By Amantha Perera
GALLE, Sri Lanka, Mar 1 2005 (IPS)

When forty seven year old businessman Anura Ananda opens the front doors of his drapery shop, he is now greeted with a clear view of waves lapping the beach.

The shops that used to block the view were wiped off by the Dec. 26 tsunami, which caused more than 31,000 deaths in Sri Lanka.

Ananda estimates he suffered damages up to 15 million rupees (15,000 U.S. dollars) to his business that he reopened through his own money two weeks ago.

But instead of accolades from the authorities for his resilience and courage, Ananda, now, is bracing for a protracted fight with government authorities.

His shop lies inside the 100-meter buffer zone from the ocean within which the government has banned any buildings.

”I will not move from here. This is my ancestral property and where we have been doing business all our lives. We will not move,” he told IPS standing in front of his shop.

”We suffered and we have come back on our own, no one has helped us,” said Faizal.

The government in the meantime has announced that it would provide alternate buildings outside the zone for property owners and has already demarcated an area where Hambantota, one of the southern towns partially destroyed by the waves, is to be moved.

”I will only move from here if I am given a similar place for business, paid compensation and guaranteed a livelihood,” Ananda said.

The businessmen agreed that if they were to move, the entire Galle town with its commercial as well government institutes would have to go as well. Large packages of compensation are very unlikely to be paid, according to details released by the government. The highest value of any payment made to destroyed houses would not increase beyond 750,000 rupees (7,500 U.S. dollars) inclusive of loans.

Three hundred kilometers away, Mohideen Ajmal expressed the same sentiment.

The wholesale fish salesman from Karathivu in the eastern Ampara district, too, has returned to his former business place, despite losing two sons. His shop lies closer to the beach than Ananda’s.

Ajmal however gave the new government ruling a fighting chance before he returned to his former business premises. He tried doing business at the main market in Kalmunai, the nearest town but found that it was a futile effort. ”Nothing was happening, we can’t do business anywhere else,” he said.

If the new government ruling is to be adhered the entire beach stretch of three villages – Marudamunai, Sainthamaruthu and Karathivu – along the Kalmunai coast would have to be moved. According to Ajmal the stretch is the second largest fisheries hub in Sri Lanka and many would not to want move simply due to business reasons.

”I will not go anywhere from here, this is where my life is. I did not come back here, to be thrown out,” said Ajmal.

The government is yet to announce what action it proposes to take against violators of the ban.

Treasury Secretary P B Jaysundera said last week that the government would be making a clear announcement on the ban in the coming days. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapkse has indicated that structures that are deemed intact would be allowed to remain in the zone. The ban though announced is yet to be ratified by parliament.

The government has also not indicated clearly where the new houses would be built, limiting itself to stating that they would be at the nearest suitable location to the destroyed houses.

There is also confusion on the extent of the zone; the government has said that it would stretch to 200 meters in low-lying areas of the northeast.

The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam that controls a large swath of land in the northeast has already ruled that the buffer zone would be 300 meters. However in government controlled Marudamunai, Sainthamaruthu and Karathivu where more than 5,000 died, when the tsunami hit, it does not extend beyond 100 meters.

”There is massive confusion here,” said Chris Daley a logistics specialist with the medical relief agency Medicines Sans Frontiers – that is currently working in Amapara.

Not only are business owners confused, but also ordinary house owners living within or close to the buffer zone. They are reluctant to commence reconstruction work till the air is cleared.

Pradeep Tilhan, his wife Champika Jeevani and their five year old daughter recently moved into a tent provided by a non-governmental organisation that is doing relief work close to the beach in Tangalle in the south,

They are compelled to stay in the over heated tent as they cannot go back to their destroyed village on the beach due to the buffer zoning rule.

”If we stay here I can’t get work,” said Tilhan who is a fisherman adding, ”we can’t go to the village because then there will be no help from others.” The government has instructed NGOs not to carry out permanent work within the zone and banks not to approve loans for constructions.

Such instructions have left the worst affected puzzled.

In Sainthamaruthu, a relaxation of laws that allows new water connections to be installed at a payment of 2,500 rupees (25 U.S. dollars), down from the usual 15,000 rupees (150 U.S. dollars) has benefited houses that lie outside the 100-meter zone.

”They are not the ones which were damaged badly,” said schoolteacher I A Azeez.

”Houses that are in the 100-meter zone have had requests for the resumption of their water connections turned down by the Water Board,” added Azeez.

Schools on the beach in the three villages also had to be relocated.

The 3,000 students have been instructed to attend afternoon classes at another government school in Kalmunai town. But according to Azeez space restrictions are severely hampering work.

”We have to alternate between the lower school and the upper school every week, because there isn’t enough room at the new location,” he said.

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