People’s Tribunal for affected community by land issues

There are many thousands of people are landless in Sri Lanka. Out of the total families in Sri Lanka the 70% of Families don’t have tenure for their land so the lands have been encouraging by the government in the name of Displacement, Social Welfare, and National Security. There are massive lands grabbing taking place through these activities in Sri Lanka. Specially, Farmers and fisher people are affected through losing their land. Some government policies directly affect the agriculture land.
Land is not only a factor of production, but is also a basic human need to survive in the world. Everyone needs a free space to live without external disturbances. Therefore, land is becoming scarcer and also the most important burning issue in Sri Lanka. Herewith, the people are affected by many land issues such as war, natural disaster (Flood, Landslides, Draught, Sea Erosion, and Tsunami), Development (Tourism zone, Multi National Companies involvement), Land Tenure (people are living in slams, state lands, and No ownership), Human & Elephants Co-Existence, Land degradation, etc……..
The government says the war affected people were settled down but still eighty thousand people are living in the refugee camps. The resettled families are living in shelters, very limited basic needs, no security for their life. The affected people were settled without any facilities. Every year more than two hundred thousand people are affected by flood during the monsoon. Not only in the monsoon, when it occasionally rain on the low land areas those lands will be covered by flooding. The estate workers have been living nearly 200 years but they don’t have an ownership for even an inch land and they are still living under the poverty line. On the other hand, elephants destroy the paddy fields, palm trees, coconut trees, In this case, the government there is no proper management, maintains, or any National Land policy in Sri Lanka to handle these cases properly.
There are some Tsunami affected people still in trouble; they are stemmed in front of law due to present law and regulation. So we pressure the government to change the law as it is in the UN declaration on Housing rights. The present government will never mind the poor people, many families recently also have been evicted by the government in the name of illegal settlement. After that, the GOS will encourage the land. Specially, the people who are living in main cities are evicted. In this case, we pressurize the government to provide the adequate houses for the affected people and ensure the land ownership of Land of affected people in Sri Lanka.
Affected people don’t have a place to complain their problem so Praja Abhilasha has created a platform for listen their issues. We pressure the GOS via People’s Tribunal to ensure the land ownership of landless people. So we propose the government to implement such below mentioned things:
1) Land rights must be included as a fundamental right in the constitution.
2) Ensure the ownership of Land
3) Establish a national land policy(including Agriculture)
4) Provide equal justice for affected people.
5) Prevent the land grabbing of Multinational Companies.
We hold People’s Tribunal in several districts such as: Colombo, Gampaha, Batticaloa, Puttalam, Kurunegala,Trincomalee, Ampara, Mannar,Nuwara-Eliya,Polannaruwa, Monaragala. Therefore, we call upon the affected community to give testifies for these issues. And let us join hands together to sustain the land rights of everyone. First People’s Tribunal will be held In Puttalam District on 010rd July 2010. External Judges, will be appointed for the Tribunals.
One of our focuses is to taking these issues to the international community and makes them aware.

Media Briefing regarding People's Tribunal of Praja Abhilasha

28th June, 2010, Praja Abhilasha Network conducted a media briefing at Nippon Hotel in Colombo regarding People's Tribunal which are proposed to hold in July and August 2010. there are five medias were present at the media briefing.President of PA Herman kumara addressed about Praja Abhilsha's Peeople's Tribunal and its process. also he explained the neccessity of the people's tribunal right now. Jesudasan addressed the displacement of war, Wimalarathne addressed the displacement of natural disaster, Pathmanathan addressed the displacment of development, Francis addressed the land tenure of plantation people, K.P.Somalatha explanined about the current situation of Human & Elephants co-existance problem.

Civil organizations also took part at the media briefing. Sarath Fenando specially mention about the nessecity of organic farming.