 |
USAID/OTI Sri Lanka Field Report
September 2005
Program Description
USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) program in Sri Lanka aims to generate greater support for a negotiated peace settlement to end the island nation’s longstanding internal conflict by:
- Mobilizing and linking peace constituencies through support for inclusive, collaborative decision-making and resource allocation at the local level.
- Creating awareness and increasing understanding on key transition issues, and changing attitudes sustaining the conflict through information dissemination, advocacy, dialogue and debate.
- Capitalizing on key windows of opportunity to mitigate conflict in targeted communities and generating momentum for resumption of peace negotiations, on hold since April 2003.
Working with local nongovernmental organizations, informal community groups, media entities, and local government officials, OTI attempts to identify and support critical initiatives that move the country along the continuum from war to peace. Development Alternatives Inc. implements the $39 million small-grants program and manages OTI offices in Colombo, Trincomalee, Ampara and Matara.
Since the program began in March 2003, OTI has cleared 454 small grants worth approximately $13.2 million.
Country Situation
Presidential election – The elections commissioner announced Nov. 17 as the date for the presidential election. The top two candidates are the current prime minister, Mahinda Rajapakse of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), and Ranil Wickremesinghe, leader of the opposition United National Party (UNP). Some speculate that incumbent President Chandrika Kumaratunga will dissolve parliament and hold national elections to coincide with the presidential vote. Early parliamentary elections would result in a significant loss of seats for the Sinhalese nationalist JVP and JHU parties, according to political analysts.
Prime Minister Rajapakse signed Memorandums of Understanding with both the JVP and the JHU. The general statements within the two documents are similar – promising to abolish the joint mechanism for tsunami recovery signed by the president and the Tamil separatist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), and to forgo a federal solution to the ethnic conflict, seriously weakening the foundation on which peace talks might be resumed. In contrast, opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, the UNP presidential candidate, attended rallies during which he maintained his support for a negotiated settlement and stated that he felt that the prime minister’s views would take the nation back to war.
International focus on the LTTE – Top officials from the United States, Norway, Japan and the European Union, meeting on Sept. 19 in New York, called on the LTTE to take immediate steps to demonstrate its commitment to the peace process and its willingness to change. The co-chairs to the Tokyo Donor Conference specifically called for an end to political killings and to the recruitment of under-age soldiers. The European Union also declared that it would refuse to meet with the LTTE rebels because of their continued involvement in “terrorist activities.” This follows the August assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadiragamar, the leading Tamil politician. The killing is widely believed to have been committed by the LTTE.
Eastern security remains unstable – Sporadic violence continued to plague the Northern and Eastern Provinces. It consisted mainly of grenade attacks on military and police checkpoints and gunfire exchanges. Civilians are not usually targeted, but sometimes get caught in the crossfire. Incidents occurred in the districts of Ampara, Batticaloa and Trincomalee, mainly in the coastal areas. Government deployment of larger numbers of troops, additional checkpoints, and more identity checks and house-to-house searches have increased tension in these areas.
USAID/OTI Highlights
A. Narrative Summary
During September, the Office of Transition Initiatives cleared 12 new grants for an estimated total value of $716,392. The Ampara office cleared three grants, the Matara office one, the Trincomalee office three, and the Colombo office five.
Among the newly awarded grants was one to a rural development society in Trincomalee District that will strengthen linkages between two villages that were separated by war-related security restrictions and social barriers. The communities were reconnected during last year’s tsunami when displaced families from the predominantly Sinhala village of Kallarawa took refuge in the inland Tamil village of Thiriyai. The rehabilitation of the road between the communities – identified as a priority need by both – will bolster a sense of appreciation for a common past and future, increasing interaction and communication.
The Colombo office cleared a grant that will support a four-day workshop for 35 students at a predominantly Sinhalese university (once a school for Buddhist monks) to learn the history of the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict, to study concepts of peace-building, and to look at how individuals can contribute to achieving sustainable peace. The activity seeks to expand a student peace-building group at the university – the only school in Sri Lanka to offer an undergraduate degree in peace studies – as an initial step toward networking with university students nationwide.
A newly cleared grant out of the Matara office will support the National Cultural Forum to provide cinematography training for 75 tsunami-affected youths from three southern districts. Using this creative means to explore issues related to peace and conflict, as well as tsunami recovery, the participants will produce three short films that will be screened at a premier night targeting key opinion-shapers in the community. The film series will travel to all three districts for public showings that will raise awareness about how the tsunami and conflict have affected local young people.
