Colombo deprives livelihood of 2500 Tamil, Muslim families in Kuchchave'li

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 02 August 2011, 01:44 GMT]
Nearly two thousand five hundred Tamil and Muslim families in Periya-karaichchi village in the Kuchchave'li Divisional Secretariat division in Trincomalee district have been deprived of the their permanent livelihood following the construction of a saltern by a southern based firm with the permission of the Colombo government. The project is named Raigam Saltern employing Sinhalese from South. “Nearly 2000 families of Tamils and Muslims who were doing prawn farming on this Periya-karaichchi land and another five hundred families who benefited from the subsidiary employment related to prawn farming have been pushed out and some outsiders from other districts have come started a saltern. This is extremely unfair,” said R.Sampanthan, Trincomalee district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian in a letter to the Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Mr.Sampanthan said on receipt of information that a Colombo firm was to be allowed to construct a saltern in a village Periya-karaichchi where 95 percent of the residents are Tamils and Muslims he met Mahinda Rajapakse and asked him not to allow such project in the village depriving permanent livelihood of several thousand Tamil and Muslim families.

SL Presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa, who is the SL minister of “Economic Development” was also present at the discussion, according to the TNA leader.

Mr. Mahinda and Mr. Basil had assured Sampanthan that they would not allow such project in Periya-karaichchi and that the Raigam Saltern would never take place.

However, the project has taken place contrary to the assurance given to Sampanthan, totally disregarding the wishes of the people and their economic future, TNA sources in Trincomalee said.