Deploying wild elephants, Colombo blocks resettlement of Tamils along Vavuniyaa border

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 December 2017, 22:17 GMT]
At least 250 Tamil families were living in the three villages of Koara-moaddai, Nochchik-ku'lam and Naavat-pa'n'nai along the border of Vavuniyaa North division and the now Sinhalicised Ma'na'l-aa'ru (Weli-oya) division in Mullaiththeevu district. The villages situated between the two districts in the Northern Province have been exposed to Sinhala encroachment coming through Padaviya and Anuradhapura of the North Central Province (NCP). The Tamil farmers living there were uprooted from their villages between 1991 and 1994 as the so-called Deep Penetration Unit of the SL Army let loose terror decapitating the Tamil farmers. So far, only a few families have managed to resettle, but they are being hunted by wild elephants that have been intentionally brought down by the SL Wild Life Department from South through Horowapothana in the NCP, Tamil civil sources in Vavuniyaa North say.

When the Tamil people make complaints to the civil authorities and demand fences to protect themselves from the wild elephants, they are refused of such protective arrangements. But, a Tamil village, Kokkachchaan-ku’lam, which has been transformed into a Sinhala colony and renamed into Kala-bogas-wewa, has got two rounds of protective fences.

Tamil people are being told that there are no government resources to put up a fence and protect an area of 1,000 acres where only a few families reside.

In fact, the SL State system intentionally discourages Tamils from resettling in their villages by not providing basic infrastructure, the resettled Tamils complain.

“We are being systematically discouraged from resettling in our villages for more than 25 years now,” a Tamil farmer who didn’t wish to be named, said.

Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian Sivasakthi Anandan, when contacted by TamilNet, also blamed that the Colombo’s authorities were discriminating the resettling Tamils with the intention of seizing the border villages for Sinhala colonisation.

“35,000 acres remain occupied by the SL military along the Vavuniyaa border. Most of these places are being systematically Sinhalicised,” he said.

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