SL militarisation of Saiva site

Resettled Tamils disturbed by renewed SL militarisation of Saiva site in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 September 2013, 09:45 GMT]
In another military high-handedness, a military camp has been set up at the site of a Saiva temple in Ka'n'naki-ipuram, four years after the end of the war. The temple management and villagers of Ka'n'naki-ipuram have protested the unwarranted setting up of an SL military camp at the Murukan temple in Akkaraip-pattu. The devotees and their representatives have demanded that the camp be removed and temple be handed over to the village.

The demand has been made in a letter addressed to SL Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse.

The people belonging this to area had relocated in 1990 due to the war and the Sri Lankan Special Task Force (STF) occupied the temple and set up a military camp at an education centre that belonged to the temple. It is now over two decades. The displaced people have returned to the area. However, the camp set up by the STF is still there.

The temple was handed over to the villagers on July 30 2010. The temple was then in dilapidated condition and renovation works were undertaken soon after. A 21 feet tall Murukan statue was erected and the people began to hold daily poojas in the temple.

Meanwhile, the occupying SL military has again set up a camp at the educational centre near the temple on April 14 this year.

The SL military also asked the temple authorities to handover a building in the temple premises for use by their hierarchy. The villagers however refused to do so.

Last May, the SL military forcibly took over the land by erecting fences around the temple and ordered the temple management to stop the renovation works and handover the construction material to them.

The action only begets hatred towards the SL military especially since it has been over three years after war, the letter sent to Gotabhaya Rajapaksa states.

The religious environment has been harmed by the deployment of the military and the people find it difficult to visit the temple and offer prayers.

SL Forest Department lets loose wild elephants on resettled Tamils in Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 26 March 2013, 12:28 GMT]
Wild elephants in large numbers are systematically driven into villages where Tamils predominantly live in the Ampaa'rai district by a section of Sinhalese connected to the Sri Lankan Forest Department, presumably to prevent the uprooted Eezham Tamils from returning and resettling in their places of origin, sources in Ampaa'rai said. The Colombo government that exploits the poverty status of these people, while not providing them with the basic amenities, sponsors Sinhala colonisation schemes that also include settlement of SL military men in the area. So far, after 2009, seven new Sri Lanka Army camps have been established in Ampaa'rai district.

Members of 514 displaced Tamil families whose native villages are Kagnchi-kudichchaa'ru and Thangka-vealaayuthapuram of Thirukkoayil DS division of the Ampaa'rai district are presently settled on a temporary basis at residences of relatives in Thirukkoayil, Vinaayaka-puram, Thu'rai-neelaava'nai, Cho'rikal-munai, Cheanaik-kudiyiruppu, and Ma'ndoor villages.

These families were driven out of their places in the years of 1987, 1990, 2006 by the harassment and violence let loose on them by the Sinhala military and the paramilitary operated by the SL forces and known as Muslim Home Guards at that time.

However, the Tamil families still carry on their living, despite having lost everything they owned earlier. The Colombo government simply does not want to look into their plights. The SL government ignores provision of relief materials to these families, Tamil civil sources Ampa'rai said.

These innocent victims facing new forms of harassments are mostly farmers and fishermen whose livelihood depends on petty income earned by collecting firewood etc., from the nearby forests. They are people of below the poverty line and not financially capable to resettle themselves in their native villages.

To prevent as much as possible, the resettling efforts of these displaced Tamil families, herd of elephants from the adjoining forests are driven into these villages.

With the same ulterior motive crocodiles in large numbers are also inducted into ponds of these areas, the fishermen allege.

Not all fishermen use boats, but many of them walk into the ponds to fish. Thus the many fishermen who want to escape from the man-eating crocodiles keep away from fishing into the ponds and thereby are deprived of their daily income.

During the times of the Liberation Tigers in the area, there was necessary checks and balance that ensured livelihood for the Tamil families in this area including safety from wild elephants. Today the safety and security of the people of these areas is endangered mostly due to the underhand activities of the Colombo government, the Tamil families say.

