Why Sri Lankans are shaken by the war on Lebanon

Ameen Izzadeen

LEBANON: As Lebanon continues to suffer relentless pounding by Israel, thousands of Sri Lankan families are on pins. With the Sri Lankan government being as helpless as Fouad Siniora's government, family members of some 93,000 Sri Lankans working in Lebanon pray and hope that normalcy will return soon.

Amidst fears that Lebanon might explode into civil war once again or get embroiled in a major West Asian conflict, they anxiously await phone calls from their loved ones, most of whom are working as housemaids. The government-run Foreign Employment Bureau puts the number of Sri Lankan housemaids in Lebanon as 86,000.

The Liras and Dollars they send not only help their families survive but also contribute to the country's efforts to manage the balance of payment crisis. More than one million Sri Lankans - one in every 19 citizens - are employed abroad with over 600,000 of them being housemaids, working in West Asia.

Last year, they sent more than $1.5 billion in foreign exchange. For the past two decades, remittances from Sri Lanka's expatriate labour force have remained one of the top foreign exchange earners of the country.

But when these people are in trouble in Lebanon, the authorities only hope the situation would soon come to normal. There are no contingency plans to evacuate them. Countries like the US can afford to do so, but not Sri Lanka. We go to the International Organisation for Migration and seek its help to provide food and shelter to Sri Lankans working in Lebanon in the event the crisis in Lebanon escalates.

The anxious family members keep watching television news. A friend of mine inquired from me on Saturday whether Bekaa Valley, where someone known to him works as a housemaid, was safe. I told him that the Israelis were not sparing any place in Lebanon.

Every place, every building, every road and every bridge in Lebanon is a terrorist target for Israel. Even children are killed. Probably Israel believes that they are future 'terrorists' and they should be killed young.

It is not only parents and loved ones of Sri Lankans in Lebanon who are worried but also the entire Sri Lanka. The reason: the soaring oil prices. When the crude oil price reached US$ 77 last week, it might be a good news for oil-exporting countries, but for developing countries, it meant a worsening of their economic situation.

The cash-strapped Sri Lankan government - which is facing two wars, one against the terrorists and the other against the spiralling cost of living - is no longer in a position to cushion the rising world oil prices with subsidies.

The subsidy issue has become a major diplomatic and trade row with India. A dispute between the Sri Lankan government and the Indian Oil Company, a major player in the Sri Lankan energy sector, is in the process of being solved. Since January 2004, the Sri Lankan government has not paid subsidies, which have now accumulated up to more than Rs. 7,000 million, to the Lanka Indian Oil Company.

After behind-the-scene cajoling and browbeating, the Sri Lankan government last week agreed to pay part of the money owed to the LIOC in cash and the rest in treasury bonds.

The Indian firm, which controls some 160 retail fuel stations throughout the country, was also granted permission under a fresh agreement to sell oil at prices that reflect world market realities. Under the agreement, even the government-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation is bound to sell oil without subsidies. In other words, Sri Lankans will not get oil at subsidised prices.

So when oil prices rise as a result of instability in Lebanon or the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme, we shudder. With the LIOC now set to fix oil prices in accordance with market principles, it is feared the local retail price of a litre of petrol will go beyond Rs. 100 mark. If it happens, the transport sector will increase rates, the electricity tariff will go up and the cost of living will reach unbearable heights for more and more people.
This will force more and more families to send their young girls and women as housemaids to West Asia, disregarding horrific tales of torture and ill treatment in the hands of some "mamas" and bosses. These girls and women become our saviours while the country gains the reputation in West Asia as a nation of housemaids. We are caught in a vicious cycle.
So we have all the reasons to pray for peace in West Asia. But peace will not come as long as Israel illegally occupies Arab land in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. Peace will continue to elude West Asia as long as the West portrays Israel as the victim and the real victims as villains.

Courtesy - www.khaleejtimes.com
