A film by Luc Besson

Date: Friday, 18 May 2012 at 3:00 and 5:30pm

Location: ICES Auditorium, Colombo

The timing is perfect for a film biography of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese activist and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and her British husband Michael Aris.  It is an epic tale of the peaceful quest of The Lady, a name bestowed upon her by the Burmese people who see the heroine as a beacon of grace and courage. Directed by renowned filmmaker  Luc Bensson.  The Lady is a story of devotion and human understanding set against a backdrop of political turmoil that continues today. The film was written over a period of three years by Rebecca Frayn.  The Lady features an unforgettable and powerful performance by Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Memoirs of a Geisha) in the title role.

Duration: 125 minutes

Abstract: Domestic violence became a major concern for Sri Lanka’s Women’s Organisations in the late 1980s and 1990s. The initial institutional responses to the problem took the form of a few scattered initiatives by women’s groups, which have grown over the past few years/decades with extensive funding from various sources. To date, there has been no attempt to study these services in a systematic and comprehensive manner. This exploratory mapping of organisational intervention services of victim-survivors of domestic violence seeks to fill this gap.

Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri

Date: Wednesday, 18 May 2012 from 2:00-4:00pm

Location: Main Post-Office Auditorium, Kandy

Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri is Head of the Department of History at the University of Colombo. He specializes in social transformation in agrarian societies, history and ideology, European colonialism in Asia, post-colonial state-building, and ethno-nationalism.  As political activist Dr. Dewasiri has wide experience working with different political groups since he was a student.  Dr. Dewasiri is a leader of the Post-modernist new “X-group” and President of The Federation of University of Teachers’ Association (FUTA).

Abstract

While it is well-known that the interpretation of the past of the island is one of the battlefields of the Sinhala and Tamil ethnic politics in Sri Lanka, there is no adequate explanation as to how the ethno-political function of “history” has been possible irrespective of the presence of strong empirical scholarly tradition in the historical scholarship.  The explanation has to be found in the way in which methodologically empirical and ostensibly ideologically-neutral scholarly discourse and the hegemonized popular understanding of “history of Sri Lanka” have been articulated into one discursive construction. This discursive construction functions as a “Charter of Right” for the Sinhala-Buddhist, especially in the context of the escalating ethno-nationalist tension. In other words, it was through a particular version of the past of the island that Sinhala-nationalists built their case against the ethno-nationalist claims of Tamils. Quite understandably, Tamil nationalists are vehemently opposed to this construction, but still failed to build a more attractive version to the public as well as to the scholars. Subsequent to the military defeat of Tamil Ethno-nationalism, the importance of non-military battle-fronts has gained momentum.  Sinhala-Buddhist pilgrims flocking in to Jaffna peninsula and sites claimed to be linked with the early Buddhist activities of the island have become their popular destinations. These visitors are highly emotional about the “historical significance” of these places and being watched by politically sensitive Tamils with utmost caution. To add more fuel to the tension, Sinhalized names of these places, which were hitherto restricted to the discourse of virtually unknown group of Sinhala intellectuals, are now displayed openly in these places. In the meantime archaeologists are also busy with making further inroads to this “territory of distorted history” in order to discover remnants of the “true history”, again to the delight of Sinhala-Buddhist pilgrims and to the fury of politically sensitive Tamils. In this intervention Dr. Nirmal Dewasiri will try to shed some light on this unfolding warfare in this intensifying battlefield of conflicting discourses of the past.

The responsibilities of the selected intern will initially be to;

- Assist the Admin Department in day-to-day activities of the organization

- Assist ICES researchers when and where required

Potential applicants;

- Should possess a University Degree with a Management/Social Science background

- Should be able to work on a full-time basis

If interested, please submit your CV to the following E-mail address: admin@ices.lk

Barry Collins

(Senior Lecturer, School of Law and Social Sciences, University of East London)

Date: Wednesday, 9 May 2012 at 5:30 p.m

Location: ICES Auditorium (Colombo)

Barry Collins is a legal academic teaching at the University of East London, His research examines themes of legal theory and constitutionalism in conflict and post-conflict.  He has written extensively on the Irish peace process and on the role of international law in the middle east.  He is interested particularly in questions of nationalism and how they relate to law.  He has lectured and taught in many countries, including the United States, Canada, Russia, Spain, India and Bangladesh.

