Colombo wants Sinhala Buddhist temple at former military base in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 July 2016, 23:51 GMT]
The occupying military of genocidal Sri Lanka and the colonial governor of Eastern Province, who is a former defence secretary and currently an ‘advisor’ to the SL President on so-called ‘reconciliation’ have brought two Sinhala Buddhist monks from Trincomalee to Kaayangkea’ni, a Tamil village situated 115 km north of Batticaloa city. The monks have put up their huts besides an abandoned Buddha statue, which was erected inside a former military base. In 2013, the SL military relocated the base. But, in 2016, the intruding monks demand to transform the locality into a Sinhala Buddhist temple. Kaayang-kea’ni is located in Koa’ra’laip-pattu North (Vaakarai) Division in Batticaloa district.

The occupying Sinhala military stationed at Kaayaangkea’ni erected a Budda statue inside its military camp premises in 1990.

The military base was situated at an area that belonged to the divisional council of Vaakarai and the seized land was initially allocated for constructing shops along the road.

In 2013, the SL military camp was abandoned as the occupying military relocated the base away from the locality.

However, the Buddha statue was not dismantled.

A Sri Lankan Police post was put up at the site and no one in the area dared to remove the statue as the SL Police was continuously watching the site.

Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian S. Yogeswaran, who also co-chairs the Divisional Development Council of Vaakarai division, said he had registered a formal objection to the latest move of transforming the locality into a Buddhist temple.

There are no Buddhists at Kaayaangkea’ni village.

However, genocidal Sri Lanka’s colonial governor to East, Kalupage Austin Fernando has instructed the SL Government Agent in Batticaloa to implement necessary measures to hand over the lands to Buddhist monks to proceed with the establishment of Buddhist temple, civil sources in Vaakarai told TamilNet.

According to SL Constitution, Buddhism enjoys ‘foremost’ place in the entire island. Although the SL Constitution attempts to project all religions as having equal status, the constitutional provision of ‘foremost place’ and various other arrangements such as the SL police having a special division to protect the Buddhism under the guidance of SL Ministry of Buddha Sasana, have made it a crime if anyone attempts to peacefully dismantle any Buddha statue in the occupied country of Eezham Tamils.

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