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TSUNAMI IMPACT: Back to Zero for Sri Lanka’s War Survivors

Amantha Perera

PANICHCHANKERNI, Sri Lanka, Jan 26 2005 (IPS) - The stress is beginning to show on Kasumathi Thangamani’s face. She hardly smiles while rummaging through the remains of what was once her house in this small coastal hamlet, 60 kilometers north of the main eastern town of Batticaloa.

Thangamani still finds it hard to come to grips with the reality engulfing her, one month after the killer tsunami washed away her whole life right in front of her eyes.

”It’s all gone, the waves came and I ran, and now nothing is here,” the mother of four, told IPS.

”I don’t know how I’m going to rebuild this,” she said pointing to the rubble left behind in the Dec. 26 tsunami, spawned by a huge undersea quake in northern Sumatra.

Thangamani now lives in the refugee camp at the Panichchankerni school and visits her home to collect coconuts to supplement the diet of her children.

At least 31,000 people are known to have died in Sri Lanka from the killer waves, and thousands more are missing. The number of homeless people is put at between 800,000 and one million.

Thangamani’s home, destroyed by the tsunami, was just at the line of control between the Tamil Tiger rebels and Sri Lankan government forces.

The rebels have been fighting for an independent homeland in the north-east for two decades. About 60,000 people have been killed in the civil war.

Till 2002, Thangamani’s home was a semi-permanent cadjan hut. It was after the 2002 February ceasefire agreement between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) – as the Tigers are formally known – that she thought of building a permanent home.

And with the help of a local charity organisation she was able build a small brick house.

Thangamani used to supplement a government-sponsored dole of 100 rupees (one U.S. dollar) a month by working at the fishing boats on the beach. Since the tsunami hit Sri Lanka, the fishing industry has come to a standstill.

The tsunami also devastated the fishing village that lies just within the zones controlled by the Tigers. Not a single house near the coast was left standing after the killer waves struck. The waves also destroyed the recently opened hospital as well. The next nearest hospital is at Valachchenai, in a government-controlled area about 25 kilometers away.

”These people suffered very much during the war. It was only during the ceasefire that they were able to do something. Now the tsunami has destroyed all that,” T Logitha, a relief worker with the local NGO Sarvodaya told IPS.

Sarvodaya which was involved in providing better sanitation and shelter for civilians in Panichchankerni before the tsunami hit, is using its network of grassroots workers like Logitha to reach out to communities in areas under Tiger control.

The Tigers, too, admitted that the tsunami had dealt a severe blow to civilians living along the coast.

”Our people suffered untold hardship, destruction and misery during the two decades of war. The ceasefire provided our people, especially those living in the seacoast, a chance to resume fishing to rebuild their lives,” the rebels said in a statement.

The Sri Lankan government has allocated 40 percent of its 3.5 billion U.S. dollar tsunami reconstruction budget to repairing damaged roads and railway lines, but such spending will do little good in alleviating the suffering of fishermen like Sinnavani Murugesupillai of Mankerni, the last town under Sri Lankan Army control before Panichchankerni.

Murugesupillai lost his father, son-in-law, house and boats to the tsunami.

”All the 120 boats on the beach have been destroyed,” he told IPS while standing beside one half of his dissected fishing vessel.

”I don’t know what to do now,” he added, while rummaging through nets tangled in the trees.

The same fate had befallen 52-year-old Pedurupullai Allagaiya of Kayankerni, a village close to Mankerni.

”No boat, no house. Everything fully gone,” he said at the Kayankerni refugee camp.

Both Murigesupillai and Allagaiya said that despite fear of the waves, they would go back to sea if boats were provided to them.

But so far there has been no indication from the government whether compensation would be paid for private property like fishing vessels.

But relief agencies are also finding it difficult to get aid to areas like Panichchankerni. The bridge on the main road was destroyed during the war and its replacement can only sustain a weight of seven tonnes.

”If we bring big vehicles here, we would have to unload everything at one end, transport them by hand across the bridge, reload and then proceed,” Logitha said.

To make matters worse, since Dec. 26, a dispute has arisen between the Tigers and Colombo over who has control over the relief effort in the Tamil dominated north and east of the country.

The Tigers have indicated that it prefers the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) to be in charge while the government handed over the running of the refugee camps to security forces – much to the chagrin of the rebels.

”Two-thirds of the loss of lives and properties caused by the disaster has been in Tamil areas in the north-east province. But the Sri Lanka government is channelling vast sums of foreign aid to the south,” Sea Tigers head Col. Soosai was quoted as saying in the pro-Tiger Tamil Net website.

The TRO has accused the government of shutting it out of the decision-making process relating to the reconstruction and rehabilitation of tsunami-hit areas.

”What we want is the aid to be equitable,” said Suresh Marcandan of the TRO.

Nonetheless, the biggest challenge still lies in helping the tsunami survivors overcome their psychological trauma.

”Many are saying they have been targeted by the Gods who first made them suffer the war and then the tsunami. That’s what they are feeling right now,” said Sarvodaya’s Logitha.