Civilians’ gold recovered from Vanni should be returned to them – Mano Ganeshan

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 October 2010, 05:33 GMT]
Commenting on Sri Lanka government’s claim that its troops collected vast amount of gold jewelry during its war on Vanni, Civil Monitoring Commission chief Mano Ganeshan told AFP that, “We don't know where the military found this gold, but what is clear is that it belongs to Tamil civilians." Chief government whip Dinesh Gunawardena told parliament Wednesday that Sri Lanka Army (SLA) troops had collected gold items worth more than four million USD during the final months of the decades-long civil war last year and that they had been handed over to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. “The rightful owners of the gold are Tamil civilians and they should get their property back,” Mano Ganeshan told AFP.

“The Tamil Eelam Banks in Vanni before the war had played a positive part in assisting the civilians in Vanni, a matter that had received positive remarks also in the South and elsewhere during the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) period,” civil society circles in Vanni said.

The Civil Monitoring Commission (CMC), a Tamil rights group, said the government should trace owners and return all the goods, AFP said in its report Thursday.