Resettlement: are the victims really resettled? - a study of resettlement pattern in Swiss village in Batticaloa district, Sri Lanka

Abstract

The resettlement plans in Sri Lanka after tsunami and the ethnic war do not give any importance to the cultural part of the affected people. The recent war resettlements in the Batticaloa district had been made by many NGOs, INGOs, and the government of Sri Lanka. But none of them did notice the violation of human rights of the affected people in many areas. Though the infrastructure, livelihood and other such facilities had been given considerable attention, yet the cultural part had been very badly considered in the said resettlements. In fact, the victims had been forced to forget their culture, but it is the culture that made them unite in so many ways. Swiss Village is the village where most of the tsunami affected people had been resettled with the maximum infrastructure facilities. Though the resettled people speak Tamil, yet they belong to different races such as Tamil and Burger and different religions such as Hindu, Roman Catholic and non Roman Catholic. The cultural pattern of them differ, still they are compelled to live together irrespective of their religion and race. Similarly, the Tamil community too has been given houses irrespective of their caste and sub-caste system. They too continue to live. And most of them are finding the situation very difficult in the post-war scenario. Thus, this study brings out the positive and the negative effects of the resettled people and how they try to settle themselves with or without the cultural background that they had before they were resettled. Also this study will focus whether this resettlement brought the expected peace and harmony among the resettled victims.