Human rights-based approach needed to help resettle displaced people of Kadovar

The National Letters

IT is impossible to identify several core human rights, which are all well established in international law and could be applied directly to development – induced displacement of a large number of people.
The rationale and the need for reviewing human rights arises from the proven inadequacy of so-called “entitlements” of affected people in resettlement plans prepared by national governments following involuntarily resettle policies.
The key issues that are not resolved fully in this policies are:

  • The host people’s right to receive compensation at replacement cost of the land acquired or damaged by a development intervention; and,
  • The displaced people’s assistance and assurance to restore and prove their income livelihood, and to maintain or to re-establish their social networks, culture and traditions.

In involuntarily resettlement literature, such rights are labelled “entitlements or as development opportunities”.
As we can see, authorities who implement resettlement plans to ensure that such entitlements are provided to the displaced persons adequately and promptly, often do not have institutional capacity and a strategy to realise them.
What is more disturbing is that, often, a development intervention which is locally funded does not consider payment of replacement cost of acquired environmental effect and improvement of income and livelihood as mandatory.
That only compensation that a displaced person or a household would get in such a project is “statutory” compensation as per domestic and laws or land acquisition laws and regulations.
Such minimalised compensation for full land quire is not even sufficient to restore their livelihood and income.
Such laws and regulations, in fact, do not even mention the need for the restoration and improvement of livelihood and income of displaced person.
The net result is that most of the displaced people fail (at the least) to restore their pre-intervention income and livelihood, and linger on in poverty.
Thus, the remedy of providing “development opportunities through “entitlements” enshrined in international and national involuntary resettlement policies is woefully inadequate to ensure basic human rights of displaced persons.
It is prudent to apply a human right-based approach to development processes to safeguard human rights of displaced people, so that they could escape from further impoverishment and also benefit from development interventions that have deprived them of their human rights.
The people of Kadovar Island are still awaiting a genuine result of how much budget did the National Government pass for Dandan Care Centre Restoration Bill in 2019 budget.
Are there any reconciliation reports for the Kadovar Disaster Account?
Tomorrow, Jan 5, will mark the first anniversary of the Kadovar eruption. The comment made by Wewak MP Kevin Isifu on Dec 31 is very shallow: telling people to work the land and sea.
The people are smarter than you think. They have respect for the host people.
They will not work the land until you as their mandated MP and Inter-Government Relations Minister make full payment of the land first.

Marang Aun