Uprooted Tamils in Ki'linochchi suburb go on fast in front of SL military cantonment
[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 September 2016, 20:17 GMT]
Tamil families who went on a continuous protest last month in front of occupying SL military's cantonment at Paravip-paagnchaan, a fertile suburb of Ki'linochchi town, initially called of their struggle after 5 days after Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan, who engaged in the process of containing Eezham Tamils from confronting the SL military on behalf of SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, met them and talked to SL Defence Secretary over the phone conveying the demands of those engaged in the struggle. The SL Defence Secretary had asked 2 weeks time and the time had elapsed on 31st August. The families demanding their lands to be released restarted their continuous struggle on 01st September. As a week has gone, they decided to transform their struggle into a continuous fast starting from Wednesday.
Tamil families who went on a continuous protest last month in front of occupying SL military's cantonment at Paravip-paagnchaan, a fertile suburb of Ki'linochchi town, initially called of their struggle after 5 days after Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan, who engaged in the process of containing Eezham Tamils from confronting the SL military on behalf of SL Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, met them and talked to SL Defence Secretary over the phone conveying the demands of those engaged in the struggle. The SL Defence Secretary had asked 2 weeks time and the time had elapsed on 31st August. The families demanding their lands to be released restarted their continuous struggle on 01st September. As a week has gone, they decided to transform their struggle into a continuous fast starting from Wednesday.
What happened to the promises given by SL Defence Secretary, SL Government Agent and Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan, the families ask.
None of the TNA politicians have visited these families since they re-launched their struggle on September 01.
SLFP's Ankayan Ramanathan came with promises and a request to abandon their struggle. But, the families were not prepared to again listen to empty promises.
SL military is still keeping around four thousand acres of lands for its military cantonments in the entire Ki’linochchi district. Of these, 229.5 acres are lands that belong to private owners, according to Tamil civil sources at Ki’linochchi District Secretariat.
SL Military's 58 Division has stationed at Paravippaangchaan and it has been refusing to hand over the entire area back to its owners citing that the lands were used by the LTTE.
Only 20 acres were released back to the land owners while the SL military was attempting to permanently seize 23 acres of private lands.
In August 2014, SL military wanted to consolidate its ‘ownership’ of the seized lands and the Rajapaksa regime went to the extent of issuing a Gazette notice to ‘legalise’ the appropriation of 7 acres of these private lands.
After the regime change, the SL military released only a small pocket of lands with 3.5 acres back to the landowners.
The families who own the released lands have also joined the struggle being waged by the remaining families.
Back in early 1900's, late Tamil leader Sir Pon Ramanathan had initiated the settlement of Tamils at Paravip-paangchaan and most of the lands at the suburb of Ki'linochchi town belong to private landowners.
During the Norwegian-brokered Ceasefire between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Government of Sri Lanka, the Tigers were maintaining their political offices, including the Peace Secretariat, Political Head Office and the office of the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) at Paravip-paangchaan.
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