We Who Made The History:Karuwalagaswewa People Won their Land Rights

I drafted this article to a news letter and post this to my blog too as it gives an understanding of how people get involve to win the rights.

Herman Kumara

We who made the history at Karuwalagaswewa: Victims became winners with untiring efforts.
“We were able to win our lands with our collective and untiring efforts as a community. There were number of people, groups, organizations backed us to make this effort a success. We never forget the ones who supported us and guided us till we achieve the goal in this process”. Ms. U. M. Chandrani Malkanthi, shared her gratitude to the people whom helped them for their struggle for their land.
We are villagers in Karuwalagaswewa and were received houses through the village awakening program of the then government of 1994, in the name of “Buddhidasungama” in 1996. There were 305 houses under this scheme and more than 1200 people settled under this scheme.
“We knew this area covered with the Vilpattu forest though we did not expect we would face such situations of evictions by the government as this is an activity which government planned the whole of the housing program for the landless and houseless people. We expected this would be a new era for our lives as we all were living under tension due to lack of land and way of life.” Added Malkanthi.
The difficult period started when the newly elected government gazetted the area as the Thabbowa sanctuary on 19 July 2002. This was done with out any consultation or any resettlement plan for the people who were living in the area.
“We were highly disturbed with this top down development approach as this had forced us to leave the area while loosing our belongings. We planted trees for our next generations to use. We started some animal husbandry activities for our livelihoods. We started small business centers along the road. We were able to initiate milk collection center for sale our milk which we collected from our cows. All these became our way of life and livelihood and for our main income for our survival.”
Aloycious Fernando, Malkanthi’s husband also joined to the dialogue and added some of the missing points to the discussion.
“Imagine how much money wasted from this type of demolished houses? It was around 275 houses destroyed by now. Think, it is around Rs.500,000 per each house it is more than 137.5 million rupees lost from the national economy. Who pays this money in the poorest economies in the countries like Sri Lanka? We the people are the victims of the unplanned development plans of the governments eventually. Why there is no such plan to build up the lives of the people based on the long term vision for the country’s development? Why one government change the development plans adopted by previous government and put the people in a deep trouble? This was what happening since independence and we are continuing the same for 60 years.”
However, before the government declared this area as a sanctuary, there was an agreement between the Buddidasungama villages and the Puttlam Divisional Secretary that the 3 KM area where Buddidasungama village is situated to be released from the proposed Elephant Pass, on 05th July 2002.
The DS agreed to free our area before the politicians and the wild life department declared this land as a sanctuary. But, the people did not agree to leave the area as they were settled and build up their life there. Majority among the community left the area while the people who were reluctant to change the social, economic, environmental and cultural patterns all of sudden did not want to leave the place. So, they started their fight and did not give want to leave the village.
“First of all we helped the community to get organize as a village development committee. So, the villagers formed a Buddhidasungama Praja Shakthi Kantha Sanvidanaya with our involvement.” A.A. Jayawathie, chair person, Praja Shakthi Development Foundation, [PSDF], the partner organization of NAFSO narrated how they involved the organizing process.
Malkanthi was the secretary to the committee and she was determined to fight with the community. Malkanthi and the committee were able to motivate the whole community with the backing of the PSDF. But, more than 275 families had left the place with frustrations. However, the rest of the families totally around 37 families continued the struggle with out fear and convincingly.
We did not have any fear. We may loose our land and houses. But, why we give up while fighting as a collective body.
“We met DS of Puttlam, assistant land commissioner, officials of wild life department, Minister of Environmental Affairs, Land minister and many of the government authorities to solve this problem. But, there was no successful result we achieved with this.”
When we met some lawyers on the land issue, their advice was not so helpful to us. They were discouraged us to go to the courts. But, we were determined and used some different ways to get the land right where we live.”
However, there was no positive response from the authorities as every body reluctant to go against the gazette notification of Thabbowa Sanctuary on 19 July 2002.
But, we went to the courts to demand the electricity for our houses. This was the tactic and successful one, said Malkanthi. PSDF, helped us for the court case with providing Rs.25,000 and was with the success, she added. They were behind us motivating us even when our members left the village one by one.
The authorities then agreed to provide electricity to the houses for the 37 families. Then, we approached the wild life department again and demanded the electric fence for prevent elephants to enter into the village. The first response was no funds and the all the allocated funds were exhausted. But, people did not give up their efforts. They collected Rs.97,000 and also contributed through Shramadana [free labour] to build up the electric fence.
So, the wild life department agreed to free 3KM area from the elephant corridor to live the people of Buddidasungama and funded to build up the electric fence with government funds and people’s contributions.
The people of Buddidasungama village are proud to say, that they were able to protect their lands and houses from destruction. They are getting ready for the cultivations, animal husbandry, collecting milk home gardening and many other ways to sustain their life. They are united as a community now and planning for the future development activities today.
So, they are the heroes of their own destiny and proudly say, “ We who made the history at Karuwalagaswewa: We were the victims of the unplanned government activities and foolishness of the politicians, but became winners with untiring, unbiased collective efforts of our community.”
We salute them for their future endeavors.
Long Live People’s Struggles!