Right to Water - A Sri Lankan perspective!

Some parts of Sri Lanka are suffering from severe water related issues due to pesticides and acidity of drinking water. Contamination of soil and the entire water system as a result of industrial acids and pesticides used in farming has led to deaths of tens of thousands of people as a spinoff of resultant kidney decease, in North-western and Southern provinces. Multinational companies like "Monsanto" are directly backing this issue to the worse. "Monsanto" is still trying to invade the economy of the country through the proposed seed bill which has the potential of destroying the entire food and seed diversity, though their branded pesticide "Round up" has been banned in Sri Lanka since last month.

 

Though we knew our government is no more dangerous than an avaricious Multinational company, we never expected to have this experienced so soon. Sri Lankan multi millionaire and a very close ally of His Excellency the President, Dammika Perera owns the Rubber Gloves manufacturing company which created the tragedy at Rathupaswala (Gampaha, Weliweriya). Also known as "Weliweriya water issue". Rathupaswala people had a massive drinking water issue, due to high acidity of water and they protested for their basic human need of enjoying clean drinking water. But, they were treated brutally which wound up marking three deaths, which invariably are homicides. In defiance of banning the Rubber Glove factory of "Dipped Products PLC" or investigating the whole scenario through an impartial, independent party, they are now being given a land in "Biyagama Special Economic Zone" to place their factory again even without an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report from environment authorities. Government compensated those families by its almighty dollar and not by justice. No law suit or investigation against the murder cases has taken place so far! Still those people are suffering from the same problem. Government could only make them silence!

Same water issue has now surfaced in Hanwella due to a similar rubber gloves factory that does not maintain proper disposal systems and run no proper treatment of contaminated water in the manufacturing process. After suffering years from the water issue, villagers got onto the roads on the 16th of march 2014 for a demonstration and police troops attacked those people for committing the felony of "protesting against water pollution". On that day at around 5.30 in the morning, police charged the unarmed protestors; men, women and children; hitting them with batons and rifle butts. Villagers fleeing the scene were chased to and attacked in their homes. Those seeking protection in a nearby Buddhist temple were assaulted and part of the building damaged. Some women carrying children were beaten.

One woman told reporters: “I joined the protest on Sunday morning at around five. Suddenly three buses stopped in front of us. More than 125 police officers got out and started attacking us without any warning. They used batons, rifles and rods. Some wore black uniforms. One woman, [Name ommited], was brutally attacked before my eyes".

“Nearly 15 people received injuries and some were seriously hurt. All ran away for safety. Some went to the temple, thinking they were safe there, but the police entered the temple and attacked them. It was so brutal, and they used teargas. I saw a mother running with a baby in her arms to avoid the teargas.”

Arrested protesters were taken to Homagama, Padukka and Hanwella police stations and the assault continued throughout Sunday. Angry villagers chopped down trees and blocked the nearby Colombo-Awissawella highway for almost three hours.

The government then deployed about 1,500 heavily-armed security personnel, who sealed off the whole area and began using water cannon and teargas. A police officer was injured during the clashes and later died in hospital. President Mahinda Rajapakse’s government immediately seized on this to justify a further intensification of the state repression.

Police shameless spokesman Ajith Rohana told the media that the Colombo Criminal Investigation Department was checking whether the police officer’s death was “a premeditated act of violence.” He claimed that the demonstration was a “sudden, disruptive and provocative, act… incited by a specially organised group or groups who want to disgrace the nation’s government and the police internationally.”

This demonstration began after the Magistrate’s Court in Awissawella ruled in the factory’s favour last Friday. Two weeks ago the incident the court had given HRP management 14 days to explain why the plant should not be shut. Instead of ordering the plant closure, as expected by thousands of villagers, the court over-ruled its own deadline on Friday, and gave HRP more time to reply.

A week ago some of my friends who were involved in the scenario told me that they met some villagers from Hanwella and they seek assistance of supportive groups to research on water contamination. As they had explained to my friends, one villager got a little itch in his eye and it led to a permanent blindness. Lots of similar stories were shared and high acidity of water has triggered them all.

Villagers are afraid of their children’s lives. Those villagers had tried to investigate the quality of natural water sources of the area, via government laboratories and all those efforts had been in vain due to the fear of being picked up on it by Govt intelligent services. Furthermore, University laboratories and private labs are also afraid of helping the villagers out in checking water samples as a result of the pressure imposed by the fascist nature of the Rajapaksa regime.

So my dear friends, we would be grateful to you, if you could find a resource person or a group that we can get some advice to help these poor villagers in Hanwella. 

Government is more concerned about investments and commissions that they can obtain some money under hand from businessmen-involved and not about the tens of thousands of dying lives of the poor. We believe in you as those people who scream out for their basic human needs have no hope to cling to!
 

A contribution by a Human Rights Activist from Sri Lanka.