Global Overview 2015: People internally displaced by conflict and violence - Protracted displacement in Sri Lanka

Militarisation and land occupation

Sri Lanka is an example of the way displacement becomes increasingly difficult to resolve the longer it lasts, particularly when there is no political will to do so. We estimate that there were as many as 90,000 IDPs in Northern and Eastern provinces as of December 2014, all of them living in protracted displacement. The majority were displaced before April 2008.^[246] Almost six years after the end of the country's 26-year civil war, they continue to face obstacles in exercising their rights and addressing their needs. Of the hundreds of thousands of IDPs who have returned, tens of thousands are likely to have outstanding needs related to their displacement.^[247]

When the conflict ended in May 2009, the majority of the population of Northern province with the exception of Jaffna had been displaced at least once and many several times, as had significant numbers of people in Jaffna and Eastern province. ^[248] A large majority of the country's protracted IDPs, as well as those who experienced displacement in the past, belong to the Tamil ethnic group. It is not known how many among the 25,000 Sinhalese displaced by fighting after 1983 are still living as IDPs. The same is true of the 75,000 Muslims the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam expelled from Northern province in 1990.^[249]

Sri Lanka lacks comprehensive data on its IDPs, and little up-to-date information is available. The results of the government's exercise with UNHCR to reconcile figures and its joint needs assessment with OCHA, both undertaken in 2014, were not available at the time of writing. Available numbers^[250] are unlikely to reflect the true scale of displacement, given that the government has deregistered IDPs since 2010 without carrying out a durable solutions assessment.^[251]

Lack of access to housing, land and property rights has proved a significant obstacle to IDPs' long-term solutions. The last government undermined the country's legislative and policy framework on land tenure by evicting residents in the north and in Colombo.^[252] IDPs' loss of land in the north, for which most have received no compensation, has limited their access to sustainable livelihoods, and their situation is made worse by the absence of a mechanism to resolve land disputes. Around 20,000 IDPs are unable to return to their land because it is occupied by the military, or has been acquired by the state under the Land Acquisition Act for questionable public purposes, including a military-run holiday resort. Tenants have faced particular challenges in returning.^[253] Sri Lanka's protracted IDPs include the inhabitants of Mullikulam in Mannar district and Sampur in Trincomalee district, who were forced to flee in 2007. Mullikulam is occupied by the navy, and the military established a high security zone in Sampur, part of which was later transformed into a special industrial area. The IDPs live in temporary shelters near their home areas and are unable to practice their original livelihood of fishing because they no longer have access to the sea.^[254] Current and former IDPs running small businesses in Northern province struggle to compete with the military's agricultural and tourism ventures, some of which are based on IDPs' own land.^[256] Under the last government, the surveillance of civilians and draconian powers enshrined in the 1979 Prevention of Terrorism Act endangered the safety of current and former IDPs and contributed to displacement becoming protracted.^[257] The high ratio of security force personnel to civilians in the north, estimated at one to five, and their extensive involvement in matters usually reserved for the civilian realm are indicative of the militarisation that took place.^[258]

Sri Lanka has no national policy or legislation on displacement to provide a framework for addressing protracted IDPs' needs. A 2013 draft policy, which was never finalised, falls short of international standards, including the Guiding Principles.^[259] Development organisations, which have continued to work in the country after the UN humanitarian cluster system was phased out in 2013, have not included a focus on displacement in their programming to facilitate durable solutions for IDPs. OCHA scaled down its presence to a small humanitarian advisory team in December 2014.

247. Ibid

248. IDMC, Sri Lanka: Continuing humanitarian concerns and obstacles to durable solutions for recent and longer-term IDPs, 10 November 2009, available at: http://goo.gl/mo0rWH; UNGA, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, 5 June 2014, available at: http://goo.gl/aFHh7f

249. IDMC, Sri Lanka: Continuing humanitarian concerns and obstacles to durable solutions for recent and longer-term IDPs, 10 November 2009, available at: http://goo.gl/rFMqId

250. According to government statistics as compiled by UNHCR, there were just over 93,000 IDPs in the country as of December 2012. The Ministry of Resettlement indicated a total number of just over 26,000 at the end of 2014.

251. IDMC, Almost five years of peace but tens of thousands of wardisplaced still without solution, 4 February 2014, available at: http://goo.gl/7GEUQ1; IDMC, Submission to 112th session of the UN Human Rights Committee for October 2014 Sri Lanka review, 12 September 2014, available at: http://goo.gl/K5tSDK

252. CPA, Legal and Policy Implications of Recent Land Acquisitions, Evictions and Related Issues in Sri Lanka, 17 November 2014, available at: http://goo.gl/JhNeG0; CPA, Forced evictions in Colombo: The ugly price of beautification, 9 April 2014, available at: http://goo.gl/Evlf8t

253. Ibid

254. Groundviews, Will there be "Maithree" and "Yahapalanaya" for Navy occupied Mullikulam?, 22 January 2015, available at: http://goo.gl/bbzTn g; Groundviews, Revisiting Sampur: How Long Will it Take to Return Home?, 28 January 2015, available at: http://goo.gl/IFcH5m

255. IDMC, Submission to 112th session of the UN Human Rights Committee for October 2014 Sri Lanka review, 12 September 2014, available at: http://goo.gl/K5tSDK

256. Fokus, Shadow Report to the UN Human Rights Committee, 10 September 2014, available at: http://g oo.gl/q W28o4; OHCHR, Concluding observations on the fifth periodic report of Sri Lanka, 27 October 2014, available at: http://goo.gl/NxBG31

257. UNGA, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Chaloka Beyani: Mission to Sri Lanka, 5 June 2014, available at: http://goo.gl/oeDzr4

258. ICG, The Forever War?: Military Control in Sri Lanka's North, 25 March 2014, available at: http://goo.gl/3Ao5Xj; CPA, Forced evictions in Colombo: The ugly price of beautification, 9 April 2014, available at: http://goo.gl/Q8kVhr

259. IDMC, Almost five years of peace but tens of thousands of wardisplaced still without solution, 4 February 2014, http://goo.gl/Rgykjc