A Visit to The Community Trust Fund, Puttalam

My visit to Puttalam on 3rd February 2006. Apparently 'Upu' means salt and ‘talam’ means base or place in Tamil, hence the name of this small but ancient settlement on the western coast of Sri Lanka.

In the company of Mr Nihmatulla, a programme manager with Community Trust Fund and working particularly with IDPs, we visit two camps. These internally displaced Muslim people come from various part of the north of Sri Lanka but particularly from Mannar and Jaffna. They were expelled from those areas in 1990, casualties of the on going war between the Tamil secessionists and the predominantly Sinhalese south.

Just north of Puttalam town, on the edge of the salt pans spreading for miles to the north, we visited Saltern Camp One, Here there are 105 families equalling about 350 people who have been here for 15 years. ‘About 40% of those now living in this camp have been born since the eviction from their northern homes.’ Says Mr Nihmatulla who would like to work in this camp to help improve conditions but the only funds CTF can find at the moment is for work with the Tsunami survivors. “The conditions here are bad for any permanent settlement and the lack of toilet facilities is one of the main problems, often leading to conflict between the families. We have only 25 toilets and 80 families have no toilet and so use communal facilities where conflicts erupt. There is no privacy for the women”

‘These families had good jobs in Jaffna’ Mr Nihmatuall reflects, ‘They were traders, gold merchants and skilled craftsman but now many are unemployed or under employed in menial tasks.'

In my community in Jaffna some 30 families were effected by the eviction in 1990

We met one of the camp leaders, Mr Fawzan who was a metal worker and used to lived in Moor Street Jaffna. ‘In my community in Jaffna some 30 families were effected by the eviction in 1990. We have never been given any good reason why the Tamil Tigers just suddenly told us to leave. We were all piled into a lorry and driven here to Puttalam and lost all our family goods and trading materials, we lost everything.”

‘I have 6 children’ and whilst saying this Mr Fawzan introduces me to his youngest, Murshid 4 years old, who rushes into the small grey brick house to sit by his Dad. ‘I want to be a mechanical engineer when I grow up’ says Murshid, but I think that’s more his father’s wish. Murshid munches some salted roasted lentils and offers me some. ‘My eldest son is now 25yrs and is a street vendor selling small fish and lentil cakes, ‘wade’, which he makes himself. He earns about 300 rupees each day from this’ Mr Fawzan explains. ‘Another son 20 yrs works as a shop assistant and earns 200 rupees a day, so I am lucky that some members of my family can work. I got training as a mason but it is difficult to find work for me in this area so I can only work sometimes. I have built my own house here in brick, with a tin roof supplied by FORUT and UNCHR, but I have no land title and so when, or if, I finally leave here, I will lose it all again. I can’t sell it to anyone’. ‘But I don’t want to return to Jaffna.’ Says Mr Fawzan ‘What security will I ever have that the same won’t happen again?’. 'We need to settle here, many of us would given the chance.'

The Saltpans Are the Distinctive Resources of the Puttalam

Mr Fawsan describes the income position of many families, ‘we get an IDPs allowance each month of only 1,500 rupees compared to a typical Tsunami displaced family which gets 5,000. No one can survive and eat on that and there’s no increased allocation for bigger families’. ‘Some youth work in the salt pans, some in the pawn farms although a recent outbreak of ‘white-spot’ disease has closed those places temporarily’. Some of the women, but very few, 7 from this village I think, manage to get work in the textile factory in town from which they earn about 4,000 per month (about $40).

A small inquisitive crowd is gathering now, all men as the women in this Muslim community generally keep away from strangers like me. Everyone has a story to tell although they’re unclear about what I can do about it but the overwhelming request is that I find funds for more toilets.

Mr Nafis joins the conversation, a 26 yrs old man who arrived here when he was 12 from Jaffna. ‘After I left Jaffna my education was interrupted and although my parents tried to get me into a school here the ‘donation’ requested by the school of 5,000 rupees was too high. I then spent a long time as a porter in town, carrying loads for traders and I saved a little each month. I saved 50,000 Rups and was able to join with a friend, gathering capital of 100,000 Rups, to start a buying and selling business in salt.’ The saltpans are the distinctive resources of the Puttalam area but the salt produced often lacks iodine, which contributes to a major health problem in Sri Lanka.

‘With my friend, Mr Nafis explains ‘We buy salt from the owners of the salt pans and we hire a lorry to take the product to cities like Kandy, Negombo and Colombo.’ The income is sometimes good but also is seasonal ‘Sometimes we make a profit’ says Mr Nafis, ‘but also often we fail to find purchasers for all our product and rather than bring it back we sell at a cheap or below cost rate and we loose our profit’.

