Uprooted Musali Tamils demand lands back, SL Navy ignores Minister Swaminathan
[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 May 2015, 20:15 GMT]
Mu'l'ikku'lam has become a strategic point of occupation to the Sri Lankan forces that aim to Sinhalicise and colonise the land and the historic waters of Eezham Tamils. More than 4,500 Eezham Tamil civilians, evicted from Musali division in Mannnaar district in September 2007, are still refused entry to their village by the occupying Sri Lanka Navy, which has changed their village into a military cantonment. On Saturday, SL Minister of Resettlement, Reconstruction and Hindu Religious Affairs D.M. Swaminathan (UNP) was forced to wait in front of the gates of the cantonment called ‘Command Headquarters - North Western Naval Area’ for more than 40 minutes by the occupying Sinhala Navy.
Mu'l'ikku'lam has become a strategic point of occupation to the Sri Lankan forces that aim to Sinhalicise and colonise the land and the historic waters of Eezham Tamils. More than 4,500 Eezham Tamil civilians, evicted from Musali division in Mannnaar district in September 2007, are still refused entry to their village by the occupying Sri Lanka Navy, which has changed their village into a military cantonment. On Saturday, SL Minister of Resettlement, Reconstruction and Hindu Religious Affairs D.M. Swaminathan (UNP) was forced to wait in front of the gates of the cantonment called ‘Command Headquarters - North Western Naval Area’ for more than 40 minutes by the occupying Sinhala Navy.
SL Minister was forced to wait outside the port of the SL Navy cantonment at Mu'l'likku'lam
Location of Mu'l'likku'lam [Map courtesy: Google Earth, Legend by TamilNet]
Catholic church at Mu'l'likku'lam inside militarised zone
Mu'l'likku'lam school inside militarised zone
The uprooted people from Mu'l'lik-ku'lam were categoric in their demand to release their occupied village.
Majority of the Tamils from Mu'l'likku'lam are Catholics. Former SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa visited the village in December 2012.
Accompanied by the Sinhala Archbishop of Colombo, Rt Rev Dr Malcolm Ranjith, the SL defence secretary had declared the entire Eezham Tamil village out of bounds for its uprooted residents.
In turn, Gotabhaya was offering 450 acres, at the rate of half an acre per family, to resettle the Tamils away from the village. The villagers were told that they could visit schools and religious places but not their abandoned houses at Mu'l'likku'lam.
Only a few of the uprooted people had consented to accept alternative lands leaving their own lands in Mu'l'likku'lam.
Nobody would be allowed to resettle within a perimeter of 750 meters of the Mu’l’likku’lam village, Gotabhaya was telling the people at that time.
Mu'l'lik-ku'lam has now been transformed into the so-called Command Headquarters of the North Western Naval Area of the occupying Sinhala forces.
Majority of the Tamils from Mu'l'likku'lam are Catholics. Former SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa visited the village in December 2012.
Accompanied by the Sinhala Archbishop of Colombo, Rt Rev Dr Malcolm Ranjith, the SL defence secretary had declared the entire Eezham Tamil village out of bounds for its uprooted residents.
In turn, Gotabhaya was offering 450 acres, at the rate of half an acre per family, to resettle the Tamils away from the village. The villagers were told that they could visit schools and religious places but not their abandoned houses at Mu'l'likku'lam.
Only a few of the uprooted people had consented to accept alternative lands leaving their own lands in Mu'l'likku'lam.
Nobody would be allowed to resettle within a perimeter of 750 meters of the Mu’l’likku’lam village, Gotabhaya was telling the people at that time.
Mu'l'lik-ku'lam has now been transformed into the so-called Command Headquarters of the North Western Naval Area of the occupying Sinhala forces.
Uprooted Eezham Tamil villagers of Mu'l'likku'lam residing at Malang-ku'lam demand their lands back at Mu'l'likku'lam
Mu'l'likku'lam and other SL Navy and Army bases in the region [Map courtesy: Google Earth, Legend by TamilNet]
The SL Navy cantonment serves as a
hub for the Sinhalicisation and Colonisation process of the land and
waters of the strategic locality in the Mannaar district.
The villagers, displaced from Musali, have been temporarily staying in Peasaalai, Thaazhvup-paddu, Keeri and in Thalaimannaar and have been subjected to various harassments by the SL military throughout the last seven years.
The visiting UNP Minister Swaminathan, who was accompanied by UNP parliamentarian from Vanni Hunaiz Farook, who had defected UPFA in December 2014, Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Selvam Adaikkalanthan and Vicar General of Mannaar Diocese Fr Victor Sosai, met a section of the uprooted people who have been residing at Kaayaang-kudi and at Malang-kaadu, situated close to Mu'l'lik-ku'lam on Saturday.
The villagers, displaced from Musali, have been temporarily staying in Peasaalai, Thaazhvup-paddu, Keeri and in Thalaimannaar and have been subjected to various harassments by the SL military throughout the last seven years.
The visiting UNP Minister Swaminathan, who was accompanied by UNP parliamentarian from Vanni Hunaiz Farook, who had defected UPFA in December 2014, Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian Selvam Adaikkalanthan and Vicar General of Mannaar Diocese Fr Victor Sosai, met a section of the uprooted people who have been residing at Kaayaang-kudi and at Malang-kaadu, situated close to Mu'l'lik-ku'lam on Saturday.
The
river flowing and entering the Gulf of Mannaar at Mu'l'likku'lam is the
boundary between the Northern and the North Western Provinces. The
Vilpattu reserved forest south of the boundary was scattered with a
number of Tamil villages before it was declared a reserved forest in
1903. The Tamil territory was contiguous up to Negombo in the Western
Province at that time, before the Sinhalicisation of the Tamil Catholics
of today's Puththa'lam and Gampaha districts. [Map courtesy: Google
Earth, Legend by TamilNet]
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