It says the present condition of the
survivors is in violation of Article 21.
CHENNAI: The present condition of tsunami survivors is in
violation of Article 21, the panel of a people’s tribunal on tsunami
rehabilitation has observed. Too much attention was given to developing
the coast for tourism rather than aiding the affected fisherfolk, it
said.
Three years after the tsunami, the real disaster is not the devastation
the force of nature wrought but the State’s failure to take steps to
rehabilitate people, the panel has observed.
The panel, which included former judge of the Mumbai High Court H
Suresh, social activist Asghar Ali Engineer, historian K.N. Panikkar
and former vice-chancellor of Mother Teresa Women’s University Yasodha
Shanmugasundaram, heard the testimony of over 40 affected people and
received over 120 representations from Nagapattinam, Kanyakumari and
Cuddalore, and the Karaikal region of the Union Territory of Puducherry.
The two-day forum was organised by Voices from the Margins, a group
that includes fish workers’ unions, community leaders, non-governmental
organisations and activists. Assisted by a group of experts, the panel
will submit a report on the evidence to the Prime Minister, the Chief
Ministers of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, and donors within three months.
“Rehabilitation is not an act of charity but a human right … Under the
international law and under our own Constitution, the State must…ensure
human rights are not violated. The state has abdicated its
responsibility to rehabilitate the large number of people who have
suffered in Tamil Nadu,” said Mr. Justice Suresh at the conclusion of
the tribunal.
In its observations, the panel drew four issues from the testimony:
denial of the rights to shelter of acceptable standard; denial of a
secure future in the form of a patta; denial of livelihood by refusing
them the right to live by the sea; and denial of rights to women,
especially those widowed in the calamity. Some women testified that
they were unable to claim housing or compensation. “This is a clear
case of non-inclusion,” said Dr. Shanmugasundaram. In many
rehabilitation settlements, not enough houses had been built, and the
pressure had exaggerated discriminatory practices in many villages,
S.M. Prithiviraj, convenor, Voices from the Margins, said, pointing to
the testimony given by two women from Arkattutheru in Nagapattinam.
Many testified to living in terrible conditions in temporary shelters .
Professor V. Kadhambari of the expert group highlighted one woman’s
words: “I saved my five children from the tsunami but I wonder if I
will save them from the squalor.” Complaints from those living in new
constructions included insufficient space for large families,
unworkable toilets, absence of electricity and drinking water, mice,
mosquitoes and an increase in the incidence of disease. “These people
have their own culture. They find themselves in a borrowed culture,
borrowed clothes, borrowed homes. This is where we have gone wrong,”
Kadhambari told The Hindu.
“The biggest challenge,” said P.V. Unnikrishnan, expert in Emergencies
and Human Security at Action Aid, “is not shelter, food, hygiene or
access to public health, but survival.” Their survival depended on
access to the sea.
Ossie Fernandes of the Human Rights Advocacy Research Foundation said
that in many cases, new housing went hand in hand with relinquishing
the fisherfolk’s right to land in their villages. The tsunami
legitimised many illegal activities in the coastal regulation zones.
The Coastal Management Plan concept note was not in favour of
fisherfolk, so the original 1991 Coastal Regulation Zone notification
should be reinforced, he said.
“We must demand that the Government take the responsibility to
rehabilitate people in the same way as they have always lived… A
comprehensive law should be created to protect fishermen,” Mr. Justice
Suresh said.
He said that from what he had heard, the fishermen were not too fearful
of going back to the sea, but the Government was not supporting them to
do so.
http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/23/stories/2007122359610400.htm
Copyright
© 2007, The Hindu.
