SL governor orders removal of Tamil church in East

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 May 2013, 22:33 GMT]
The Sinhala colonial governor of the Eastern Province, Rear Admiral (retd.) Mohan Wijewickrema, has instructed officials under him to remove a Catholic church that has been constructed by the uprooted people of Naavaladi village in Moothoor division of Trincomalee district, informed civil sources in Trincomalee said. The people of Naavaladi village, uprooted in 2006, have resettled at a nearby locality to their native village as the occupying Sri Lankan military was refusing entry to their own lands has established the church for their worship at the new location, which has also been named Naavaladi.

The order by the Sinhala governor comes at a situation when the uprooted families had made their own efforts to establish themselves, by putting up the church for their worship.

In the meantime, another group of uprooted Tamils from the same division, who are fishermen and farmers by profession, temporarily residing at Chanthoasapuram were removed from that locality for resettlement at Cheenan-ve'li.

However, they have not been resettled at Cheenan-ve'li as promised.

They were initially promised 20 perches of land per family unit.

But, a number of these families have been dumped 6 months ago at a hillside with 10 perches of land for each family.

The Tamil families complain that they are unable to resume their livelihood of fishing or farming.

The only livelihood they could find was to collect firewood from the nearby jungle and sell it. But, that too has become a difficult task.

Even for potable water they have to depend on the water supply by the occupying Sri Lanka Army, which wants the Tamil people to be subservient.