The tourist industry in Sri Lanka is upbeat these days. The December 26tsunami seems to have provided it the opportunity of introducing long-heldplans of resort zones and marketing the tiny island nation to upscaletourists. In the pipeline are marinas, helipads, seaplane landing strips and $300-a-night chalets.

In the aftermath of the tsunami, citing safety measures, the governmentannounced plans to move coastal area residents farther inland. While thoseliving in the East of the country are to be moved 200 metres from the shore, those in theSouthwest are to live 100 metres away from the shore. What is troublingthough is while fisherfolk and others who have traditionally lived by andoff the sea would be moved away, hotels and resorts have been permitted torebuild on their original locations. In fact, many are back in business,while the real victims continue to live in shelters.

Since that devastating day which claimed the lives of nearly 30,000 anddisplaced almost a million, the aid Sri Lanka has received has had thetreasury overflowing — a far cry from November of last year when thegovernment was facing near bankruptcy. The fragile governing alliance,which won power earlier that year, was feeling the pressures of failing todeliver on any of their election promises. The new government had failed tomake any headway with the stalled peace negotiations with the Tamil Tigersseeking a separate state in the country’s north resulting in internationalagencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank withholding aid. Since the elections, the nation had also experienced a steady increase in the price ofessential commodities and transport costs.

And then the tsunami happened bringing with it unprecedented amounts of aidin terms of cash that the country had not enjoyed before.

What is alarming though is the manner in which the aid is to be spent.Bureaucratic red tape renders rebuilding of homes and livelihoods to asnail’s pace. Heavy customs duties on items reaching the country as aidresult in goods lying uncleared at the port. While Oxfam was recentlyrequired to cough up $1 million as import duty for 25 jeeps brought in tohelp with work in tsunami ravaged rural Sri Lanka, the tourist board hassigned memorandums of understanding with hotel managements permitting themimport of goods duty free.

Frustrated by the bottlenecks they are confronted with, several not-for-profit agencies have resorted to even purchasing land and building homeswith their own funds — a task made all the more costly with the value addedtax (VAT) imposed on building materials. Naturally, building permanentshelters has slowed down drawing heated protests by the victims.

In May, 170 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and about 30International NGO’s took the government to task on its proposed rebuildingplans. Titled the Civil Society Statement, the groups, while supporting theguiding principles of the government in “responding to local needs andpriorities, without discrimination, in a transparent and accountable manner,through consultation and the empowerment of communities and theirorganizations” noted that in practice, they see the complete opposite takingplace.

Sarath Fernando, Co-Secretary of the Movement for National Land andAgriculture Reform (MONLAR) who was in Toronto recently, charged that thegovernment was using the tsunami tragedy to push through plans that wouldkeep its international donors happy and the country in debt.

Since 1977, successive governments have attempted to privatize water andelectricity and build expressways and ultra-modern cities. The nation hasbeen presented with the same set of proposals albeit under different titleswith every change of government, both socialist and capitalist. Oppositionfrom civil society and political groups has kept most of the plans inabeyance.

The Task Force for Rebuilding the Nation (TAFREN), the government-appointedbody heading the reconstruction effort was named two weeks after thetsunami struck and is composed only of well-known business people. Civilsociety members who have been intimately involved in grassroots activitiesand aware of the needs of the people have been left out. What is moredisturbing is the fact that the master plan to rebuild the nation waspresented to and endorsed by President Chandrika Kumaratunga less than amonth after the disaster.

Close scrutiny of the plans is indeed interesting. The expressway plannedalong the southern coastal belt and the additional eight new harbours wereschemes that have been vehemently opposed by most of society for a long period oftime. Industrialized fishing would effectively strangle the small-scaleentrepreneur and strengthen the infrastructure required by the businesscommunity for their gains.

According to Fernando, of the (US) $1500 million earmarked for housing andtownship building, (US) $20 million has been allocated for temporaryshelter, and (US) $80 million for houses for the fisherfolk. Most of thebalance is for the construction of townships with modern infrastructure andwould be located at least a mile away from the sea — not quite what thevictims require.

As Fernando points out, Sri Lanka should follow the example of countries thatcope with regular natural disasters. The introduction of disaster alertsystems and growing more mangroves would ensure better safety of apopulation that could continue to live on in their location of choice. Itwould also avert tensions between this group and those living inland.Relocation would also compound problems of the more than 300,000 of the war-affected internally displaced who continue to live in makeshift dwellings.

Ironically, the governing party’s Marxist ally quit in June in protest — notbecause the needs of the country’s marginalized poor and tsunami victims arebeing neglected but over the government’s agreement to a joint mechanism toshare the aid received with the Tamil Tigers.

Kshama Ranawana

Kshama Ranawana is a human rights activist and journalist. While in Sri Lanka she worked with women’s rights groups and later with the Press Complaints Commission of Sri Lanka as the Complaints...