Around 1.4 lakh Sri Lankan Tamils have ‘disappeared’ in the last 14 months in the northern part of the island nation and the Mahinda Rajapaksa government is planning to settle about 2.5 lakh Sinhalese in these areas, pro-Eelam activist and film director Seeman said on Thursday.
At a press conference here, Seeman also appealed to agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan to cancell his proposed plan to visit Sri Lanka for implementation of “Vadakin Vasantham,’ a scheme for reconstruction of Wanni. The 19-member committee set up to execute the plan did not have even a single Tamil on board. He demanded that the committee be dissolved and a new one set up to first look into the issue of the missing 1.4 lakh Tamils before embarking on resettlement.
Quoting figures, Seeman said the Rajapaksa government planned to settle 12 divisions of the Lankan Army , 20,000 police personnel, an equal number of officials and about 1.25 lakh members of their families in the north. The Indian government’s Rs 500-crore assistance was being utilised to construct houses and roads in places like Mullaitivu,he said. The first phase of resettlement was scheduled for August 7, he claimed.
Seeman alleged that a majority of Lankan Tamils had mainly ‘disappeared’ from Mannar, Vavuniya, Trincomalee and Jaffna districts. The refugee camps in Wanni predominantly comprised women, children and the aged and under the ‘Vadakin Vasantham’ scheme the government planned to use women as farm hands. He said Swaminathan, who had been invited by the Lankan government to participate in the programme, had announced his intention to train the women and resettle them in the Wanni.
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