Resettlement of Muslim IDPs

The resettlement issue of the Northern Muslims evicted in 1990 still remains unresolved. Many factors were attributed for the present status – hate, desire for the establishment mono ethnic society, landlessness and already Tamil IDPs are resettled in places belonged to Muslims. The issue of finding durable solution to Muslim Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who were evicted from North in October 1990 by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), so far ―remains one of the key post conflict challenges, which also has a significant impact on the process of reconciliation.

This section aims to focus on the resettlement of Muslim IDPs and the role of Sri Lankan government. The Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa made the following statement ―My Government will not let down the innocent Muslim civilians in the Northern Province who lost all their belongings at the hands of the LTTE 20 years ago. We will ensure that innocent Muslim civilians who had to leave their original places in the Northern Province due to LTTE threats will be resettled in their own properties. Their houses, schools and business establishments will be rebuilt with all necessary infrastructure facilities‖ (All Ceylon Muslim Congress-ACMC: Northern Convention on December 31^st, 2009 at Alankuda, Kalpitiya – Puttlam district).

Although the speech marked the first time that a senior functionary has made a

categorical statement on evicted Muslims, the president failed to recognize the return of the Muslims as one of the priorities in his rapid, post-LTTE nation-building process. Instead, he wanted them to wait until the conclusion of repatriation of all Tamil IDPs. This continued second-class treatment is the reason why Northern Muslims have a general lack of confidence in the government, including the former Cabinet Minister of Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services (Rishad Badiudeen), who is originally from the Northern Province.

In 2009, right after the conflict end in Sri Lanka many Muslim IDPs from the Puttalam district began to return to their homes in the Northern Province. But they were stopped by the Minister Rishad Badiudeen and asked them who were trying to return to the Northern Province not to rush, but rather to wait until the government come up with a suitable resettlement program for Muslim IDPs (Interview with Muslim IDPs in the Puttalam district.

March 10^th, 2010). But now, even though there is no impediment to their return, the government has imposed restrictions on Muslim returnees to certain parts of Musali division in Mannar district (Northern Province), quoting security reasons while at the same time going ahead with plans to move Sinhalese from the border villages of Mannar. The government has also already allowed Sinhala fishermen access to the Musali coastline in Mannar district (Interview with Muslim IDPs in Mannar district. March 14^th, 2010).

There has by now been an intense politicization of Northern Muslims‘ right to return.

In December 2009, Jamal Bawatneh, a former minister of Muslim affairs of Palestine, made an appeal to the Sri Lankan Muslims and others who supported the Palestinian struggle to participate in a fundraising. This pledge has been a regular practice of Mahinada Rajapakse‘s government, to send Minister Rishad Badiudeen on fundraising trips to West Asian countries, during which the plight of the Northern Muslims under the LTTE has been regularly highlighted (Haniffa, F. 2010).

Sarvodaya, a local NGO in Sri Lanka, estimates that there are about 60,000 expelled Muslims in Puttalam, 75 percent of who want to return to the Northern Province. While about 25 percent of these have now established themselves within the host community (and these certainly have to be given the choice of staying where they are), this should not be used to deny or postpone the returning rights of tens of thousands of other Muslims. Rather, it is imperative to recognize the urgency of the Northern Muslims‘ right to return in parallel with that of the displaced Tamils, in order to avoid any further suspicion and distrust growing between these two communities (Sarvodaya Report. 2009).

Muslims who have returned to Mannar in 2009 have been faced with certain alterations to village boundaries, causing them to lose their community rights to land. When government officers alter the boundaries of villages, they take away public lands – allocated to build public schools, burial grounds, and places of worship etc. As such, if Muslims are only allowed to return at a later date (or after the establishment of the Tamil IDP villages), they fear that the public lands traditionally available for Muslims will be lost. Tensions have also risen among returned Jaffna Muslims who have come back to inherit the unsettled utility bills of other displaced, who had occupied their houses during the war (Anees, MS. 2010: 4) There have also been more-nebulous losses. Muslims who visited Mantha-West (North of the Mannar mainland) were disappointed to see that the Muslim character of the villages from which they were expelled had been erased by the LTTE. Burial grounds and mosques have been completely demolished, and LTTE bunkers and bases have been constructed by converting mosques, schools and individual Muslim homes (Interview with Muslim IDPs in Mannar district in March 15^th, 2010). Many land permits have also been re-issued by the LTTE-run judicial system and, so far, there has been no government support to reclaim these lands. In the meantime, widespread allegations of financial corruption by those associated with Minister Rishad Badiudeen and his close associations with the government are seen by

many Tamils as proof of biases against them. This has added fuel to the brewing Muslim-Tamil tensions in the Northern Province (Ibid. 2010).

As things stand, Muslims are returning to the Northern Province without expecting much from anyone, simply in the hope of restarting their lives from scratch and co-existing once again with their Tamil brothers and sisters. When the presidential campaign heated up in 2010, the Muslim political leadership, as usual, placed the Northern Muslims‘ right to return on their agenda in the hopes of political gain. SLMC leader Rauff Hakeem unconditionally supported the opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka, while Rishad Badiudeen is a strong supporter of President Mahinda Rajapakse. But none has yet stressed the importance of this community‘s (Muslim IDPs) right to return in parallel with the other displaced communities in Sri Lanka (Anees, MS. 2010: 7).

For their part, the Northern Muslims who have returned have advanced few demands, apart from modest ones for equal treatment, access to their lands, basic livelihood activities and swift clearance of landmines. It should be noted that those Muslims that have decided to return have given up their IDP registration in Puttalam, which automatically terminates their entitlement for a monthly food subsidy (Dry food ration). Their willingness to give up many years of living in one, by-now familiar, place clearly shows their desperation to get back and stand on their feet after two decades of humiliation and dependent living. It is also imperative to recognize that evicted Muslims have the right to reclaim their properties and livelihood opportunities in their native places, irrespective of whether their families choose to continue to live elsewhere (Anees, MS. 2010: 7).

The above explanations show that there are many difficulties on the resettlement of Muslim IDPs in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. It seems that the Sri Lankan government does not have any proper plan to resettle the Muslim IDPs to their hometown. Moreover the

Sri Lankan government also puts some barriers to the voluntary repatriation of Muslim IDPs citing security as a major concern to them (Ibid. 2011: 8). From the Muslim IDPs‘ point of view the Sri Lankan government often pays less attention towards the resettlement of Muslim IDPs when compared to the Tamil IDPs in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka (Ibid. 2010).

Although, there are many negatives about the resettlement of Muslim IDPs in the Northern Province, one must understand the fact that the Muslim political alliance with the UPFA government cannot do much for the Muslim IDPs where they have limited power in the parliament. While urging the Sri Lankan government for the resettlement of Muslim IDPs, the Muslim political parties also should look for some financial assistance from the Muslim countries where in some cases Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Iran helped to build houses and infrastructure for the Muslim IDPs in the Puttalam district of Sri Lanka (Ibid. 2010: 8-9).