A view from Jaffna

THE day dawned just like any other in the Jaffna peninsula. Camouflage-green vehicles whizzed past its narrow lanes and by-lanes, and officers and soldiers on the morning shift took their positions as usual across the peninsula held by the Sri Lanka Army since the fall of the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009. The air strip at Palali Airport, the Jaffna elite's escape route to Colombo, was virtually lifeless as no flights were planned for the day. There was no hint that history would be made that day in Jaffna.

February 20 saw the first organised protest in Jaffna's history in over three decades. Sri Lanka's northern Tamil fishermen gathered in droves outside the office of the Indian Consul General in Jaffna, asking the Indian government to prevent its fishermen from entering Sri Lankan waters. They also demanded the release of four Sri Lankan fishermen who had been held in Tamil Nadu.

It is a fact that not many identified themselves with the reasons for the protest that of Indian fishermen laying their seas to waste and poaching every day. But many Tamil people here, disenchanted with India for having repeatedly let them down, silently approved of the action. In a country where India-bashing is rife, it was one more occasion to condemn India.

The first batch of fishermen began trickling in from Mathagal around 6-30 a.m., and slowly the numbers swelled. Initially there was confusion as the fishermen had aimed at a silent protest, holding placards. This changed as the numbers grew. One placard read: Mahalingam veetukku ponga. V. Mahalingam, a career diplomat, is the Indian Consul General in Jaffna. The slogan could either mean they were asking Mahalingam to go back home, or it was a general instruction for everyone to go to Mahalingam's house.

Regardless of the lack of clarity on slogans, the aim was clear. The Tamil fishermen of Jaffna wanted their brethren from across the Palk Strait to stop eating into their livelihood.

By around 10 a.m., about 275 fishermen from Mathagal had gathered in front of the consulate holding placards asking the Indian government to stop encroachments and release Sri Lankan fishermen in Indian jails and decrying officials of the Indian consulate in Jaffna for its role in the release of fishermen from Tamil Nadu who had been arrested in the preceding week. A few of the protesters met Mahalingam and handed over a memorandum stressing the main points raised in the protest.

Fifteen minutes later, a group of about 35 fishermen arrived from Girinagar and joined the fishermen from Mathagal. They met Mahalingam separately and submitted their demands orally.

Organised protest

Protests are unheard of in Jaffna. Under the watchful and intolerant eyes of the LTTE, dissent equalled treason. The LTTE dispensed instant justice through a well built-up judicial system, though and hence there was no room for protest. In post-conflict Jaffna, too, where everyone is unsure of everyone else, public articulation of collective fears, hopes and aspirations of the tired Tamil society is not the right thing to do.

It is against this backdrop that the protest becomes significant. It was an organised one, and had the blessings of both the Sri Lanka Army and the Minister for Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development, Douglas Devananda.

Devananda denied that he had anything to do with the protest. I was against the idea of a protest. It was spontaneous and it was born out of the desperation of the fishermen. They were very upset that the Indian fishermen were doing bottom trawling. I move very closely with them. If I had organised the protest, all fishermen families would have come, he told Frontline.

The immediate cause for the protest was the arrest and release of 136 Indian fishermen who were fishing in Sri Lankan waters. Initially, they were remanded in two weeks' judicial custody, but were released after hectic diplomatic activity and consultations between the Indian and Sri Lankan governments.

What caused a sensation was the manner of the arrest'. In an unprecedented move, on February 15 evening, Tamil fishermen from Jaffna in their small boats surrounded the Indian fishing boats and forced them ashore, from about 10-15 km off Point Pedro. This act of citizen arrest had the blessings of the Sri Lanka Navy and was widely commended in the media here, which decried the poachers and their attitude of fishing the waters off the north clean. As many as 112 fishermen and their 18 boats were seized.

The very next day, the fishermen-citizens were at it again: the second batch of 24 fishermen, along with their seven boats, was also brought ashore. The first batch spent two days in the Jaffna jail and the second batch a day.