‘Resettled’ people stranded by heavy rains in Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 30 October 2012, 23:31 GMT]
Heavy rainfall, reported amidst cyclone warning, has stranded thousands of people living along the coastal stretch of Mullaiththeevu and Vadamaraadchi East without shelter and food. The people of Keappapulavu, recently left under the trees by the SL military that has occupied their lands, are the worst affected in Mullaiththeevu district. In the meantime, the occupying Sri Lankan military has hijacked the assistance that was supposed to be provided by the civil authorities to the affected people. The SL Government Agent of Mullaiththeevu, Mr N. Vethanayakam, hesitant to to disclose the details of the displacement, has been instructed by Colombo to receive humanitarian assistance through the SL military, informed sources at the District Secretariat told TamilNet on Wednesday.

The AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured this image of Tropical Cyclone Nilam on Oct. 29 at 2029 4:29 p.m. EDT. The strongest storms with coldest cloud top temperatures appear in purple and were covering Sri Lanka. The purple indicates temperatures as cold as -63F (-52C). [Image courtesy: NASA JPL]

The affected people have not received any assistance from the Sri Lankan authorities for more than 24 hours after their displacement, according to Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian S. Sritharan.

“The only assistance that has reached the displaced people of Keappaapulavu is the milk powder that has been sent by a small charity, Nimalrajan Foudation, from Jaffna,” the MP said after distributing the assistance.

The people are yet to receive dry ration or cooked food.

“Three years have elapsed after the war, but there are only a few public buildings or schools with proper roofing to provide shelter to the affected people,” Mr Sritharan told TamilNet.

People of Keappaapulavu were denied resettlement in their own lands and were abandoned without shelter at jungle sites by the occupying Sinhala military that had appropriated their lands for militarisation.

People residing in temporary Tarpaulin tents in other places have also displaced in large numbers.

Fisher-folks have displaced entirely from the coastal stretch of Mullaiththeevu and Vadamaraadchi East after the warning of the approaching cyclone named ‘Nilam’.

More displacement is imminent as low-lying lands would be affected by the floods caused by spill-water from tanks in the coming days.

Normalcy is disturbed also in the Jaffna peninsula as heavy rainfall continued for the third day. Power cut was reported in several areas of the peninsula.

Chronology:

30.10.12  ‘Resettled’ people stranded by heavy rains in Vann..

29.10.12  North-East experience heavy rains with strong wind..

Resettled people report traces of genocide

பேராயிரப் படுகொலைகளின் தடங்கள்

Resettled people report traces of genocide

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 September 2012, 00:46 GMT]
Despite reports of alleged deployment of unscrupulous foreign expertise in erasing the traces of the genocidal onslaught that took place in Mullaiththeevu district in the final days of Vanni war in 2009, there are still remains of hundreds of human skeletons that were burnt to ashes in Aananthapuram and other parts of Puthukkudiyiruppu, civilians who have been allowed to resettle there told TamilNet this week. Their observations confirm earlier information from reliable sources inside the SL military that thousands of non-combatants were taken to the suburbs of Puthukkudiyiruppu and shot and killed en masse with a clear intention to annihilate a large section of the people including children and women.

The findings by the resettling people confirm that a large number of those who were slain have been burnt to ashes.

While the international mechanism obviously falters in investigating the genocide abetted by the International Community of Establishments (ICE), the task of reporting even the tip-of-the-iceberg traces is ultimately left to the victims, human rights workers in the island commented.

Meanwhile, reliable sources inside the SL military told TamilNet earlier that the SL military had photographed in a systematic way every one of the victims at different angles, before and after their killing.

The SL military not only keeps the photographs of those who were massacred, but it also has a clear count on their genocidal victims, the sources further said.

The resettling people express fear that they feel like living in a ghost village marred with dumped bodies in abandoned bunkers and burnt remains of skeletons along the walls of their houses and schools.

