The number of refugees in Trinco is on the decline. But those who are in the camps still live in pathetic conditions. On the other hand some who have been living on dole money seem to be reluctant to go home
The refugee problem in Trinco seems to have entered an inevitable dimension.
The number of refugees has dwindled dramatically in the past decade. Where there were 47 camps and 22,029 families in 1990 there are now 18 official camps housing 1309 families.
However, the plight of the refugees who remain is largely the same. Rations don't come regularly for any of them. Roofs are leaking in some camps and the supply of water is irregular at others.
Jamaliyah Welfare Centre consists of 25 Muslim families huddled into two Paddy Marketing Board warehouses on Love Lane on the outskirts of town.
They left their homes adjoining the Uppuveli police station soon after the LTTE staged an attack on the station in June 1990. A.L.R. Sahib, the President of the Centre claims that six days after the LTTE attack their houses were burned, most likely by the police. He says that the land adjoining the Uppuveli police station has now been occupied by Sinhalese families.
He shows several letters he has written to government officials including Presidents Premadasa and Kumaratunga. President Premadasa promised them land which they never got, he says, and President Kumaratunga has not yet replied to his April 1994 letter. A delegation of 20 displaced persons from Love Lane went to Colombo to meet Rehabilitation Minister M.H.M. Ashraff recently. "All he told us was not to hurry things," says Sahib. "And this is after we've been here seven years."
Just around the corner from Jamaliyah Welfare Centre 20 Sinhalese families have also occupied an empty warehouse. They have been here since May 1995 after LTTE men hacked 36 people in their village in Kallarawa - north of Nilaveli.
J.D.A. Sebastian, the head of the camp complains of a leaking roof and
not having received rations for the last two months. 
"We don't even want rations. All we want is a loan so we can buy small boats or start a small business even in the south," he says.
On the other hand,some people who have been living on a government dole for years now just don't seem to want to resettle. Undoubtedly, there are plenty of genuine people who want to return to their original villagezble to do so because of the ongoing war.
But there are as many who just don't want to leave town and venture back into less developed areas of the district where life is harder even though security is no longer as much an issue in those parts.
Trinco Government Agent S. D. Chandradasa tried to resettle displaced persons in Kanniya three times in the recent past. But only 19 families out of 400 moved out..
"They can only be taken by force, but the government doesn't want to do that," Chandradasa says.
G.A. de Almeida, Project Officer of EHED, a Catholic NGO- agrees with the GA's assessment. "The government and NGOs have made some people utterly lazy," he says.
But on the other hand, he says. people are frightened of the Tigers and the military. Citing examples of security concerns in Kanniya, De Almeida says that three men from Kanniya who had been resettled this year had been shot and killed when they went to a rock quarry to break rocks for a living.
Another person stepped on a mine and died.
Chandradasa explains that various relief schemes are available for displaced persons such as Sebastian. But he admits that of about 550 applications for restitution received in 1996-97 only 28 applicants have been paid thus far.
"There is a severe shortage of money," he says. "When we ask the Treasury for one million, they give us 5 to 6 lakhs."
The shortage of funds is not all that worries Chandradasa. There is widespread fraud in the distribution of relief funds he alleges. Applications are being duplicated and claims are being forwarded on behalf of non-existent persons, he alleged.
Even if nothing else in Trinco has changed much, it is universally agreed here that one thing has improved: the behaviour of the security forces. The notorious "white vans" sans number plates that used to take people away and never bring them back are no more.
Rapes and murders at the hands of the forces are considerably less, acknowledges a Western aid worker.
"A decade ago, when I arrived in Muttur - across the bay from Trinco town - almost 150 women lined up to tell me horror stories of how they had been raped or their husbands and sons abducted by soldiers. This time around, most of the complaints are about harassment at checkpoints."
"We have learnt from our past mistakes," says a senior army officer.
"We were new to the game before. The officers are experienced now, and they know that hitting, getting to kneel, and burning don't work,"he said.
But there are still reports of soldiers and policemen arbitrarily beating civilians. For instance, 20 soldiers from Fort Frederick showed up at Pallathotam on November 22 and assaulted three fishermen for allegedly using dynamite to fish.
Then
there is an eyewitness account of how several policemen mercilessly beat
an inmate of the local prison who tried to escape. Some Tamil fishermen
also tell me how some of their friends had been taken on to a navy gunboat
on the high seas, assaulted and then pushed overboard last month. Evidently
they swam to safety.
Whatever the intentions of the senior officers may be, the security forces don't by any means have a perfect human rights record.
But in all fairness, it must be acknowledged that instances of abuse, particularly serious human rights violations, have declined dramatically.
Most importantly, this fact is accepted by all three communities in Trinco. If the military can now extract itself from political and administrative conflicts that acquire communal undertones and confine itself to security matters it may actually be viewed more favourably by the minority communities.
But even in town, it's well known that the LTTE "pistol gang" is around. There have been certain incidents in the past few months where pistol-bearing Tigers have engaged police and soldiers at one or two of the numerous checkpoints in town.
A senior military official says that according to intelligence reports three suicide cadres are in town to target high-ranking police and military officers.
Be that as it may, the town itself seems a whole lot more secure these days than a few years ago.
Even at 8 p.m. on a weeknight a few couples, lost in some romantic world of their own. stroll back and forth on Trinco's equivalent of Galle Face.
A stimulating spicy aroma from a "kadale" cart nearby wafts across the green, helped by the cool, gentle breeze blowing in from the ocean, while small group of revelers sing baila tunes at one end. It couldn't be more idyllic. For a few minutes it's hard to imagine a war is being fought around you, until the serenity is shattered by the booming of depth charges from the nearby harbour. The navy apparently drops the charges on a regular basis to deter would-be LTTE saboteurs.
By 11 pm Trinco is still. Even the bar at the resthouse, which serves its first customers around breakfast time, has closed its shutters. Only the cops at the checkpoints are awake, not counting the 'million' cows, goats and dogs that lie sprawled across the pot-holed roads.
This sleeping town will be bustling again in a few hours. It'll be a new day, yet not much will be different.
Underlying communal mistrust will continue unchanged but life will go on the same old way for most of Trinco's citizens. That is of course unless that much anticipated volcano erupts before Trinco falls asleep again.
-SS
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