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Where do the displaced go?
Land ownership problems, lack of facilities, double ‘taxation’ and mines await them at home
Feizal Samath reports
When residents of a refugee camp in the north refused to return to their former homes during the ceasefire last year, the government closed the camp and a temporary school and stopped all food rations.

That compelled the 1,600 families housed in the Madhu Church Welfare Centre in Mannar to return in September to their original homes further north in Kilinochchi which had been devastated by the 20-year conflict. "Buildings were shattered, houses were completely destroyed, there were no schools and other basic infrastructure," one welfare worker recalled.

An even worse situation, according to an official at the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), a private, policy-making think tank, was that some families went back to areas which were yet to be de-mined. "I remember when we studied this matter last year there was one such family who had to be careful not to cross the road from their battered house because it was mined."

Close to a million people have been displaced by the ethnic conflict and have been living in refugee camps or welfare centres in the country and southern India or have sought political refuge in the west.

Since the LTTE and the government signed a ceasefire accord in February last year and began peace talks, there are mixed feelings among refugees about returning to homes which they abandoned at least 10 to 20 years ago. While some are eager to return, others feel comfortable where they are because of access to schools, jobs and other basic needs and prefer land in areas of temporary shelter.

The uncertainty of the state of these refugees who are currently homeless is a growing cause of concern to the government, UN agencies and human rights groups.

The government is keen to return these internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their original homes to speed up the resettlement process and prove that the peace process is working. But state strategies to compel (like in the Madhu case) or strongly encourage IDPs to return to their areas of origin have been stalled by negative feedback from the Madhu camp experience and resistance from UNHCR which is opposed to the organized return of IDPs and urges that the exercise should be voluntary, not forced.

A study on the property rights of IDPs sponsored by UNHCR and the Human Rights Commission (HRC) and undertaken by a legal team led by S. Srikandarajah, a judge of the High Court, shows that 220,000 displaced persons voluntarily returned to their former homes in the past year while more are expected to return as peace talks progress. "Almost all the refugees in India (some 100,000) and a fair number of the refugees from the western countries have indicated their willingness to return to their permanent residences," the report said.

The resettlement issue has raised many concerns like property rights since others have occupied homes abandoned by people who fled the violence. Other problems include the lack of basic infrastructure like drinking water, schools and hospitals, inadequate compensation to rebuild damaged homes and payment of double taxes, legally to the government and illegally to the rebels.

The slow removal of some 25,000 landmines in the Jaffna peninsula alone is hindering the smooth return of displaced people to their former homes.

In some cases the boundaries of local authorities have been shifted during the conflict, creating more problems about ownership.

Restitution of property, access to land, destruction and landmines, assistance and legal redress are some of the pressing issues facing returnees, according to a separate CPA report compiled by a team on the same issue.

According to a rights worker, the homes of Muslims in Jaffna have been taken over by the LTTE and given to the families of dead suicide cadres. "These families are occupying homes owned by the Muslims, so where do the Muslims go to if they are to return to Jaffna?" she asked.

According to M. Mohideen, who works for an NGO that looks after the rights of Muslims who have been displaced from the north since 1990, there are new generations that have been born after 1990 who prefer to remain in Puttalam instead of returning to the north.

Most of the 100,000 Muslims who were ordered in 1990 to vacate their homes in the north and northwest regions under the LTTE’s then ethnic cleansing-type policies, moved to Puttalam, further away from the north and on the northwest coast. Many of them settled in refugee camps or bought properties there.

"While the older generation of Muslim refugees wants to return to their homes in the north, the younger people prefer to remain where they are," Mr. Mohideen told a seminar in Colombo recently on land and property rights of IDPs. It was organized by the UNHCR, CPA and HRC to discuss the two reports on these issues.

R.C. Karunakaran, a senior official at the HRC, believes that displaced people who have adjusted to a new life in their temporary places of abode also have a right to have a similar lifestyle and needs when returning to their old homes.

Resettlement has raised issues on the ownership of properties because ownership documents have been destroyed in the war, government records are not available and those occupying abandoned homes may have themselves been displaced from another area where they had a home. "What do you do in such a situation? Shouldn't we find other accommodation for those who have moved into the homes of the displaced or do we ask them to just leave and find their own accommodation? Don't they also have rights despite the fact that they have illegally occupied someone else's home?" asked Mr. Karunakaran.

Judge Srikandarajah's report recommends that for the safe and dignified return of IDPs and refugees to their former homes, it is essential that the pre-conflict property rights of these persons are respected and restored and an effective and just system is put in place to resolve property rights disputes including restitution or compensation. The legal team recommended that a separate or alternate dispute resolution body be established by law for the conflict-affected areas to resolve all property disputes.

The CPA team raised another worrying issue where current laws permit the possession of the property of another through "uninterrupted and undisturbed possession" for 10 years or more which applies a lot in the case of Muslims who abandoned their homes in 1990.

The team recommended that this particular law be suspended for the duration of the conflict.

It also suggested that laws be introduced to enable displaced persons to obtain death certificates for missing persons.

Lawyer and international women's rights activist Nimalka Fernando said it was important to address the issue of illegal taxes imposed by the LTTE on residents. "The issue is not the varying degree of taxes imposed on Muslims or Tamils in rebel-controlled areas but the issue of the tax itself which is illegal and also makes people reluctant to return to their homes," she told the seminar.

An economist attached to the International Centre for Ethnic Studies Muttukrishnan Sarvanathan, urged the government - with the help of donor agencies - to increase the level of compensation for returnees.

He said the relief package, now amounting to Rs. .65,000 per family, should be raised to $1500 or $1000 per family. "I think this is not a difficult target to meet for the government with the help of donor agencies," he said, adding that expatriate Sri Lankan communities may also help financially through an "adopt a family" type of scheme.

International donors at a conference in Oslo late last year pledged $30 million for resettlement work in Sri Lanka.

A further pledging conference takes place in Tokyo in May where donors are expected to commit funds for the long-term reconstruction and rebuilding of the country including the non-war affected south.

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