Archive for the ‘Disaster Management’

Wars and Waves: Sri Lanka’s internally displaced

The 28 minute documentary “Wars and Waves: Sri Lanka’s internally displaced” that was produced by COHRE, and directed and written by me, is available online. There was a small private launch a week ago in Colombo. COHRE plans to do a larger public screening followed by a discussion in the coming weeks. The purpose of the film is to highlight Sri Lanka’s IDP issue. The film will be used by COHRE as an advocacy tool, and by its network partners to provoke discussion about the issue. It’s primarily aimed at an international audience. Description of film: In Sri Lanka, a natural disaster and ongoing conflict have displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Those who lost everything to the December 2004 tsunami still wait for permanent housing. Families evicted from the North of Sri Lanka in 1990 continue to live in temporary shelters. And now the recommencement of the war is forcing people to flee their homes once more towards refugee…

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Voices of Reconciliation Radio – New Content

Tune in and turn up the volume! VOR Radio aims to enhance social, political and cultural cohesion in Sri Lanka through podcasts in Sinhala, Tamil and English with a special focus on civil society initiatives and perspectives on peace, reconciliation and democracy. Some of the latest additions to our growing collection of podcasts from Sri Lanka are: Coastal Rising Young Asia Television (YATV) has brought together district-based teams of journalists and civil society activists in the East and South of Sri Lanka to highlight tsunami recovery from the community perspective. The series draws attention to how citizens, local government, relief agencies and the donor community have risen to the challenge of rebuilding livelihoods and infrastructure along the devastated coast. Click here or search for Coastal Rising on the VOR Radio site to get a wealth of podcasts and content over the past 10 weeks. Mobile talking: Cellphones, Conflict Resolution and Human Rights A podcast with Radio New Internationalist, Australia on…

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The Publicity Baby

Abilash Jeyarajah looks like any other ordinary toddler, living with his family in a small village near Kalmunai in the Ampara district of Sri Lanka. But life was not so ordinary for him a little over two years ago, when the tsunami literally swept him into the limelight. At that time, Abilash was more widely known as Baby 81, the famous four month old who was torn from his mother’s arms when the tsunami struck and was later found among the debris and wreckage. He was brought to Kalmunai Hospital and as his identity was unknown and he was the 81st person to be admitted, he became known as Baby 81. In the weeks following the disaster, many were still trying to trace their friends and relatives. Parents who couldn’t find their children searched high and low in hospitals and welfare centers in desperation. Several showed interest in Abilash and one other person made a claim for the baby. But…

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  • 5 Apr, 2007
  • 2 Comments
  • Disaster Management,
    Human Rights,
    Human Security,
    Peace and Conflict,
    Trincomalee

නැගනහිර යූද්ධය තූල තනීවූ සාමෙය් නගරය.

ශූීලංකාව තූල තවමත් අැදීයන ෙමි ඊළාමි යුද්්්්ධය ට දැන් වසර 26 ක් ගතවි තිෙබි.ෙමම වසර 26 තුල යුද්ධෙයන් බැට කෑ අහිංසක ඡනතාවෙග් අවසන් බලාෙපාෙරාත්තුවද දැන් ෙකෙමන් ෙකෙමන් දියෙවන්නට පටන් ෙගන අැත. ෙමම ඊළාමි යුද්ධෙයන් බැට කෑ තවත් එක් දිස්තිුක්කයක් ගැන ෙසායා බැලිෙමි අරමුණින් අප ෙමි සංචාරය අාරමිභ කරන ලදි. සමස්තයක් වශෙයන් ගත් කල නැගනහිර පළාෙත් පුනර්ඡිවනය වශෙයන් හදුන්වනු ලබන තිුකුණාමළය නගරයයි. ුුුුිිිි අාර්ථිකය අතින් වැදගත් වු ස්ථානයක් ෙලස හැදින්ෙවන ෙමහි පිහිටි ස්භාවික වරාෙයන් සහ සුන්දර ෙවරළ තිරෙයන් නැගනහිර පූෙද්ශෙය් වැඩි වටිනාකමක් දිනා ගැනිමට තුිකුණාමළය පුෙද්ශයට හැකිවි තිෙබි.එෙහත් අවසනාවකට ෙමන් අද අප කතා කිරිමට සුදානමි à·€ සිටින්ෙන් නැගනහිර පූෙද්ශෙය් යුද්ධෙයන් බැට කෑ තුිකුණාමළය නගරෙය් වර්ථමාන තත්වය පිළිබද ෙතාරතුරැ ෙසායා බැලිමටය. සාමෙය් අාරමිභයත් සමග උදාවු වසන්තය දැන් නිමාව අැතයිද යන්න ගමන අාරමිභෙය්ම අපට හිතුෙන්,පුෙද්ශෙය් අාරක්ෂක අංශ විසින් පනවා තිෙබන මාර්ග බාධක සහ පරික්ෂාකිරිමි නිසාය.ෙමම මාර්ග බාධක පසු කරන සැම වාහනයක් සහ පුද්ගලෙයක්ම දෑඩි පරික්ෂා කිරිමකට ලක්කරන අාකාරයයි. නගරයට අැතුල් වන ස්ථානය වන අනුරාධපුර මංසන්ධිය අසල දකින්නට ලැබුෙන් පාඵ ස්භාවයකි. මිට මාස 10කට…

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Whiter justice? – The killing of Thillainayagam Theeban