I Am Confused About the On-Going Conflict

We then move up the Puttalam Mannar Road to Salamabad, a small settlement of 150 families many of who came from Mannar in the mass evictions of 1990. Behind the Masholla, the small Muslim prayer hall, we met an old bearded man, Mr Mustafa who cheerfully tells us that he is 72 years old. Under the shade of a Palu, a season sweet fruit tree, we discuss the problems of his village. ‘Many of us here come from a village, Palakuli, only 35 miles from here on the Mannar, Puttalam boarder. It is now under Tamil Tiger control and I have been here with my family for 15 years now’. I am the 4th generation of my family to live in Palakuli, that I know of, but who knows how much further back my family has lived there’. But when I ask him about going back to his village he says ‘I am confused about the on going conflict and I am not sure how we Muslims will gain from any peace negotiated with the Tamil Tigers’.

‘I have visited my home village once’ Mr Mustafa explains ‘about 3 years ago when the Memorandum Of Understanding brokered by the Norwegians, between the Government and the Tamil Tigers, was signed a few of us hired a van and returned to our village to assess what we could do. We had to travel 100 miles or more because the Road is still not open. The village and our lands are now largely over grown by forest and inhabited by wild animal, and the ‘two-legged-tigers’’ he smiles as he refers to the cadres of the Tamil Tigers. ‘We would need a lot of help to clear the village, rebuild our houses and re-cultivate our lands but many of us would do that if only we could get some assurance from the Tamil Tigers that we would have security and would not be evicted again’.

‘I have visited my home village once’ Mr Mustafa explains ‘about 3 years ago when the Memorandum Of Understanding brokered by the Norwegians, between the Government and the Tamil Tigers, was signed a few of us hired a van and returned to our village to assess what we could do. We had to travel 100 miles or more because the Road is still not open. The village and our lands are now largely over-grown by forest and inhabited by wild animal, and the ‘two-legged-tigers’’ he smiles as he refers to the cadres of the Tamil Tigers. ‘We would need a lot of help to clear the village, rebuild our houses and re-cultivate our lands but many of us would do that if only we could get some assurance from the Tamil Tigers that we would have security and would not be evicted again’.

‘We are Tamil speakers, that is our language, why should we be treated like this?’ chips in a young man who joins us in the shade of the tree and doesn’t give his name. He must have been a small child when he came here and now is seasonally employed as a conch shell diver. ‘If there’s to be a real end to conflict Muslim representatives, and I don’t mean government appointees, must be included in talks and any final settlement must give Muslim Tamils full restitution. If not the issues of grievance will fester and certainly lead to more conflict.’ He knows that I will report his words so I am reluctant to ask for his name. Speaking about the possibilities of Muslims directly arming to defend their rights is a hot issue here but so far Puttalam has remained a relatively quiet area. ‘We have Tamil Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhist Sinhalese all in this area’ says the CTF Project manager Mr Nilmatulla, ‘but we have lived in relative harmony and there’s no real ethnic tension here’.

Peace Talks to Bring an End to the Conflict

By now some 8 youths and older men have gathered under the tree and I ask what they think must be the core issues addressed in peace talks to bring an end to the conflict. ‘The language issue is at the heart of it’ says the conch shell diver. Tamils must be able to speak our own language, to be understood and to be able to get employment and access to education; we must feel like equal citizens’. ‘If that doesn’t happen how can there ever be peace?’ ‘Also our Muslim land in the northern areas has been taken – this must be given back’. ‘Yes we have heard about the Language Commission saying all civil servants must speak both languages but they have been saying that for ever and nothing changes’. He then adds, ‘There is this new group called Allalan, named after a famous Tamil King, which now circulates threatening messages to the Muslims telling us we are not wanted back in our lands, but when we ask the Tigers they say it is not them, they know nothing about it. ‘We know it is really the Tigers just using the name as a ‘front’ so it is difficult for us to feel and hope in a real peace deal’.

Before I leave the conversation under the tree I ask the group what is the single most important thing that would help them to live a better life and they say ‘Re-open the Puttalam to Mannar Road and allow us at least to go to our fields’.

Suresh Wasantha of the Human Rights Centre, Ekala

"I am Suresh Wasantha and am 23yrs, I live with my father and elder sister." Suresh, sitting on the extreme left of this picture, tells me a little about the experiencethat brought him to work for the Ekala Human Rights Centre.

I am here in Seduwa and Ekala, just a stones throw from the major Colombo international airport, to visit the Human Rights Centre established 3 years ago by one of CAFOD's partners. I met Suresh Wasantha who joined the Human Rights Centre over a year ago now. He had been employed in a rope factory in Ekala since leaving schools 5 years ago. The work conditions were poor a lack of toilet facilities, no drinking water. A worker who had been at the factory for 20 years had a basic salary of 3,500 in 2005 (about £20 per month) Women were also forced to do the night shift and overtime which was often not paid. During the working hours we also were supposed to have safety items but these were never provided. There was also no proper scale of holidays and no first aid facilities".

