lost or destroyed, so are the evidence of citizenship i.e.birth and marriage certificates, identity cards and death certificates. The authorities have been insisting on production of birth certificates of other family members to register unregistered births and issue identity cards. These requirements are difficult to be met and it is high time the issuing authorities stop being too bureaucratic and devise innovative methods to address this documentation challenges.

The authorities responsible to issue such documentation should be pro-active and develop strategies to help the war-affected. So far the usual lethargic bureaucratic attitudes have remained unchanged.

Dual Standards

The problem of different standards of justice with dual law enforcement and courts systems is a matter that should receive priority during the negotiations of the current peace process. It is acknowledged by all parties to the war, the Government, the LTTE and the war affected civilians that equality of justice and equal protection of human rights should be the basis of any durable peace. 'Intcom' fully supports this fundamental premise and a number of NGOs and INGOs have launched programs in the non-LTTE controlled areas to develop public awareness of these issues.

The LTTE would have been without an alternative but to set up ad hoc courts to maintain law and order and address civil litigation problems in the areas under their control during the past 10 yrs. But standards of justice should be based on international standards. Nor are human rights divisible. The people in Sri Lanka wherever they live should be treated equally before the law and should have the equal protection of the law.

Urgent steps should be taken specially by the 'Intcom' to ensure international standards are applied in administration of justice and protection of human rights of the people affected by the war. Issues of justice should not be relegated to the 'back burner' for fear of straining the peace process.

From a legal perspective, above are some of the basic concerns that need to be addressed immediately in ensuring durable peace. These are myriads of un-addressed problems relating to poor housing, income generation, post-traumatic disorders, education, family breakdowns and the neglected IDPs in the North Central Province that need urgent attention. The challenges involve huge sums of money that is beyond the capacity of the government and the LTTE. Time has come for the UN and Intcom to contribute generously at the International fund raising forum to be held in Tokyo in the coming months.

The reconstruction of 'Tiger Land', as described by the 'Times Reporter', Andrew Perrin, as an area even without a passing similarity to the rest of the country "where towns have been flattened and entire families wiped-out" should not be at the expense of the development of the rest of the country.

(The writer is a member of the Constitutional Council)

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The yearning for peace

With the peace initiatives now gradually unfolding, there is considerable interest, growing between the peoples of the North and South of Sri Lanka. Exchange of visits, initially took the form of an exchange programme between the children of the respective schools.

As a progressive step it helped somewhat to eliminate distrust and rebuild friendship. Between November 29th and 2nd December, 2002, students from about 23 schools in the South made a historic visit to an equal number of schools in the North. The Northern students had welcomed the students of the South with much warmth and affection and entertained them to cultural programmes, participation in sports and visiting places of cultural and historical interest. This encounter, was solely confined to the schools of the Gampaha District.

It was now our turn to welcome the children of the North, in reciprocal love and trust. Twenty one schools from the North visited a similar number of schools in the South, from 7th to 11th February, 2003, where they were able to renew friendships, meet, talk and exchange views and ideas of common interest.

Holy Cross College, was particularly privileged to host the students of St. Theresa's School, Atchuvely, a sister college of the Apostolic Carmel Sisters, which Sisters run Holy Cross College too. The teachers and students who had visited St. Theresa's School were at hand to welcome the visitors, spending the few nights and days given them in their company. The visitors were taken to the Shrine of Our Lady of Lanka at Tewatte, the Planetarium, Zoo, Museum and several other places of interest. Before their departure, they were presented with gifts and stationery items, fraught with love, happy memories, and understanding that had been sadly absent among these very people over the last three decades.

Let the theme of 'Peace' which was the Theme of this year's Independence Day celebrations build in all of us, a commitment to work for a sustainable peace that will ensure, that the rights of all persons living in this country are recognised and accepted. Let us revitalise and live the euphoria, with a determination to pursue this historic gesture of mutual initiatives of love and forgiveness, reconciliation and peace, to its highest fulfilment.

In a country that has suffered violence for recent decades any initiative for peace, is the longing of all our hearts. Lets unite our yearning in a prayer for lasting peace, to a people who have never experienced the blessings of peace for long years.

- Sister M. Christella A.C.

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The real Me

God above, as You look down
On this our country, on village and town,
As You look into our hearts-- so deep
Does, what you see, 'cause You to weep?
Amongst the hate, the insincerity,
do You perhaps, see the real Me?
The Me that Your own hands did make
Can You see me through all those layers of 'Fake'?

My false smiles, my 'polite' tone--
Do You see how I behave at Home?
I've walled up my heart with solid stones
of prejudice!------
And when accused----acquire, that 'injured' tone.
But Lord.... You know, I'm somewhere there.
My True Self suffocates! -----for the lack of air.
Help me live! I know that You're near
Help me... for it is only You who'll hear,
who'll care, who has the time to spare!
Of all my pretensions, make me aware.
Take me out of myself. Help me to forget to moan
of all my hurts, of the many slights--- I've known.
The 'Spirit is willing', Lord, 'tis the 'flesh that is weak'
Give me a firm 'push' Lord---- lest I forget... and sleep.

- Rose Aserappa

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