Photo credit: Video Image, Sri Lanka Media Helping Media features a poignant submission by Nalaka Gunawardene on the murder of Thillainayagam Theeban. As noted in the article: Theeban, 16 at the time of his death, was one of eight survivor children in four Asian countries that TVE Asia Pacific tracked for one year under the Children of Tsunami regional media project. Theeban’s life story, as framed by Nalaka is deeply moving and bespeaks of the plight of many other children in the North and East after the tsunami, and caught up in violent conflict. It also calls to question the effectiveness of aid to the tsunami affected communities (read the Lessons We Never Learn, written for the 2nd commemoration of the tsunami, that asks some searing questions on similar lines). Nalaka’s article is important for another reason. Questioning the oft stated goal of journalism – to be “objective”, Nalaka avers that: Journalism with empathy was far preferable to the cold…

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“We need a revolution in Sri Lanka!” – A brief chat with Sam de Silva

Photo credit: Nazreen Sansoni “on one level, Sri Lanka needs a revolution to really change what’s going on here. There is such a domination by the powers that be… there needs to be a real uprising. How to actually get an “enlightened uprising”, to use a term from the film, is the tricky part.” I caught up with Sam de Silva of Circles of Violence fame, before he headed back to Australia tonight. Sam’s film, shown to a few of us in Colombo last week, has already generated some interesting responses and is the most recent attempt to explore through film Sri Lanka’s tryst with peace in the midst of rising violence. Sam began by stating that for him what was most interesting about the premiere of the film a week ago at Barefoot was the discussion on what it is to be a Sri Lankan and what (and how) we define a Sri Lankan identity. Comfortable with his Australian…

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A Look Into A Village In Kalutara

My recent visits to the coastal village of Nalarua in the district of Kalutara, about 5 kilometres from Kalutara town, got me thinking about life in the south. 450 families live in that village. I spoke to eight men and seven women on a Tuesday morning. Religion-wise 97% of them were Buddhist, 2% Catholic and 1% Muslim. They work as masons, carpenters, craftsmen working with coconut fibre to make ropes and small boats and others as garment factory workers. Their political affiliations are with parties such as the SLFP, UNP, JVP and JHU. I asked one of the middle-aged men asked whether there were any caste issues in their village. “We don’t have any caste issues, we are all Sinhalese living peacefully. For example one-day the temple was affected by an electric fire. We all got together and controlled the fire,” he said. While the people seemed very keen to not talk about any caste issues, my inquiries in the…

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Human displacement

Two posts on DBS Jeyraj’s blog highlight aspects of the humanitarian crisis in the North and the East already flagged here. Civilians in Vaakarai face death and starvation Displaced Tamils face difficulties in B’caloa Coupled with the severe displacement of civilians on account of the recent landslides in the Hill Country, Sri Lanka in 2007 seems ill-geared to handle human displacement of this magnitude. Important to remember however, is that while landslides are natural disasters, the current displacement in the North and East is the result of a botched peace process, which shows no signs of resurrection this year. Repost This Article

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Jaffna These Days

From Aug 11th security forces closed the A9 highway after the LTTE attack. A9 is the only land route connecting Jaffna to other places, as a result, people are now facing difficulties to travel to other places after the closure of the A9. Earlier an average 8,000 people travelled on the A9 daily. Now only two ways are open to Jaffna people. One is sea transport, other one is air transport. A vessel called Green oceanic carried passengers between Jaffna Trincomalee once a week and two local airlines conducted passenger service Colombo-Jaffna daily. People need Security clearence before the journey (MOD). These transport facilities are not enough to fullfill the Jaffna peoples’ needs. Thousands of people are waiting in Trincomalee to go to Jaffna and a big crowed has registered their names in the Civil affairs office to leave Jaffna. Before the land route closed an average 200 (12 seat) small vans carried passengers between Colombo-Jaffna daily, now these van…

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Remembering the tsunami – along the south coast…

A couple of days ago (26th), I travelled along the South Coast, leaving Colombo early in the morning. I was with a friend who had come here to film some stuff relating to the second year since the tsunami. A translator also accompanied us. Our first stop was Peraliya – that place where the wave got the train killing some 1,200 people. To mark the second anniversary, a giant Buddha statue (based on the one that was blown up by the Taliban) was going to be ‘opened’ by the President and other digniteries. We didn’t want to hang around, and kept heading down the coast. Around 9am, we came across a small church. They were going to hold a service that included both Buddhist monks and Christian priests – a dual-denomination event. It was small and there was a sense of intimacy. We hung around and filmed parts of the service. There’s a long way to go – according to…

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Situation in Vakarai

About 25,000 refugees in the Vakarai region of Batticaloa need assistance urgently in terms of food, medicines, shelter, water and sanitation. They have been facing shortages for over a month, and I received my information from refugees who had left from Vakarai about 4 days ago. The government sector is also not functioning so there are no schools and medical facilities. A convoy with essential items was turned back yesterday by the army from Mankerni base. The army gave the reason that LTTE artillery attacks on Kajuwatte camp made it unsafe. The LTTE spokesman Illanthirayan denies this and says there was no firing by the LTTE on Tuesday. On Wedneday, another convoy of essential goods is preparing to go to Vakarai. About 3,500 LTTE cadres are in Vakarai, according to the IDPs. The LTTE says they are providing humanitarian help for the camps, because the people are from LTTE controlled areas. The people there are feeling isolated because they can’t…

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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