Sunday, February 23, 2014

You Want To Know What Impunity Means To Poor People In Rural Sri Lanka?

By Emil van der Poorten -February 23, 2014

Emil van der Poorten

Some nights ago, we were provided with very practical proof of what the Rajapaksa regime’s abandonment of anything resembling law and order means to poor people straining every sinew to make a living for themselves and their families.

The “durian refugees” seek protection

As is almost traditional around these parts, those of us who own a few Durian trees that bear fruit, lease those trees out to people from the neighbourhood at fruiting season. While the net returns are probably far less than what might have been realised by harvesting the crop oneself with paid labour, the challenges of predators of the two- as well as the four-legged varieties are reaching insurmountable proportions and the harvesting is best left to those better able to cope with those circumstances and with, perhaps, more than a little larceny in their veins! This season has been no exception and a young man from the neighbourhood submitted his successful bid. He then proceeded to move his wife, three small children, his old father and mother and a young friend into a shack we have on the premises, to gather and safeguard the produce of the trees prior to transportation to a sales point. Let’s call him “M.”

History proceeded to repeat itself a few nights ago.

M and his father had taken a load of durians for sale in the former’s three-wheel tuk-tuk. They’d sold their durians, all day, from the side of the main Kandy-Kurunegala road and, having disposed of the fruit, were returning after nightfall to guard the trees once more. In the meantime, his young friend who’d remained behind, calls him on his mobile phone, telling him that they had been “invaded.” We too had heard and seen the headlights of two motorbikes going past our home in the direction of the durian trees which are adjacent to this road but about 400 metres away and significantly beyond sight of where we live.