Politics of post-disaster management: A case study of Menik farm welfare camp, Vavuniya Sri Lanka

Abstract

Among the man-made disasters, civil war or terrorism causes serious consequences in terms of generating refugees and re-settlement problems all over the world. Menik Farm was a welfare camp which functioned in Chettikulam, Vavuniya during and after the civil war of the North and East. It was one of largest welfare camps in the world and there were around 300,000 (86364 families) locally displaced people (IDPs). The welfare camp was maintained under a special institutional and administrative set up with the coordination of civil administrative mechanism, intervention of military leadership and monitoring of international agencies. Since the military leadership played a leading role in the post-disaster management process, it was of much concern all over the world and the camp was closed in September 2012. The main objective of this paper is to critically analyse the role of politics in post-disaster management of the Menik Farm welfare camp in Sri Lanka. Since this welfare camp was under the direct control of the government military, there were many limitations in carrying out the study and field data collection was influenced by security measures and ethical issues. Qualitative and explorative methodology were adopted for primary data collection. Accordingly, qualitative data collection tools such as observation, in-depth interviews and informal group discussions were conducted. Although there were 9 Zones (from Zone 0 to Zone 8) and three villages, the IDP sample was selected for the interviews and discussions were conducted in Zone 6 and the village of Weerapuram. The key informants (project, state, military, medical officers, sanitary workers and host community) were selected from the entire camp. The most important finding of this study is the power relationship that existed among three leading sectors as a joint mechanism of postdisaster management. They are the military authority, government representation by District Secretary and Disaster Management Center (DMC) and International Agencies (UNCHR, UNDP, SLRC). Although there was more commanding power with military involvement, international agencies and civil administrations of the government played a 2 key role in developing critical and social infrastructure (security, health and sanitation) within the camp (761 hectares of land). Even if the military authority was always criticized for dominating the joint mechanism by external sources, IDPs were satisfied with the involvement of the military in terms of providing security and immediate infrastructural facilities. It is also important to mention that the security and well-being of IDPs is always socially constructed based on the power discourse related to war and peace. The media and the international diaspora community together with local politicians mainly engage in the process of making power discourses considering military connections. Among the IDPs, there were social-cultural conflicts owing to the notion of caste and cultural pollution and some livelihood programs reinforced inequitable relations of power among them. These value-oriented power conflicts negatively influenced postdisaster management of the camp. The poor facilities and political attention towards the local host community compared to IDPs, created a tensed situation between them. The host community did not enjoy any benefits through the political economy of the welfare camp. In conclusion, it can be emphasized that the unseen institutional power structure and socially and culturally mandated power relationships played a vital role in the management of welfare camp.