Countries backing Colombo in UNHRC complicit in genocide against Eezham Tamils: Ravikaran

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 April 2017, 23:05 GMT]
“The countries that promoted SL State with giving more time and space at Geneva are complicit in the structural genocide against Eezham Tamils. You are all joining hands in destroying us. Tamils will be completely losing the coast of Mullaiththeevu within two years. The IC should not delay any further in bringing international justice,” said elected councillor from Mullaiththeevu Thurairasa Ravikaran in an interview to TamilNet this week. Each and every Tamil now miss their security and dignity which was there during the times of the Liberation Tigers, he further said. An old mother who was chased away from Kokku’laay in 1984 and resettled back in Kokku’laay after being exiled in Tamil Nadu, India, narrated how the uprooted Tamils are languishing in Kokku’laay and Naayaa’ru. A senior fishermen leader explained how Tamils lived in Kokku’laay for decades without Sinhala intrusion.

Tamil fishermen are unable to engage in fishing along the entire fishing stretch of 74 km in Mullaiththeevu district, Mr Ravikaran says.



80-year-old Elisabeth Francis, whose family was chased away from their coastal village of Kokku’laay in Mullaiththeevu by the occupying Army of genocidal Sri Lanka on 21 December 1984 resettled in their village in 2010. But, most of her private lands have been occupied by intruding Sinhala colonists, she says. “Now, all of my sons and daughters are struggling for survival. We were chased out and lived for a while in Mullaiththeevu before moving to Tamil Nadu as refugees. We came back and were prepared to resettle in our own village. This has been our village for more than 12 generations,” she says.

“The Sinhala government will only support the occupying Sinhalese. We all witnessed how they behaved against us, verbally abusing and even threatening to attack us,” the mother of 12 told TamilNet on Tuesday.

67-year-old S. Antony, a fisherman from Mullaiththeevu who was earlier based in Kokku’laay was present at Naayaa'ru in Kokku'laay on Tuesday, when SL Survey Department and SL Fisheries Department officials from Colombo were engaged in surveying the ‘paadus’, which are coastal sea-beds falling within the scope of draw nets.



Mr Antony said he identified the first paadu. But, Sinhala fishermen and the officials supporting them wanted to deviate from the spot and begin the measurement 500 meters away from the location of the first paadu. It was wrong, he says.

Traditionally, there were 12 paadus that were clearly demarcated with names of fishing societies that were from Kokku'laay, Mullaiththeevu and from other places in Northern Province.

But, after chasing Tamils away at gunpoint, the Sinhala government was trying to bring in Sinhala colonists and seasonal fishermen from South to these paadus.

During the times of war, the Sinhala fishermen were hesitant to move in and permanently seize the lands. Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were there to defend the Tamils against all forms of genocide, say Tamil fishermen from Kokku'laay.





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