the president's funds

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trincomalee internally displaced persons again, in front of their shed. one of the boys is sick, born with a hole in the cardiac septum.

basic healthcare in sri lanka is free, and in some aspects of really high quality and excellent quality/circumstances ratio. however an operation in this case has to be paid extra, and the 4000 us$ the family is not (and will not be in the near future) able to afford.

for cases like this there is the sri lanka president's fund. doesn't sound like a really democratic solution, more like a holdover from good old monarchy, where the sovereign distributes alms, eh? and, the family is not able to apply. they are not educated, they speak the wrong language, they don't know where to apply.

why they are smiling on this picture? they got a new toilet, and that is a big improvement.

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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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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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