Green quest in war-torn nation

Jim Jarvie, 47, Mercy Corps director of climate change and environment

IT’S not a country which has had its troubles to seek – a fact borne out by the blown-up tanks which have been left scattered across the dusty landscape of Afghanistan.

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Amid the violence, bloodshed and turmoil which has racked this country, there is another casualty, one which is often overlooked but which experts say needs to be healed in order to give the nation and its citizens a brighter future – the environment.

Which is why Mercy Corps’ director of climate change and environment, Jim Jarvie, is visiting the country to see how its natural resources can be conserved and restored.

He says: “One of the indirect problems of the wars is environmental degradation which is horrendous. There’s not a lot of forest left after 30 years of civil war which has broken down enforcement of land use laws. And agriculture is a key part of Afghan life. We have been working with local people on planting new crops to stabilise river banks and return to environmentally friendly farming methods.”

Mercy Corps is also joining forces with Edinburgh University to look into wider climate change issues in countries like Afghanistan to try to find out what the impact has been.

Jim says: “We are looking water access in Afghanistan, desertification in Niger and rising sea levels in Indonesia. We want to get a baseline on what climate change is doing to these countries.”

During his two-week trip earlier this month Jim also witnessed the brutality of daily life – with conflict within families as well as warring factions.

He says: “There are a lot of people with missing limbs blown off by landmines. There is a lot of domestic violence too, a lot of people who are pretty desperate.”

Jim, whose family are based in North Berwick, began working for Mercy Corps after the Asian tsunami when he and wife Laurie Pierce, 50, were carrying out conservation and conflict management work for other organisations in Sri Lanka.

He says: “There were bodies on the beach and it was difficult work but it was good to be doing something. We had been at a place called Arugam Bay three days before it happened and we went back to help and started working with Mercy Corps Purchase skelaxin information .”

Later he worked on longer term projects becoming first director of programmes for Sri Lanka and then acting country director.

Jim’s current role, which he began in March last year, has also taken him to New Orleans to see how people are recovering from Hurricane Katrina. Mercy Corps has been helping through work recycling parts of houses such as doors to use in the reconstruction of the area.

He says it was shocking to see how poorly the US was doing in helping victims.

He says: “It was as bad as the Third World.”

This article: http://living.scotsman.com/people.cfm?id=309472007

Last updated: 27-Feb-07 14:16 GMT

Move to the City (or the Beach…again)

Right now IA?a??a??m pretty flat tack, IA?a??a??m trying to get the road section of the current project up and running as it looks like it has finished raining (heavily at least) so now we can start the construction. A couple of weeks ago we turned over our 100,000^th block, and at the moment we are putting out around 5,400 per day A?a??a?? soon to be increased to our target of 9,000 per day.

WeA?a??a??ve also decided to move our office to the beach, so IA?a??a??m dealing with the refurbishment of that and also the guesthouse we are going to use A?a??a?? we have found an old orphanage that was abandoned after the tsunami A?a??a?? hopefully all the work (or at least enough to make it habitable) can be finished around the end of the month.

New Guesthouse…

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I promised a situation update A?a??a?? as I mentioned before there has been an upsurge in fighting, especially further north up the east coast. The army have taken back some key towns that were under LTTE control and basically scattered the LTTE in the area. The army commander swore to rid the East of the LTTE, and it looks like he has made good on that promise. Unfortunately, this has resulted in around 200,000 people having to leave their homes and this has put huge strain on the humanitarian response to the problem, with some big camps having to be set up around Batticaloa.

There has been a lot of fighting in the jungle to the west of where I am, the STF (Police Special Task Force) say they have overrun around 22 LTTE camps out there. Not so much problem with refugees in that area as there is basically no-one living there, however the elephants from that jungle have turned up near the coast a lot further north of where they usually are, some say due to the fighting.

All this brings in another problem A?a??a?? Karuna. Colonel Karuna was the LTTE commander in the east until around 2004, when he broke away (allegedly he stole a bunch of money) and formed his own group. The worst kept secret in Sri Lanka was that he was working with and being funded by the government, which was hotly denied by all parties but you only have to drive through many towns to see them set up next to SFT camps and police posts. The President has previously stated that A?a??A?there are no illegal armed groups in Sri LankaA?a??A?, and these guys are not Police or Military so I just donA?a??a??t know who to believeA?a??A?

