The Hindu : International : Hope and despair

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 06, 2005

International

International

Hope and despair

By V. S. Sambandan

BERUWALA, JAN. 5. Along Sri Lanka's shattered southwestern coast, fishermen salvage their smashed boats and their broken livelihoods. A giant crane is at work inside a fishing harbour, pulling out the wreckage of a mechanised fishing boat. Inch by inch, the wreckage emerges when the cord carrying it snaps suddenly, throwing it back into the sea.

Rebuilding livelihoods

For the 70 per cent of Sri Lanka's 1.42 lakh fishermen, the task of rebuilding their livelihoods is similar to the salvage operations — replete with frustration.

"I don't have an insurance. The banks may not give me a loan and I don't think I will go to the Government for one," Upali Peiris, a boat owner, told The Hindu at the Beruwala Fishing Harbour south of Colombo.

His three-year-old boat, Ruwan Putra, bounces in the gentle harbour several metres away, with a smashed bow and a badly damaged hull. With over five lakh people belonging to fishing families, the single largest victim of the tsunami are the fishermen who have lost it all, ironically, to the sea, their source of livelihood.

"I was on the boat and it started speeding away," Lal, a fisherman, said, recalling the fury of the harbour waves on December 26. "I could not think of anything. I just crouched on the floor and sat till it hit the breakwater," a bruised Lal says animatedly. Peiris and his friends break into harmless laugh and Lal joins in.

More than anything else, the buoyancy of Sri Lanka, which has seen nothing but wave after wave of man-made destruction since the early 1970s — when the left-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna led a failed insurrection — is an intangible factor that gives the greatest hope for a speedy path to recovery. "It is over. We have to start off again," Peiris says with an air of confidence. The Government is salvaging the boats "free of cost." And he will "somehow manage" to put together Rs. 3 lakhs needed for the repairs. The `briefing' on the tsunami and their future plans done, Peiris and friends are back to animated discussion, often cackling with laughter.

In the Central Bank's plush drawing rooms, officials work on plans to give assistance ranging from Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 5 million for rebuilding lost livelihoods.

The informal sector is also to be included. Peiris, however, does not appear confident that these would materialise.

Overcoming such popular apathy and reaching out to the people is another challenge ahead for the Government.

A few days ago, at the rebel-held Mullaittivu district, a fisherman, Arul Rasasingham, who lost everything — his family, house, boats and nets — spoke with the same degree of confidence as his southern counterpart, Peiris, did. "Just give us boats and fishing gear and we will bounce back."

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