Despite the skeletons in the cupboard coming out, genocidal Colombo is pressurized to hurriedly showcase a ‘resettlement’ by the powers in complicity, so that a paradigm-setting bailout could be facilitated to Colombo in the so-called international organizations, commented human rights workers.

Up to 40,000 civilians had been slain by the SL military was the estimation of Colombo-based UN officials who had served in the island during the war.

Bishop of Mannaar Rt. Rev. Dr. Rayappu Joseph, citing the statistics of the SL government established that 146,679 people had gone unaccounted for in the Vanni war.

Traces of burnt skeletons and bunkers

The claimed ‘resettlement’

Resettled Tamils again face displacement due to SLA camp expansion

[TamilNet, Saturday, 15 September 2012, 23:05 GMT]
Resettled villagers are again forced to leave Thoa'ni-thaadda-madu village, an agricultural village situated 90 km north of Batticaloa city in Koa'ralaippattu North DS division, are again forced to flee their village following the recent expansion of the military camp of the Sri Lanka Army in the village.

Seventeen Tamil civilians including three women and six children were killed in a massacre carried out by the occupying Sri Lanka Army in 1987.

The villagers had also suffered under the occupation of the Indian IPKF forces. The Villagers who had fled during this period returned and resettled in the lands after the village was brought under the control of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The entire village was displaced and fled for safety to elsewhere in 2006 following the massive air attack and multi-barrel artillery attack carried out by the Sri Lanka Army and Sri Lanka Air Force.

Since last year, the uprooted people from the village resettled with the assistance of several non-governmental organizations and have been residing under tremendous sufferings without basic facilities and amenities.

In the earlier displacement, the occupying SL military personnel had removed doors and valuable house hold goods from the abandoned houses left by villagers.

Meanwhile, the Sri Lanka Army personnel stationed at Maangkea'ni along Trincomalee-Batticaloa A 15 highway have also appropriated lands belong to civilians for the expansion of their camp.

At the same time some top officials in the Sri Lanka Army stationed at Vaakarai camp are reported to have been ‘purchasing’ lands from Tamils at low price, sources in Batticaloa said.

SL Navy chases away resettled Tamil Catholics in Peasaalai, Mannaar

[TamilNet, Sunday, 24 June 2012, 23:50 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Navy on Friday chased out at gunpoint 70 Eezham Tamil Catholics, who had resettled in the lands of the Church of Our Lady of Victory in Kurusup-paadu in Peasaalai, Mannaar. The Tamil families had resettled three weeks ago in the housing scheme area of 50 houses established by the the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), where they were living since 2004 till they were uprooted in entirety in 2007. The Church of Our Lady of Victory is one of the largest Catholic churches in the island. Peasaalai is a large village, situated in the North-West of the island of Mannaar, with a population of 8,000 Eezham Tamils and 90% of the population are Catholic fisher folk while the remaining are Hindu and Muslim fisher folk. The Sri Lankan military is alleged of scheming Sinhalicisation of Thalaimannaar Pier, which is the closest point in Mannaar to the coast of Tamil Nadu in India.

New Delhi's economic and strategic interests are bartered for the genocidal interests of the Sinhala state in fast Sinhalicising Trincomalee, KKS and Mannaar in the country of Eezham Tamils, political observers in the island said.

The resettled civilians at Peasaalain in the Mannaar island were chased out at gun point during the night on Friday. The SLN even didn't allow them time to take their belongings, the displaced civilians say.

First, the SL Navy stopped and harassed a family man from one of the resettled families while he was on his way to the settlement after purchasing groceries. The SLN told him that he and others had resettled without permission from the SLN.

Following his phone call to his family, people from the settlement rushed to the spot to secure his release. They pleaded with the SLN to allow them to live in their own houses at the 50-houses-scheme situated on the land of the Church.

