Sri Lanka After the Tsunami
Reconstuction by the rich
By Kshama Ranawana
On the south-eastern side of the island of Sri Lanka lies Arugam Bay, its pristine beaches famous for the warm, clean waters of the Indian Ocean that rise perfectly to make it one of the best places in the world to surf. A few years ago, it was the venue for the World Surfing Championship of Champions.
But when on December 26, 2004, the tectonic plates moved near Indonesia, the resultant raging tsunami swept away hundreds of small homes that had housed fishing families for generations on this beach.
This is a tale that was repeated in many parts of Sri Lanka and the rest of tsunami-affected South Asia. The tsunami took the lives of more than 30,000 people, displaced a million, robbed nearly 275,000 of their livelihoods and destroyed about two-thirds of the southern and eastern coast of the country. Many of those who lost everything – including their families – in the disaster were subsistence fishers eking out an existence from the sea.
The tragedy of these people, paraded across the television screens of the world, struck a chord in millions. Billions of dollars in aid were pledged, though now, seven months later, reconstruction and resettlement efforts don’t seem to match the monies received. Instead, there are ominous signs that the entrenched political powers in the country are using reconstruction as an opportunity to enhance their wealth and power.
Misfortune for many, opportunity for a few
As Sarath Fernando of the Movement for National Land and Agricultural Reform in Sri Lanka says, the tsunami “is a misfortune for the poor, but a bonanza for the government and the powerful.” The Task Force for Rebuilding the Nation, made up of ten well-known businessmen, stakeholders in the country’s tourism and construction industry, was appointed by the country’s President, Chandrika Kumaratunge, within two weeks of December 26. Grassroots activists and experts in fisheries and coastal conservation, who would have ensured that the needs of the people and ecological safeguards were met, have been left out.
What was even more surprising, given the government’s notoriety for sluggishness and the scope of devastation, was the announcement less than a month later of a master plan to rebuild the country.
A close scrutiny of this master plan is enlightening. It is a rehashing of previous attempts by successive governments of both the Right and the Left to privatize state-run industries and boost tourism. The United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party along with coalition allies have alternately governed the country since its independence from Britain in 1948. Over the past couple of decades, both parties have introduced strikingly similar “poverty alleviation” strategies, authored according to World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) requirements.
Implementation of these proposals was blocked only through the strong opposition of civil society groups and minority political parties that feared ecological disasters and a further encroachment of the rights of poorer people.
Included in the tsunami recovery plan are these same proposals – an expressway along the southern coastal belt, the construction of nine new harbours, industrialized fishing areas, tourist resort zones, ultra-modern housing and townships, a coal-fired power plant and a hydroelectricity scheme – which have been the highlights of similar “development” plans presented to the Sri Lankan public time and time again. Not quite what the struggling survivors of the tsunami require.
Tourism industry land grab
But the most blatant act of the tourism-industry cartel is the grab of priceless beach property. Citing security concerns, in the wake of December 2004 the government imposed a “buffer zone” of 100 metres for the southern and western coasts and a 200-metre area for the eastern coast. What this means is that all people who have for countless generations lived on these beaches must move further inland, jeopardizing their traditional livelihoods.
While the government assures displaced beach-dwellers that they can retain ownership titles to their lands, they are not permitted to use the land for construction. Instead they must relocate to the tourism zones demarcated by the government and the Tourist Board.
A government advertisement in February stated that reconstruction of coastal buildings at the same location would be permitted if the cost of repair was less than 40 per cent of the total value of replacement. There would be no permission granted for the reconstruction of buildings that had suffered greater damage. The only buildings that could be built or rebuilt were those for which the relevant authorities, including the Tourist Board, had granted approval prior to the tsunami.
What this means is that, while high-end hotels could be built or reconstructed on prime beach land, the comparatively flimsy wattle-and-daub (clay and wood) or single-brick wall houses of the fisher folk and other small guest-houses will not meet the specifications of the government edict.
Obviously then, the politically well-connected high-end tourism industry will have a free-run of the island’s famous beaches with no hindrance from the pesky fisher-folk and other beach-dwellers they have been trying to get rid of for years.
Predictably, the post-tsunami reconstruction plan has a blueprint for the construction of 15 tourist resorts including a marina, helipads, seaplane landing strips and US$300-a-night chalets. A Tourist Board official has been quoted telling Arugam Bay’s residents that the board is targeting “the high-level tourist and not the five-dollar ones.”
In a bid to recapture the tourism industry, a massive international media campaign and a budget of US$5.3 million has been set aside under the tourist marketing recovery program. What’s more, hotels under reconstruction have been granted an import duty waiver for hotel refurbishment, loans of up to US$1 million with no repayment in the first year, and replacement of “tourism-related” vehicles.
Housing crisis
In contrast, there is a value added tax on building materials, which inflates the cost of building houses for those displaced by both the tsunami and the 20-year-long ethnic war in the country, which has led to more that 300,000 people living in temporary shelter these past 15 years.
In March of this year, the government released the assistance policy and implementation guidelines on housing and township development, which states that grants would be available for the reconstruction of houses. However, a family receiving such a grant is expected to complete the building within six months. While the time frame would ensure the money would not be misused, concerns have been raised by the Women’s Coalition for Disaster Management, Batticaloa, that the shortage of skilled labour and vulnerability of female-headed households may result in such households being unable to meet the specified deadlines.
