Sri Lanka's fragile peace
by Nicholas Van Hear
In February 2003 Sri Lankans marked a year since the ceasefire between Government of Sri Lanka armed forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). While tensions have remained, the peace process that has been in motion since early 2002 has transformed the atmosphere in the country, and lifted the oppressive fatalistic fear that has blighted much of Sri Lanka's population of around 19 million for nearly 20 years of conflict. People in the conflict areas of the north and east are now able to go about their daily lives with a much greater degree of normality than for a long time, not least because of the removal of ubiquitous checkpoints and the much greater mobility that has become possible as a result.
What the agencies have inelegantly labelled the 'post conflict, pre-peace' phase has raised the prospect of the return of IDPs and eventually of those who have sought refuge abroad. Based on local government records, it appears that some 240,000 displaced people have returned to their districts of origin (though not necessarily their homes) since the peace process got under way. This figure does not capture the substantial number of people who have maintained registration (and receipt of government rations) in their place of displacement but have returned to their places of origin to see if they can reclaim their houses and land and re-establish a life there. Many people, displaced and refugees, are adopting a 'wait and see' attitude before they commit themselves to permanent return. Until peace is more firmly established and conditions at home are more secure, UNHCR is not encouraging return of refugees from Tamil Nadu in south India, where they number around 100-120,000, about two thirds of whom live in some 100 camps in the state. A few thousand have nevertheless returned, mainly to Mannar and Jaffna districts.
These return movements have not been without problems. In particular, property issues are boiling up as returnees try to reclaim land and houses which are occupied by other displaced people who have nowhere to go - because their own land or houses are damaged or destroyed, occupied by others, in areas heavily mined, or occupied by the army. In response to the new situation, UNHCR and other agencies have beefed up their operations to assist the displaced. While there is still much room for improvement, the organisational structures of the humanitarian regime, including the government which operates an imperfect ration system for the displaced, function fairly well in Sri Lanka. With luck these efforts will be backed by donor funding to secure lasting peace in the coming years - though the lessons from elsewhere, notably Afghanistan, are not encouraging in this respect, not to mention the implications of war with Iraq.
The real challenges lie not in organisational change - more 'coordination' - but in the local, regional and international political economy. As they have done elsewhere in post-conflict societies, the World Bank and other agencies and donors will attempt to co-opt the humanitarian agencies to shape post-conflict Sri Lanka in a neo-liberal mould. Donor assistance for immediate reconstruction needs is already being made conditional on such moulding - through reform of the legal and property rights systems, for example. The leverage donors will have as a result of Sri Lanka's burgeoning debt (largely military) in coming years will also be substantial. While some such 'adjustment' may be warranted, humanitarians will need to be wary of co-optation and be ready to contest the excesses of such leverage if the transition to peace is to be consolidated and the refugees and displaced are to be enabled to reconstruct their lives.
Nicholas Van Hear is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Development Research, Denmark. Email: nvh@cdr.dk
Angola: from plans to action?
by
Cecilie Winther, DanChurchAid, and Nina M Birkeland, Nord Trøndelag
University College
In FMR 16, in her article on IDP protection in Angola, Kamia Carvalho concludes, "Despite a good start, Angola still has a long way to go" as regards implementation of the Guiding Principles. Since then the official number of IDPs has fallen from 4.1 million to 2.8 million(1). Immediately after peace accords were signed in April 2002, people started to move away from their places of refuge. However, simultaneously, people who had not been able to flee from occupied areas migrated into areas - often the provincial capitals - where they hoped to receive assistance, thereby adding to the IDP statistics. And it is questionable whether the 1.3 million who were formerly counted in the official statistics have indeed established livelihoods at home or in new places of residence in accordance with their rights as described in the Guiding Principles.