Then the SLN personnel started verbally abusing the civilians and instructed them at gunpoint to leave the settlement. Around seven armed SLN personnel entered the settlement and chased away the resettled families.

The families who had returned to their houses had just restarted their fishing once again.

The offending SLN personnel had told the civilians that they needed to have permission from the SL Defence Ministry to resettle in their own houses.

The affected families immediately made representation to the Mannaar Bishop Rt.Rev.Rayappu Joseph and Mannaar District Government Agent about their plight. Mannaar Bishop promptly sent his Vicar General Victor Soosai and other priests to the site to ensure security to them.

On 17th June, 2006, the Sri Lanka Navy, in one of its brutal attacks on the village, shot at least four innocent Tamil civilians through their mouths and lobbed grenade on the civilians who had taken refuge at the church, killing a woman and injuring 44. Six civilians, one of them a Muslim, were killed by the SLN that day.

Meanwhile, the Bishop of Mannaar has also been harassed and threatened by Rishard Badurdeen, a minister from the ruling SLFP of the SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa and by the intelligence establishment of the SL Defence Ministry.

In Mannaar district, Ko’ndachchi-Chilaavaththu’rai, Thalaimannaar Pier and Madu have been particularly targeted for Sinhala-Buddhist colonies by the genocidal government in Colombo.

Recently, expanding its presence, the SL military has also begun to construct large cantonments in several other localities of Mannaar district.

The Sinhala army, occupying the famous archaeological site Maanthai in Mannaar, where the sacred Tamil-Saiva temple Thirukkeatheesvaram is located, has brought in a Buddhist priest who is building a Buddhist temple at a forcefully confiscated private land, just 200 metres away from the Saiva temple. Although the construction of the Stupa has been put off following protests, the Buddha statue has not been removed and the extremist monk is still appealing for the continuation of the project, backed by the SL Defence ministry, civil activists in Mannaar say.

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SL military extends HSZ in Jaffna, evicts resettled people from Kuppuzhaan North

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 June 2012, 23:46 GMT]

The occupying Sri Lanka Army in Jaffna has re-confiscated more than 250 acres of land in Kuppuzhaan North in Valikaamam South division of Jaffna district in recent days, evicting resettled families from their land, complain the uprooted families. The Sinhala Army has been putting up permanent concrete fences and has instructed people not to cross the fence. The news of the latest land grab by the SL military and the news of people being evicted again from the resettled areas of the former ‘High Security Zone’, on top of the news that the SL military planting land mines in de-mined areas of Maathakal, have slashed hopes of resettlement among the 40,000 people, who still remain as uprooted people after their eviction from Valikaamam HSZ.

The SL military has put up new concrete fences in Kuppuzhaan North of Valikaamam South and has evicted the resettled people from there.

Abandoned huts of resettled people in Kuppuzhaan North

Earlier, the commander of the occupying military in Jaffna Major General Mahinda Hathurusinghe, the then SL Government of Jaffna District Imelda Sugumar and the SL Minister and EPDP paramilitary leader Douglas Devananda gave much publicity in opening Kuppuzhaan North for resettlement. But, the same area has now been silently snatched away from the resettled people.

With the latest move of the SL military, more than 25% of the lands in Kuppuzhaan North, where uprooted people were allowed to resettle, have been re-confiscated.

Similar fencing and re-confiscation of released lands in the ‘HSZ’ have been reported in Oddakap-pulam near Vasaavi'laan and in Kurumpachiddi in Valikkaamam North.

Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the SL defence secretary and presidential sibling has also refused to hand over the Palaali Teachers Training College and its 25 acres of land in the same area.

Informed sources say that a military enclave is being schemed, comprising a large tract of land belonging to 15 villages in their entirety and 8 villages partially in Valikaamam North as permanent cantonment of the three armed forces of Colombo.

