Resettlement possible in Valikaamam North HSZ: Jaffna SLA Commander

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 22 September 2010, 13:03 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Jaffna Commander Major Gen. Mahinda Kathurusinghe for the first time commented on the issue of resettling families uprooted by SLA in Valikaamam North saying that it is possible to resettle them in areas excluding Palaali High Security Zone (HSZ). The SLA commander admitted this Tuesday in Maanippaay Piratheasa chapai hall while participating as Chief guest in an event for school children organized by SLA. Many similar announcements had been made by Sri Lanka government ministers, officials and politicians during the Presidential and Parliamentary elections and in the following period but around 100,000 uprooted persons still live in camps and with their relatives and friends for the past twenty years, Welfare Organizations for Uprooted Families circles said.

These organizations which had been actively demanding the resettlement of the uprooted people in Valikaamam North have been stifled with death threats lately, they added.

Meanwhile, the uprooted families from Vadamaraadchi East taken there by SL government officials are left on their own in schools and government buildings. They are not supplied with food either, Non-government Organizations (NGO) in Jaffna peninsula said.

Local and International NGO representatives in the peninsula met Tuesday in Jaffna to explore ways to help the uprooted families of Vadamaraadchi East abandoned by the officials responsible for their welfare.

Mahinda Kathurusinghe also said in the event that it is possible for resettlement only in Kaangkeasanthu’rai area.

Palaali and its surrounding areas now occupied by SLA and hence ruled out of resettlement are fertile traditional farm lands of the people who had been living there since ancient times, the representatives of the welfare organizations said.

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