Dairy project aims to boost post-war cooperation in Sri Lanka

By Megan Anderson: Pacific Media Centre

In the wake of three decades of devastating civil war in Sri Lanka, aid workers are struggling to help rebuild the communities shattered by the conflict.

International organisations and governments - including United Nations agencies, Red Cross, Oxfam and NZ Foreign Minister Murray McCully - called for a ceasefire before the final end to the war – in a bid to save civilians caught in the crossfire, with no access to humanitarian aid and a lack of clean water.

After 26 years of fighting - coupled with the tragedy of the 2004 tsunami - NGOs now hope peace will give Sri Lankans a chance to rebuild their country.

New Zealand Red Cross communications advisor Kelly Mitchell says: “Obviously there are still civilians who need assistance, and there is a role for ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) and partner organisations to assist.”

TEAR Fund executive director Stephen Tollestrup is travelling to Sri Lanka to oversee a cooperative dairy initiative, begun two years ago.

He will monitor and evaluate the programme, which he says is already a success.
The dairy project aims to bring both Sinhala and Tamil ethnic groups together in an enterprise towards peace and sustainable economic growth.

The venture focuses upon providing proper chilling facilities and transportation for the milk produced, water ponds, as well as strengthening five farmer-managed societies through consolidation, microcredit schemes and a focus upon local ownership and solidarity among farmers.

The initiative was implemented in conjunction with World Concern, an NGO, in response to the disastrous effects of the tsunami and the conflict in the region.

The 2004 December tsunami left 443,000 Sri Lankans displaced, killing approximately 31,000 people and crippling the economy.

‘Wrecked lives’
“Lives were wrecked,” says Tollestrup.

In May last year the Sri Lankan Government issued a call for New Zealand aid to help with its dairy industry, which is struggling from the effects of the war and the tsunami.

Fonterra already is the third milk-collecting giant in the country, holding more than 53 percent of the total dairy market.

Tollestrup, however, says the problem is not so much a lack of food, but an inability for people to afford it.

A World Concern report from 2005 said the people who were displaced and resettled after the tsunami were now in need of proper food security, with many suffering from high food prices.

Tollestrup says inadequate refrigeration facilities for storage and transport, combined with a lack of water and solidarity among farmers, has meant milk farmers are relying on local middlemen to distribute their goods – which has meant also some hefty fees.

“There’s a need for good prices for milk,” he says.

“It’s quite a fraught situation up there.”

Tense situation
The tense situation in Sri Lanka has also made it dangerous for aid workers hoping to assist in restoring stability to the region.

Mitchell says, “We have to work closely with the government so our workers can get there.”

“A lot of negotiation does go on behind the scenes.”

The Red Cross also has security teams, which Mitchell says are “constantly monitoring the situation”.

However, aid workers have still suffered at the hands of the war.

In 2006, 17 French aid workers from Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger) were shot dead in a massacre widely condemned in the eastern town of Muttur, with accusations coming from both sides - the then warring Sri Lankan government and separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Sixteen of the 17 victims were Tamils.

At the beginning of this month, a third staff member of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was reported killed in the conflict zone.

Many other killings of aid workers have gone unreported, notes Tollestrup.

He says war also makes things difficult for aid workers, “simply because of the security which makes movement hard.

“People get isolated, which is very dangerous for everybody.”

Displaced families
At present, aid organisations are working to assist those displaced by the war; but this is proving difficult.

A press release from Oxfam called upon the Sri Lankan government to assist aid organisations in dealing with the people in these camps.

While Oxfam is implementing programmes to provide first aid, clean water and sanitation to those displaced from the conflict area, these efforts are struggling against the sheer numbers of people housed in the camps.

Oxfam media coordinator Jason Garman says: “The situation is still tense and Oxfam’s focus is on delivery of urgently needed supplies to people affected by the conflict.”

For those without need of immediate, emergency relief, Tollestrup says it is important for aid to be “empowerment-based”, helping lift communities into sustainability and capacity.

He says the worst thing aid can do is “create dependence”.

“You want people to respond to that challenge themselves.”

Tollestrup says the establishment of such a programme in itself is not so difficult. He notes: “The difficulty really is about local peoples’ energy and willingness to develop and build something.”