"In an emergency if someone was sick in the night there was no vehicle to get a patient to hospital, and it was then that we approached the Human Rights Centre to seek their advice" Suresh told me how a group of workers unhappy about their conditions gradually built up an active group agitating for change. The factory owner was Tamil and many Tamil estate women workers were employed in the factory but working under almost slave like conditions. Suresh is himself Tamil and was able to speak with the workers and help organise a workers association. Earlier a ttempts to establish a union had failed because people were so scared to be marked as organisers.

After Human Rights Day in Feb 2005 the JVP, a very left wing and nationalist group, established a union in the factory based on the conscientising work the Human Rights Centre had been doing but the Centre didn’t get involved directly. However having formed the Union the JVP organisers failed to take up the issues of the workers conditions successfully. 'I had been sacked before the JVP had organised the union and these were on trumped up charges because I had been organising the workers’. The JVP organised a strike and factory had to close and all the workers were dismissed. The strike was then called off but some workers then filed a case with the labour tribunal and again this was done with assistance from the Centre’s legal team. The case should be heard in February this month. '30 went on strike, 6 went back to work and 15 have filed the case' Suresh says 'We are a little more confidant now that we will get justice'.

“As a victim of injustice I feel the need of supporting young workers who have similar problems, including my old colleagues” Shuresh said “I hope to help make other workers aware of their rights and to improve my own knowledge on labour laws”.

Vincent Weerakkody

Vincent is now 48 years, has 1 child a 13 years old daughter and is Buddhist. He is seen hearing chatting to Sr Christine Fernando. Vincent is one of the three full time staff of the Human Rghts Centre in Ekala.

"Today I was working to get two boys 18 & 19 yrs released from Police custody. They have been charged with theft and arrested on 28th January. Both boys had been assaulted continually for 4 days whilst in police custody. The mothers came to this centre after visiting the police station “With me another 72 workers lost their jobs so we have a lot of rights to win back so I have to do it for myself and my fellow workers also’

'I have an experience working on conditions in my own factory and so that experience helps me assist workers fromother factories. It is my intention to minimise the possibilities employers have of victimising their workers. ' Vincent then describes some of the problems workers face:

'At this moment all our labour laws are, in effect, inactive and we want to activate such laws. Our big obstacle is the lethargy of the officials in the labour department of government'.

'Police are also a major problem, they are largely inactive in matters of labour laws. We have had a case against my old employer for the last 3 years demanding back pay and severance gratuity – even the court has ordered this – but no one implements it.'

There is even a warrant out for the arrest of the owner for non-appearance in court to answer the charges but he doesn’t come and he isn’t arrested. Members of Parliament and even Ministers send courteous acknowledgement to our letters of complaint but do nothing. Is it a surprise that workers feel they have to take the law into their own hands?’

Fr Sarath Iddamagoda, one of the founders of the Human Rights Centre, says 'A new issue emerging now is homelessness. A man recently came here to say that his wife and gone to work overseas in middle east. After 6 months he has received no information from her and he was looking after the children so couldn’t work but had heard nothing from his wife. He came to the Centre to get advice and help. It emerged during the conversation that he was living in a rented room and with no work and no income as his wife had stopped remitting monies to him we found that there was a critical home issue. From that visit many other issues of housing rights and threatened homeless ness have come to light. We are now having meetings with many small young families where their homes are at threat – we want to get them organised.'

Fr Sarath describe how they acted in this case. 'We wrote to the Foreign Workers bureau and through the agency that hired the overseas worker and then through SEDEC approached the Lebanon migrants workers centre. where we discovered she had been 'employed'. The women finally came back to Sri Lanka last week. She said that the first private house that had employed her as a domestic servant had never paid her and she finally had to run away. The agency that had recruited her tried to get her to return because they had taken payment ‘contract’. She was punished and abused physically and had a terrible time. When she made a police complaint she was detained because she had no paper but she said 'that was the best treatment I ever had in the Lebanon', although she was taken to the plane in handcuffs. The family is now re-united but now the husband is jobless.

The Centre is situated in a small family one-floor bungalow just off the main road through Ekala, a large estate of factories. The traffic noise is the constant backdrop to our conversation. While we were sitting talking about the work of the Centre a young man came from NISOL, a local factory, with a complaint from a friend working with Expo Lanka.

'Now 4th Feb is a national holiday for Independence Day but Expo Lanka have declared it a normal working day. What can we do about this?’ the young man asks. ‘In our factory we are given the choice to come to work on 4th and to then earn overtime’. Expo Lanka produces card board packaging and work all days to meet the demand for orders. They have no union and this makes it easier for the Management to ignore labour laws. Vincent asked the young man to ask his friend to call him so he could get the full facts before deciding what could be done

'We have good labour laws here in Sri Lanka but they so often ignored or no applied' says Fr Sarath.