Bay Area donors digging
deep -- but chaos still plagues distribution
SRI LANKA: 'No one is in charge' in many devastated communities along coast
Tuesday, January 4, 2005
Galle, Sri Lanka -- Widespread looting, a city government "in a working state of bedlam" and the absence of coordination between aid agencies are adding up to a man- made disaster, say local residents and officials along Sri Lanka's tsunami- stricken coast.
More than a week after giant waves ripped into this island nation, killing more than 30,000 and displacing more than a million, aid is just beginning to flow into the wrecked coastal communities. But despite the introduction of aid and the good intentions behind it, getting help to those in need isn't easy in such a chaotic environment.
"We have compiled a complete list of the damage in every village in this district (along with) a list of what materials are needed where," said Kegalle Panangarama, a Buddhist monk and local leader in Galle, on Sri Lanka's southwestern coast. "We have even identified plots of land where we can resettle 250 families and made plans for their houses. All we need to get started is about $50,000 and government permission, but no one is interested in talking to us. Not one government officer or aid person has been here since the disaster."
Just 2 miles away, Kevin Hartigan, Asia regional director for Catholic Relief Services, one of the first international aid agencies to mobilize here, was struggling to get information on what supplies to send out to the area, and to "find local partners for reconstruction programs."
The two officials' failure to connect illustrates the extent of the administrative and communication breakdown along this devastated coast.
"No one is in charge," said A.S.D.S Gunaratne, a municipal councilor. "People are doing whatever they think is needed."
The result is something close to a free-for-all. Trucks laden with clothes, food and housing materials donated by local and foreign charities are stopping randomly on streets, where they are immediately swamped by people who grab as much as they can.
Nirupa Nilmini, 29, a housewife with tears in her eyes stood outside her collapsed house and said she didn't have the heart to join the fray.
"These people are the greedy ones," she said. "The wrong people are grabbing all the things. I can't bring myself to fight them.''
Galle's municipal office is "in a working state of bedlam," and the local police are indifferent, sometimes even complicit, in widespread looting, said Moninna Goonewardena, 54, who works at a bank.
Though more than 700 armed police have been posted around the town, Panangarama said his congregation has reported continuing looting, violence and even rapes. As he talked, his telephone rang. A mini-riot had broken out between some tenants and landlords over an old land dispute. Panangarama quickly dispatched volunteers to intercede, but noted that the local government's property deeds had been swept away in the tsunami, so such incidents are likely to recur.
"This is now a society without eyes," said Sudesh Rodrigo, district manager with World Vision, a Christian charity. "People are walking around knowing no one can haul them up (before the authorities) for what they do."
In Colombo, the capital 80 miles to the north, authorities have been accused by some of being slow to distribute aid from abroad, often hoarding it in warehouses or applying ethnic and political bias in dispatching it.
The charge has been leveled most loudly by the Tamil Tigers, a separatist group that controls more than 70 percent of Sri Lanka's northeast. For two decades, the Tamil rebels, representing the Hindu minority on the island, have waged a civil war against the government, controlled by ethnic Sinhalese who practice Buddhism. A 2002 cease-fire was in danger of collapsing before the tsunami hit.
"We're two-thirds of the casualties and damage, but the government is creating roadblocks to us receiving aid," said S. Puleedevan, a Tamil Tiger negotiator who says he is having only mixed success in establishing a cooperative relationship with the Sri Lankan government on aid management.
Despite some conciliatory statements by both sides immediately after the tsunami struck, the Tigers have declined an offer from Sri Lanka's president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, to participate in a unified disaster task force. They also insist on controlling reconstruction funds in areas they control, defying the government's long-standing ban on direct aid to the rebels.
Compounding the problem, the United States and India -- the two largest aid donors to Sri Lanka -- have labeled the Tigers a terrorist group, making any direct contact with them difficult. Sources said backroom diplomacy led by the Norwegian government, which has been facilitating negotiations between the insurgents and the government, is aimed at getting international aid sent directly to Tamil areas.
Hartigan is hopeful that many of the logistical problems plaguing the aid effort will be overcome in coming days. International aid agencies are already ramping up their local administrative staff, adding new accounting systems and purchasing new communications equipment to improve coordination with other agencies, he said.
"Basically, we're growing capabilities that normally take years in just a few weeks," he said. "Soon we'll be setting up temporary camps (and) in about six months working on permanent resettlement of people."
But, Azmi Thassim, head of the chamber of commerce in Hambantota, a hard- hit trading port, warned that the waste, duplication and lack of coordination is adding up to a man-made disaster.
Still, some help is getting to people in desperate need.
Indian warships and helicopters, which were the first to arrive with aid, have been delivering food, tents, inflatable boats and medicine to thousands of stranded people, and shipments of kitchen utensils, bedding and clothes are "helping us feel normal again," said M. Kuttikalam, 56, a grain trader in Galle.
Local people emerging from the shock of the last week are beginning to consider how to rebuild their lives.
"The only thing I ask for is a fishing net," said A. G. Nuwan, 28, a fisherman taking refuge in a Buddhist monastery. "We are poor people living for the day. We have no savings and need to get back to making money."
Other fishermen shuddered at the thought of returning to their profession.
"I'll never go back to the sea, never!" said Narin Prasad, 34, a fisherman who narrowly managed to rescue his son from the water that swallowed his home and boat. "The government needs to help us find something else to do. Maybe I'll open a tea shop or something."