The end of hostilities in May 2009 saw some 270,000 to 300,000 Tamils fleeing the conflict zone in the North and settling in camps for internally displaced people. Fleeing the fighting, together with the civilians, were thousands of Tamil Tiger combatants – many of them injured women fighters – both young women and more experienced middle-aged female fighters.

M10 – who lost her left leg in a 1995 battle in the Wanni region – surrendered herself at the Omantai military checkpoint in the closing days of the war after fleeing the heavy shelling on Puthikkudiyiruppu with civilians. There she was immediately taken to Pampaimadu Camp for interrogation by Sri Lankan army intelligence and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the police force.  A year later, in late April 2010, M10 was released.

M7, like M10, is an injured ex-Tamil Tiger young woman combatant who surrendered at the Omantai checkpoint in the closing days of the war.  In April 2010 she was released after a year in Cheddikulam camp, where the CID interrogated her. M7 recalls how she tried to look for a job in Batticaloa after the army left her in her mother’s house:

My father passed away when I was in the jungle. Now my mother has to look after my six younger sisters. I did not want to be an extra burden to my mother because of my disability, and so I traveled to Batticaloa town with my three disabled [ex-LTTE] friends. We registered ourselves at the IOM [International Organization for Migration] office and asked whether there were any jobs for disabled young women, like us. After taking our details the IOM officer told us that they would contact us if anything turned up, and then asked us not to come back to the office to make enquiries. We were hurt.

The IOM programme in Batticaloa and other parts of the East, funded by the United States government, says it “provides information and counseling to former fighters, referring them to vocational training, psychosocial support and employment opportunities” (Embassy of the United States 2009). Some participants, with appropriate experience and skill sets, also receive small grants to help them start their own business in their local communities.  Mehreteab (2007) offers a word of caution for dealing with disabled ex-combatants when he points out that many have little education, few skills and poor health in societies where it is already difficult to start a small enterprise or find employment to generate adequate income to achieve a moderate standard of living.

Disabled ex-combatants, more so female ex-combatants, are one of the most difficult to reintegrate in the absence of specific medical and psychosocial care in communities. Due to their disability they are unable to generate any income without intensive training and rehabilitation (Mehreteab 2007). The International Labour Organization (ILO) in its guidelines on disabled ex-combatants warns against treating them as “objects of charity” and adds that these ex-combatants “do not want to depend on families and communities to sustain them…[and] wish to become economically and socially active in their civilian communities and avoid being a burden on society”

Nonetheless, in the face of deprivation and hardship, female household heads like ex-Tamil Tiger young woman fighter M11 in Mylampavely feel empowered and proud of their achievements:

My husband works for the local government, but it’s actually me who runs the household. I am proud that I can care for my three children and also help women in the neighbourhood, especially those young girls who have returned home from the jungle with just the clothes on their back. Life’s tough, it’s hard. But I have survived and moved on. My story with the Tamil Tigers would probably fill a book – and there are good and bad memories. The women in the community respect me – they have to. I sacrificed my life in the movement [LTTE] for these people.

In post-war Batticaloa, M11 has a respected position in the district’s matrilineal society where women hold most of the responsibilities and authority in the family. She is referred to as perria akka (big sister in Tamil) in female networks in the clearly defined matriclans and matrilocal households in Mavadivembu, a status she attained after she married soon after her demobilization following the 2002 ceasefire. With a living husband and three children, she has asumankali or properly wedded woman status. The sacred knot or thali tied by their husbands during the marriage and the red dot or kukum symbolizes the sumankali. Lawrence (2007) explains that Tamil culture respects the sumankali and it is common understanding that she has the capacity to provide protection through female networks.

