by India Abroad News Service (IANS), April 4, 2004
One wonders why the US is being so solicitous of Sri Lanka’s Muslims. There seem to be at least 3 reasons:
1.) A Muslim party was an important constitutent of the last government, so had the information about how the US aid process works, the time period to apply, etc.
2.) Dr. Meghan O’Sullivan, a protege of an important US policymaker, Richard Haass, who has followed him from the Brookings Institution into the State Dept.’s Office of Policy Planning and now to the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, and who once worked for the US Embassy in Colombo, did her doctoral research among Sri Lanka’s Muslims and has a soft spot for them.
3.) In a strategic part of the world, the US wants to show that its human face to Muslims. It wants to provide a showcase that it is not against Muslims per se, but against Muslims who target the US. It helps, of course, that the Muslims in question are in competition with an organization which the US has sanctioned.
Noone, of course, can object to a health clinic, which is desperately needed. More serious is the US aid – described in a previous article posted on www.sangam.org – which has inventoried the land in the East that Muslims assert has been taken away from them, without inventorying the land the other groups in the East have been deprived of during the conflict. Land is not a politically neutral subject in the Northeast.
Editor
US funds healthcare for Sri Lanka’s deprived Muslims
Colombo, Apr 4 (IANS) :
Fourteen years after they were displaced by a civil war, around 800 Muslim families in northwestern Sri Lanka finally have access to free medical facilities, thanks to a largely US initiative, reports OneWorld.
The impoverished Muslims had to flee their lands in the northern part of the country because of the two-decades old conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The victims of war, referred to as internally displaced persons (IDPs), were relocated to 11 villages in the arid Kalpitiya peninsula in the northwestern district of Puttlam.
The new free polyclinic there, established with a grant of US $34,000 from the USAID and the help of local non-governmental organisations, is a boon for the IDPs.
Some recount horror stories of having to travel 45 km to the nearest maternity clinic. Most people went to hospital only for vaccinations, using home remedies to cure other ailments.
Significantly, the clinic was built to help bridge differences between the IDPs and the original residents.
A local mosque donated land, residents from three ethnic groups — Tamils, Sinhalas and Muslims — provided the labour, while the health ministry financed the furniture and promised to bear future expenses.
Apart from the 800 IDPs, Kalpitiya is home to 740 native Muslim families apart from some 100 Sinhalese and 80 Tamil families.
In a unique partnership, women in the area collected money for electricity and youths helped clear the site and plant trees and shrubs around the polyclinic.
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| Kalpitya Fort |
The clinic, which opened last month, is located in one of the most arid zones in the country, where the primary occupation is fishing and casual labour. The average daily income in Kalpitiya is $1.5.
The donors of the project, who were keen for it to be a community effort, are pleased with the results.
Observes the US embassy’s Deputy Chief of Mission James F. Entwistle, “The collaborative effort is an example of how diverse communities working together can overcome obstacles. It clearly demonstrates the benefits of peace.”
He adds that while the polyclinic fulfils a critical need for the people of Kalpitiya, it also strengthens the relationship between the IDPs and native communities.
The areas covered by the project include ante and post maternal care, family planning, nutrition and health education, much to the relief of people in the area.
Reminisces Fathima Tasneem, an IDP mother of four residing in Palliwasalthurei village, where the clinic is located, “I had to go through immense hardships due to the absence of a proper maternal care clinic in the area. All my children were born after we were expelled from Jaffna and while we were in the IDP camps. The clinic was a crying need.”
Agrees Siththi Rahuman, a mother of three and a native of the area, “Lack of healthcare facilities in the area was a big problem. We depended on whatever we learnt from our elders, and most of us went to hospital only to get vaccinated, as we had to travel about 45 km even to reach the nearest maternity hospital.”
The polyclinic project was funded through the USAID’s office of transition initiatives (OTI), whose prime goal is to reduce conflict. Providing better health care for women and children is just one way.
“The other, and perhaps most important, goal was to get the IDPs to work in unison with the natives,” says OTI programme development officer, R.H.M. Safrullah.
“There was tension due to the eternal struggle between the IDPs and natives for the bare minimum resources and opportunities in the area, like water and jobs. We wanted the project to build solidarity between the two parties.”
http://www.oneworld.net/article/view/82985/1/
Originally posted April 18, 2004