Indian HC hands over 117 million rupees to Gotabaya

Bank drafts worth over 117 million Sri Lankan rupees were officially handed over by Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Alok Prasad to Colombo’s Secretary of Defence Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Wednesday, for the ‘rehabilitation’ project of the air force base at Palaali (Palaly) in the Jaffna peninsula. This is the second instalment of Indian assistance to the improvement of the runway, according to SL defence ministry. Meanwhile, India intends to withdraw its medical team from August 31, as most of the urgent medical needs of the war displaced in the Menik Farm zone assigned to the Indian hospital had been met, The Hindu reported.

The Palaali airbase project, in the light of Rajapaksa’s earlier statement that Kaankeasanthu’rai (KKS) harbour will be given to India and coupled with plans to re-build the cement factory at KKS, means that large tracts of land along the northern coast of the peninsula grabbed by Colombo, in the guise of High Security Zone, is never going to be returned to people, said an academic in Jaffna.

KKS_Palaali_82477_445 “New Delhi and Colombo have overlapping interests over Eezham Tamil land,” the academic said, pointing out the need of this stretch of land on one hand for the security of India’s Sethu Canal Project and on the other hand for the Sinhala state’s intention of having a massive security establishment and demographic changes at the very heart of the Tamil homeland.

“Eezham Tamils were never allowed to conceive their own development in their own homeland ever since colonial times and it continues,” the academic said citing how an airstrip at Palaali was the need of the British during World War II to counter possible Japanese invasion.

According to him, in the water-scarce peninsula, the fertile land of Palaali having potable water wouldn’t have been the choice of an Eezham Tamil planner for the airport, when there are large tracts of unproductive lands available elsewhere in the peninsula and in the islands.

A couple of years back when Colombo’s occupying forces were restoring the runway, huge quantities of limestone was obtained from the old cement factory quarries of the nearby KKS, threatening the entire groundwater salinity of the peninsula. The threat revisits now, the academic said.

It should be now obvious to everyone what ambitions of plunder made the IC to abet and India to forge partnership with Colombo in the total annihilation of all safeguards of Eezham Tamils and in their incarceration. It also explains why they don’t even want to recognise the nationalism of Eezham Tamils.

Making use of the deliberately created power vacuum of Eezham Tamils and continuing it in that way by sitting on all international intervention, and after silencing Tamil Nadu through Karunanidhi, Colombo and New Delhi are busy in ethnic engineering in the Tamil homeland.

Eying on the Eezham Tamil homeland without satisfying the nationalist aspirations of the people is a short-sighted policy especially for India. The continued cornering of Eezham Tamils by the Indian Establishment may boomerang one day if they decide to join the Sinhalese in inviting the Chinese.

For seven decades now airports are operating in Jaffna and Trincomalee in the Tamil homeland, but largely for military purposes. Eezham Tamils are denied of direct international communication to their homeland.

What India and IC should insist with Colombo is to open up these airports for direct international communication.

While the ferry service from KKS to Naakappaddinam and Kayts to Athiraampaddinam were stopped with the so-called independence, the flight from Palaali to Trichy was stopped in the 70s citing terrorism, the ferry from Thalai Mannaar to Rameswaram was stopped in the 80s, and while the Eezham Tamil regions are awaiting for long their communication link, Colombo and New Delhi are making arrangements for linking Tamil territory with Sinhala districts and are now talking about starting ferry service between Colombo and Cochin in Kerala.

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