M11 spends her free time, after sending her children to school, seeking out the former LTTE child combatants from Mavadivembu who self-demobilized in 2004 when the Batticaloa-based commander of the Tamil Tiger forces in the East, V. Muralitharan or Col. Karuna, split off from the main LTTE.

In 2002, a bitter political rivalry began to emerge between the LTTE supreme leader Prabhakaran, who had his loyal Northern (Wanni) command, and the Eastern commander of the Tamil Tigers Col. Karuna. In April 2004, the Wanni faction of the LTTE fiercely attacked Karuna’s 6,000 troops in the East and, sensing defeat, the Eastern Tamil Tiger commander disbanded his forces and went into hiding (Human Rights Watch 2004; Goodhand, et al., 2009). Thousands of child soldiers who were forcibly recruited were forced to leave Karuna’s group and countless girls self-demobilized silently by disappearing into war-affected communities where, today, they still struggle to cope. These self-demobilized former child soldiers are now young adults.

Former child soldier M12, who was recruited by the LTTE when she was 13, relates the visits made by M11:

I really look forward to the visits by perria aka [big sister]. I am very eager to tell my stories to people, but nobody wants to listen to me. We need people to talk to. Sometimes it is good to talk to people to get our problems out. Sometimes we feel we have been forgotten; dumped into the community and then abandoned. Perria aka was one of us in the jungle. She understands what we went through.

The protection roles played by mature women ex-combatants in the community reintegration of former young women fighters warrants further research as these girls struggle to develop a new sense of identity, unlinked to war.

In Batticaloa, women heading households bear the main burden of caring for injured Tamil Tiger female ex-combatants and traumatized returned former girl child soldiers in the absence of social welfare services. Though families in east Sri Lanka have been displaced, dispossessed and dispirited in the long running civil war and the December 2004 tsunami, matrilocal traditions and support provided by matrilocal household clusters seemed to have survived (McGilvray & Lawrence 2010). As this researcher found in his field trips, in a matrilineal society all the families which are part of the same sub-clan system could be found living in the same vicinity. McGilvray & Lawrence (2010) document that matrilocal clusters of married sisters in adjacent households in the same compound are emotionally appealing as it allows for shared childcare and sisterly solidarity that also acts as a deterrence against domestic violence.

Ruwanpura & Humphries (2004) found in the kinship networks in East Sri Lanka that neighbours and friends are an important source of assistance for female-headed households – particularly non-financial help that many women found invaluable such as childcare, help in chaperoning children to school, help with cooking, and emotional support.  Both researchers caution against dismissing the value of this friendship as it makes female heads feel more emotionally stable and secure.

The economic case for helping female-headed households, especially with extra mouths to feed in the care given to returning female ex-combatants, is strong. Help cannot be limited to just food subsidies given out by the World Food Program in Batticaloa. The circumstances of the households in a post-conflict environment need to be taken into account.

As the former young Tamil Tiger women combatants aim to establish themselves as adult individuals in Sri Lanka by an identity transformation from militants to civilians, they also struggle for some measure of security in their lives. This researcher found that the predictability of organized schooling through local NGOs like the Jeeva Jothy Foundation, in Batticaloa, can help former girl child soldiers overcome their traumatic experiences and develop an identity separate from that of a combatant.

The former girl child soldiers are enrolled in schools near Jeeva Jothy, with the house wardens ensuring their safety to and from school. Former child soldier M15, who was 16 when she was brought to Jeeva Jothy by her mother in 2004, recalls her past and talks about the future:

After I came out of the jungle, I went back to my village school. There I was treated badly. My hair was short; the teachers always scolded me and the other kids did not want to mix with me. I was depressed. Some NGO people told my mother about Jeeva Jothy and she then brought me here. When I arrived at Jeeva Jothy, I was enrolled in Grade 9.

In Jeeva Jothy, I got to know other girls like me and began to feel more confident. I started mixing around. I passed my A-levels and now I am in the Open University’ Social Sciences Faculty. I want to finish university, get a good job and help look after my mother and sisters.

