Jaffna GA's letters cause anger among uprooted Tamils from Valikaamam North

[TamilNet, Monday, 29 August 2016, 23:31 GMT]
Occupying Colombo's Defence Ministry has instructed the SL Government Agent in Jaffna, Mr N. Vethanayagan to issue three different letters to the uprooted families in Valikaamam North, who are staying in the so-called welfare camps in Jaffna. A section of the people have been asked to prepare to move out of their camps and to accept alternative housing-scheme [being built by the occupying military]. Around 70 of the families staying at Sabapathipillai camp in Chunnaakam have received a second-type of letter that states that in the event their lands were to be permanently seized for military use, they would be compensated with ‘suitable’ and ‘lucrative’ alternatives. A third one asks the remaining to stay calm and wait for resettlement until the end of 2017. The letters have caused confusion and anger among the uprooted people who have been staying in the camps for more than 25 years.

The move indicates that the SL military is not prepared to release the fertile lands it has appropriated from the people of Valikaamam North, say the representatives of uprooted Tamils from Valikaamam North.

Informed sources at Jaffna District Secretariat told TamilNet that the GA was reluctant to issue such letters. But, he was instructed to do so after the insistance coming from Colombo after a ‘high-level’ decision made by the SL Defence Ministry and the SL President Maithiripala Sirisena.

Currently, 1,030 families uprooted from Valikaamam North are residing in 31 so-called welfare camps in Jaffna. Most of them are poverty-stricken.

There are more than 54,000 uprooted Tamils who reside outside these camps. They have not received any letters.

The SL Military is trying to exert pressure on the poverty stricken families residing in the camps to accept alternative solutions in order to permanently seize their villages.



SL Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera has also been visiting some of these camps and asking the people to wait with patience to the end of 2017. The SL President Maithiripala Sirisena visited these camps earlier and promised a solution within 6 months. But, after 6 months, the families have now been informed that the occupying Colombo was trying buy them out of their native villages forever.

UNP parliamentarian Viayakala Maheswaran is also exerting pressure on the people to accept the ‘lucrative’ compensation, the representatives of the uprooted people in Valikaamam North said.

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