Sri Lanka Floods 2017: Sharing the Blame

Once again Sri Lanka is in the grip of a natural disaster. Thousands have been displaced and hundreds killed by the floods and landslides. The tragedy is that this time the rains were not necessarily unprecedented and the irony is that the Minister for Disaster Management was in Cancun at that time talking about the capacity of the government to respond. Despite his very impressive speech it was clear that his own disaster management ministry was left wanting of the basic supplies.

For me, this cannot be dismissed as sheer incompetence. This is not only tantamount to a lie but also a crime; a crime of negligence which has had the severest of consequences. As I wrote a year ago, we should have seen this as a pattern that Sri Lanka over the last few years has suffered from rain causing flooding with the situation worsening every year. Last year we should have learned our lesson, yet we are still in a scenario as if we are responding for the first time.

However this is a crime whose responsibility is not just to be borne by the Government. We in academia, civil society and the private sector also need to take a share of the blame. For weeks and months after the floods, we met and talked about what to do differently.   Yet it seems that all of that was for naught. We have always talked about being prepared yet we seem to have largely failed.

The sad reality is that we had a full representation of civil society and the private sector attending the UN’s World Humanitarian Summit, in Istanbul a year ago. Commitments and consensus from the international community for a much more responsive humanitarian structure and system to be developed to address the changing complexity of needs were obtained. Yet like all international processes, Sri Lanka was a mere observer, using the occasion to be seen as opposed to thinking about using it to do something different. The Government had little interest in getting engaged as they dispatched the Minister for Transport and Aviation (hardly an authority on humanitarian responses and disaster management) with a couple of civil servants and a few civil society activists, who had managed to secure financial support from the UN to attend. This in itself is telling that we are still in a system where civil society and NGOs have to gather external funds to support trips being done to discuss issues that are of significant interest in the long run to the country. The mere fact that we are interested to give money when disaster strikes yet unable to provide money for prevention is something we need to seriously discuss.

Having been intimately involved with the preparations for the Summit, I found myself at a loss that there was also little appetite for any comprehensive discussion in country. The sole ‘national’ consultation carried out for Sri Lanka in the run up to the Summit was done by a few national CSO’s and INGOs, and ironically pointed out key issues that needed to be considered some of which have bearings with this crisis:

• The need to improve coordination in humanitarian response involving a central body at the country level coordinating all humanitarian agencies working in the country
• The empowerment of local communities
• The use of GPS and drones for the location of victims
• The use of mobiles for with a recommendation for telecom operators to operate specialized cross network channels to allow for ease of communication
• The stockpiling of food and non essential items.
• The involvement of young people in humanitarian responses

While these consultations got lost within the framework of a UN process, what I have been baffled about is the fact that these national CSOs/NGOs who were part of this discussion and generated these considerations have also failed to implement some of these in their work moving forward.

There should have been better training and preparedness. Yet what I have been struck by is the reticence of Sri Lankan civil society to respond. From a lack of financial and human resources capacity to a more political stance of ‘who was seen to be taking the lead in these conversations’, what has resulted has been a lack of a proactive process of working on contingency planning. But this is not just left to the civil society who have been guilty. Private sector has to ask itself some serious questions. While many private sector organisations have taken it upon themselves to become the custodians of humanitarian response (namely in the absence of a coherent response from the UN/ Civil Society and Government), they have done so largely uncoordinated. They have also been guilty of playing the politics card. For example, the Connecting Business Initiative launched at the World Humanitarian Summit by a Sri Lankan private sector company was designed to transform the way that private sector engages before, during and after crises. Leaving aside the complexities of engaging with 2 UN agencies, this initiative has largely not taken off in Sri Lanka (despite it being one of few focal countries). Private sector has been largely disinterested (choosing to fly their own flags) or when approached have expressed reservations about which particular company and individual was seen to be at the forefront of this initiative. Such petty political stances means that in the absence of a government response, there is no other collective effort to provide a humanitarian response. It is then left to individuals and individual organisations to respond in a haphazard manner without the proper training, advice, expertise and sensitivity which is a bit ironic given the fact that in their day to day business, private sector will not get into something unless they have the necessary expertise and knowledge.

It’s not necessarily rocket science but it is about being aware of what to do and what not to do.It would be wise as well to remember that there is life beyond the initial help following the onset of the disaster. We forget the medium and long term.

People at the center of the crisis will need to be empowered to cope and recover with dignity in the coming days, months and years. The voices and choices of the affected people and the first responders should guide our response even when outside actors are called upon to provide assistance and protection. It is all very well for us who from outside talk about the provision of food or non food items but we have to take into account that surveys consistently show that many affected people do not believe the aid they receive is relevant or meets their priority needs.

Thus it is not just about the provision of goods and services but the rebuilding of services and structures to cope and resume their livelihoods on their own.  We cannot afford to create a culture of dependency. It is now increasingly being recognized that the provision of cash or vouchers in emergencies can support people in ways that maintain human dignity, provide access to food and shelter and help rebuild or protect livelihoods. Of course this is context specific depending on the extent of the disaster, but the aim of such programming allows a flexible response tool that supports the autonomy and choice of these people, while making humanitarian aid more accountable to the affected people. It allows them to recharge their phones for example to communicate with loved ones or even to look after their own specific businesses. It also gives them agency at a time when you have lost everything. It helps them to get engaged. Yet from the appeals that have gone out, we are still making decisions for the affected people asking for things that we think that they need in terms of items, somehow assuming that in the tragedy victims would have lost their rationale to think or worse that they are somehow dishonest and would cheat the system. Such thinking to some extent devalues the worth of our fellow human beings reducing them to being thought of as beggars who should accept what we give because they have lost everything. The issue is not to dismiss the provision of food and other valued items but to also consider how cash and voucher transfers can be used in the best effect. For this to happen we need to have a paradigm shift in terms of our thinking of how we respond to emergencies.

