‘Development means 14-storey tourist hotel in Jaffna’

[TamilNet, Saturday, 04 February 2012, 08:50 GMT]
Keeping genocide-afflicted Eezham Tamils in sheds and shelters, occupying Sri Lanka plans to build massive ‘tourist’ hotels in Jaffna with Sinhala investment and management, eventually to create Sinhala business enclaves and colonies, news sources in Jaffna said. SL presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa laid foundation for a 14-storey tourist hotel in the heart of Jaffna city on Friday. Mr. Milinda Moragoda, opposition leader, Colombo municipal council, is said to be closely associated with the investment carried out by a tourism corporate named Jetwing-Yarl. Mr. Moragoda was bracketed with Norwegian development minister Mr. Erik Solheim in luring the LTTE to the peace process in 2001. Meanwhile, Norway conducts a seminar to select participants this weekend, on Norway Tamils contributing to peace, reconciliation and development of Sri Lanka that will be addressed by Mr. Erik Solheim.

Occupying Colombo's ‘investors’ in Jaffna

SL presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa laying foundation for the 14-storey tourist hotel in Jaffna

Milinda Moragoda inaugurates the function. Seen behind are SL minister Douglas Devananda and SL Government Agent in Jaffna, Mrs Imelda Sugumar.

From the money Norway spent on the island during the peace process years, Mr. Moragoda’s institution received the single largest monetary assistance meant for any NGO.

Mr. Morogoda attended the foundation-laying ceremony in Jaffna on Friday, along with Basil Rajapaksa and SL prime minister D.M. Jayaratne.

The function was presided over by Mr. Rajan Asirvatham, who once participated in Chandrika Kumaratunga's talks with the LTTE.

Construction of the hotel complex at Clock Tower Road in Jaffna city will be complete within 18 months, speakers at the function said. There was no discussion on whether the 14-storey building is suitable to the limestone terrain of Jaffna and to its fragile groundwater conditions.

Swift economic integration of Jaffna by Sinhala capital and management has been conceived as an alternative to political solution and to complete the structural genocide and annihilation of the identity of the nation of Eezham Tamils. This is carried out with the full blessings of international forces that continue experimenting a vicious paradigm with the national question of Eezham Tamils, while sitting on political and penal justice, political observers in Jaffna said.

The model of bringing in Sinhala capital and management to Jaffna with military protection, while denying Eezham Tamils the political right to conceive their development and investment in their own land and confining whatever capital they have to Colombo under subordinate conditions, will lock even the influential Tamil elite from seeking independence, the political observers said.

Meanwhile, the Sinhala investment on tourist hotels in Jaffna is said to be to cater to the needs of the diaspora Tamils who visit Jaffna.

Similar hotels are also planned in Pa'n'nai in Jaffna city; Nedun-theevu (Delft), Chaaddi, Chi'ruth-theevu and Ma'ndai-theevu in the islands off the Jaffna Peninsula, and in selected locations in Vanni. Lands are taken over in large scale for this purpose and are given to prospective people from the south.

The tourist resort at Nedun-theevu, an island located at a closest distance from Tamil Nadu, India, will be built with Chinese assistance, news sources in Jaffna said.