News
Arrest two Indian trawlers weekly: A formula to end illegal fishing
View(s):By Steve Creech
Last Monday, 7.30 a.m. – I’m standing in the middle of the cooperative’s auction shed at Koddady landing centre on the north coast of Jaffna, two kilometres east of Point Pedro.
The auction shed is usually the epitome of organised chaos. Fishermen bring basket after basket of emperors (gal malu/vella meen) from their boats and tip the catch unceremoniously onto the floor. Auctioneers start shouting a price almost before the piles of wet fish hit the concrete. A scrum of vendors shouts their bids back like a chorus until the last one bid is uncontested. The fish are swiftly gathered up by the buyer, seconds before the next basket is dumped onto the floor. 
This mini-drama usually goes on for a couple of hours, as basket after basket of ocean-fresh fish are carried up from the shore. Daily, about one and a half tonnes of assorted fish – worth about two million rupees – are brought to Koddady. The stock goes up to two and a half tonnes during the reef fishing season.
The onset of the northeast monsoon marks the beginning of the reef fishing season, but last Monday the auction shed was eerily quiet. Only 120 kg of fish were landed all day. The women sitting along the shed’s walls had only one or two fish apiece to sell to Koddady locals. A small army of bicycle and motorcycle vendors sat out on the road, increasingly aware that there would not be enough fish for their customers across the Jaffna peninsula. The freezer trucks parked and packed with ice were idle too. The bulk of the day’s catch would not be heading to Colombo or Kandy later in the day. No Koddady fish went anywhere last Monday, because there weren’t any.
The reason: On Sunday evening a fleet of 72-foot, steel-hulled, Tamil Nadu trawlers from Kodiyakarai, Nagapattinam and Karaikal swept along the northern coast and destroyed the fishing gear of 400 Koddady fishermen.
About Rs. 24 million worth of bottom-set longlines was ripped away in an instant. A week’s – if not two weeks’ – worth of catch will now go uncaught; another Rs. 20 million added to Koddady fishermen’s losses at the beginning of the monsoon reef fish fishing season.
Without insurance and with little or no compensation, one victimised boat owner quipped that if the Tamil Nadu government can send 950 tonnes of relief aid to people affected by Cyclone Ditwah, then perhaps Chief Minister Stalin could send 950 tonnes every month to Sri Lankan fishermen affected by Tamil Nadu trawlers.
Dishearteningly, the Koddady fishermen’s experience last Monday was not an isolated event. At the exact same time, Tamil Nadu trawlers from Pamban and Rameshwaram were plundering Sri Lanka’s marine resources within a kilometre of islands off Jaffna’s east coast, including Delft. According to fisher leaders, more than one hundred nets laid by small-scale fishermen were also destroyed in the seas off Jaffna by Tamil Nadu bottom trawlers that destroyed the longlines of Koddady’s fishermen.
Tuesday morning, northern fisher leaders wrote, for the umpteenth time, letters to the Governor of the Northern Province, the President of Sri Lanka and the Prime Minister of India. If the past is anything to go by, these fishermen’s heartfelt appeals will fall on deaf ears.
But what else can northern Sri Lankan fisher leaders do other than write letters and protest when Sri Lankan Tamil political leaders are nowhere to be seen? Why aren’t Sri Lankan Tamil politicians outraged at this ongoing violation of fishermen’s rights? Why are Sridharan, Rasamanickam, Sumanthiran, Ponnambalam, and Siddarthan silent? Are the current crop of Tamil political leaders too afraid – as were their predecessors – of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister or the Indian Prime Minister to raise their individual or, god forbid, collective head(s) above the gunwales? Why won’t they demand at least – if not actually fight for – environmental, social and economic justice for northern fishermen by bringing an end to illegal fishing by Tamil Nadu trawlers in Sri Lankan waters?
During last year’s election campaign in the north, the NPP promised to end illegal fishing by Tamil Nadu trawlers in Sri Lankan waters, but that promise remains far from fulfilled.
The northern fishermen’s proposal to end the crisis is straightforward, pragmatic, and firmly grounded in law. They say the President should direct the Sri Lanka Navy to arrest two Tamil Nadu trawlers each week. The Department of Fisheries would then initiate prosecution, allowing local magistrates to decide the fate of the fishermen and their vessels under the Foreign Fishing Boats Act, amended in 2018. Magistrates would continue to release first-time offenders, the Indian High Commission would repatriate the fishermen, and the trawlers would be decommissioned. Steps one, two, and three would be repeated until Tamil Nadu boat owners cease sending their vessels to plunder Sri Lankan livelihoods and marine resources—or, if necessary, indefinitely.
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