Allocate Sufficient Number of Houses for the Internally
Displaced Sinhalese in N & E or Arrange Payment of Compensation
Ranjith Soysa Media Spokesman For Global Sri Lankan Forum
His Excellency Maithripala Sirisena
The President of Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
The President Office
Colombo
Sri Lanka
Allocate Sufficient Number of Houses for the Internally Displaced Sinhalese in N & E or Arrange Payment of Compensation
The unenviable bleak situation faced by the Sinhalese who were earlier residents in the Northern Province is being ignored continuously and it is nothing but fair to consider allocating a sufficient number, of the proposed 65.000 new houses to alleviate their misery.
The government’s plan in rehabilitating the IDP’s should not be restricted to only the Tamil people but should equally consider the plight of the Sinhalese who were ousted from their residences from 1970s and 1980s in the North and East provinces and many of them are living in temporary makeshift sheds in the North Central Province, Eastern Province and villages in the district of Vavuniya.
On the basis of census carried out by the department of Census and Statistics of the Sinhala population in the flowing districts were as follows.
District | 1971 | 1981 | 2012 |
Yapanaya | 6,691 | 8683 | 2,284 |
Mannarama | 3,175 | 15,794 | 2,305 |
Vavniyawa | — | 3992 | 17,138 |
Madakalapuwa | — | 11,255 | 6,797 |
Source: Department of Census and Statistics of Sri Lanka
In Jaffna, the Sinhalese were engaged in businesses such as owning bakeries, jewellery shops, carpentries, vegetable stalls. They were threatened initially by the militant Tamil groups in the 70s and subsequently some of them were killed by the LTTE Tamil terrorists and the others were forced to run to save their lives mainly to the North Central Province. Their houses and the business premises were given over to the families of the LTTE members who belonged to the so called maha veer families, as the LTTE called them. Under the reconciliation process launched by the Government in order to have a meaningful unbiased and real reconciliation mechanism, the Government should make all possible arrangements to give back those properties appropriated by the LTTE to Sinhala people.
The affected Sinhalese submitted their claims for the return of the properties taken by force by the Tamil groups but to date have not received any response. The majority of the victims now live in the North Central Province leading a hand to mouth existence.
To be fair in the allocation of 65,000 houses which are going to be built for the internally displaced persons the Government has the duty to consider the plight of the Sinhalese, The total number of Sinhalese ethnically cleansed will be around 30,000 persons when the data from Kilinochchi, Kokavil, Mulative and other places in the Northern province are added.
We therefore,, request you to CONSIDER allocating a sufficient number of houses out of 65,000 houses to the Sinhalese IDPs on an equal footing with the Tamils from the Northern and Eastern Provinces or arrange payment of due and fair compensation to them.
Yours Sincerely,
Ranjith Soysa
Media Spokesman
For Global Sri Lankan Forum
Copy;
Hon Ranil Wickramasinghe – Prime Minister
Hon Mr D M Swaminathan -Minister for Resettlement
Hon Dinesh Gunawardane – Leader of the Joint Opposition