The consequences of girls not receiving an education may be more severe than boys and Ruwanpura (2006) points out that this is due to the array of ideological structures stacked against girls in a capitalist system with inherent patriarchal values. In female-headed households in Batticaloa, adult children staying at home seem to be a vital resource because the survival of the family often depends on their wages. Problems of poverty in these families are compounded by the presence of dependent children, like returned girl child soldiers, while advancement to more comfortable circumstances often depends on the ability of educated working-age children earning decent adult wages.

The economic case for assisting households headed by women in Batticaloa is strong. But lumping together all female-headed households in the East, and suggesting a single solution is a recipe for disaster. There is a need for a more nuanced analysis, one that recognizes that female-heads of households make difficult choices in conflict situations and their aftermath (Ruwanpura 2006, McGilvary & Lawrence 2010).

But the current situation in Sri Lanka, with the end of the war, offers a window of opportunity. With a combined effort and international cooperation, much progress can be made in mending the relationship between the Tamils in Batticaloa and the government. In order to start the healing process at both the individual and community level, first and foremost, dignity must be given to the young women ex-Tamil Tiger fighters. Also the female networks, in a matrilineal society, that heal, nurture and protect all groups of women ex-combatants must be recognized, valued and supported.

References

• Briggs, J. 2005, Innocents lost: When child soldiers go to war, Basic Books, New York.
• Embassy of the United States. 2009, Press release: U.S. Government helps former fighters gain a new start in the East, Embassy of the United States, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
• Goodhand, J., Klem, B. & Korf, B. 2009, “Religion, conflict and boundary politics in Sri Lanka”, European Journal of Development Research, vol. 21, no. 5, pp. 679-698.
• Human Rights Watch 2004, Living in fear: Child Soldiers and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, Human Rights Watch, New York.
• International Labour Organization. 1997, Manual on training and employment options for ex-combatants , International Labour Organization, Geneva.
• Lawrence, P. 2007, “The watch of Tamil women” in Women and the contested state: Religion, violence and agency in South and Southeast Asia, eds. M. Skidmore & P. Lawrence, pp. 89-116
• McGilvray, D.B. 2008, Crucible of conflict, Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina.
• McGilvary, D.B. & Lawrence, P. 2010, “Dreaming of dowry: Post-tsunami housing strategies in eastern Sri Lanka” in Tsunami recovery in Sri Lanka: Ethnic and regional dimensions, ed. D.B. McGilvray & M.R. Gamburd, Routledge, London, pp 106 – 124.
• Mehreteab, A. 2007, Assistance to war wounded combatants and individuals associated with fighting forces in disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programmes, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Cornell University.
• Ruwanpura, K. 2006, Matrilineal communities, patriarchal realities: A feminist nirvana, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbour.
• Ruwanpura, K. & Humphries, J. 2004, “Mundane heroines: Conflict, ethnicity, gender, and female headship in eastern Sri Lanka”, Feminist Economics, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 173-205

Source: http://groundviews.org/2012/04/27/coping-with-little-support-batticaloas-women-ex-combatants-and-their-reintegration/

Photos by author

The Institute for Gender and Development Studies (InGaDS) and the International Center for Ethnic Studies (ICES) have jointly organized a one day workshop on Gender Gap in Capitalistic Economy. The objective of the workshop is to understand the reasons for gender discrimination in economic point of view, while identifying how social and cultural aspects widen the gap between men and women in capital distribution. It will also enable identification of some ways of narrowing down the gender gap effectively, by taking its base as the economic principles of capitalism.

The target groups of the workshop are, Gender and development workers in development projects and institutions, researchers, activists and anyone who is interested on the topic in Sri Lanka.

