S.Lanka's forgotten war displaced long to start over

POONTHOTTAM CAMP, Sri Lanka, June 27: Odd-job man Krishnaswamy Rajah has spent most of his adult life in a decrepit camp for thousands of ethnic Tamils displaced by Sri Lanka's two-decade civil war, and can see no way out.

The 31-year-old moved here near the northern town of Vavuniya from the rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi nine years ago. The basic living space in a long corrugated-roof hut housing 20 families is the only home his 5-year-old daughter has ever known.

''Life is extremely hard here compared to my former life, mainly because there are very few job opportunities here,'' said Rajah, standing in a grubby sarong in the dingy interior of his bare home.

His only window is covered with dust-caked matted palm-fronds.

A few possessions sit in a solitary suitcase perched on a precarious wooden shelf. He has pasted odd pages of newspapers to the wall for decoration. There is small hole in the floor in the corner that serves as a stove. There are no toys, no fresh food.

''Going back to Kilinochchi is out, because the place I lived in was totally demolished by the Sri Lankan army during the war. So there is nothing for me to go back to,'' he said.

He makes 450 rupees a day labouring in fields or doing other odd jobs, but he is lucky to get more than two days of work a week. He and thousands of displaced Tamils like him depend on state handouts of dry rations like rice and lentils.

LONG-TERM DISPLACED

Around 4,000 people live in Poonthtottam camp, one of two large camps in the government-held half of the northern district of Vavuniya, which is cut in two by a border with territory controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR estimates there are around 315,000 long-term internally displaced in Sri Lanka due to the protracted conflict, 67,000 of whom live in camps and around 247,000 of whom live with relatives and friends.

Since a sharp spike in violence in the restive east in April, nearly 3,000 more people have paid smugglers to sail them across the sea to India, and another 40,000 mostly minority ethnic Tamils have been newly displaced since then. ''It is an ethnic conflict problem. Until the security situation subsides, the people will not go and reside in their own places. So all depends on the settlement of the ethnic problem. Otherwise it is going to continue,'' said Vavuniya Government Agent S. Shanmugam, the government's top civil servant in the district.

''The conflict has affected the economy of this area very badly because a large (area) of land has not been cultivated and is still a high security zone,'' he added. Unemployment in Vavuniya runs at about 30 percent, more than three times the national average.

DEJA VU: CONFLICT RETURNS

Some land reclaimed after landmines were cleared is now off-limits again as the military curtails movements after a rash of ambushes and attacks which have killed more than 700 police, military, civilians and rebels so far this year alone.

Shanmugam's team faces a host of problems in resettling families.

State funding is insufficient, local residents oppose the resettlement of outsiders and he says some families simply refuse to go, holding out hope that they will one day to be able to return to areas now occupied by the army.

''We did feel the government had neglected us and forgotten us.

That is why we formed a committee to present shortcomings to them,'' said 55-year-old Karthigesu Sarojinithevi, who moved to the Poonthottam camp eight years ago after one of her children was killed during shelling and her home in the northern Jaffna peninsula was swallowed up by an army high security zone.

''If war starts again, where could we go?'' she added. ''We have been here for so many years. We have no place to go.'' With the government and rebels still diametrically opposed over the Tigers' demands for a separate homeland for minority ethnic Tamils in the north and east, many fear it may only be a matter of time before a war that has already killed more than 65,000 people since 1983 resumes in earnest.

''We have asked for permanent housing and are prepared to go to another place. We sincerely hope and pray peace will come permanently to this area,'' Sarojinithevi added, as young children born in the camp played barefoot in the gutter behind her.

''Then we can really start to live.''

Reuters