Some Indian fishermen, who spoke to Indian officials and prominent local people, apologised for straying into Sri Lankan waters. They said that since Sri Lankan waters were rich in fish resources, the boat owners wanted them to cross the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) and get a good catch.

A series of pictures published in The Sunday Times online (https://sundaytimes.lk/110227/News/nws_17.html) gives a telling story of the situation. The pictures, shot by a Sri Lanka Air Force's unmanned aerial vehicle (not satellite pictures as claimed in the headline of the story), show multitudes of fishermen on the Indian side of the IMBL at 2 p.m. By 4 p.m., some of the boats start moving into Sri Lankan territory and by 1 a.m. the next day, most boats are in Sri Lankan waters. By six in the morning, most boats make their way back to Tamil Nadu.

The ground situation is very clear: It is impossible to fish on the Indian side of the IMBL, and as Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi have repeatedly said, fishermen go after fish.

Livelihood issues

But Jaffna fishermen are in no mood to listen. There is a livelihood issue here too, said Mahalingam. In the northern peninsula, agriculture and fishing are the only means of livelihood. As many as 70 per cent of the people here till the land, the remaining search the depths of the seas.

First they were prevented by the LTTE; then the tsunami, floods and a lot many problems hampered fishing, said Douglas Devananda. Now, finally, when they are ready to reap the harvest of fish, the Indian fishermen are here driving them away.

Preventing Indian fishermen from entering Sri Lankan waters cannot be done on the strength of laws drawn up in Colombo and New Delhi. Despite the risks involved in fishing in the territorial waters of another country, the returns are meagre. Without concrete steps to address livelihood issues, fishermen will continue to cross over the border; some of them will be caught but the majority will go back to their homes in Nagapattinam, Pudukottai or elsewhere for breakfast after a night's work.

On the basis of these ground realities, there have been two significant developments recently. One, a statement made by the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, G.L. Peiris, in Parliament, and two, a meeting convened by the Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao in New Delhi.

Recalling the events, including the killing of two Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan waters, Peiris said the issue had been resolved. Sri Lanka deeply values the close bilateral relations with India. Authorities do have the obligation to prevent the incursions of the international maritime border line. We proposed to revive the joint working group on fishing, he said. He, however, dismissed the allegation that the Sri Lanka Navy killed the Indian fishermen. All the same, signalling a new urgency, he wanted the revival of the joint working group.

Nirupama Rao convened a meeting in New Delhi on February 26 to discuss the issue. In the meeting attended by the Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu, the Secretary (Animal Husbandry & Fisheries) of the State, the Director General of Coast Guard and officials from the Ministries of Defence and External Affairs, it was decided that the Governments of India and Tamil Nadu would encourage a delegation of local fishermen's associations from Tamil Nadu to visit Sri Lanka in March to meet with their Sri Lankan counterparts. Such contacts have proved to be mutually beneficial.

The meeting welcomed the convening of the Joint Working Group on Fishing proposed for March, which would also discuss the proposed draft Memorandum of Understanding on development and cooperation in the field of fisheries. The Government of Tamil Nadu referred to the ongoing efforts to inform their fishermen about the need to observe security and safety parameters while engaging in fishing activities in the waters between India and Sri Lanka. Measures to further augment security in the vicinity of the International Maritime Boundary Line were also focussed on, a statement issued after the meeting said.

Devananda and his colleagues in Jaffna are aware that talks are the only way out. He said he was in touch with leaders in India so that a revival of the 2003 process of dialogue between fishermen of both countries could become a reality.

In 2003, the then Deputy High Commissioner of Sri Lanka in Chennai, Sumit Nakandala, initiated a dialogue between fishermen of both countries. It was effective because many of the misunderstandings between fishermen were sorted out, Devananda said.

But that dialogue was at an informal level. It did not become part of institutional mechanisms in either country. So, both countries are back at it again and have begun a new process of reinventing the wheel.

R.K. Radhakrishnan in Colombo