Arrangements have also been made for mortgages to be taken out by those who require additional finances to complete their homes. Here again, the criteria for eligibility remains the same as it is for those not affected by the tsunami: final repayment of the loan within 20 years. This effectively cuts off those 45 years of age or older from taking advantage of the mortgage program. Clearly, these criteria are based not on people’s need for housing but lenders’ demands for repayment.
Of a total of US$400 million earmarked for housing and township building, US$20 million has been allocated for temporary shelter, and US $80 million for houses for fisher folk. The balance will go toward building townships with modern infrastructure, located several kilometres away from the beaches. Interestingly, despite the aid that has flowed in, reconstruction of homes has been taken on by local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Frustrated by the bureaucratic red tape and slow pace of the government, some NGOs have even resorted to purchasing land for the victims.
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse’s riding of Hambantota in southern Sri Lanka was where in January the government chose, amidst much fanfare, to begin the reconstruction process. Of the 5000 home model township proposed, only 47 have so far been completed, but with no water or electricity.
Meanwhile, heavy customs duties are imposed on items reaching the country as aid. This results in goods lying awaiting clearance in port. Oxfam was recently required to cough up $1 million as import duty for 25 SUVs brought in to help with work in tsunami-ravaged rural Sri Lanka.
Government and opposition parties’ priorities elsewhere
In May, the government convened the Sri Lanka Development Forum, made up of representatives of donor countries, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, the IMF and UN agencies, and received pledges totalling $3 billion. Left out of the meeting were representatives of many NGOs, which have been working round the clock to provide relief to the victims. A government which was facing near bankruptcy in its budget last November is now boasting an overflowing treasury, but has signed memoranda of understanding with NGOs for reconstruction projects.
A statement signed by 170 Sri Lankan NGOs and about 30 international NGOs took the government to task on its proposed rebuilding plans. Entitled the “Civil Society Statement,” the groups, while supporting the guiding principles of the government of “responding to local needs and priorities, without discrimination, in a transparent and accountable manner, through consultation and the empowerment of communities and their organizations,” noted that in practice the complete opposite is taking place.
Victims from both the south and east of the nation have staged protests against the government’s apparent indifference to their needs, while it provides loopholes for the business sector to reap benefits. Undaunted by the criticism, the government’s energy minister recently announced its determination to go ahead with the coal power project and also the “restructuring” of the Electricity Board.
Indeed, the entire country is being saddled with economic burdens. In the last couple of months the price of kerosene, which is used mostly by low-income families for cooking and for lighting their homes, petrol and bus fares have all risen. World oil price inflation has been blamed.
In spite of the suffering of so many, Sri Lanka’s major political parties seem preoccupied with other issues. The main opposition, the UNP, has launched a massive people’s movement to pressure the government to call elections. Presidential elections are due this year, though Kumaratunge has claimed she was secretly sworn in to rule until 2006.
But it’s the sharing of tsunami aid between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), popularly known as the Tamil Tigers, that has sparked the biggest controversy. The LTTE has military control of two northeastern districts that were hit by the tsunami. In these areas, the writ of the government does not run and funding agencies deemed it necessary to hand over control of this portion of the tsunami aid to the LTTE to administer.
*Upsurge of national conflict *
The majority of Sri Lankans are Sinhalese. Citing ethnic discrimination against the Tamil minority, the LTTE has been fighting for a separate state in the north of the country for nearly two decades. In February 2002, the UNP government of the time signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the LTTE as a hopeful precursor to a negotiated settlement.
But peace efforts stalled when the LTTE presented a set of proposals to which the majority of Sinhalese were opposed, and the UNP lost power to a coalition of Kumaratunge’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the ostensibly Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which entered government for the first time. The JVP led two armed struggles in the 1970s and later in the 1980s to wrest power from the governments of the time.
Despite enjoying more support amongst the economically deprived, the JVP has not wielded its strength to contain inflation except to protest the government’s plans to privatize public utilities. Instead, the JVP has adopted a more nationalistic agenda and has been at the forefront of blocking attempts by the government to share the tsunami aid with the LTTE. Arguing that the deal would provide legitimacy to the Tamil Tigers, the JVP and the Jathika Hela Urumaya (a political party made up mostly of Buddhist monks) has been staging chauvinist mass protests and death fasts.
Ignoring their threats, Kumaratunge went ahead with signing the aid sharing agreement with the LTTE in June, in the hope that it would provide an opportunity to renew peace talks with the rebels. However, a recent spate of killings, in which the dead included two LTTE leaders, has led the Tigers to warn of a return to war. Insisting that the Tamil Tigers should lay down arms before their demands are considered, the JVP quit the government a week before the agreement was signed. It then went to court, and has now succeeded in stalling the implementation of the aid sharing agreement.
On the Muslim front too, there is much dissent. Muslims were the worst hit community in the tsunami, which destroyed the heavily Muslim eastern coast. It is estimated that Muslims accounted for nearly half of the tsunami death toll. In terms of losses to land and buildings too, they were the most affected.
However, reports indicate that this group has been the most neglected in terms of aid and land distribution since the tsunami. Indeed, the grievances of the Muslim community have long gone unheeded, and even in the aid-sharing agreement their concerns have not been adequately addressed, leaving them disgruntled. The southeastern coast has also been home to internecine battles and assassinations between the LTTE and a breakaway group this past year.
With only a handful of not-for-profit organizations and minor socialist political parties speaking up for the tsunami survivors, the recovery program has the markings of promoting a paradise isle for the rich and powerful. Arugam Bay and the rest of the coast may well become out of bounds for the “five dollar” tourist.
