Focus on Rights

Focussing on a rights related recovery process
The most recent protest to date in relation to the inequitable distribution of tsunami aid comes from Tangalle on the Southern coast where enraged villagers gathered in front of the Divisional Secretary's Office on Saturday morning to point to the spoilt supplies that they had been sent. One villager highlighted the predicament of many when he said that they do not receive the money allocation which was handed out during the early months following the tsunami.

While this is so on one hand, on the other, we see numerous instances of aid being delivered to unscrupulous middlemen who either take the supplies for their own use or sell them for profit. These are the two extremes that are manifested in many areas in the South. In the process, the overriding grievances of the genuinely tsunami affected internally displaced persons in Sri Lanka in respect of land, housing and resettlement continue to be bypassed to date.

In the minimum, it is not even certain exactly how many permanent houses have been built for them or, if any have been built at all. Statements of government spokesmen, responding to critical domestic and international newspaper reports in regard to this question, have been ambiguous. Enforcement of the 100 meters ban on re-settlement in the South has been capricious. In the North and East, the acute dissension between the Southern based political parties over the P-Toms agreement, (given certain of its clauses that concede a problematic authority in the functioning of the aid mechanism to the LTTE on par with the Central Government), has led to uncertainty over its continuing implementation.

From a general perspective, while the Indian recovery effort has necessarily a different political dimension from the Sri Lankan context, it may be relevant for us to examine some common problems that affect both processes. Data emerging from the tsunami affected regions in both India and Sri Lanka suggest that continuing problems faced by the enormous numbers of displaced persons in both countries are remarkably similar.
Over 200,000 homes have been fully or partially destroyed in India's mainland as a result of the tsunami and countless lives uprooted and shattered. Loss and damage to housing has been estimated at U.S. $228 million. At least 647,556 persons have been displaced and moved into emergency shelters.

In both countries, adherence to the full implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (which apply not only to individuals displaced by armed conflict but also by natural disasters) has not been adequately manifested. These principles stipulate a number of standards, including the provision of internally displaced persons with an adequate standard of living. This would mean a minimal ensuring of safe access to essential food and potable water, basic shelter and housing, appropriate clothing and essential medical services and sanitation.

The Guiding Principles also mandate governments to provide aid on a non-discriminatory basis and to take "special efforts … to ensure the full participation of women in the planning and distribution of these basic supplies." They specify that "internally displaced persons, such as children, especially unaccompanied minors, expectant mothers, mothers with young children, female heads of households, persons with disabilities and elderly persons, shall be entitled to protection and assistance required by their condition and to treatment which takes into account their special conditions.

Importantly, the Principles impose the condition that displaced persons must be able to make free and informed individual decisions about where they are required to settle permanently. Affected persons should therefore receive accurate, timely information regarding this choice.
Measured from this standpoint, recovery efforts in the South Asian sub-continent have not been trouble free. Insofar as India is concerned, as the New York based Human Rights Watch has pointed out in a recent report 'After the Deluge: India's Reconstruction Following the 2004 Tsunami', several systemic and potentially enduring failures have plagued recovery efforts in the affected Indian states.

While HRW has applauded the Indian government's overall response to the tsunami, it has found that government recovery efforts did not adequately take into account the needs of different vulnerable segments of the affected population, particularly women, children, the disabled, Dalits (so-called untouchables) and tribal groups.

The research highlighted severe defects in design and management of the temporary settlements and the shelters being provided to the displaced persons. Many displaced persons interviewed during the study had complained that the settlements, whether built by the government or NGOs, were uncomfortable, overcrowded and without adequate privacy. Some complained that there are not enough toilet facilities. Many of them left homeless by the tsunami had chosen to forego the offer of government shelter.

One fisherman, Kaliamurthy, who lives in a tent in his old village in Southern India told HRW researchers that he has refused to accept the temporary shelters. His statement is unequivocal; " I am a fisherman and I want to go back to my fishing business. I have to live near the sea. They are giving us temporary houses far away from the water. It is made of tin and asbestos, which is very hot. I will not go there."

Other conclusions in the HRW report are also relevant for us. The report has pointed to the problems manifested in the recovery effort in protecting the livelihood of people without assets such as wage labourers or tenant farmers, inadequate transparency and consultation with community groups, which will be crucial to successful long-term relocation of displaced people and development of coastal land and problems in compensating people who had either lost title to their property or who lacked proper title because they resided on unused government land.

Meanwhile, the Indian government has stated that it will strictly implement the Coastal Zone Regulations, the principal legislation governing land use along India's coasts, which mandate that there should be no new human habitation within 500 meters of the coast. The objective, like in the case of Sri Lanka, is to create a buffer zone along the coast to protect the environment. This has had a predictable negative impact on thousands of families in those areas now in danger of eviction and of not obtaining ad-equate compensation, as they do not possess titles to their damaged properties. These persons are now in danger of being coerced to leave their properties. Alternately, they may not be provided with financial support for reconstruction.

All these are problems that have been evidenced in this country as well. Indian public interest litigation groups are now taking matters of resettlement, land and housing to court in efforts to obtain some justice for the victims. The sharing of experiences and the forging of common bonds among committed Indian and Sri Lankan lawyers and activists may afford one way to bring both governments to account for the implementation of a recovery plan that takes the rights of the displaced persons far more substantively to account than what is evidenced now. Unfortunately, the focus on a rights related recovery process appears to be yet distant in both countries.

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