SLMC demanded Muslim coastal district in Ampaa'rai: UPFA minister

[TamilNet, Sunday, 28 December 2014, 19:07 GMT]
SL Minister Hakeem wanted the Sri Lankan government to agree to carve out a coastal Muslim district from the present Ampaa'rai district, including Kalmunai, Chammaanthu'rai and Poththuuvil, before defecting to the common opposition front, said SL Environment and Renewable Energy Minister Susil Premajayantha. Mahinda Rajapakasa was opposed to the demand as it will affect the “territorial integrity and unitary character of the country,” the SL minister said. Commenting, Tamil activists in Vanni said Tamil-speaking people and their political parties should be concerned of the territorial integrity of the North-East and oppose both the SLFP and the UNP, who have been Sinhalicising and militarising the Tamil homeland for decades.

The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress has defected to the common opposition front as the ruling UPFA has refused to carve out an ethnically demarcated new district, called “Ampaa'rai coastal district,“ according to the UPFA minister, who said: “Mr Hakeem must reveal now whether he decided to support common opposition candidate with the aim of obtaining a new district for Muslims.”

Both the SLFP and the UNP governments have been carving out Sinhala-Only divisions in the Tamil homeland for decades. These parties are consistent in their motive of merging the Sinhalicised divisions in the East into Sinhala-Only districts to completely cut-off the North and East, the Tamil activists in Vanni said adding that the process has been accelerated after the 2009 genocidal onslaught against Eezham Tamils by the SL Archaeology department and the occupying SL military, which are behind the creation of Buddhist temples and Buddhist archaeological sites where Saiva and Islamic places of worships are situated.

More than 25,000 acres of lands belonging to Eezham Tamils have been seized during the last 6 years through Sinhala militarisation in three DS divisions alone in the 11 divisions of Trincomalee district during the last 6 years, civil sources in Trincomalee said.

The Muslim people in Pumoaddai in the northern Trincomalee have witnessed the brutal oppression of the ‘SL Army and Archaeology’ working together to seize their lands. The Muslim Chief Minister of the Eastern Province, who has been collaborating with the SL government, has not been able to stop the occupation.

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