Tuesday, 11  March 2003  
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Essentials for rehabilitation

With the launching of resettlement activities close to the High Security Zones in the Vavuniya district, efforts could be said to be under way to bring greater normalcy into the lives of the displaced of the North. Accordingly, the Defence Ministry is reported to have identified some 38 villages for resettlement purposes in the district.

Resettlement and rehabilitation of displaced persons are essential components of the effort to bring normalcy to the war-affected areas of Sri Lanka and we are glad that the State and its agencies have got down to these tasks without further delay. As far as the ordinary people are concerned, resuming a normal life, free of fear and want, is a number one priority. They would also prefer to pick up the pieces of their broken lives in their former habitats and homesteads and the process of bringing normalcy needs to address this need too. It is encouraging to note that efforts are being made in this direction.

As we understand it, rehabilitation is a broader process than resettlement. The former implies the provision of emotional and material security for those being brought back to their areas of habitation and goes beyond the mere act of helping the displaced to settle down. Rehabilitation also has to do with integration into the local and the wider society.

Therefore, rehabilitation has under its purview a range of chores which requires expert handling and knowledge inputs of various kinds. Among other personnel, we would need for rehabilitation, sociologists, economists, psycho-therapists and trainers in life skills. It is upto the authorities to take cognizance of these requirements. Among these needs, providing the once displaced with life skills and livelihoods is primal. Most of these persons being farmers, besides resettling them in their former homesteads and cultivation plots, they also should be provided with farming inputs and agricultural implements to resume their former livelihoods.

Equally importantly, their produce needs to be marketed and the conditions created to enable them to engage in sustainable livelihoods. As could be gathered, the re-establishment of former interdependent economic links between North and South is central to the revival of the economic fortunes of inhabitants of not only the North but those of the majority of the Southern populace too.

This applies in particular to the country's agricultural community. This is the reason why we need to accelerate economic development countrywide and must make successful efforts at re-linking, on an economic basis, all regions of the country.

More specifically, the agricultural produce of Northern farmers needs to be sold in the South and the goods and services of the latter need to find markets in the North-East. This economic link at one time, proved mutually-advantageous.

Our aim should be to revive it and enable it to flourish. Accordingly, besides enabling the resettled to get down to sustainable livelihoods they need to be provided with the relevant market information and other inputs which would enable them to thrive. As we see it, the State and its agencies would continue to play a vital role in the lives of the people, wherever they may be in this land.

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