This 2-year IDRC funded research project seeks to examine and compare the consequences for existing political conflict, of particular international humanitarian interventions, one year after the tsunami, in specific regions of two affected Asian countries: Sri Lanka and Indonesia.  While political conflict in Sri Lanka, between the GOSL (Government of Sri Lanka) and the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) has been exacerbated one year after the tsunami, conversely a ceasefire has been established in Aceh, between the GAM (Free Aceh Movement) and GoI (Government of Indonesia). This project seeks to understand this divergence, in as greater depth as possible.

The Principal Investigator(PI) proposes, as a working hypothesis, that what is at stake in these different outcomes, is the differential articulation of parallel or competing humanitarian aid delivery systems in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, which are also regimes of governmentality: the State, rebel counter-State and INGOs. In fact, it is well known that INGOs, in the post-tsunami period, have become one of the crucial conduits of aid and administrative functions in these two zones. While in the Sri Lankan case, the rebel counter-State, the LTTE, has a better developed governmental infrastructure than its Acehnese counterpart, the GAM, INGO presence and practices in both zones is now comparatively similar. Yet, the articulation of INGO programs with State and Rebel regimes are different in each situation; in Sri Lanka, the LTTE desires to compete with GOSL to partner with INGO-led programs, or lead its own Donor-funded humanitarian programs, while the GAM does not, having only negotiated in the Ceasefire Agreement to place members in the BRR (Aceh Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency) to monitor the process. This difference, PI suggests, is one critical key to understanding  conflict exacerbation in Sri Lanka and its abatement in Aceh.

To test this hypothesis, PI proposes a multi-sited, micro-level, grass roots-based, ground up examination of two different categories of humanitarian aid: material and non-material. This project will examine, from the point of view of the affected communities themselves, how material humanitarian aid programs, such as infrastructural reconstruction and livelihood rehabilitation, and non-material programs, such as psychosocial interventions, are actualized in the lived world. From this vantage point, we will study how these programs, executed by the State, INGOs and Rebels, in partnerships/competitions between them, exacerbate or alleviate existing fissures between and within communities. Are new fissures created? And if so, on what fault lines? In our final recommendations, we will suggest better configurations and articulations for INGOs intervening in existing political conflict zones, affected by fresh natural disasters with high humanitarian costs.

The potential contribution of this research project, both academically and in an applied context, cannot be understated. There is a paucity of information and fine-grained analysis on the nuanced and complicated interplay of global forces, nationalist politics, local alliances and gendered subversions, in the wake of unexpected and extraordinary death, destruction and displacement, within a pre-existing context of war. The fact that such information will be gleaned over an extended period of time through total immersion in the day to day lives of affected, grassroots communities, makes such a project unique in the context of most research reports that have been produced up to date which have been primarily questionnaire-based surveys or focus group discussions conducted, analysed and completed within the span of a couple of weeks or months.

The knowledge generated by our in-depth study would also be crucial for the ongoing work of donors, governments, and NGOs dealing with natural disasters in the context of war. Of additional value here is the comparative dimension that is brought to this multi-pronged, multi-layered and multi-level two-country study which should enable us to rigorously interrogate the seemingly divergent trajectories of Indonesia and Sri Lanka in resolving political conflict.