We need to close the gender and diversity gap in our response to those who have been affected. Women, girls the elderly and the disabled often are unable to claim their rights and fulfil their needs in a crisis. This has to start with an effective information management which includes disaggregated data and other key relevant indicators.

Lastly those affected will need support in getting back to their homes so cleaning and return kits are essential. This is where we often fail. They will need help to restart their businesses and rebuild their shattered lives. How can we ensure that we have programmed this in our fundraising as well as our time and resource allocation? What provisions do we have for livelihood support? When the crowds die down and the interest declines, how can we ensure that people are still remembered?

We now also seriously need to think collectively about contingency planning. The government has shown that it is inept at preparing for the crisis. We need to collectively work on better training and being better equipped in areas of preparedness and response to disasters and crisis. We need to strengthen national legislation on emergency preparedness including contingency planning and early warning systems which also identifies the roles and responsibilities of various actors including the private sector. As international aid for humanitarian and development work declines for Sri Lanka due to its middle income status classification, it is left on the shoulders of the national NGOs, Government and Private Sector to respond. We cannot afford to be reacting like this once again in a year’s time because we will have more problems as our thirst for development and urbanisation means we take shortcuts in planning and construction.

If in a year we have not been able to prepare and respond adequately then the blame is not just on the government but on us collectively for the crime of negligence that we failed to learn from our mistakes.

This originally appeared on Groundviews

What Can We Learn From the 'World Interfaith Harmony Week

Last week, the first week of February was traditionally the 'World Interfaith Harmony Week' as designated by the United Nations to occur annually in the first full week of February. This week was seen as a chance for the global community to promote harmony between all people and to establish a dialogue amongst the different faiths and religions in an attempt to enhance mutual understanding, harmony and cooperation.

Given the very bloody start to 2016, now more than ever is there a need for such spaces to pause and reflect on how to create a new environment for the promotion of Inter-Religious and Inter-Cultural Dialogue, Understanding and Cooperation for Peace. The incidents around the world whether it is the violence in the Middle East, the anti immigrant feelings in Europe, the rise of racist nationalism in Asia, or the xenophobic rhetoric stemming out the of the US presidential election campaigns, all emphasize the need to build societies that are shared by everyone. These 'shared' societies are uniquely imagined as places where a durable peace is maintained through values of compassion and solidarity and by encouraging the promotion of dialogue amongst the different forums available in all cultures.

This is of course the idealistic aspiration behind the Harmony week but with a realistic recognition that it requires real work from all stakeholders that constitute society as a whole. In other words, it is not the purview or responsibility of one component. It needs commitment to an understanding of the driving contexts and causes for conflict, and also of the real tangible aspects for peace. This lofty goal can be challenging to understand. After all what do we mean by peace? For me, the closest definition for this term is that 'Peace is possible when people can live in safety, have fair and effective laws, participate in shaping political decisions, make a decent living and secure their wellbeing'. The question then becomes how do we arrive at this possibility? From the perspective of the Interfaith Harmony Week, how can such a culture of peace be developed?

Simply put, there needs to be real and fruitful conversations that involve talking to people and understanding how to address the misperceptions that exist about the 'other' within all of us. We have to have honest and open discussions about faith and its role in society and what exists within the faiths of mutual co-existence. This centers around common values which espouse the notion of a shared humanity; social responsibility; social justice and ethics

In essence, we will have to rediscover a spirituality of commonality which will allow us to recognise the common space and substance amongst all doctrines that will provide the fuel for social change and trigger action for the unity of humanity. This shared language will enable us to develop a set of ideals that continue to stir our collective conscience; a common set of values that bind us together despite our differences; a running thread of hope that makes this improbable experiment of reconciling and rehabilitation of vulnerable communities possible. These values and ideals will have to be living, which cannot find expression on paper or monuments or in the annals of history books, but which remain alive in the hearts and minds of people inspiring us to pride, duty and sacrifice. These living values will have to help us to build on shared understandings and should be the glue that binds every healthy society. However whilst dialogues are a beginning it is important that engagement goes beyond this. Interfaith (and increasingly intra-faith) dialogue has to produce something tangible for communities on the front line

We are now living at a time where increasingly across the world, political violence flavoured by faith, culture and identity is being used to justify positions of identity and power. This often leads to misconceptions and misperceptions about certain faiths and its followers. The tragedy will be if we lose this battle. Faith identities will continue to be part of the picture and faith will continue to be a strong rallying point for global communities. We as people of faith and spirituality have to retake the reins and change the paradigm.

The week offers us an opportunity to do so. Yet outside certain circles it is not known or widely practiced even by the UN itself. There are of course doubts as to the integrity of the week given the Saudi Arabia (not one known for its pluralistic appreciation of inter and intra faith dialogue) was one of the initial sponsors. It also skirts around much needed intra-faith dialogue as well. Nevertheless, the space has been created and it is now up to those to make use of it. We have to address the challenges and the polarization that is tearing apart the fabric of the global society. This will never be easy, but remains vitally important. This week offers some opportunity for this

This was originally published here  on the Huffington Post

'Add Women + Stir' Doesn't Work Any More

Yesterday in Colombo, Sri Lanka, I attended a roundtable organised on "Women, Peacebuilding and Resolution 1325" where the guest speaker was Senator Mobina Jaffer from Canada, who shared her wide experiences from the ground of trying to enforce conversations around implementing the resolution.