Method of the workshop:

This workshop will contain a series of interactive sessions on the following four topics:

1. Transition of gender roles and relationships from “Uncivilized societies” to “Civilized societies”
2. What is capitalism and its key operating principles
3. Where men are matched match and women are mismatched in the capitalistic economic system: understanding social and cultural complexes that hinder women enjoying equal economic power  and pulling her back, whereas men are pushing forward
4. The way out- ways of narrowing down gender gap in the capitalistic economic system

Date: May 10^th 2012 from 9.30am to 3.30 pm

Venue: ICES, Kandy

Resource person: Nishadi Somaratne (PhD, Specialist in Gender and Development)

Fee: SLR 3000/= per person

Medium: English and Sinhala

Reservation/registration: Registration is open from 23rd April to 7^th May 2012. You may write to info@genderanddevelopmentsrilanak.com expressing your interest in participating in the workshop or fill up the contact form available at http://www.genderanddevelopmentsrilanka.com

Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Millerannounced to his staff last Friday that Vikram Singh is the new deputy assistant secretary of defense for South and Southeast Asia (SSEA).

“Vikram will be responsible for overseeing the development of policy for South and Southeast Asia, to include key relationships with Allies such as Australia, Thailand, Philippines and strategic partners such as India and Singapore,” Miller wrote in the note, obtained by The Cable. ”Vikram will play a critical role in leading defense engagement with multilateral institutions in the Asia-Pacific region.”

Singh is already hitting the ground running. This week he is leading the U.S. delegation to the ASEAN defense senior officials meeting (ADSOM+) in Cambodia.

Since October 2011, Singh served in the Pentagon policy shop as a senior advisor for Asian and Pacific security affairs, where he led an internal review on the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Prior to that, he had been detailed from the Pentagon to the State Department as a deputy special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan, serving under ambassadors Richard Holbrooke and Marc Grossman.  Brig. Gen. Rich Simcock, who had been the acting DASD for SSEA since Bob Scher moved over to be DASD for Plans, will return to his role as principal director for SSEA, now under Singh.

Before joining the Obama administration in 2009, Singh was a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, the think tank founded by former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy and Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell. His other jobs have included a stint managing a Ford Foundation project on South Asian minority rights at International Center for Ethnic Studies in Colombo and as a reporter in Sri Lanka and South Africa for Voice of America.

The Singh appointment fills one of the many vacancies atop the Pentagon’s Asia policy shop. The office is still led by Peter Lavoy, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense (PDAS) for Asian and Pacific affairs, while the confirmation of Mark Lippert to be assistant secretary remains held up by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) over the issue of F-16 sales to Taiwan. We’re told by Hill sources that the White House has finally reached out to Cornyn to negotiate over the hold, but that the administration’s initial offer of sending a mid-level Air Force official to Taiwan for a short visit fell far short of what Cornyn wanted.

There’s also still no DASD for East Asia, following Michael Schiffer’s move to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Principal Director Dave Helvey is the acting in that capacity.

“I am very pleased to have Vikram on the policy team as the deputy assistant secretary for South and Southeast Asia.  He brings a wealth of Asia policy experience — both in and out of government — to this position,” Miller said in a statement to The Cable.

Source: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/04/25/names_vikram_singh_promoted_at_pentagon

A film by Wong Kar-Wai

Date: Monday, April 30th 2012 at 3:00pm and 5:30pm

Location: ICES Auditorium (Colombo)

Set in Hong Kong, Chow Mo-Wan is a newspaper editor who moves into a new building with his wife.  At the same time, Su Li-zhen , a beautiful secretary and her executive husband also move into the crowded building.  With their spouses often away, Chow and Li-zhen spend most of their time together as friends. They have everything in common from noodle shops to martial arts.  Soon, they are shocked to discover that their spouses are having an affair.  Hurt and angry, they find comfort in their growing friendship even as they resolve not to be like their unfaithful mates.  In this sumptuous exploration of desire, internationally acclaimed director Wong Kar-Wai creates a world of sensuality and longing that will leave you breathless.  In the Mood for Love has seduced audiences and critics alike, winning awards at Cannes Film Festival for best actor, cinematography and editing.

