SLA stops resettlement in Swamimalai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 August 2003, 16:06 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Saturday stopped a group of internally displaced persons making arrangements to resettle in their abandoned Tamil village Kachchakodi Swamimalai in the Pattipalai division in Batticaloa district, civil group sources said. The Kachchakodi Swamimalai village is located on the border of Batticaloa and Amparai districts in the eastern province about 25 km off southwest of Batticaloa town.

Swamimalai village is about 90 square km in extent and 253 families of 1057 persons lived there in 1985 when violence broke out. The main occupation of the villagers were agriculture, fishing and animal husbandry, sources said

In 1985 violence the entire families of Kachchakodi Swamimalai village fled to other areas for safety and since then they have been living in the villages of Thanthamalai, Mavadimunmari, Panichchaiyadymonmari and Kokkaddicholai in the Batticaloa district, sources said.

After the signing of the memorandum of Understanding (MoU) by the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), action is being taken by the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) with the assistance of North East Community Restoration Development (NECORD) to resettle the internally displaced of Kachchakodi Swamimalai village, sources said.

When a group of IDPs Saturday started making preparation for resettlement in the village by clearing their respective plots of lands abandoned eighteen years ago, SLA soldiers located from a nearby camp had gone to the site and asked them not to make any arrangement for resettlement in their lands and instead they should find new lands close to the original plots for resettlement, civil sources said.

On representation by the IDPs the TRO has brought this matter to the notice of the Batticaloa Government Agent, sources said.

Steps are being taken by the affected IDP families to bring the matter to the notice of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission in Batticaloa district, sources said.