Sajith Premadasa's ministry revives Sinhala colonisation of Kevu'liyaa-madu in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 August 2018, 12:49 GMT]
SL Minister for Housing and Construction Sajith Premadasa is creating ethnic disharmony in the district of Batticaloa by launching ‘model villages’ with housing and infrastructure, allege grassroots Tamil activists in Batticaloa. Similar to the controversial projects in Trincomalee district, the SL Minister, the son of the late SL President R. Premadasa, is creating conflicts by scheming one of the four ‘model villages’ in Batticaloa district at Kevu'liyaa-madu. The ‘model village’ projects have become places of ethnic tensions as Tamil-speaking Muslim beneficiaries were brought into traditional Tamil villages and Sinhala settlers into predominant Muslim and Tamil areas, civil sources in Batticaloa said.

Three other ‘model villages’ have been launched in Vaazhaich-cheanai, Ea'raavoor and U'ru-kaamam in the district.

Kevu'liyaa-madu, located along the border of Batticaloa and Ampaa'rai divisions has been encroached by Sinhala colonisers, with the backing of the extremist Sinhala Buddhist monk Ampitiye Sumanarathna Thera in recent times.

The village has been riddled with Sinhala colonisation for a long time.

SL Forest Department, SL Mahaweli Authority and the SL Ministry of Mahaweli Development have been backing the Sinhala colonisation of Kevu'liyaa-madu, which was even opposed by the Sinhala settlers who have been living in harmony with Eezham Tamils at the locality.

The extremist monk was personally involved in putting up houses for 20 to 25 Sinhala colonists at Kevu'liyaa-madu while more than 60 Sinhalese colonists have settled with the backing of SL military, Sinhala officials from Ampaa'rai district receiving funds from Colombo government and other groups from South.

The monk has exposed himself several times, verbally abusing the people of other communities, public servants and even the SL Police.

He played a crucial role in anti-Muslim pogroms in the South by initiating a hate campaign in Kandy in early 2018.

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Kachchatkodi Swami-malai GS division is one of the 24 GS divisions of Ma’nmunai South West (Paddippazhai) DS Division is situated southwest of Batticaloa lagoon, 13 km away from the Batticaloa city.

The GS area with the extent of 14.8 sq. km comprises of three villages – Kachchat-kodi, Swami-malai and Kevu'liyaa-madu.

There are 448 families of a total population of 1,533 individuals in Kachchatkodi GS division.

901 of these individuals are Sinhalese, according to the statistics obtained in 2015.

The entire GS division has been heavily Sinhalicised by the Sinhala encroachers from Ampaa'rai district with the active backing from the genocidal unitary State.

365 Sinhalese families are living at present in Kevu’liyaa-madu village. Most of them are illegal encroachers.

Only a few Sinhalese (between 6 and 15 families) were living at this village before the 1980s.

The occupying Sinhala military expelled Tamil families from Kevu’liya-madu village on October 16, 1985. More than 96 families were uprooted from the area at that time.

Around 60 of the uprooted Tamil families have been resettled in Kevu’liyaa-madu, but they are not provided with facilities matching that of the Sinhala colonists as most of the infrastructure support to the Sinhalese settlers come through different institutions and organisations that are not answerable to the DS or GS administrative officials in the district.

Many of the resettled Tamil families are now afraid of raising their children in a hostile ethnic environment.

The Sinhalese encroachers also want to change the administrative system of the entire GS division, which has been demographically transformed into a numerically Sinhala-majority GS division.

The extremist monk and the Sinhala colonists want to annex the GS division with Sinhala-majority Uhana DS Division of bordering Ampaa’rai District.

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