Duration: 98 minutes

Introduction

Newly initiated development projects in the Northern and Eastern Provinces in post-war Sri Lanka are expected to open new avenues towards ethnic reconciliation, as proclaimed not only by government media but also by the mainstream development scholarship. However, this popular perception about opening up new avenues for reconciliation through development seems to foreclose certain barriers and obstructions existing within the so called development highway itself, especially with regard to ethnic minorities. To understand the possible political and other forms of repercussion of the currently existing development-community encounter, one should turn one’s ears not only to the subject-agents of the development discourse but also to those who are subjected to the development industry, considering the fact that the subalterns also are involved in creating meanings (or counter-articulate the dominant discourse, as Laclauian discourse analysts would suggest) in their own way. This piece explores the ways in which the local communities in the Northern fishing villages receive the messages enunciated by the dominant or official discourse of development and counter-articulate meanings in a different, competing manner and the ways in which this community-development encounter would affect the wider problem of post-war ethnic and social reconciliation.

Jaffna’s fishing industry

The Fishing industry, being one of the main sources of livelihood of a large number of people in the Jaffna Peninsula, happens to be a sector that was severely affected by the thirty years ethnic civil war. Before the war, Jaffna was the largest fishing production district and contributed about 48,000 metric tons per year comprising almost one fourth of the total production of the country.  However, this significantly developed fishing industry was  severely affected by the war. “While the Jaffna District alone provided 20-25% of the total fish production in Sri Lanka before 1983, its contribution was reduced to 3-5% by the end of the third Eelam war.” The annual fish production in the District numbered around 2000 metric tons during the war. Although this got recovered to some extent in two years after the war, it is far from pre-war levels.

Current Problems and Challenges

Many problems regarding the fishing industry in the North in many ways related to the militarization that was strengthened during the last phase of the war but not completely relaxed even after the end of the war. For instance, some coastal areas, which are very significant to fishing, still remains as High Security Zones (HSZ); and therefore fishermen are banned from engaging in their livelihood activities in those areas; in many areas, fishermen were allowed to go to sea only within a permitted corridor, and even for that they had to get passes from military forces. Currently, although some of those restrictions have been removed or relaxed in some coastal areas, the Northern fishing community, CBO leaders and civil society representatives remain concerned about the continuing stringent security arrangements even after two years after the end of war, in the areas where Northern fishermen used to do their livelihood activities.

Although the authorities are claiming that the situation in the Northern Province has largely been normalized in terms of de-militarization, this claim was highly contested by the special situation report on the Northern and Eastern Provinces presented to parliament by M.A Sumanthiran, a TNA parliamentarian on October, 21, 2011. The report explains the situation of the fishing industry in Jaffna within a militarized context, as follows,

Severe restrictions are placed on members of Tamil fishing communities, resulting in a drastic impact on their means of livelihood. The report tabled by me in July of this year detailed the restrictions placed on members of the fishing community in Mullaitivu, especially in the areas of Kokkilaai to Chundikkulam in Kilaakaththai, Maathirikkiraama, Uppumaaveli, Thoondai, Alambil, Semmalai, Naayaaru, Kokkuththoduvaai, and Karunaattukkernee. These restrictions are still in place and of serious concern is the fact that several Sinhala fishermen in the area have received direct permission to fish in this area from the Ministry of Defence.

Apart from the militarization, Jaffna based researchers and civil society members highlight a series of other issues related to the development of fishing industry in the region. These  issues include illegal fishing in the Sri Lankan waters by Indian fishermen, which is popularly known as ‘Indian Trawler’ issue. Other contentious issues include an increasing number of seasonal fishing in Northern and Eastern regions by Southern fishermen; illegal fishing methods used by Indian and Southern fishermen that has negative impacts on resources; lack of sophisticated boats that are essential for deep sea fishing; lack of stock assessment; specific problems in the island areas like transport problems and dependency on big mudalalies who have political patronage; lack of infrastructure facilities; institutional support and insurance facilities etc.