However in the discussions that followed, a gentleman from one of the leading civil society organisations in Colombo/Sri Lanka alluded to the fact that the reason why it was hard to get any parity in gender discussions in Sri Lankan policy was the fact that there were not enough women in the room to call for this. This has been the argument of many groups and gender experts with regards the Sri Lankan experience that "we need more women in the room to speak for women issues"; hence the calling for example of the 25% quota for women to be nominated by political parties during elections.

I am far from being a gender expert and my work has been largely in the inter faith realm and with youth. However one of my experiences has been that whilst it is important that we get people from the 'minority' groups to shout louder about getting representation, it is not until their narrative is understood and mainstreamed by the majority that they can actually move the conversation forward. In other words, in my understanding, it is not enough just to get the women into the room to shout but the fact that the men have to shout as well and shout quite loud. The move for quotas is a start but it should not be the end. It has to be a means towards the end which is ultimately a parity and equality with no discrimination and oppression.

If the recent US elections (or the past eight years of the Obama presidency) or even the Sri Lankan example of having had two female heads of states are anything to go by they bear witness to this fact that unless the majority are convinced, having prominent minority representation may not fully work, and that it can actually become harder.

This seemed to be the crux of the Senator's arguments about understanding the 1325 resolution in that it was about an inclusive participation that was needed for sustainable peace. What does 'inclusive participation' mean? It means that both men and women have to be involved.

This is because conflict and violence, affect women, men, boys, girls etc differently. Whilst gender is central to understanding the needs and vulnerabilities of communities, it also helps us to understand the possibilities of 'agency' of individuals and communities in peace building and conflict-affected situations. In other words, gender is not simply a 'tick box' exercise or a separate technical category to be added onto projects, but is integral to all steps of the peacebuilding process. It has to take into account power dynamics, identities, possibilities and vulnerabilities across societies. A more nuanced gender analysis, as has been pointed out by a report released a few years ago by International Alert called "Rethinking Gender in Peacebuilding", looks at such variations and hierarchies within and across women and men and calls for examining the interplay between gender and other identity markers such as age, social class, sexuality, disability, ethnic or religious background, marital status or urban/rural settings. This 'gender-relational' approach for example understands that the wife of a rural leader may have more access to resources and justice than an urban young male taxi driver.

This is a more nuanced approach that moves away from equating gender simply with women (and girls). It addresses the complexities of roles played by the varying needs and above all the agency of women in the contexts that they faced alongside a better understanding of the role (and needs of men) beyond just being perpetrators of violence against or wielders of patriarchal power over women.

What this means is that we collectively need to move away from the narrow focus and attention on just supporting programs looking at women livelihood or sexual and gender based violence. There has to be a greater holistic understanding of needs and vulnerabilities of gender minorities in conflict and peacebuilding processes but also a reflective look on the masculinities and femininities in other related fields like political participation and economic empowerment. There needs to be greater awareness of how gender roles and relations work in each particular context and how gender differences intersect with other identities. With peacebuilding, how do these roles and relations influence and are shaped by violent conflict and the opportunities presented for transformational change? This then allows us to suggest interventions as well as a sharper focus on people who are vulnerable as well as those that are part or need to be part of the change.

Working on the notion of positive peace as understood by Johan Galtung will mean a greater nuanced gender relational approach that is all inclusive.

Put simply "Add Women and Stir" is and can no longer be modus operandi!!

This originally appeared on Huffington Post

Religious Identity and Inclusion

A discussion about religious identity and inclusion has to theoretically  start from a perspective of exclusion.  We have to understand what are the factors causing exclusion.

Globalisation has disrupted the social fabric that helps individuals define themselves and assess their social roles (Jurgensmeyer, Griego and Soboslai, 2015). The shifts of the 21st century have upended traditional structures of authority, relocated centres of power and allowed a flood of perspectives on how life should be lived. These shifts have unanchored lives, challenging the traditional structures and networks that guided peoples’ behaviour in society, such as learning from the teachings of our forefathers and following the models of others. In times of rapid social change, these networks are erased or shifted to a degree that they become unrecognisable. The frantic pace of change has unsettled people to such an extent that they yearn for agents of constancy to provide an oasis in the shifting sands of today. At a time when we are, in some ways, more interconnected than we have ever been, ironically we are also disconnected, with exclusion taking place on a variety of levels. In particular, exclusion is reinforced by:

• Our search for social identity: The increasing mobility of people and the ease of global communications seem almost to make it possible for everyone to live everywhere. As a result, huge new multicultural populations are emerging around the world that have mixed identities, grounded in their new homelands but in touch with countries of heritage. Thus today one’s social identity is fluid and often determined by changing global circumstances, and remains a paradox. This paradox arises from the fact that unlike previously people have multiple competing factors around which their social identity is formed.  This can in some cases create challenges especially for those who comprise the second and third generation of migrants in the west.
• Our need for for accountability: There is a global issue of the lack of viable moral authority. As the concept of the nation state becomes diluted with globalisation, it is no longer clear who is in charge. This phenomenon is further exacerbated by disaffected nationalist regimes and movements that claim, but at the same time have seemingly lost, moral bearings.
• Our push for security: We see mass disillusionment with the system of sovereign, secular states. National unities have been challenged by division based on religious and tribal identities, and new ideologies of nationalism have emerged based on the sectarian interests of religion.

