Uprooted people of Keappa-pulavu vow to continue their protest until all lands area released

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 December 2017, 21:55 GMT]
The uprooted Tamil families from Keappaa-pulavu, who have been staging a continuous protest for the past 302 days demanding release of their occupied lands and de-militarisation of their village located in Mullaiththeevu district, on Thursday vowed to continue their struggle until all their lands are released by the occupying Sinhala military. The announcement comes despite the occupying SL State and its military releasing a pocket of 111 acres of lands with properties belonging to 28 families in Keappaa-pulavu and another pocket of 28 acres that belong to 17 families in the nearby Seeniyaa-moaddai.

The release of 133 acres of lands comes amidst the continuous protest and the SL Ministry of Resettlement paying 148 million rupees of foreign aid to the SL military to relocate away from the occupied property.

None of the money was used to construct necessary infrastructure to the resettling people.

The SL military continuous to occupy the vast area of agricultural lands including the coast of the Nanthik-kadal lagoon.

All the lands and properties being released in the two pockets are residential lands, the people said.

Several hundreds of acres of lands, both public and private, remain occupied by the SL military, which has also put up a resort and a Buddhist temple inside the occupied military zone in Keappaa-pulavu.

One of the main demands of the uprooted Tamils is de-militarisation of Keappaa-pulavu.

Only when the SL military is relocated from the residential and agricultural lands as well as civilian access to the coast and the lagoon is restored, resettlement of people in Keappaa-pulavu would be meaningful, rights activists in Mullaiththeevu said.

138 families have been engaged in the continuous protest demanding 432 acres of their private lands and public properties such as schools, temple, church and a public hall.

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