A website on the elections is already on the net

Election.com

By Kesara Ratnatunga

However a pioneering new idea is set to change this.

As of a few weeks ago, www.parliamentelection.com - a website dedicated to the upcoming polls - has been in cyberspace. 

Designed and maintained by Evolution Software (Pvt.) Ltd. the main objective of this site is to provide information for anyone to gauge the election from anywhere in the world at the click of a button.

The site - though still not fully developed - already features messages from a few of the contesting parties, an interactive map which allows the user to click on a district and access information on the parties contesting that particular district.

It also gives statistics on the number of eligible voters, polling booths, etc. Details and history of the Sri Lankan parliament are also available.

Sources at Evolution Software (Pvt.) Ltd. say that the site will be fully functional for the election and will feature all election results as they are released by the Election Secretariat. 

The results for each district, electorate and party will be tabulated in detail on the site's web pages. 

This facility will also be available to cellular phone users via WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) technology.

The results of the parliamentary election of 1994 will also be tabulated along with the results of this year's election, enabling a comparison to be made. 

News releases from the European Union media unit will be accessible from this site enabling users to be in touch with the international interpretation of the election.

The masterminds behind this site say that they were initially reluctant to go ahead with this project because of its political nature.

But after receiving help and encouragement from the Department of Elections, they went ahead, and are working hard to make it a success.

Being on the Internet, the site will not only be a convenient meansfor Sri Lankans here to keep in touch with the progress of the election, but will also enable Lankans abroad to keep abreast of what's going on back home. 

People from this remote 'border village' face death and destruction daily. Feizal Samath reports:

Where do we go?

"By 5 p.m. or 6 p.m., we leave our homes and head for a village about four km. away where we stay the night. We return in the morning," says the 37-year-old without a hint of regret. "This is our life. We are used to it." 

Mary Nona is amongst the thousands displaced from their homes by violence since the ethnic conflict flared up in 1983. Dozens more civilians have been killed in LTTE attacks on villages or shelling by government troops.

According to Alan Vernon, programme officer at the Colombo office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are about 800,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Sri Lanka. "The figure might be less or more but the numbers are worrying," he said.

"75 percent of IDPs are women and children with the latter suffering the most - missing education and an important childhood," the UNHCR official told a public meeting in Colombo recently on the issue of IDPs.

Dewalugodalle, a rice farming village, lies about 20 kilometres east of Polonnaruwa town, and is close to no-man's land where government troops control the roads by day and the rebels stalk at night.

Mary Nona has worked in Saudi Arabia on two occasions as a housemaid but came back for good some years ago, as she didn't want her family to suffer alone.

"How can we stay abroad when our family is suffering?" she asked, leaning against the door of her modest home.

Inside there are valuables like a television set, a music amplifier cum radio and a pedestal fan but the family leaves all these behind to sleep the night at another safer village. "We just take our basics - pillow and bedding and some dinner and leave home," she says, as her three children gather around.

Most of the men and women work as hired labour at Dewalugodalle rice fields, which are owned by farmers from another village. "We need the jobs and money. So we can't leave the village and settle elsewhere," says Damaris Wijepala, another resident. The number of residents in the village has dwindled to 20 families from 150 families because of the uncertainty.

The Tigers have attacked the village twice in the past since 1986. The first attack was on a police post but the rebels also massacred a father and his four children. Two other residents were also killed in the same strike. The second incident was just three months ago when the rebels abducted a male resident, who had not left his home for the night. His body was found in a small stream the next day.

A few residents remain in the village surrounded by shrub jungle, armed with weapons to help a police post that provides some kind of security. A few kilometres away, a small army post has also been established to protect the village during the day. "We allow people to work in the field only till 5 p.m. for their own protection," an army officer said.

Their camp - in a house pockmarked with bullet holes - lies near a small bridge on a road leading to the famous Somawathiya Chaitya. A notice near the bridge says - "no one allowed beyond this point." The officer said the temple has been abandoned and there are no monks staying there. "Maybe the rebels go into the temple. We don't know." Before the ethnic conflict flared up in 1983, the temple was filled with devotees and some devotees still come from Colombo, unaware that the temple is now out of bounds to visitors.

According to a recent report compiled on border villages by a group of non-governmental organisations, there is a feeling of fear and uncertainty in most border villages in Sri Lanka.

"Any noise frightens residents. Children suffer the most. They imagine gunshots and explosions at the slightest noise, having experienced such psychological trauma," said the report by a group calling itself a Fact-Finding Commission on border villages in the northeast.

The report found that in villages affected by the violence, children lacked proper education, housing was often destroyed and had to be replaced, there were health dispensaries but no doctors while transport was inadequate. The only access to most of these villages is a narrow, muddy road.

"The commission has heard from many villagers in border areas. The prolonged war has generated abnormal conditions that need to be corrected immediately; otherwise the longterm impact on the people living there will be devastating," the report noted.

It recommended that the government set up an inter-ministerial committee on border villages, implement policies consistent with the UN report on children and armed conflict and take special steps to protect women in these villages.

UNHCR's Vernon says according to government policy, internally displaced people and refugees must return to their homes once peace is restored but often this is not possible. "Sometimes they prefer to settle down in the temporary places of residence where they - if they can afford to - buy a small property or get permanent jobs." This, he added, then becomes a problem for the government and local residents.

Vernon said solutions must be found for these problems and ideally there should be alternatives and options given to displaced people. "Even when refugees from abroad return, they don't want to return to their villages and prefer to settle down elsewhere," he said. 

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