Sri Lanka’s Northern Province Chief Minister CV Wigneswaran met with the a leading Buddhist clergy in Kandy to outline Tamil grievences last week.
Meeting with the leader of the Malwatte Chapter in Kandy, the Chief Minister outlined several grievances of the Tamil community including the intense militarisation of the North-East and the need for the majority community to acknowledge the distinct identity of the Tamils.
The Chief Minister told the leading prelate of the Malwatte Chapter that over 150,000 troops were station in the North-East and continued to hold approximately 85,000 acres of land, reports the island.lk.
Speaking on political aspirations Mr Wigneswaran said the Tamil community’s demand for federalism was not an attempt to divide the country, during the meeting with one of the two leading Buddhist clergies.
Responding to the chief minister’s request for the prelate to ask the president to remove the military from the North-East, the prelate stressed that the army could not be removed from the Northern Province.
Mr Wigneswaran went on to further outline that the war had severely impacted the Tamil community leaving 89,000 war widows in the North-East with little livelihood.
The Chief Minister, further highlighted that the state sponsored moving of southern fishermen to northern fishing waters was severely affecting the livelihoods of the Tamil fishing community.