Consistent with these feelings of exclusion, we have seen that the beginning of the 21st century was one marked by predominantly civil conflicts. An authoritative estimate is that 1.5 billion people – a little over 20% of the world’s population – live in countries under the threat of large-scale, organised violence, whether perpetrated by terrorists, state forces or– mostly – by criminal gangs (World Bank 2011).   Challenges to the established order are arising in different places around the world, linked to diverse causes such as political change, regional and national autonomy, urbanisation, climate change, faith and cultural identity, or the struggle to secure the basic conditions of life. In many cases, politics, faith, identity and rights are the foreground factors for conflict.

It is precisely in this scenario that there are calls for new solutions that will challenge these exclusionary factors. This challenge starts with the premise that whilst faith is seen as a cause of turmoil and exclusion, it can also be used as an antidote.  As the sociologist and Islamic reformer Ali Sharyati put it, “Religion is an amazing phenomenon that plays contradictory roles in people’s lives.  It can destroy or revitalise, put to sleep or awaken, enslave or emancipate, teach docility or teach revolt.”

For many people around the world, faith is embedded in cultures, practices and communities. Religious practices and perspectives continue to be sources of values that nourish an ethics of multicultural citizenship, commanding both solidarity and equal respect. Historically, spiritual heritage has often provided humanity with the capacity for personal and social transformation.

Today we are experiencing dark moments, and in the tumult, religion appears to shine like a beacon of hope and reliability. Religions provide trusted institutions that have their bases of legitimacy in the divine order of the universe and in the societies they have nourished and been nourished by. As a repository of symbols, a system of belief, a convergence of cultural rights, a structure of morality, an institution of power and one that challenges old systems, people often find religion offers them a sense of community, a trusted authority and meaning for their lives. It gives them a sense of identity.

The concept of inclusion around religious identity thus works on the premise of building an understanding of religious pluralism, based on common features in a language spoken by most people, setting the agenda for creating a new, improved environment.  As a concept for espousing inclusion, religious pluralism is the interaction of religious actors with one another and with society and the state around concrete cultural, social, economic and political agendas. It denotes a politics that joins diverse communities with overlapping but distinctive ethics and interests.

Yet despite this potential, there has been a certain reluctance to recognise and acknowledge this and subsequently engage with faith organisations on such measures. Reluctance stems from the fact that, despite the importance of inclusion in principle, there is a character to the religious playing field that can complicate matters. Faith communities, whether they are numerous and powerful, a minority struggling for a voice, or even an influential tiny cadre, undeniably have as strong a history of internecine strife and struggle as they do of cooperation and collaboration.

Faith identities will continue to be part of the picture, and faith-based organisations will continue to thrive as part of civil society. If we choose to ignore this reality, we do so at our peril, especially in a time when traditional understandings of identity, accountability and security are being continuously challenged, as is the way we belong to a community, which has changed due to increased mobility, improved communication technologies and the weakening boundaries of communities and the nation state. There is thus a need to find new ways to anchor us in a globally connected world. In the turbulent waters of the global era, religion, which has its basis in the past, can provide solid ground and protection, but also inspire creative ways to aid transition. There is a need to recognise the role that faith can play and provide a seat at the table for faith organisations.

This is the current problem with some thinking about exclusion. Many people misinterpret their little truth as being the whole truth and are not inclusive enough.  True inclusivity can only be obtained when we carefully position everything to create a compelling cosmopolitan mosaic. This will never be easy, but remains vitally important because, it involves creating the very “ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become.”

This article appeared originally on State of Formation

A longer version of this article  appeared in the recent CIVICUS report on “The State of the Civil Society 2016“

Embracing Pluralistic Religious Identity for Inclusion

We are now in an age of disruption, the way we communicate; do business; politics and how we relate to each other. Thanks in part to globalisation we are now experiencing the disruption of the social fabric that helps individuals define themselves and assess their social roles. Now in one sense that doesn't seem to be such a bad thing, because we have seen the upending of traditional structures of authority, the relocation of centres of power and the emergence of a flood of perspectives on how life should be lived. Yet primarily because of these disruptions that have unanchored lives and challenged traditional structures and networks, we see a backlash of increased racism and xenophobia. The rapid pace of change has unsettled people to such an extent that they yearn for agents of constancy to provide an oasis in the shifting sands of today.

Today we are excluded from each other in more ways than one. Our search for a social identity is a paradox and has become fluid in the midst of the increasing mobility of people along with the ease of global communications which make it possible for everyone to live everywhere. As a result, huge new multicultural populations are emerging around the world that have mixed identities shaped by multiple competing factors. The loss of the moral compass from those in charge is compounded by a general loss of authority as it is no longer clear who is in charge: is it corporations/ big business? Is it ideology?. With the loss of authority comes a threat of security compounded by the challenge on national unity by division based on religious, ethnic and tribal identities and new ideologies of nationalism emerging from this division.

These feelings of exclusion have manifested themselves by civil conflicts. In many cases, politics, faith, identity and rights are the foreground factors for conflict. Consequently, conflicts manifest themselves in rumour, hearsay and generalisations, which are often the first steps towards the stereotyping of people, on the grounds of their faith, their culture and identity, and the denial of a diverse, lived reality.

