SL Forest Department seizes agricultural lands of Eezham Tamils in Paduvaan-karai

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 July 2018, 22:48 GMT]
The so-called Forest Conservation Department of occupying Colombo has seized a small pond, known as Ka'lik-ku'lam, and almost 500 acres of lands in the vicinity of Unnichchai 6th Mile Post. The Eezham Tamil villagers have been using the area for Cheanai (slash-and-burn) cultivation for decades. The villagers, who have resettled after the end of war and who also received housing through the ‘National Housing Development Authority’, complain that they are unable to continue with their livelihoods of agriculture, fresh-water fishing and animal farming as a direct consequence of the latest occupation, which has been carried out by the SL Forest Department.

Creating borders with bulldozed bushes and by planting borderstones embedded with GPS devices, the SL Department has also moved on to plant saplings of Theakku trees (teak, Tectona grandis), depriving the native people their Cheanai cultivation lands as well as agriculture, fishing and animal farming.

Around 120 families are dependent on the lands for agriculture and the pond to channel water for their cultivation, to engage in fresh-water fishing and to provide water for their cattle.



The village, situated in Ma'n-munai West (Vavu'natheevu) division, was previously under the de-facto administration of Tamil Eelam during the times of independence war and the peace process.

However, after the genocidal end in 2007 in the East and 2009 in the North, the occupying Colombo is advancing a wide-scale structural genocide targeting Paduvaa-karai for Sinhalicisation through various departments coming under its central ministries based in Colombo.

Although many Tamil families were living at Unnichchai 6th Mile Post, housing by the NHDA has only been provided to a few of them.



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