No Housing Facilities to Sinhala IDPs in Jaffna but for Tamil IDPs by SLA
A housing project in Keeramalaya in Jaffna was declared opened by army commander, Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake who has pioneered this housing project when he was appointed by pro-federal Yahapalana government lead by Sirisena and Ranil as the Jaffna Commander. The construction work has been carried out by Joint Project Management Team (JPMT) which is comprised of Army, Navy, Air Force personnel and some potential house owners.
This second phase of the housing project provides 25 new houses to the Internally Displaced Tamil People (IDP). The official ownership documents were also handed over to the house beneficiaries in a ceremony held on 30th March organised by Sri Lankan Army and District Secretariats of Jaffna.
Each house has been built on a 20-perch land at a cost of around Rs. one million. The house comprised with two bed rooms, living and dining area, kitchen, toilet and a bathroom. In addition to that basic infrastructure like water, electricity roads, community center, drain systems etc. are also being provided in the settlement.
Earlier, the Keeramalaya Housing Project was declared open by pro-minority mind set Maithripala Sirisena in October 2016 under the so called one sided reconciliation programme for Tamils.
The so called Yahapalana government and SLA has not taken similar initiative to address the grievances of internally displaced Sinhala people in Jaffna. Before the LTTE Tamil terrorism in Jaffna there were over 50,000 strong Sinhala communities in Jaffna. A Sinhala school, Sinhala Maha Vidyalaya in Jaffna, was well functioned with over 1,000 students. Presently, while all other Tamil lands, Tamil properties are being handed over to the Tamil no Sinhala Maha Vidyalaya being handed over to the Sinhala people in Jaffna.
Nearly 50 Internally Displaced Sinhala families presently are cramped into a piece of land in Nawakkuliya in Jaffna without any basic amenities and without any support from the local officials and from the so called Yahapalana government. Most of the Sinhala families are suffering without proper employment and schooling facilities in Jaffna for their children. Their children are separated from the parent and are studying other places in the country. Extremist, racist and politically motivated Tamils and Tamil politicians are constantly threatening and harassing these Sinhala villagers and the Buddhist temple in the village. The politically and racially motivated Tamil officials are denied the land ownership for the Sinhala villagers and have taken court order to stop all development works of the Buddhist temple in the village. The Yahapalana government has not taken any actions to address these issues of the Sinhala people while addressing all the issues of minorities under so called one-sided reconciliation.
While Sirisena and Ranil had visited several numbers of time to Jaffna to look after the plights of Internally Displaced Tamil People and have addressed their problem but never visited the only Sinhala Village in Jaffna in Nawakkuliya nor provided any development assistance such as building of houses, infrastructure, schools for Sinhala children, development of Buddhist temple under the pretext of so-called reconciliation.
The Joint Project Management Team (JPMT) which is comprised of Army, Navy, Air Force personnel have not also supported to the development of Sinhala village in Nawakkuliya while they are building houses, roads, churches for the Tamils in Jaffna under pretext of so-called reconciliation.