Ownership Matters

I have been spending a lot of time talking with fishermen whose catamarans line the beach next to Taprobane. My brother Geoffrey and I were washed up against one of these catamarans when the tsunami struck. Fortunately for us, the catamaran was jammed against the roof of the local fish market, which was itself submerged in water. Otherwise, we could have been swept hundreds of yards inland by the force of the wave.

View Enlarged Photo and CaptionOn the little section of beach next to Taprobane, there used to be 10 big catamarans, and several dozen smaller ones. Traditionally, these catamarans, or oras, were made from tree trunks. A large tree trunk was hollowed out to accommodate an eight-man crew and then lashed to a smaller trunk as ballast. These days, oras are usually constructed from fiberglass rather than wood. The big ones take about two weeks to build. A good businessman, Geoffrey has negotiated the cost down from $6,700 to around $4,000 (a price that includes nets and an outboard engine).

Five of the big oras next to Taprobane were lost in the tsunami, either swept out to sea or destroyed when they smashed into houses. The others suffered relatively minor damage and can be repaired. Since the local economy revolves around fishing, it seemed fairly obvious that rebuilding the fishing fleet should be a top priority. That way, the fishermen can earn enough money to feed their families and rebuild their homes.

It turns out that -- like so much else in the development business -- this is more easily said than done. Many of the boats are owned by relatively wealthy (in Sri Lankan terms) boat owners, who employ teams of fishermen as day laborers. Should the replacement boats go to the boat owners, or to the fishermen who actually work on the boats?

From a Western perspective, it's tempting to give the new boat to the fishermen and organize them into a cooperative so they can reap the full benefit of their labor. But if you do that, you disturb a deeply rooted power structure underpinned by friendships and enmities going back decades that take an anthropologist to comprehend. That was one of the mistakes the U.S. made in Iraq: blundering in and imposing a new power structure with little understanding of how Iraqi society worked.

Geoffrey's approach to the problem is to let the locals sort it out. "We have to do this the Sri Lankan way," he keeps on saying. He is willing to replace all the oras that were lost in the immediate vicinity of Taprobane, with donations from private Western donors. But he has told the fishermen they have to agree among themselves on the question of ownership.

So far, only one group of fishermen has reached agreement. They will manage the boat jointly with the previous owner but will split the proceeds 11 ways. One part will go to each member of the eight-man crew; three parts to the previous owner. Since a good day's catch can earn between $1,100 and $1,500, that's enough for each fisherman to earn $100, a substantial amount by Sri Lankan standards. (Between $200 and $300 will be kept back for boat repairs, fuel and so on.)

The other fishermen are still arguing with each other. We'll keep you posted.

-- Michael Dobbs

By washingtonpost.com |  February 10, 2005; 5:00 AM ET  | Category:  Michael Dobbs
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