Potholes, Checkpoints and Cattle in the Development Highway

Although recently initiated development projects in the Northern Province have addressed some of the issues discussed in the preceding part of this article, they have not contributed to make a significant breakthrough. Structural problems that barricade the development of the fishing industry such as regional disparity, dependency relations, political patronage structures and related socio-economic issues remain to date. On the contrary, sometimes, these development initiatives seem to contribute towards furthering of some of these issues. For instance, the merchants from the Southern Provinces who have coolers, sophisticated techniques and market networks are now being facilitated to come along the ‘development highway’ into the Northern fish market, to strengthen their dominance over the Northern competitors, whilst the perceptions of the Northern fishing community over this new development is not yet publicly heard. Some sectors of the Jaffna civil society members expressed their feelings on this aspect of regional disparity in the highly propagated post-war development, by comparing and contrasting the current situation with the ‘good old days’ of the Jaffna fishing industry. Signs of uneven development between North and South become apparent by the way Southern fishermen get all the advantages in the competition for limited resources in the sea because of their technological and economic advancement.

Fishing and Development

The fishing industry which is a large source of livelihood in the Peninsula, seems not to get its due prominence in the government’s development agenda, although there is wide expectation that the fishing communities stand to reap benefits from the ending of the war and the post-war development activities. Government representatives especially highlight the significance of these general infrastructure developments such as transport facilities. They emphasize the fact that newly constructed Mannar Bridge and Kallady Bridge and road developments in the coastal areas have benefited the fishing communities and encouraged merchants in other areas to expand their market relationships to Jaffna.

Special initiatives with regard to fishing sector are also in the pipeline. They include opening up of a new office for fisheries-related issues named District Fisheries Exchange Office; distribution of some equipments; establishment of new fishing villages under the post-war resettlement programme; introduction of new laws regarding illegal fishing methods etc.

However, a different form of articulation of a ‘development discourse’ can be observed when one listens to the fishermen in the Northern Province. Many of them interviewed for this study said that although the government has performed erratic development activities those activities don’t address concerns of fishing communities.  The Northern fishermen do not go to the South for seasonal fishing, basically owing to their lack of resources and technological capacity required. It can also be observed that they sometimes tend to perceive this in ethnic terms. There were some allegations that especially in Manner area Southern fishers are supported by military forces. Some fishermen in Karainagar explained the negative impact of the Southern fishers’ arrival to the North. The low income categories were mostly affected by some environmentally harmful methods used by them such as blasting of shells; using cylinders to catch conches and using ‘small eye nets’ to capture prawns by the fishermen coming from Negombo, Beruwala and Matara areas. A community leader claimed that “if this happens in their areas, the government’s response would have been different. But here they are able to destroy our resources, without facing to any charge.”

Periphery within periphery: patronage strengthened

In the case of the current development initiative in the Northern Province, it can clearly be observed that some dependency structures supported by relations of political patronage are being reinforced and strengthened. The situation in the island area in the Jaffna peninsula, which can be considered as a periphery within a periphery, both in geographical and in socio-economic terms, provides a fine example for this. Many islands do not have roads to link with the mainland and therefore the fishing communities are depended on businessmen who own transport facilities and linkages with the market in the mainland. For a long time, a large number of poor fishing families have been exploited by this economic dependency structures, against the background that they all are become debtors to a few businessmen who could control the market and transport facilities.

These dependency structures facilitated by political patronage have significantly developed in the island region during the period of the war because of certain strategic reasons in the area.

To make development really affective on a community, there needs to be a broader approach for addressing not merely the minor technical issues, but more structural issues as explained above.

Concluding Remark

The case of the fishing industry in the Jaffna Peninsula suggests that the current development strategy can reinforce and reproduce some existing social hierarchies, power relations and suppressions among people in the war affected areas. The manner in which post-war development is being framed by mainstream nationalism strengthens uneven development among different ethnic communities that would lead to more tension amongst inhabitants in the war affected areas. In other words, against the popular belief that development is the solution to the ethnic problem, a politically articulated discourse of development can also fuel the conflict, by unevenly distributing the benefits of economic growth among different ethnic communities.

###

This essay is part of a series on the theme of post war reconciliation, justice and development initiated by the International Center for Ethnic Studies, (ICES). Colombo. The views expressed are the author’s own and does not necessarily represent the views of the ICES.

Source: http://groundviews.org/2012/03/31/fishing-in-turbulent-waters/