TEAR Fund focuses upon working with people in the community in order to establish what they want to achieve.

“When they share their envisioned future we talk to them about it to help them make it reality”.

TEAR Fund particularly works with young widows, many of whom have husbands killed in the war. Tollestrup says 20 percent of the households in their target community are led by women.

Women the key
“Women are a key factor in reconciliation,” he says.

In the farming communities, TEAR Fund works with 30 percent of the members who are women, with two out of five office holders.

Part of the focus of the dairy project is also on a microcredit scheme, where loans are able to be issued to those who want them on behalf of the farmer-managed society, which are then paid back into the society itself with very little interest.

These loans are then passed on to other farmers.

Tollestrup says such schemes “have had great success – we use it all around the world.”

For all the grief caused by the war, Tollestrup thinks things can only get better for Sri Lanka’s economy.

“I think it will get better because I think the Sinhalese feel they have been misrepresented by the media and NGOs. I think they’re going to want to show reconstruction and goodwill.”

Mitchell, from NZ Red Cross, says: “We can’t predict the future. We would like to think the situation will improve.”

“Whatever the situation is, our aid workers do make the effort.”

Megan Anderson is a Graduate Diploma in Journalism student on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University. Pictured: TEAR Fund's Stephen Tollestrup (Megan Anderson).

• Oxfam
• Red Cross
• TEAR Fund

Tensions faced media, aid workers in Sri Lanka

The news media had had little access to civilians in the dying stages of Sri Lanka's civil war which ended this month. This made media dependent on sourcing details from aid organisations.

By Amanda Fisher: Pacific Media Centre

A natural tension existing between aid workers and journalists working in humanitarian crises was evident in the current conflict in Sri Lanka, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

ICRC head of public and media relations Florian Westphal told a conference on reporting war held at Massey University, Wellington, yesterday that tense conditions in Sri Lanka had made it extremely difficult for aid workers to fully cooperate with the media.

“That was a real dilemma for us because, on the one hand, there was a real interest for us in that being covered...[but] on the other hand, we had to be extremely careful that we didn’t say something that may compromise the little we could do,” he said.

“You’re constantly trying to strike the right balance.”

The media had had little access to civilians in Sri Lanka, which had made them dependent on sourcing details from aid organisations, Westphal said.

It was often the most newsworthy situations which were the hardest for aid workers to negotiate.

“Our main responsibility is to have access to the people we set out to help, and to what extent are we going to jeopardise that?”

Joint role
Media and humanitarians often held a similar function in areas of conflict for the outside world and, in that regard, were united in some of their aims, Westphal said.

“Both the media and aid organisations are probably the most prominent sources of what all of us learn about war and suffering.”

Often a member of the media or an aid organisation may be the only outsider present to report on what is happening in a particular situation, he said.

However, while the media and aid organisations might share an end goal of tackling injustices, their operational methods were routinely vastly different.

While there were similarities in the ultimate aim of being “agents for change”, media and aid organisations worked toward different targets within that context, Westphal said.

“We always have to bear in mind that aid organisations and media have different objectives.

“The media have quite a different job.”

Helping victims
The aims of aid agencies to help victims and have access to them often involved objectives at odds with the media, who sought to disseminate information to the public regardless of direct impact on immediate victims, he said.

“Our responsibility is to the people that are the victims of the events.

“Talking to journalists can jeopardise access, especially when you’re talking about something really sensitive, like access to prisoners on the understanding that we won’t speak with reporters.

“It’s not just through exposure and denunciation that we get things done in this world – in some situations it can actually get quite harmful.”

Speaking at the same conference, freelance foreign correspondent Jon Stephenson recognised the value of aid agencies, while criticising them for being, at times, unnecessarily taciturn.

“It’s very important for us as journalists to recognise the contribution aid groups make...but the ICRC isn’t faultless and should be subject to criticism.

“The ICRC could have done more in tipping off the media”, especially in relation to the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in which details of human rights abuses were only just emerging, he said.

