SLA appropriating Tamil IDPs' properties in Ampaa’rai district

[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 June 2008, 09:38 GMT]
The appropriation of the properties of the Internally Displaced People (IDP) and a Non-government organization in the Tamil areas in Ampaa’rai district by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Special Task Force (STF) Friday is a premeditated government plan to prevent the displaced from resettling in their traditional villages, K. Pathmananthan, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian for Thikaamaduva in Ampaa’rai district, said.

SLA troops and STF commandos breaking into the houses of the IDPs have taken away valuable properties from the houses and the telecommunication apparatus from the NGO's office, in 20 tractor trailers to their camps in Kaanchirangkudaa and Changkamaankandi, the MP said.

More than 600 Tamil families displaced due to SLA offensives in 2006 from the villages of Kanchchkudichchaa’ru, Thangkavealaauthapuram, Udumpanku’lam, in Ampaa’rai district are living in temporary refugee camps in Thirukkoayil area.

128 Tamil civilians were massacred in Udumpanku’lam and its neighboring areas on 19.02.1986 and the people there who had fled in fear were resettled after 17 years following the 2002 Cease Fire Agreement.

Many Non-government organizations had been assisting these resettled people.

The above people had to flee their homes again, in the 2006 SLA offensives on their areas and are leading a life of poverty and suffering in the refugee camps.

The Sri Lanka government is employing its armed troops to rob these villages of the Tamil IDPs with the sole aim of preventing them from being resettled in their own villages, Pathmanathan said.

"Though I have raised this matter in Parliament and taken it with related government authorities several times nothing has been done on it.

"I appeal to the International Community to intervene in this matter immediately to put a stop to state atrocities let loose on the Tamils in Sri Lanka," the MP said.