A Buddhist monk, aided by Sri Lanka's Department of Archaeology, has banned the cultivation of water in the fields belonging to Tamils in the village of Kumalamunai, Kurunthurmalai in Mullaitivu.
Although the Divisional Secretariat has confirmed that the 36 acres of land belongs to seven Tamil families, Sinhala Buddhist monk, Galgamuwa Chandabothi Nayaka Thera, has blocked the families from cultivating on their land.
The Tamil landowners have had to abandon their agricultural activities, posing serious risks to their livelihood.
Kurunthurmalai has been a site of dispute since Sinhala Buddhists have occupied the area. The Athi Ayan temple is a native place of worship of Tamils located in the Thannimurippu area. The temple, which is of historical significance for the Tamil people, has been subject to attack from Sinhala Buddhist colonisation like many ancient monuments in the Tamil homeland.
The temple site, on a hilltop in the Kumulamunai area of Mullaitivu, has been the target of intense landgrab efforts by Sinhala Buddhist monks. Their efforts have been met with fierce resistance from locals which in 2018 led to a court order decreeing that no changes could be made to the site. The court also stated that the archaeology department had abused its power in allowing Buddhist monks to survey the area.
In February 2021, Vidura Wickramanayaka, Sri Lanka's state minister for 'national heritage', accompanied by army soldiers and archaeology department officers, led an event at Kurunthurmalai, in which a new Buddha statue was placed and consecrated at the site of the Athi Aiyanar temple despite the court order banning them to do so.
Earlier this month, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) spokesperson M A Sumanthiran and former Northern Provincial Councillor T Ravikaran visited Kurunthurmalai. Sumanthiran said that an interim injunction has been filed to stop any excavation work but the injunction has not been granted yet.
“We will not allow this to happen. We will do everything we can. We will not allow those fields to be taken away from Tamil farmers," Sumanthiran said during his visit.
Later that day, Prof. Channa Jayasumana, State Minister of Production and Wildlife and Conservation Minister CB Ratnayake also visited Kurunthurmalai to join 40 Buddhist monks in a Sinhala Buddhist ceremony.
Since the end of the armed conflict, Sri Lanka has used state agencies such as the Archaeology Department as a guise to ‘discover’ Sinhala Buddhist sites in the North-East.