Useful tool
Westphal said the value of the media to humanitarian organisations should also be recognised. That value was wide-ranging, amounting to more than just a financial stimulus to generating aid.
The news media was a very good tool in placing issues in the public forum and motivating people, he said.

“It’s not just about funding but also about positioning...you have to be seen to be doing something, and that happens through the media.

“We want to raise public awareness of the suffering.”

Westphal cited the example of nurse Florence Nightingale who found the motivation to act because of newspaper reports on the Crimean War.

Generating funds was an essential byproduct of media exposure, and something currently of particular importance, he said.

“The economic crisis is not just affecting the media, but is also affecting our sector in a major way.”

Latest estimates were anticipating a 25 percent decrease in aid organisation donations, he said.

Optimistic view
Despite any tensions, Westphal said he was optimistic about the relationship between aid organisations and the media.

“I’m pretty optimistic there’s a lot of good day-to-day cooperation going on.

“We have a good relationship, but there are a number of issues we need to work through.”

There were areas which both groups needed to improve on in order to meet the needs of an evolving world, he said.

“The agenda of the media and aid organisations tends to be quite fast-moving and fickle. When the next big event comes along, people quite quickly lose focus.

“The cases of forgotten conflict are not just the fault of journalists but also our fault too.”

“Another shared challenge is where and to what extent we really are a welcome presence in aid areas these days...If what we are trying to do is not accepted then we do not usually have the basis that allows us to go out to those areas and do our jobs.”

There was suspicion among some civilians that the media and aid organisations were agents of western colonialism, operating through a framework of western ideals, he said.

Westphal queried why conflicts such as those in the Congo were less favourably covered in the media than western-led conflicts such as in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza.

“Our motives are necessarily being questioned.”

Other areas where the media and aid organisations needed to proceed cautiously included not presenting civilians as “passive recipients of aid” when reports quite clearly showed a substantial amount of support came from within the affected community, and in not over-simplifying conflicts into tales of good and evil when they were often much more complex, he said.

Camera footage
Westphal said the ICRC was committed to collaborating with the media and would continue to disseminate information and camera footage among journalists.

However, in pursuit of greater transparency and credibility, sources of footage and information should be declared by media outlets, he said.

“Audiences here expect us to be truthful and expect us to be credible.”

He also cautioned that aid agencies were not simply another supply of news gatherers.

“There is a tendency to rely on aid workers as being the next generation of news gatherers...just bear in mind that our objectives are not necessarily the same as yours. We do have our own agenda and I’m not going to apologise for that.

“We can help with news gathering but we are not news gatherers first.”

The media should avoid an over-reliance on aid organisations for information on what to report as decisions on the public line were often made at headquarters, and not on the field, where the dynamics were quite different, he said.

Conversely, he acknowledged aid agencies were too often directed by the media.

“It’s easy for us to critique the media but we need to be very, very self-critical because we as aid organisations have tended to adapt to the agenda set by the news media.

“We have also not been willing to take the risk to work on something that won’t get picked up on by the media.”

Pictured: Top: ICRC's Florian Westphal; above: freelance foreign correspondent Jon Stephenson. Photos: Michael Dickison and Matt Backhouse (Massey University student journalists).

Amanda Fisher is a student journalist in Massey University’s Department of Communication, Journalism and Marketing.

Reporting Wars conference - Sydney, May 18
Reporting Wars conference - Wellington, May 22
Wellington conference programme
Sri Lanka declares end to war with Tamil Tigers

Let trapped Tamil civilians go free, says aid worker

Tamil Tiger rebels have been fighting for a separate Tamil state since 1983. Thousands of Tamil civilians remain inside their last remaining stronghold, where fresh water, food and medical facilities are in short supply.

By Christopher Adams: Pacific Media Centre

An aid worker who has returned to New Zealand after three years of relief work in embattled Sri Lanka has called on the Tamil rebels fighting desperately against government troops to let thousands of trapped civilians go free.

Ian McInnes worked in Sri Lanka as country director for US-based charity organisation World Concern.

He has now taken on the role of Sri Lanka spokesperson for Tear Fund, an aid organisation that has its New Zealand headquarters in Auckland.

Since January, Sri Lanka’s civil war has continued to rage as the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) have been pushed back by government forces to occupy only a tiny strip of land in the north-east of the island.