Karuna has taken up the old LTTE tradition of A?a??A?forced recruitmentA?a??A? A?a??a?? basically, kidnapping people (many of them children) and giving them training and making them fight. A recent report by the UN investigator on children in armed conflict has drawn the conclusion that both the LTTE and Karuna are actively engaged in child recruitment, which is denied by both sides but again everyone on the ground knows that it is happening. There are also allegations of government complicity in the Karuna recruitments, hotly denied by the government but again everyone knows that they are involved. One example is the other week in Pottuvil A?a??a?? there were a couple of gunshots in the town (a rare occurrence), and I have subsequently been told that it was because a couple of boys escaped from the Karuna camp and were hiding in the town somewhere, and the Karuna guys were out hunting for them. It turns out that they were found (by the Police, no less) and then handed back to Karuna. So life in Sri Lanka goes full circle, and the government plays a dangerous game to get rid of the LTTE by assisting Karuna and trying to get him into power in the East to police the LTTE threat. What happens when he decides he has had enough of the government and wants to be the boss?

It is such a shame, because Sri Lanka has so much potential, it is such a beautiful and interesting place, if only they could all wake up to themselves and figure it outA?a??A?

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Apart from that, the sun is shining (it’s actually getting bloody hot, but my jandal tan-lines are coming along nicely), the sea is warm and the beer is coldA?a??A?

Pelicans on the lagoon

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Mr Thevaraja’s wife and children live in eastern Sri Lanka

Thangaraja Thevaraja is sitting in his east London home wondering when he will next hear from his wife and three children in Sri Lanka. A former policeman in Batticaloa district, he was forced to leave his job by the Tamil Tiger rebels, who ordered all Tamils, the country’s ethnic minority, to quit the police and armed forces.

The 44-year-old fled to the UK in 2001 after being arrested by police on suspicion of supporting the rebels.

They are fighting for a separate homeland for the country’s 3.1m-strong Tamil population following decades of alleged discrimination by the majority Sinhalese.

But instead of things improving he had to watch from thousands of miles away as his home village Kallar, in Batticaloa, was wiped out by the tsunami in 2004, forcing his family to live in a temporary shelter ever since.

He has since learned that his nephew was abducted, and days later found dead, and that his 14-year-old son is now too scared to go to school.

Human rights groups have frequently criticised both rebels and government troops for carrying out abductions.

Mr Thevaraja cried as he recalled his infrequent, hurried conversations with his family.

“My son was so shocked by my nephew’s death that he refuses to step out of the house. My wife is also scared that he may be abducted,” he said in Tamil, speaking through a translator.

“I feel guilty and sad about leaving them there but I don’t know what to do. I might be arrested if I go back.”

Six years on he is still waiting for asylum to be granted before he tries to get the rest of his family over.

His is one of about 100,000 Sri Lankan Tamils living in London alone – with 5,000 settled in Newham, east London.

Many have similar stories to tell, but do not want to be named, fearing for their families’ safety in Sri Lanka.

An estimated 65,000 people have died in Sri Lanka’s civil war and the 2002 ceasefire between the government and the Tigers now seems to exist only on paper. More than 3,600 were killed last year and tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced during the recent violence.

My father’s house was in ruins, the roof and windows were falling off and I couldn’t find any of my friends Councillor Paul Sathianesan

Paul Sathianesan, a councillor in Newham since 1998, said he came to the UK as an asylum seeker in 1985 from the Jaffna peninsula to escape the violence.

He visited Jaffna in 2003 planning to help the local community, but was shattered to see the devastation caused by the conflict.

“My father’s house was in ruins, the roof and windows were falling off and I couldn’t find any of my friends.

“There was an air of emptiness and people looked grey, thin and scared.”

The expatriate community over the years has tried to invest in their former villages and cities but this has become very difficult.

Mr Vellupillai Bose, who owns an estate agency in East Ham, said he and 10 friends purchased land in the capital Colombo to build residential buildings but they had to abandon the project after the violence worsened soon after presidential elections in November 2005.

Police display posters of victims of gang violence in the area

“All clauses were finalised but things got worse after the elections. Now we have decided to sell the land. We can’t do business in this situation.”

He has taken his family to Colombo for vacations but he has not been able to visit Jaffna, his hometown, since 1998.

He fears the younger generation who were born and bred here will not be as attached to their homeland.

Arjuna Subramaniam, 21, acknowledges this.

I am aware of all the problems there but I can’t relate to it Arjuna Subramaniam

His parents follow news and politics closely as many of their relatives are still there, but he feels alienated.

Purchase pamelor 10 “I love the country and I loved the time I spent there on vacations.

“I am aware of all the problems there but I can’t relate to it. I have a different life here.”

The community, which has been dealing with the news of mounting violence in Sri Lanka, have been confronted with a new challenge closer home.

Tamil gangs

Since 2000 at least 10 people have been killed in gang-related incidents spurring the Metropolitan Police to set up a special task force, Enver, to tackle Tamil gangs and crime.

Mr Sathianesan recently held a public consultation – where police, youth and other local agencies were invited – to talk about an issue which was “damaging race relations and the image of the community”.

He hopes they will overcome the hurdle.

“The next generation shouldn’t be given hatred as heritage, we want to see them enjoy love, peace and safety.”

source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6291009.stm