SL military enslaves Eezham Tamils along border villages of Batticaloa district

The occupying Sri Lankan military has effectively enslaved the gagged Eezham Tamil families in the border villages of Paduvaankarai region. Seven years after the end of war in East, the livelihood of the villagers has worsened than during the times of the war. While the resources are being exploited by the intruding Sinhala colonists and fishermen on one hand, the Tamils are being provided only one option of becoming second class citizens serving the interests of the occupying SL military, Tamil activists in Batticaloa said urging immediate focus from the global Tamils on the deteriorating situation of Eezham Tamils in Paduvaankarai.

One of the worst exploited villages by the Sinhala militarisation in Paddippazhai division of Paduvaankarai region is Kachchatkodi village.

183 Tamil families were living there before 1990. After displacements during the war and the so-called resettlement after 2009, only 98 families are living in the village now. All of them are denied of humanitarian assistance and they lack facilities to revive their lost livelihood.

Kachcatkodi village has necessary natural resources to provide for the needs of the people. There are enough cultivation lands and fisheries potential in the village. Sinhala ‘homeguards’ and intruding Sinhala colonists from the border villages are exploiting the resources.

Even the fresh water fishing arrangements, which were meant for the resettling Tamil people, are being exploited by the SL military. The Tamil villagers are not allowed to engage in fishing. Even those who are ‘allowed’ to engage in fishing have to submit their catch to the SL military backed wholesale businessmen.

The resettled Tamil families also face threat against their lives by the wild elephants that have been brought from Hambantota and other places from the South into the jungles near Batticaloa by Colombo government’s Department of Wildlife Conservation.

While keeping the people suppressed, the SL military is systematically transforming some of the resettled people into suppliers of illegal alcohol suppliers. Dry rations are provided only to those families who are prepared to serve the SL military as local informants.

SL military has deployed a widespread scheme of psychological operations directed at the grassroots fabric of the Tamil society.

When Colombo seized the territorial control of Paduvaankarai from the LTTE in 2007 and projected its occupation on Eezham Tamils as ‘liberation’ of people from ‘international terrorism’, the USA and India were in the forefront in welcoming the Sinhala military occupation of the region. Now, the Tamil people of Paduvaankarai are being subjected to a systematic structural, cultural and demographic genocide by occupying Colombo and there is no concern from any quarters of these powers, Tamil activists in Batticaloa say urging the global Tamil community to find ways to ensure the structural independency of Tamils in Paduvaankarai in the future.

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