Colombo continues to block uprooted Tamils from resettling in Poththuvil, Ampaa'rai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 March 2015, 23:49 GMT]
The occupying Sinhala military and Sinhala officials belonging to SL Forest Department and SL Archaeology department continue to block hundreds of uprooted Tamil families from resettling in their own villages situated along the border of Poththuvil Divisional Secretariat in Ampaa'rai district. Mr T. Kaliaiyarasan, a councillor of the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) told TamilNet on Saturday that 485 families have been blocked from resettling in their residential and agricultural lands. The new regime in Colombo is also blocking the people from accessing these lands, he said.

Forest department officials have erected border stones in the lands of Eezham Tamils who were uprooted from their villages during the war.

945 acres of residential lands have been blocked from resettlement in Poththuvil division, Mr Kalaiyarasan said.

The Sri Lankan Police is not responding to the complaints being made by the Tamil villagers. Appeals after appeals sent to the SL Government Agent of Ampaa'rai District, the Director of the Forest Department, the SL Governor in the East and the President of the Sri Lankan Government in Colombo have been systematically ignored, the EPC Councillor said.

The Tamil people are not being allowed to resettle in their villages of Changkaman-ka'ndi, Koamaari and Oo'ra'ni.

SL Army together with Archaeology and Forest department officials have blocked the people from accessing their traditional lands in Muthalaith-theevu-veddai, Ooththu-madu-ka'ndam, Nanthan-ku'lam, Paalaiyadi-veddai, Pi'l'laiyaaradi-veddai and in Koamaari-veddai, he said.

A section of Muslims have also occupied the lands of Tamils with the backing of their politicians, Kalaiyarasan further complained.

The Sinhala soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army and the ‘counter-insurgency’ trained commandos of the Special Task Force (STF) which comes under the SL Police Department, have been deployed in chasing Tamils away from the ancient Tamil settlements in Ampaa'rai for years.

The villages were defended by the LTTE before they were militarily captured by the Sri Lankan STF in 2007.

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