This military enclave will also contain the Sinhala families from the South and the corporate workers of abetting powers, constituting an ‘Economic Zone’ in addition to the ‘High Security Zone’ and the ‘Sacred Sinhala Buddhist Zone’ in Maathakal.

Only 30 per cent of the ‘HSZ’ was earlier declared for resettlement and even that is now either re-occupied or made uninhabitable, civil groups representing the uprooted people say.

The Sri Lankan establishment, which has been projecting ‘resettlement’ along with its ‘LLRC’ hoodwink project, before the issue came up for discussion at the UNHRC sessions in Geneva, has now stepped up the land grab again.

Colombo has also sabotaged the work of independent mine clearing groups to enable slow-phased de-mining to facilitate its agenda of land grab.

Grassroot political activists in Jaffna say that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the section of diaspora groups, that hurriedly welcomed the US-tabled resolution in Geneva, should now take the responsibility of facing the consequence of their fatal mistake of having extended uncritical support to the US agenda that has saved Colombo from the international investigation.

“Instead of giving false promises to our people that the powers would now open the door for the Eezham Tamils, the Tamil activists around the globe should realise that it is only a struggle-oriented leadership that could bring the necessary attitudinal change in the global establishments,” a student activist in Jaffna told TamilNet, questioning why the Tamil diaspora groups were not directing their protests at the gates of the powers that masterminded the UNHRC resolution and against the powers that continue to open ‘new doors’ to the oppressive Sri Lankan state.

The Sri Lankan military occupied High Security Zone (HSZ) along the northern coast of Jaffna peninsula, that evicted a large number of Tamil civilians from their homes for two decades now [Satellite image courtesy: Google Earth]

A map revealing the status of mine clearing within the High Security Zone obtained by TamilNet in December 2010

Chronology:

22.06.12  SL military extends HSZ in Jaffna, evicts resettle..

21.06.12  SL Navy plants land mines again, steps up genocida..

Related Articles:
10.03.12   SLA re-confiscates land ‘declared’ resettled in Jaffna HSZ
25.12.11   SL military appropriates 54 acres of Palaali Training Colleg..
22.09.09   Kuppuzhaan

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Resettled Tamils without assistance affected by mini-cyclone in Paduvaankarai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 10 May 2012, 18:14 GMT]
At least 90 families in Oottuch-cheanai, a village situated 75 km north-west of Batticaloa city, have been displaced and sought asylum in a school following a mini-cyclone that hit Paduvaankarai area in the Koa'ra'laip-pattu South division of Batticaloa district on Monday. The villagers, who have displaced several times since 1990, each time following large-scale military operation by the Sri Lankan military, have been completely neglected throughout the years without proper humanitarian assistance, civil sources in Batticaloa said. International NGOs also face restrictions to visit the area while Colombo government has grabbed around 25 thousand acres of land in Vadamunai and Oottuch-cheanai, handing over the lands to Sinhala home guards.

The locality of Oottuch-cheanai and Vadamunai in Paduvaankarai region

350 Tamil families live in Vadamunai and Oottuch-cheanai without facilities.

The Sinhala ‘home guards’ (SL Civil Defence Force) who chase Tamils from Vadamunai are provided with housing facilities and other basic amenities.

The Tamils who have resettled on their own live in poverty without basic livelihood assistance and other relief.

After being chased out of their village in 1990, they were able to return to their lands in 2002 following the ceasefire agreement between the then Sri Lanka Government and the Tigers.

During that period too they were not provided with permanent houses.

The Tamil villagers were again uprooted in 2007 following attacks by the occupying Sri Lanka Army and the ‘home guards’.

They were resettled again in 2009 but were still residing there in temporary huts.

Several non-governmental organizations (NGO) have been functioning in Batticaloa district but not a single NGO has shown any interest in implementing a permanent housing scheme for these resettled villagers, civil sources said.

Now, there are also restrictions being imposed on visiting NGOs.

The Colombo government had been planning to take over Vadamunai-Ooththuchchenai villages since 1978.

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