Previously, the LTTE controlled large swathes of the north and east of Sri Lanka.

The rebels have been fighting for a separate Tamil state since 1983.

Thousands of Tamil civilians remain inside the Tamil Tigers’ last remaining stronghold, where basic needs such as fresh water, food and medical facilities are in short supply.

McInnes has been worked near the frontlines of the conflict, coordinating World Concern’s efforts to assist refugees arriving from the rebel- held areas.

“We were working in hospitals immediately outside the warzone,” he says.

World Concern worked with 10,000 refugees, providing them with food, sanitary care and clothing, he says.

“Two-thirds of the refugees were injured from gunfire and shelling,” McInnes adds.

“The UN estimates 6500 people have been killed and 14,000 injured since January.”

'Shoot to kill'
After dealing with thousands of Tamil refugees emerging from the warzone, McInnes firmly believes the LTTE will “shoot to kill” people who try to leave their territory.

The most urgent need in the current situation is that the estimated 50,000 refugees are allowed to come out of the Tamil-held areas, says McInnes.

“The Tigers need to let them go, preferably before they get shelled.”

But McInnes does not think that the Sri Lankan Government has been blameless in the current conflict.

“There is an arrogance about the current government that needs to disappear,” he says.

“The Sri Lankan government needs to finish this thing as cautiously as it can if it doesn’t want to be responsible for a massacre.”

In a recent United Nations press release, top UN humanitarian official John Holmes accused the LTTE of holding Tamil civilians against their will. Holmes also expressed concern over reports that the Sri Lankan military’s shelling was continuing to put civilians at risk.

New Zealand Tamil Youth Association spokesperson Nirupa George doesn’t believe there have been any human rights violations committed by the LTTE during the recent fighting.

“The LTTE are the representatives of the Tamil people,” she says.

“We don’t believe there are human rights abuses being committed by the LTTE.”

Safety zone
George says members of Auckland’s Tamil community have been in contact with people inside the safety zone who have reported the situation there is dire.

She blames the government forces for the humanitarian disaster that is unfolding in northern Sri Lanka.

“There are no medical supplies, and only a makeshift hospital. Bodies are lying in the streets and there is no food.”

Whatever happens in the near future will not be the end of the war, she says.

“The solution is a separate state and self-determination for the Tamil people.”

Upali Manukulasuriya, a spokesperson for the anti-LTTE United Sri Lanka Association, believes the war between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government is nearing its end.

“The end of the war will be sooner rather than later,” says Manukulasuriya.

He says that when the conflict ends, the money saved from not fighting the war should be used to rebuild the country.

“I think the war gobbled a lot of time, money and energy. The north and east [areas previously occupied by the LTTE] need the most money invested.”

Manukulasuriya says the LTTE have been holding Tamil civilians against their will, and using them as a human shield during the current conflict.

'Human shield'
“At the moment the worst human rights abuse is using people as a human shield,” he says.

“They [the LTTE] are supposed to be the saviours of the Tamil people.”

Manukulasuriya adds that the LTTE should surrender now, and allow the civilians inside their territory to “escape”.

He says rebuilding the country will be “a huge task”.

But Manukulasuriya adds: “Sri Lanka will come together, there’s already a million Tamil people in Colombo. ”

Two weeks ago, members of Auckland’s Tamil community set up camp in Aotea Square to protest against the Sri Lankan government’s conduct during the recent conflict.

The demonstrators collected signatures for a petition they will send to Wellington, asking the New Zealand government to place pressure on the UN regarding the conflict, says protester Viji Ratnavel.

“It’s just not right – we are angered that the Sri Lankan government is not stopping the war,” says Ratnavel.

Another Tamil protester, Pathmanathan Kandiah, staged a hunger strike during the demonstration.

Viji Ratnavel says Kandiah finished his hunger strike when the protesters received news that Foreign Minister Murry McCully had issued a statement calling for a ceasefire in Sri Lanka.

Christopher Adams is a Graduate Diploma in Journalism student on the AUT Asia-Pacific Journalism course. Photos of the Auckland Tamil protest and Neil McInnes are by Christopher Adams.