Rebuilding Sri Lanka

"The end of the civil strife should be seen as the beginning of a new era, in which Colombo’s emphasis should be on winning the trust of the beleaguered local Tamils who have suffered the most in the war."
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By Bharti Chhibber

(June 30, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Now that the Sri Lankan army has claimed victory in the war against the LTTE, it’s time to rebuild the Sri Lankan economy and reconstruct infrastructure. And the most important and basic to a permanent solution to the Tamil issue is to address it by a political resolution.

It calls for concrete steps beginning with measures to resettle the vast number of internally displaced people, especially in the wake of the war to regain Tamils’ confidence.

Already the government has asked the Tamil refugees in India to come back. Here India can play a very important role, something similar to what it is doing in Afghanistan—rebuild Sri Lankan infrastructure. This will go a long way in cementing ties between the two neighbours, who already are cooperating economically in a number of areas.

India has always been on the forefront of humanitarian assistance whenever it is required by our neighbouring state. Even before the end of the bitter civil war in Lanka, India announced an assistance of $ 19.86 million and sent 40,000 ‘family packets’ each containing food and medicines needed by a family of five for three weeks.

India is also on the way to increasing its medical missions in Lanka from 62. The Tamil Nadu government also announced an aid package worth Rs 250 million for the welfare of the internally displaced people in Sri Lanka apart from despatching relief material to the war-torn state.

We were wary of direct intervention earlier in the ongoing conflict between the Sri Lankan army and the LTTE. But now with the end of the war, India should do what it does the best—help Sri Lanka rebuild its economy. It’s going to take a lot to rebuild the economy in Sri Lanka’s war-ravaged northeast.

Displaced people require all the infrastructural and financial assistance they can get to return to their homes and get back their means of livelihood. Sri Lanka’s agriculture and fishing industries will also take time to recover.

India has always been keen to avert civilian deaths in the battle zone and a supply crisis in the Jaffna peninsula. The Sri Lankan government also reportedly made a request to New Delhi to ship relief to the population in Jaffna, which was denied supplies due to the closure of their lifeline A9 Highway. The package comprised rice, dal, sugar and milk powder to provide relief to the beleaguered population. India has already provided material for 5,000 shelters to house about 25,000 people, a team of doctors and relief worth Rs 100 crore in addition to other measures.

In the long drawn-out civil war thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed, and lakhs of people rendered homeless. As the UN points out, the cost in civilian suffering has been enormous with massive civilian casualties and 300,000 displacements.

The end of the civil strife should be seen as the beginning of a new era, in which Colombo’s emphasis should be on winning the trust of the beleaguered local Tamils who have suffered the most in the war.

The Rajapaksa government has been arguing that a political solution to the ethnic conflict is possible only after the military defeat of the LTTE. Now that it has been accomplished, it’s time that the Tamils get their due. The foremost task before the Rajapaksa government is to help thousands of Tamils living without food and medicines in makeshift camps. The Sri Lankan government has outlined a 180-day plan to resettle the refugees to their original places of habitation.

The next step in the economic rebuilding of the state after the settlement of displaced people will be to work on infrastructure development. Reconstructing tourism industry will be crucial to uplift the Sri Lankan economy.

In fact, India and Sri Lanka already have a broad spectrum of mechanisms and institutions for bilateral cooperation. They have a free trade arrangement already in place. Further, both the states undertook a feasibility study for a 20 billion undersea power transmission link between India and Sri Lanka.

The 200-km long submarine cable will enable India to export electricity to Sri Lanka and is likely to be set up with a capacity to wheel around 1,000 MW of electricity. The link is likely to connect Madurai in Tamil Nadu and Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka’s north central province.

In South Asia there is tremendous potential for developing regional and sub-regional energy resources in an integrated manner. However, usually domestic politics take its toll on such efforts. Perhaps, it is high time now that the two states to come together to offset the impact of global recession.n

The writer teaches political science in the University of Delhi.

-Sri Lanka Guardian