10 MONTHS AFTER THE TSUNAMI Million Dollar Slums and the Great Betrayal
Grief, hunger, violence against women, depression, insomnia. What can justify the fact that survivors are starving? Who can pardon caste and gender discrimination in relief? Shivani Chaudhry revisits the tsunami's ravaged realism in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka The ceiling is low and precarious. The sides of the eight by ten foot shelter are lined with clothes and cooking utensils. There is not much else there. It smells strange; a stagnant blend of damp cardboard and old tar. There is no window, no light, no air. Just a flimsy incomplete partition that exposes neighbours' clothes and conversations. A baby sleeps on a straw mat silently breathing the toxicity that the structure emits when it is hot, which is always. Her little face is covered with a large heat boil. Outside the shack her mother boils rice in a common corridor where clothes, bicycles, kerosene stoves, cooking utensils, storage drums, children, and old women compete for space. A few feet away lies uncleared garbage, and common dry toilets built of tin sheet. No, this is not a Mumbai slum as you might have imagined. This is a temporary shelter site for tsunami survivors in Akkaraipettai, Nagapattinam. The same Nagapattinam that is being hailed for its excellent post-tsunami management. Just that reality is a bit different from what the media and politicians paint. Just that temporary housing for tsunami survivors here is nothing less, nothing more than a slum. "Slums" created with the millions of dollars received in tsunami aid. "Slums" which have been built of "tar sheeting" - an easily decomposable, tearable, non-water resistant, smelly material consisting essentially of sheets of cardboard and other fibre coated with tar. A material recommended by the Tamil Nadu government for its supposed fireproof quality. A material that burnt down completely, gutting over 1,500 shelters in Kargil Nagar, North Chennai in June 2005. A material that no international agency or relief organisation seems to have rejected. That people had no choice over. Down the Tamil Nadu coast in Cuddalore or Kanyakumari, the situation isn't any better. Almost all temporary shelters have been built like cramped colonies of line housing with common partitions, no windows, and no space between and within shelters. Almost all of them have been built of tar sheeting. Who was the supply contractor for this tar sheet? How much money was involved? And why weren't people consulted in the design of these structures that are worse than cattle sheds? Why were all families, irrespective of the number of members, subjected to live in the same size shed? Why were no partitions built so women could have some privacy? Why did relief agencies have to plaster their names on every structure? Why did one see more boards of ngos claiming 'adoption' over villages than relief workers? Why after 10 months are people still living in these hazardous shoebox structures? Why isn't permanent housing being given the priority it deserves? Why isn't the government spending the millions received as tsunami aid? How much money is there? Why is our right to information buried under government coffers? And most importantly, why are the human rights of survivors being violated, day in and day out? Month after month? In Sri Lanka, similar human rights violations are rampant. Ten months after the tsunami, many are still living in blue plastic tents. Tents that are normally used for camping. Tents that one can survive in for a maximum of one week. Tents that have been inhabited by entire families for 40 weeks. Airless, lightless, spaceless, heat-trapping tents. Where women have no place to cook, bathe, let their children play in safety, no school to send their children to. Relief and rehabilitation. Where 'emergency shelters' conveniently become 'temporary shelters'. Where the word 'temporary' is then replaced by the undefined 'transitional'. Where the words 'permanent housing' still remain unheard and unseen. Where everyone is waiting, for a boat, nets, school, shelter, food, water, compensation Where people who've suffered one of the world's worst natural disasters are being disrespected and mistreated. The tsunami was a tragic disaster. But the human-induced tragedy is worse. It has created a living hell for those who survived. The most painful words, apart from the heart-jabbing, soul-stinging stories of pain and loss I heard were, "I wish I had died in the tsunami. It would have been much better than being left to die a slow death like this." Grief, hunger, malnutrition, cessation of family income, violence against women, mental trauma, depression, insomnia, poor health, and neglect of concern for women and children are common in every tsunami-affected area - be it in Tamil Nadu or Sri Lanka. What can justify the fact that families were starving in Pudukottai, Tamil Nadu? Who can pardon caste and gender discrimination in relief? Who can explain the lacunae in assessment of losses and needs, the lack of sufficient compensation for the affected, and the total failure in providing adequate housing, sanitation, water, and health services including psychological counselling? Who can validate the absolute absence of mechanisms for agency accountability, transparency, and grievance redressal? After my visit to Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka, I can't bear to hear the word 'tsunami' any more. Previously a benign, unidentifiable, distant word. But now a word loaded with trauma, disbelief, terror. Still. Ten months after the event. Probably forever. A word that stings me every time I hear it. And I wasn't even there when the tsunami struck. I didn't even see it. But I've seen what it did. I've seen the waves of loss, devastation and horror it left behind. And I've seen the mess, the abuse, the violations, and the suffering that we have added to it. Tsunami. A word used to evoke sympathy, to extract funds, to develop gigantesque proposals. Abused by contractors, development agencies, donors. A word used to exploit the pain of the very people that the phenomenon attacked. A word misused to fill the coffers of many, and to create jobs while snatching away livelihoods. A word that now also means irony and opportunism. Tsunami. Apart from the loaded word it has become, it also resonates on its second syllable - 'na'. Na meaning no. NA standing for Not Available, Not Applicable, Not Allowed, Not Accountable, Not Administered, Not Advocated. NA implying No Access - to information, participation, consultation, non-discrimination, remedy, relief, compensation, justice, human rights. Women, children, men, the aged, youth, infants still see the terror wave. Still suffer nightmares at night, during the day. Nightmares caused by governments and international non-government and other relief organisations; by mismanagement, poor planning, insensitivity, corruption. Nightmares that should not have occurred; that need to be obliterated, immediately. I still see the anguish in the eyes of mothers who lost their children, children who lost parents, grandparents who lost grandchildren, the woman in Batticalao, Sri Lanka who lost 64 family members. I hear voices of anger, frustration, disbelief. Questions: Why? When? How much longer must we wait? Not everyone suffers equally from a natural hazard. The disaster is magnified for those who are most vulnerable. And the most vulnerable are generally the most marginalised, the most deprived, the most discriminated. They suffer more, because generally, they are already suffering more. The right to disaster-preparedness has to be upheld as a non-negotiable human right of all. Adequate housing and safe and secure living conditions have to be guaranteed for everyone without discrimination in order to mitigate disaster-related risk. And the right to relief and rehabilitation has to be recognised as a human right and not viewed merely as charity. Relief and rehabilitation processes, no matter where, must be compliant with international human rights standards. They must incorporate sensitivity to the needs of women, children and other marginalised groups. They must be grounded in the principle of non-discrimination and not heighten existing inequalities. And most importantly, they must not repeat the egregious mistakes of the past. How many disasters do we need to live through before we can get it right? How many? Let the plight of the tsunami survivors stay embedded in our collective memory and help steer us away from making similar errors in future, particularly in those related to the recent earthquake in Kashmir and Pakistan. Let us not contribute to the pain of those who survive life's worst crises. Let us not stifle any glimmer of hope they may have. Let us not deceive ourselves or anyone else. And let human rights principles and the feelings of love and respect guide us; even in relief and rehabilitation work. The writer was part of a fact-finding mission along with Malavika Vartak and R. Sreedhar to the tsunami-affected areas of Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. The report of the findings published by the Housing and Land Rights Network can be obtained by writing to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