It is precisely in this scenario that there are calls for new solutions to challenge people to create equal opportunities for diverse communities of ethnicities, traditions, cultures and faiths. This challenge starts with the premise that whilst faith is seen as a cause of turmoil and exclusion, it can be used as an antidote. As the sociologist Ali Sharyati put it, "Religion is an amazing phenomenon that plays contradictory roles in people's lives. It can destroy or revitalise, put to sleep or awaken, enslave or emancipate, teach docility or teach revolt."

Why faith? Simply put, for many people around the world, faith is embedded in cultures, practices and communities. Religious practices and perspectives continue to be sources of values that nourish an ethics of multicultural citizenship, commanding both solidarity and equal respect. Historically, spiritual heritage has often provided humanity with the capacity for personal and social transformation.

Today as we experience dark moments, in the tumult, religion can appear to shine like a beacon of hope and reliability. Religions provide trusted institutions that have their bases of legitimacy in the divine order of the universe and in the societies they have nourished and been nourished by. As a repository of symbols, a system of belief, a convergence of cultural rights, a structure of morality, an institution of power and one that challenges old systems, people often find religion offers them a sense of community, a trusted authority and meaning for their lives. Religious institutions can also be mediums for inclusive engagement, as they offer simple and easy access to communities, and a simple language to express the commonalities of existence through the expression of common values, the invoking of social responsibility and working together on issues of social justice and ethics.

Thus this speaks to a concept of inclusion around religious identity that works on the premise of building an understanding of religious pluralism, founded on common features in a language spoken by most people, setting the agenda for creating a new, improved environment.

Globalisation has challenged the familiar national/international polarity by transforming relationships between what were considered global and local aspects of politics, culture and society. As religion can cut across class, ethnic, geographic and cultural divisions, religious leaders can serve an important, if sometimes informal, representative function. Members of a religious community, anchored in different parts of the world, have an enormous latent capacity to increase their cultural, social and economic links with one another and with other religious and secular partners in other parts of the world. Religious identity can thus serve as a powerful bond amid the vicissitudes of globalisation, and one reinforced by ethical commitments embedded within a particular tradition. Working on wider diverse shared polity of pluralism means that you can tap into a hidden channel for creating engagement between people. This can perhaps allows us to find new ways to anchor us in a globally connected world. In the turbulent waters of the global era, religion, which has its basis in the past, can provide solid ground and protection, but also inspire creating the very "ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become."

A longer version of this article appeared in the recent CIVICUS report on "The State of the Civil Society 2016"

This originally appeared on Huffington Post

Muttur Siege: Reflecting 10 years on

Ten years is a significant milestone: a decade; a generation.  A lot can happen in ten years and a lot has.  Ten years ago, the smartphone was still a concept that was being tried and tested; MSN Messenger was the way people communicated with each other.

Ten years is also a long time to carry a personal burden, a memory that has been buried deep within yourself, of a trauma that you are unfamiliar with.  So I write this firstly as a cathartic process because it was my first time on the field to be on the front line facing conflict and its aftermath.  I had the previous year moved from my engineering job into working with (and eventually running the country office of) an NGO looking at post tsunami reconstruction but by April 2006, found myself looking very much at the prospect of dealing with a resurgence of the conflict.  This was something I was not prepared for, nor was I prepared for what was on the ground.

This story of the Muttur siege also deserves to be told and kept alive as part of the narrative of the Sri Lankan conflict.  It is often forgotten in the midst of other issues but the mere displacement of 20,000 people is not an insignificant occurrence.

Sri Lanka sadly is not short of milestones of sad significance when it comes to its narrative of the conflict.  Every day, month, year, place has a sad reminder of the bloodshed and suffering the people of this country faced particularly between 1983 and 2009 but if you want to go back, from the armed insurrections of 1971 as well.

Yet the story of Muttur in all of this narrative of the conflict and accountability has remained far from the memory of people except for the Action Contre le Faim (ACF, Action against Hunger) murders.  This is the only time when there is a reference to this, which is unfortunate given what happened around that time and its implications for the rest of the conflict.

Muttur has always been on the front line of the conflict, given its location in the Trincomalee district. With its strategic location, it remains a vantage point for entry into the Trincomalee harbour. Muttur’s 57,000 population, however, is predominantly Muslim and since 1984, the town has come under repeated threat or attack from the LTTE, its physical isolation exacerbated by a pervasive sense of insecurity.

The story of the Muttur siege though starts in April 2006 when leaflets were sent purportedly by the LTTE asking Muslims to leave Muttur (reminiscent of what happened to the Muslim community in Jaffna and the northern province in 1990, which saw the expulsion of close to 75,000 people).  In the preceding weeks the ceasefire between the LTTE and the government would end and the LTTE would seize control of the water supply to the Mavil Aru Anicut, a densely-populated watershed to the south of Muttur. This was followed by a virtual blockade of the town with outer villages suffering from lack of food and no access to livelihood.

By the end of July the government had withdrawn its forces from many parts surrounding Muttur to recapture the Mavil Aru Anicut. Many in Muttur believe that the LTTE occupied the anicut to divert Sri Lankan government forces from Muttur and to relieve pressure on LTTE guerrillas in the area in order to mount an attack on Trincomalee.

