File photograph: Ravikaran joined protesters to block the illegal installation of a Buddha statue at Kurunthurmalai, Mullaitivu, in June 2022.
Sri Lanka's government bodies, primarily its forestry, wildlife and archaeology departments, are appropriating Tamil owned land for the the settlement of Sinhala people in Mullaitivu, former Northern Provincial Council member Thurairasa Ravikaran told Virakesari last week.
Speaking to reporters, Ravikaran stated that in the Mullaitivu district, 74.24% of the total land area of nearly 590,000 acres is under the responsibility of Sri Lanka's Forestry Department.
During the armed conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Sri Lankan authorities were kept out of many areas. Only 37% percent of the land that was densely forested was under their control.
Following the end of the armed conflict in May 2009, the Sri Lankan government appropriated large tracts of fertile land belonging to the Tamil people under the guise of various governmental departments.
Sinhalese settlements in some parts of the confiscated lands, such as Manal Aru (Sinhalised to Weli Oya), stretch to 28,500 acres, forming a separate divisional secretariat. The Sinhalese settler population there is being grown to such an extent that it has become an existential threat to the Tamil people.
"The government should serve the people only when the people can do their agricultural activities through those lands and help the country by enriching their livelihood. Instead of that, in order to oppress the Tamil people, if entire acres of land in Mullaitivu district are confiscated and carried away, where will the people go?" Ravikaran questioned.
According to the district secretariat around 69,000 acres of land is associated with the water bodies Chundikkulam, Naayaaru and Nanthikkadal. Sri Lanka’s Department for Wildlife has appropriated 29,400 acres of land. The cases filed by the wildlife department against 130 landowners was adjourned to 2 May.
Over six hundred acres of this land belongs to Tamil farmers in places like Iranapalai, Semmangunnu, Ambalavan Pokkani, Mathalan, Valairamadam, Mullivaikkal. The Wildlife Department has already seized their land and wants to annex these into a bird sanctuary.
Sri Lanka's military and police aid the various government departments to acquire and alter the demography of the Tamil homeland to build a unitary Sinhala Buddhist state.
