Colombo has established 54 new military camps in Batticaloa district. 650 acres of lands have been appropriated for the occupying SL military, said Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Parliamentarian P. Ariyanethiran addressing May day rally in Batticaloa. Within the last 5 years alone, 145,885 acres of lands belonging to Tamil workers have been seized, Mr Ariyanethiran further said. The major land appropriation has taken place through the SL ministry of tourism seizing 122,063 acres through gazette notification within the last 5 years, the parliamentarian from Batticaloa said.
The genocidal land-grab is being carried out by a military of Sri Lanka wearing Khaki uniform, but there is also a Kaavi (Safron) wearing ‘military’ occupying our lands. They come in various forms such as ‘Bodu Bala Sena’ (Buddhist Power Force), the MP said. A Buddhist monk is continuously interfering in the civil affairs of Batticaloa district.
While Sinhala settlers have appropriated 5,030 acres encroaching into lands owned by Tamils, Buddhist monks have seized 8,576 acres in the district.
A further 84 acres have been appropriated in the name of sugarcane plantation.
This is the ‘development’ the Sri Lankan State is talking about.
The ruling UPFA party officials, including the chief minister of the Eastern Province, are behaving like the military officers of the occupying SL military.
“The SL Government Agent in Batticaola produced a statistics stating that 51,000 million rupees have been spent in the district for ‘development’ within the last 5 years. At the same time, the Government Agent was also admitting that cultural destruction has accelerated in the district,” Mr Ariyanethiran said. “You should think asking the question what kind of so-called development is coming with a trend of cultural annihilation,” he asked the Tamils who attended the May Day rally of the Tamil National Alliance at the Charles Hall in Batticaloa.
“What is the use of education if that is only serving this kind of development,” the MP asked and urged the Tamil academics to come forward to device plans to the freedom of the Tamil nation and the language with a commitment to democratic rights, he said. “We should resolve on the occasion of this May Day that we would safeguard our resources and the rights of our nation. Each nation [in this island] should have freedom to look after its affairs on its own,” Ariyanethiran said.
Commenting, activists for alternative politics in the East told TamilNet that the TNA, having the mandate of the Tamil people has not taken a single initiative in the direction of the May Day speech delivered by the TNA MP. Instead of doing politics with empty rhetoric, the TNA should take a serious assessment of its deeds after 2009 in giving leadership to Eezham Tamils as a nation.
“The real May Day message was delivered to the TNA by Ananthi Sasitharan in Trincomalee meeting,” an activist said.
TNA MPs P. Selvarasa, S. Yogeswaran and the councillors of the Eastern Provincial Council, R. Thurairatnam, Prasanna, K. Karunakaram, M. Ndarajah, G. Krishnapillay (Ve’l’limalai), K. Thurairajasingham and councillor T. Kalaiyarasan from Ampaa’rai took part in the meeting.
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