Sri Lanka plans ‘foreign’ enclave to balance India in Trincomalee

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 February 2012, 19:19 GMT]
While the uprooted Eezham Tamil civilians from Moothoor East of Troncomalee district are languishing in temporary shelters and with their relatives and friends, the colonial Colombo government has sent land surveying teams with a plan to grab the remaining lands in the vicinity of the already seized area for Indian coal power plant in Champoor. Informed sources in Trincomalee told TamilNet Monday that SL presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa, who is the economic ‘development’ minister in Colombo, has allocated 6,500 acres of the occupied land to a foreign power for the construction of an ‘industrial zone’ surrounding the 1,500 acres of land already allocated to Indian coal power plant. Recently, the SL military was bragging in Jaffna about their ‘diplomacy’ in giving KKS harbour construction to India and giving rest of the northern coast to a Chinese corporate.

Mr. Basil Rajapaksa, had recently told the Sri Lankan parliament that once the land needed for the proposed coal power project is acquired, the uprooted people of Moothoor East would be resettled in their own lands that are left in Champoor.

The Colombo government had earlier demarcated 8,000 acres of lands it seized from the people of Champoor. Later, the SL authorities told people that only 1,500 acres would be taken over for the coal power plant and that the people would be able to resettle in the remaining lands.

However, the people were not allowed to resettle, but were subjected to systematic and continuous harassment by the occupying SL military.

Some of the uprooted families, who earlier owned acres of agricultural land in Moothoor East and were dependent on cultivation, now received only 10 perch land per family in stony area where it is difficult to dig wells or bore tube wells.

Thousands of Tamil families uprooted in 2006 military operation from villages Kadatkaraich-cheanai, Koonith-theevu, Navaratna-puram, and Choodaik-kudaa are currently given temporary shelters in welfare centres located in Manat-cheanai, Ki'liveddi, Kaddai-pa'richchaan and Paddiththidal.