idp bathroom, batticaloa

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some people are not born poor, but made poor. the idps that now live in navallady, batticaloa, in the former tsunami buffer zone (no permanent house should have been there, the former residents were all resettled) had their homes in the trincomalee district. the civil war came, they were driven out of their houses in the combat- or security zone and now live under most primitive conditions in sheds made of tarpaulins, corrugated tin sheets and leaves. you count the toothbrushes? 8 people live here, in a hut maybe 3,5x5 m2.

and i learned a lot about gender budgeting, too (it pays to travel with the boss, who is a psychiatrist by education): if there is a male head of family, there will be: a mobile phone, a tv set (to watch cricket), a small motobike...

but the number of male-headed families is small. the usual story reads more like "lost husband in the conflict, lost the son, fleeing, now living with the small kids here until knowbody knows when, little support, fear, discrimination (by army/police)". I spare you the details. It is simply incredible.

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30 lost years

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my colleage in batticaloa told me this about his life (he's only 37). roughly 30 years this conflict between ltte and the sinhalese majority now scars the life, public as well as private. when he was 17 he had to flee his village, living 3 months in the jungle, because his life was in danger both from government and ltte - a potential terrorist or a forced recruit don't face a really high expectancy of life.

so you can only speculate what life awaits those boys.

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internally displaced person, sri lanka

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another euphemism: idp. in the case of this man (and up to 200.000 others only in the eastern region of sri lanka) the government had decided that in order to have a free firing range against the tamil insurgents, everybody had to leave their villages.

so they were living in corrugated tin sheet buildings while everything they had was at the mercy of the army, the insurgents and the wild elephants. there is not much left now, as you can imagine. but idp sounds correct, nice.

this conflict is with 25 years and over 70.000 killed one of the longest and bloodiest in asia. silently, almost forgotten, as there are not states fighting against each other but "only" army and insurgents.

the violations of human rights are incountable, usage of child soldiers for example, to name only the worst. and both sides are equally abominable: the government for racist actions, under-cover-killings, the other side for forced recruition or using even kids as shields, again only to name examples.

with the looming defeat of the military arm of the insurgents, it now gets even worse. while the government deliberately arrests tamils in colombo (see these news on bbc), the rebels take up to 200.000 people hostage against the progress of the army. 200.000 kids, men, women of whom even the united nations have no information of where they are and in what status...

aah, did i ever say that sri lanka could be a paradise?

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offloaded

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thanks to the help of the unhcr, these civil war refugees are offloaded again next to the remainders of their village that they had to leave 2 years ago when the sri lanka government had decided to "liberate" the east coast. aah, it's so easy: the government decides to displace, and the international community does not have many options but to assist so that government's actions don't result in a humanitarian catastrophy. so the refugees come to camps, and when government allows, the UN can bring them back to what war has left from their belongings. and when this picture looks as if a lorry had just dumped a load, well, it was almost like that.

after having lived in a shelter, one family one room, cooking outside, platform to lift the beddings above the water that in rainy seasons is on floor level, most of the refugees are glad to go back. so they queue up under a glazing sun in the transport area, bear the screening by the army and the special task forces and then get transported back in buses, their belongings brought after inspection for weaponry on some tractors.

and there is no question that the unhcr does a good job here. after returning with a tarpaulin kit as a first measure of protection, shelter building groups will come and assist the refugees in repairing damaged houses or set up provisional ones. quick impact projects afterward may come to their support and may create new means of earning a livelyhood.

but all this poverty is not a result of a natural catastrophe, but results from the inability of government and insurgents to negotiate a peaceful solution for the conflict. this is the shame.

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martyrs day: one euphemism more

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the local heroes in sri lanka are a sad affair: that 'martyrs day' poster is from eprlf, eelam people's revolutionary liberation front. this group now fights together with the sri lanka government against the ltte, liberation tigers of tamil eelam. and doleful heroes they (and many of the others) are: yesterday 3 young tamil men were found on the coast, hands bound and shot to death. this is a fight of so many groups against each other, on the side of the goverment or against it, among themselves or against an (imaginative) enemy.

i was trying to seek beauty here, wander with open eyes and a quiet mind, but this sad reality does not let me go. everywhere, and even more in every talk you have with a local, that tragic reality of especially the life of the tamils here is present

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