Resettlement not in vacuum

The Government's resettlement plan for the war displaced appears to be on course complementing other developments that is transforming the Northern landscape. For it goes without saying that resettlement has to match development and moreover the restoration of shattered livelihoods. In a clear move aimed at accelerating IDP resettlement the Government has taken steps to relocate some 4,500 persons living in welfare centres in Vavuniya in their original dwellings. These were civilians who were trapped in the Vanni during the final days of the battle.

The first batch of these civilians from the East will be heading back home together with 52 families who are natives from Jaffna. As reported in our inside pages on Saturday they will be taken home in 60 buses with Senior Presidential Advisor Basil Rajapaksa MP present to oversee the process in what could be a poignant send off ceremony.

According to Northern Governor Maj. Gen G. A. Chandrasiri another 3,020 persons belonging to 650 families in IDP Centres in Jaffna too are to be sent back to their original villages after due security screening. The trickle has now become a flow and the coming days would see more civilians going back to their original habitats.

The Government has already released all those over 60 years of age to be reunited with their next of kin and relatives including those who are feeble and ill. The demining process is already in full swing to meet the set target for total resettlement subject to security clearance of all inhabitants of the welfare centres.

This flurry of resettlement activity now on is a clear demonstration of the President's commitment to resettle all displaced civilians in their original environment at the earliest. The green light given for the release of the aged and feeble also shows the Government's humane approach to the situation despite various allegations by its critics that IDPs are receiving step-motherly treatment. To any dispassionate observer nothing could be further from the truth. Even countries who were unrelenting critics of the Government saw nothing to fault in the treatment of the IDPs as attested to by their representatives after visits to these centres.

As the President has said on numerous occasions, the people of the North are as much his responsibility as those of Medamulana. Hence there can be no question of differential treatment of one section of his countrymen, as has been his constant refrain. He has always empathized with their situation and has gone to great lengths to heal the deep wounds of ethnic division.

If there is a delay in the resettlement of these hapless souls it is not for any other reason but to make doubly certain that they would enter the right environment and milieu to restart their battered lives. Especially in a climate free of fear and intimidation and the harrowing experience they underwent.

Hence, the painstaking process to weed out any hardcore LTTE remnants that are lurking among the civilians in these Welfare centres. President Rajapaksa no doubt would leave nothing to chance on this score. He will not want these civilians who had undergone such a harrowing ordeal for over three decades to once again be at the receiving end of the beastly terror. He wants to put that chapter of the country's blood spattered history behind us. Hence any criticism in this regard should be circumspect and with reason. Clearly there cannot be a mass exodus back to the villages on the same scale as the one witnessed in the final days of the battle, of the multitudes seeking freedom.

The President is also aware that a mass supplanting of civilians back in their original habitats also presupposes a conducive environment that facilitates at least a basic existence. That is a suitable economic climate leading to the rebuilding of lost livelihoods and means of existence. For they cannot live in a vacuum.

The groundwork is currently been accelerated to create such a conducive environment for these civilians. Fishing restrictions have been lifted, transport has commenced, education, health sectors and are witnessing rapid progress, roads, bridges are being repaired at a frantic pace. There is a hive of activity all round to transform this wasteland into a productive and prosperous oasis. Thus things are set for a rapid transformation, so that these civilians can walk into a completely new environment to the one they left behind. This has to be a systematic process not one that can be rushed into considering the dynamics involved. It is hoped that this process will be accelerated hand in hand with the transformation that is being witnessed, so that the civilians would not be left in want any more.