B. Grant Activity Summary
| Civil Society Organization Support |
0 |
0 |
11 |
$ 348,015 |
| Civil-Military Relations |
0 |
0 |
1 |
$ 216,980 |
| Community Impact Activities |
3 |
$183,605 |
274 |
$8,769,731 |
| Conflict Management |
4 |
$143,404 |
62 |
$1,331,314 |
| Election Processes |
0 |
0 |
2 |
$ 10,845 |
| Ex-Combatant Reintegration |
0 |
0 |
1 |
$ 72,226 |
| Justice/Human Rights |
0 |
0 |
5 |
$ 145,875 |
| Media |
5 |
$389,383 |
58 |
$ 2,056,358 |
| Mine Action |
0 |
0 |
2 |
$ 2,198 |
| Transparency/Good Governance |
0 |
0 |
38 |
$ 247,052 |
| TOTAL |
12 |
$716,392 |
454 |
$13,200,594 |
C. Indicators of Success
 |
| A peace pole signals local commitment to inter-ethnic dialogue and cooperation in the Ampara District. |
International Peace Day – This Peace Day offered a timely opportunity for two OTI offices to bring together communities in four districts to celebrate and explore ways in which the government and civil society could promote lasting peace. In Ampara, Batticaloa and Moneragala, more than 2,000 people from organizations representing farmers, laborers, youths, teachers, students, government, religious leaders, and disabled people planted a “peace pole” monument in a prominent location within the town of each district. The event was accompanied by religious ceremonies and cultural performances representing all ethnicities.
Farther north, in a contentious border area of the Anuradhapura District, OTI supported another Peace Day event that included a public forum, meditation and tree planting at the Kuda Katharagama Temple in Konwewa. Nearly 1,000 multi-ethnic community members gathered at the temple, including religious leaders, government authorities, school children, village leaders, business people, and members of civil society. Peace talks and messages were delivered by religious leaders, university academics and local government officers. In addition, about 50 religious and village leaders took part in a separate peace discussion.
 |
| Local children give performances of traditional dances and songs from each ethnicity during International Peace Day celebrations in some districts of Sri Lanka. |
Federalism workshops in the south – In Matara, OTI supported a series of workshops that aimed to create a forum for key members in the community to build awareness about the cost of war and to generate support for the devolution of power. From the success of the workshops, it appears that OTI is finding ways to generate understanding for a negotiated settlement in the country’s conflict and to target potential leaders to disseminate that message to the wider community. At the end of the initial workshop, an influential monk from the area commented that educating youths on issues such as federalism could reduce their vulnerability to being manipulated by extremist party agendas.
D. Program Appraisal
OTI held its third annual team-building and strategy session in the central hill country town of Kandy. The primary purpose of the two-day event was to build trust and foster respect among the 70-plus members of OTI’s ethnically and regionally diverse staff from five offices, including the USAID Mission. In addition, staff discussed strategy and programming. Significant time was spent brainstorming ways in which OTI could link tsunami recovery with the peace process, while using supplemental funding earmarked for small-scale infrastructure rehabilitation, livelihoods restoration, and information dissemination to tie local government to affected communities. There was also discussion about so-called marginalized voices in the Sri Lankan peace process, and about strategy and techniques for engaging peace skeptics in discussions about the future of Sri Lanka, with an aim to moderating their views. The team-building and strategy session was successful in reaffirming OTI’s approach in light of a fluid political-security situation, while empowering staff members to engage in program development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
NEXT STEPS/IMMEDIATE PRIORITIES
In October, OTI/Sri Lanka will:
- Conduct Geographical Information Systems training for staff that will augment current reporting and analysis abilities with multifaceted maps generated with information from the OTI grants database.
- Seek windows of opportunity within the Matara office’s newly articulated strategic programming locations, selected based upon their political, historical and cultural importance to the people of the region as locations in which local events resonate at a national level.
- Fill key staff vacancies in several offices, including the regional program manager slot in Matara.
- Support high-impact activities that aim to mitigate violence in traditional hot spots and maximize dialogue on key transition issues during the run-up to, and in the immediate aftermath of, the Nov. 17 election.
For further information, please contact:
In Washington, D.C.: Elizabeth Callender, Asia and Near East Program Manager, 202-712-1243, ecallender@usaid.gov
|