In the early hours of 2 August 2006, roughly 150 LTTE cadres occupied the centre of Muttur.  After an initial attempt to reoccupy Muttur was rebuffed, the Sri Lankan military began to shell the town early on 3 August, forcing residents to flee their homes. Significantly, it was among faith institutions that people sought sanctuary. By mid-day, almost five thousand people had converged on the Nathwathul Ulama Islamic College and thousands more in two other Islamic schools in the town, Al Hilal and Ashraff High School and in the town’s three mosques. The Tamil community, Hindu and Christian, took refugee in the town’s Catholic and Methodist Churches while most Sinhalese residents evacuated to a prominent Buddhist temple in the nearby town of Seruwila.

During the afternoon of 3 August, however, two shells hit the Islamic College, killing 33 people (UTHR 2006), and in an atmosphere of desperation, religious leaders sought external help to organise an evacuation of Muttur. Despite this both the Government Agent and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) local office at that time seemed ambivalent to the fact that this could happen.  Having spoken to representatives from both agencies personally, I know there was absolutely no expectation (or interest) and plan in the fact that people might evacuate Muttur.

The evacuation of Muttur began after morning prayers on Friday, 4 August, hours before the LTTE guerrillas began to abandon the town to government special forces, with residents walking to Kiliveddi where they were picked up by vehicles mobilised by local civil society including the  Jamiat-e-Ulama (council of Imams). By nightfall, nearly 10,000 Muslims had arrived in the nearby town of Kantale while hundreds of Tamils headed to Trimcomalee via Kantale or south towards Batticaloa district. By Monday, 7 August, more than 20,000 evacuees had arrived in Kantale, and the full horror of the Muttur crisis had become apparent.

However this is far from the end of the story. Arriving people talked about how thousands of terrified evacuees were intercepted by LTTE guerrillas on 4 August and diverted into the jungle at Krandi Rock where at least 5 people died at the hands of the LTTE or as a result of government shelling (UTHR 2008).  In a separate incident, terrified Tamils were stopped near Kiliveddi by government troops who detained 24 men, and then were taken to a police station for processing as potential LTTE members.

In total, nearly 60 people died during the Muttur crisis, including elderly residents who remained in their homes and who died of hunger and thirst.T he Muttur crisis is known for the single worst atrocity ever perpetrated against an international NGO to that date, with the murder of 17 staff of ACF, at their Muttur office. All had been lined up against a wall and shot.  To date there has been no word of who perpetrated the acts although there is suspicion about the government security forces or vigilantes acting on behalf of the government.  Speaking to people displaced from Muttur at that time about this incident, I was struck by the lack of sympathy from many who questioned why when other agencies had withdrawn their staff due to security reasons or had staff join the evacuation from Muttur, there had been a decision to stay. This suspicion still lingers with some members from Muttur today.

For the next two months, the Muttur displaced would remain in Kanthale, a town of some 50,000 people, with a mixed population; 60% Sinhalese, 35% Muslim, and 5% Tamil. Conscious that the inflow of 20,000 people could threaten to overwhelm the local community and exacerbate inter-communal tensions, the government was keen to resettle the evacuees and in October 2006, the evacuees were sent back.   There is of course a lot of debate as to how people were sent back and whether the timing was right, however this is perhaps not the place to write about it.

Muttur remains a defining moment in my life.  For the first time, I was witness to the terrible communal divide in this country.  I remember sitting down to a meeting with the Government Agent (the senior most local government official in the area) to talk about the slow support from the government only to be told “Don’t worry, your (Muslim) ministers and representatives are sorting this out”.  I remember telling him that I didn’t want an MP or a governor who happens to be Muslim to sort this out because many of the evacuees were Muslim, but I wanted the government and its representatives tasked with dealing with such situations to take responsibility because their citizens had been affected. Yet I was struck by a certain disregard, amounting almost to arrogance at his statement.

I saw the potential for partnership between faiths. The Muttur crisis was also the start of a novel partnership between two significant humanitarian organisations with a faith-based ethos; UK-based Muslim Aid and the US-based United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR).  Having been part of that initial partnership, I remain convinced about the possibilities and challenges of partnership among Faith Based Organisations (FBOs) and between FBOs and their secular peers.  This experience  drives me even today to make a case for the important role that faith, faith institutions and faith-based humanitarian agencies have in responding to natural disasters and conflicts, largely because of the trust vested by local communities in local religious institutions and leaders. It demonstrates that cooperation among FBOs across cultural and religious boundaries can undermine cross-community tensions that stimulate conflict.

I also saw the potential for locals and local civil society to bounce back if given the space.  My favourite story from the Muttur crisis is that of the Arafa Nagar bridge. ArafaNagar (A Muslim Village) is a little peninsula within the Muttur town area separated by a small river. The village of Amman Nagar (a Tamil village) is its neighbor. In the late eighties, people of ArafaNagar and Amman nagar were displaced by the conflict to Muttur. After the situation cleared in 2006, people were looking to resettle. Both Amman Nagar and ArafaNagar were looking to return but there was a lack of proper access to the area. People had to take the boat or swim across. There needed to be clearing of shrubbery and damaged buildings and cleaning of wells for water supply. Based on the community’s request, a bridge was built across the river to aid resettlement. In addition, support was offered in terms of gifts in kind for returnees to restart their livelihood. Encouraged by the prospect of a permanent bridge and the support for livelihood, the people of Arafa Nagar got together to build a temporary bridge. People started to return and clear up the land. They put up temporary shelters and started to farm, helped by return kits . Gradually life started to return back to this once forsaken land and communities started to resettle. People of Amma Nagar also returned and there was a chance for communities to reconcile their differences. The bridge was finished and declared open on the 26th of February 2009 in front of the community. It was later handed over to both communities. Visiting that area just after the opening of the bridge in 2009, I saw Tamil and Muslim communities having afternoon tea together with their children playing in the fields and for me in that brief moment in 2009, I felt that there was a potential for communities to come together given space. Even today there is some collaboration and understanding between the religious leaders in this.