Angolan authorities claim that much of the reduction in IDP numbers is a result of spontaneous return. However, information from the field suggests that not all 'spontaneous' return was voluntary. And in areas where return has indeed largely been voluntary, returning IDPs find that there is no basic infrastructure, significant numbers of landmines are still in place and there are no resources available to meet their basic needs.
The Angolan government has written the Guiding Principles into national legislation and on 5 January 2001 adopted the national Normas for Resettlement of Displaced Populations. The Normas should ensure minimum standards for safe, voluntary and sustainable return. The Provincial Plans of Emergency Action for Resettlement and Return were drafted in accordance with the Normas in June 2002 by the government and the humanitarian community. These were comprehensive plans outlining relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction needs which have served as guidelines for humanitarian actors in the country. In reality the government has concentrated its limited funding on rehabilitation of infrastructure rather than social services and immediate assistance. Once again the humanitarian community has been charged with the enormous task of providing for the basic survival of the displaced. With the continued lack of funding, the humanitarian actors have obviously not been able to cover all needs but forced to prioritise among acutely vulnerable populations. Despite good intentions, the Normas still have not worked their way from paper to reality. The Angolan authorities are good at producing plans and writing documents fulfilling the requirements of international donors and the UN but implementation and use thereof are less than exemplary.
Humanitarian accountability
by Asmita
Naik
A new organisation regulating the activities of humanitarian organisations was launched at a conference on "Accountability and humanitarian operations: present and future directions" held in Copenhagen in February 2003 and convened by DANIDA, the Danish International Development Assistance office, and the Humanitarian Accountability Project, HAP.
The debate about humanitarian accountability was set in motion by the humanitarian intervention following the genocide in Rwanda. An evaluation of the aid effort criticised it for "poor coordination" and "regrettable rivalry", resulting in "duplication and wasted resources" and even "unnecessary loss of lives". Intervention in Kosovo was similarly criticised. More recently, last year's scandal of sexual exploitation of refugees by aid workers and peacekeepers in West Africa was a watershed for the humanitarian accountability debate. According to Agnes Callamard, HAP Director, "West Africa … brought the issue to everyone's attention. Before that, some organisations felt accountability to crisis-affected populations as of little priority … the heightened media scrutiny made agencies realise the importance of being able to hold each other to account."
After the Rwanda crisis, the idea of a humanitarian ombudsman - as an impartial monitor and investigator - was mooted. A variety of initiatives were developed, including HAP, People in Aid, ALNAP (the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in humanitarian action) and the Sphere project. HAP's recently concluded two-year research programme found "evidence of a lack of accountability, even more evidence of a lack of understanding of accountability but … a real commitment to want to do things better".
The new organisation - intended as a successor to HAP - will be a self-regulatory body with a mandate to provide technical support. While this is a welcome development, some question whether this goes far enough.
Questions were asked about how accountability is going to be translated into a reality at the national level and what will be the mechanisms for this. As membership of the new organisation is voluntary, the vast majority of NGOs, UN agencies and government action will remain unregulated. "Donors need to use the power of the purse for greater beneficiary accountability," says Ken Guinta from Interaction, a network of 160 US NGOs. Vincent Cochetel of UNHCR pointed out that "the principal gap which remains is for effective complaints mechanisms. Even after the West Africa experience such mechanisms have only been instituted in a few countries, fear of retaliation and lack of confidentiality is preventing people from speaking up". The need for transparency in the new organisation was highlighted. Brendon Gormley of the Disasters Emergency Committee asked, "how open and honest are we prepared to be..? The discussions about accountability at DEC only became real when we agreed that evaluations would be independent and public…".
Humanitarian organisations are not always the best ones to speak on behalf of the victims. As one observer concluded, "few organisations spoke up for the victims of the West Africa scandal. Even those that did speak did not do so as stridently as the victims would have done themselves. The clear gap remains for a truly independent watchdog to monitor and hold to account all humanitarian actors."
For full text of presentations made at the Febrary 2003 conference, see: www.hapgeneva.org/confprestns.htm