|
|
|
  |
| Sunday, 21 November 2004 |
 |
|
 |
News |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Travails of resettlers in border areas by Elmo Leonard Home guard W. B. Ratnayake Bandara (28) from Gaminipura in the Polonnaruwa district, bordering the former theatre of war carries the scars of a tryst with death from the repeated hacking of his people by gun-cultured LTTE millitants, but is determined to resettle in his place of birth. "I was born at home and cannot live anywhere else," Ratnayake said, having returned to Gaminipura two years ago, following ten years in a rehabilitation camp. Peace between Sri Lanka government and Tamil Tiger millitants holds from 2002 and Ratnayake has led the resettlement of 50 families. Fifty houses and four of ten wells needed, have been completed from funds under an aid program. The Rs. 8,500 he receives as a home guard feeds his wife and two children. His wife needs Rs. 5,200 per month for medicine for an unidentified nervous ailment, but they have decided to discontinue the medication with no apparent improvement of her health. Ratnayake's wife continues to fall to the ground as she walks. Ratnayake appealed for a better paid job, while he was in Colombo, last week. "I am good at sculpture work, masonry and carpentry, but nowhere in my village is such work called for," he said. People in his village are engaged in agriculture in clearings of the jungle. Ratnayake recalled that he carried a gun on his way to school. The first of a wave of six attacks on his village came in 1992 and the attackers destroyed houses with all goods in it and even the wells which provide drinking water. They also destroyed all livestock including goats and chicken, Ratnayake said. Ratnayake was given a training in firing a shot gun and in jungle warfare by the Police. The last time, he decided to run, shot gun in hand, pursued by millitants who carried T-56 assault rifles. He hid himself but they threw a "bomb" at him and had to spend two months in hospital. |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
