There has been pandemonium over Joint Mechanism (JM) to distribute international aid (valuing $2 billion) to tsunami victims of Northeast of Sri Lanka. President Chandirka Kumaratunga is keen to have the JM distribute the international aid and so are the international donors. According to estimates, 1,056 km of Sri Lanka's total 1,568 km coastline was affected by the tsunami. About 130 km (13 percent) of the Island's total affected coastline is under the LTTE control. While the Government controls 60.6 percent of the 330 km affected coastline that are in the Northeast, the remaining 39.4 percent are under the LTTE. Without willing cooperation from the Tigers it is difficult for the government to carry out rebuilding efforts in all the tsunami affected areas of the Northeast.

The proposed JM consists of three tiers. Tier 1: A three-member high-level committee with a nominee each by the Government, the LTTE and the Muslims, entrusted with the policy of allocating resources. Tier 2: A regional committee consisting of 10 members - five nominated by the LTTE, three by the Muslims and two by the Government - for the six affected districts (but will only be in the specific geographical areas that had a direct impact - two kms from the coast in the tsunami-affected areas). Tier 3: District committees at the distributor level. Since the current district committees are proceeding in a way that is acceptable to both parties, they will continue as they are.

But, the incumbent UPFA government is unable to move ahead on this due to opposition from various quarters. On the one hand, the JVP, the main constituent of the coalition government, is not willing to have the LTTE as a partner in the proposed Mechanism for two reasons. First, the proposed joint mechanism, according to the JVP, is "a bridge built to move to interim administration and from there to separate Tamil Eelam." Second, the JVP perceives that the JM is "conceived and imposed by the West." Its obdurate stand now is 'yes coalition government, no joint mechanism'; 'yes joint mechanism, no government'. The party has 39 seats without which the present government would fall.

On the other hand, the Muslim community in the Island is not happy with the JM structure. Why? About 40.8 percent of the dead due to tsunami were Muslims (12,562 of total of 30,718 killed). Of 230,700 tsunami displaced, 41,671 (18 per cent) were Muslims; the number of Muslim houses fully damaged accounted for 21,751 (25.3 percent) of the total 85,833 fully damaged houses. They want separate mechanism for themselves and are apprehensive about working with the LTTE.

The opposition does not end here. A section of Bikkus, JHU with seven seats in Parliament, also oppose the Mechanism stating that it would "undermine the sovereignty of the Island." Adding to the bedlam, soon after the Donor's Conference at Kandy, the LTTE has backtracked from its earlier commitment and wants to work only with "independent bodies" on tsunami reconstruction and not with the Government. Before going in for JM, the LTTE also wants to resolve issues such as repairing tsunami-hit harbours, rehabilitating the areas adjacent to these harbours, and clearing the sea of tsunami debris off these harbours.

It is unfortunate that the parties concerned are unable to arrive at a consensus over aid distribution even five months after the devastation. This should be given top priority as over 30,000 people died of tsunami in 20 minutes when compared to over 60,000 deaths over a span of 20 years due to ethnic conflict. Tsunami was a common enemy, but ethnic issue was about what one did or did not do to another ethnic community. Both should not be mixed and it is advisable to delineate JM from the peace process for the time being. Or else, this important arrangement would get embroiled into the usual politics of peace. If the parties concerned could not arrive at a solution on this then there is no hope that they could hammer out an agreement on the ethnic issue. There is a strong pressure from the bottom to cooperate on tsunami rebuilding when compared to the peace process. This pressure should be utilized to galvanise the momentum.

There is no point, however, in sticking to JM if it faces such stiff opposition. The ultimate objective is reconstruction and distribution of aid to the affected. There is no hard and fast rule that either the government or the LTTE or both should be involved in this. Why not bodies independent of both. Genuine non-governmental organisations, local and international, could be identified and entrusted with full responsibility and resources for reconstruction and aid distribution within a timeframe. UNHCR, CARE, ICRC are few among them. The government and the LTTE on their part could supervise the activities of those organisations in the respective areas of control. People also might prefer such an arrangement.