Colombo destroys dairy-farming economy of Eezham Tamils in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 October 2019, 23:50 GMT]
Former Sinhala paramilitary men have shot and killed around 1,500 of cows in the interior pasturelands of Paduvaan-karai region in Batticaloa district within the last ten months, complains Nimalan Kanthasamy, the secretary of Dairy Farmers Association in Kiraan and Chengka'ladi in Koa'ra'laip-pattu South division. In the meantime, the SL State-owned Milk Industries of Lanka Company, also known as Milco Private Limited, is buying the produce at low rates from the Tamil dairy farmers in Batticaloa. The payments also get severely delayed, he says.

Also, the officials who function under the direction of the SL State have started to propose that dairy farmers resort to buy or grow fodder and abandon using pasturelands, Mr Kanthasamy says.

SL Forest guards, Army and the Police are giving protection to the killers, who transport and sell the slain cattle during nights.

Although many of the Sinhala colonists, who were encroaching the pasturelands were withdrawn a few years ago, few of the remaining colonists, groomed by the occupying SL military were the killers. They are using automatic rifles such as T-56, he says.

The increasing pattern of discrimination and the killings indicate that they are planning to re-occupy the pasturelands for colonisation purposes depending on the outcome of the forthcoming elections, Tamil dairy farmers fear.

The killings have taken place in Periya-maathava'nai and Mayilaththa-madu pastureland area.

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