Muttur remains an important milestone in Sri Lanka’s narrative of the conflict.  There is understandably a lot of scrutiny about the end of the war in 2009 but regrettably people seem to forget that the whole  period of the conflict has been a time of great trauma and intense suffering.  We focus on the end of the conflict because that is where the world’s attention was pushed especially by lobby groups, yet we have forgotten that the experiments for this started in 2006 from both sides on the conflict with Muttur and continued throughout the final phase of the conflict in 2009.  A lot of what happened at the end of 2009 can be traced back to 2006 but equally a lot of what happened post October 2006 gives some pause for reflection as to what might be if the right conditions are there.

In our quest for Sri Lanka moving forward post conflict, it is important we get a sense of the totality of the narrative and a better understanding from all sides of the conflict.  This will then allow us to holistically frame the reconciliation, justice and accountability perspective. After all we owe it to everyone who has suffered from this conflict through out its 28 year old history.

This originally appeared on Groundviews

Muttur Siege: Reflecting 10 years on

10 years is a significant milestone: a decade; a generation.  A lot can happen in 10 years and a lot has.  10 years ago, the smartphone was still a concept that was being tried and tested; MSN Messenger was the way people communicated with each other.

10 years is also a long time to carry a personal burden, a memory that has been buried deep within yourself of a trauma that you are unfamiliar with.  So I write this firstly as a cathartic process because it was my first time on the field to be on the front line facing conflict and its aftermaths.  I had the previous year moved from my engineering job into working with (and eventually running the country office) an NGO looking at post tsunami reconstruction but by april 2006 found myself looking very much at the prospects of dealing with a resurgence of the conflict.  This was something I was not prepared for, nor was I prepared for what was on the ground.

This story of the Muttur siege also deserves to be told and kept alive as part of the narrative of the Sri Lankan conflict.   It is often forgotten in the midst of other big issues but the mere displacement of 20,000 people is not an insignificant occurrence.

 Sri Lanka sadly is not short of milestones of sad significance when it comes to its narrative of the conflict.  Every day, month, year, place has a sad reminder of the bloodshed and suffering the people of this country faced particularly between 1983 and 2009 but if you want to go back, from the armed insurrections of 1971 as well. 

Yet the story of Muttur in all of this narrative of the conflict and accountability has remained far from the memory of people except for the ACF murders.  This is the only time when there is a reference to this, which is unfortunate given what happened around that time and its implications for the rest of the conflict.

Muttur has always been on the front line of the conflict, given its location in the Trincomalee district. With its strategic location, it remains a vantage point for entry into the Trincomalee harbor. Muttur’s 57,000 population, however, is predominantly Muslim and since 1984, the town has come under repeated threat or attack from the LTTE, its physical isolation exacerbated by a pervasive sense of insecurity.

The story of the Muttur siege though starts in April 2006 when leaflets were sent purportedly by the LTTE asking Muslims to leave Mutur (reminiscent of what happened to the Muslim community in Jaffna and the northern province in 1990, which saw the expulsion of close to 75,000 people).  In the preceding weeks the ceasefire between the LTTE and the government would end and the LTTE would seize control of the water supply to the Mavil Aru Anicut, a densely-populated watershed to the south of Muttur. This was followed by a virtual blockade of the town with outer villages suffering from lack of food and no access to livelihood. 

By the end of July the government had withdrawn its forces from many parts surrounding Muttur to recapture the Mavil Aru Anicut. Many in Muttur believe that the LTTE occupied the anicut to divert Sri Lankan government forces from Muttur and to relieve pressure on LTTE guerrillas in the area in order to mount an attack on Trincomalee.

In the early hours of 2 August 2006, roughly 150 LTTE cadres occupied the centre of Muttur.  After an initial attempt to reoccupy Muttur was rebuffed, the Sri Lankan military began to shell the town early on 3 August, forcing residents to flee their homes. Significantly, it was among faith institutions that people sought sanctuary. By mid-day, almost five thousand people had converged on the Nathwathul Ulama Islamic College and thousands more in two other Islamic schools in the town, Al Hilal and Ashraff High School and in the town’s three mosques. The Tamil community, Hindu and Christian, took refugee in the town’s Catholic and Methodist Churches while most Sinhalese residents evacuated to a prominent Buddhist temple in the nearby town of Seruwila.

During the afternoon of 3 August, however, two shells hit the Islamic College, killing 33 people (UTHR 2006), and in an atmosphere of desperation, religious leaders sought external help to organise an evacuation of Muttur. Despite this both the Government Agent and the UNOCHA local office at that time seemed ambivalent to the fact that this could happen.  Having spoken to representatives from both agencies personally, I know there was absolutely no expectation (or interest) and plan in the fact that people might evacuate Muttur.

The evacuation of Muttur began after morning prayers on Friday, 4 August, hours before the LTTE guerrillas began to abandon the town to government special forces, with residents walking to Kiliveddi where they were picked up by vehicles mobilised by local civil society including the  Jamiat-e-Ulama (council of Imams). By nightfall, nearly 10,000 Muslims had arrived in the nearby town of Kantale while hundreds of Tamils headed to Trimcomalee via Kantale or south towards Batticaloa district. By Monday, 7 August, more than 20,000 evacuees had arrived in Kantale, and the full horror of the Muttur crisis had become apparent.

However this is far from the end of the story.  Arriving people talked about how thousands of terrified evacuees were intercepted by LTTE guerrillas on 4 August and diverted into the jungle at Krandi Rock where at least 5 people died at the hands of the LTTE or as a result of government shelling (UTHR 2008).  In a separate incident, terrified Tamils were stopped near Kiliveddi by government troops who detained 24 men, and then were taken to a police station for processing as potential LTTE members.

In total, nearly 60 people died during the Muttur crisis, including elderly residents who remained in their homes and who died of hunger and thirst.The Muttur crisis is known for the single worst atrocity ever perpetrated against an international NGO to that date, with the murder of 17 staff of Action Contre La Faim (ACF, Action Against Hunger) at ACF’s Muttur office. All had been lined up against a wall and shot.  To date there has been no word of who perpetrated the acts although there is suspicion about the government security forces or vigilantes acting on behalf of the government.  Speaking to people displaced from Muttur at that time about this incident, I was struck by the lack of sympathy from many who questioned why when other agencies had withdrawn their staff due to security reasons or had staff join the evacuation from Muttur, there had been a decision to stay. This suspicion still lingers with some members from Muttur today.

For the next two months, the Muttur displaced would remain in Kanthale, a town of some 50,000 people, with a mixed population; 60% Sinhalese, 35% Muslim, and 5% Tamil. Conscious that the inflow of 20,000 people could threaten to overwhelm the local community and exacerbate inter-communal tensions, the government was keen to resettle the evacuees and in October 2006, the evacuees were sent back.   There is of course a lot of debate as to how people were sent back and whether the timing was right, however this is perhaps not the place to write about it.

Muttur remains a defining moment in my life.  For the first time, I was witness to the terrible communal divide in this country.  I remember sitting down to a meeting with the Government Agent (the senior most local government official in the area) to talk about the slow support from the government only to be told “Don’t worry, your (Muslim) ministers and representatives are sorting this out”.  I remember telling him that I didn’t want an MP or a governor who happens to be muslim to sort this out because many of the evacuees were Muslim, but I wanted the government and its representatives tasked with dealing with such situations to take responsibility because their citizens had been affected.  Yet I was struck by a certain disregard almost arrogance at this statement.

I saw the potential for partnership between faiths. The Muttur crisis was also the start of a novel partnership between two significant humanitarian organisations with a faith-based ethos; UK-based Muslim Aid and the US-based United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR).  Having been part of that initial partnership, I remain convinced about the possibilities and challenges of partnership among Faith Based Organisations (FBOs) and between FBOs and their secular peers.  This experience  drives me even today to make a case for the important role that faith, faith institutions and faith-based humanitarian agencies have in responding to natural disasters and conflicts, largely because of the trust vested by local communities in local religious institutions and leaders. It demonstrates that cooperation among FBOs across cultural and religious boundaries can undermine cross-community tensions that stimulate conflict.

I also saw the potential for locals and local civil society to bounce back if given the space.  My favourite story from the Muttur crisis is that of the Arafa Nagar bridge. ArafaNagar (A Muslim Village) is a little peninsula within the Muttur town area separated by a small river. The village of Amman Nagar (tamilvillage) is its neighbor. In the late eighties, people of ArafaNagar and Amman nagar were displaced by the conflict to Muttur. After the situation cleared in 2006, people were looking to resettle. Both Amman Nagar and ArafaNagar were looking to return but there was a lack of proper access to the area. People had to take the boat or swim across. There needed to be clearing of shrubbery and damaged buildings and cleaning of wells for water supply. Based on the community request, a bridge was built across the river to aid resettlement. In addition, support was offered in terms of gifts in kind for returnees to restart their livelihood. Encouraged by the prospect of a permanent bridge and the support for livelihood, the people of Arafa Nagar got together to build a temporary bridge. People started to return and clear up the land. They put up temporary shelters and started to farm, helped by return kits . Gradually life started to return back to this once forsaken land and communities started to resettle. People of Amma Nagar also returned and there was a chance for communities to reconcile their differences. The bridge was finished and declared open on the 26^th of february 2009 in front of the community. It was later handed over to both communities. Visiting that area just after the opening of the bridge in 2009, I saw tamil and muslim communities having afternoon tea together with their children playing in the fields and for me in that brief moment in 2009, I felt that there was a potential for communities to come together given space. Even today there is some collaboration and understanding between the religious leaders in this

Muttur remains an important milestone in Sri Lanka’s narrative of the conflict.  There is understandably a lot of scrutiny about the end of the war in 2009 but regrettably people seem to forget that the whole  period of the conflict has been a time of great trauma and intense suffering.  We focus on the end of the conflict because that is where the world’s attention was pushed especially by lobby groups, yet we have forgotten that the experiments for this started in 2006 from both sides on the conflict with Muttur and continued throughout the final phase of the conflict in 2009.  A lot of what happened at the end of 2009 can be traced back to 2006 but equally a lot of what happened post October 2006 gives some pause for reflection as to what might be if the right conditions are there.

In our quest for Sri Lanka moving forward post conflict, it is important we get a sense of the totality of the narrative and a better understanding from all sides of the conflict.  This will then allow us to holistically frame the reconciliation, justice and accountability perspective. After all we owe it to everyone who has suffered from this conflict throughout its 28 year old history.

Check out a pictorial representation of the Muttur Crisis