by Lt Col.(Retd.) Anil Amarasekera

Considering the history of warfare be it a war between two nations, or an internal civil war within a nation, ninety percent of all such wars have been fought for the acquisition of land. Here in Sri Lanka too the separatist war that ended on 19^th of May 2009 with the annihilation of the military leadership of the LTTE at the Nandhikadal lagoon, centered on the acquisition of land to establish a mythical homeland for the Tamils called Eelam, in the northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka.

Origin of this conflict could be traced to events that took place in India in the Nineteen Sixties. The Tamil population in the world today exceeds 118 million people settled in many countries of the world. The majority of this Tamil population amounting to approximately 65 million lives in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. However Tamil Nadu is only another state in the Indian configuration and not a sovereign and independent nation. Therefore an active separatist movement in the nineteen sixties gained popular political support for Tamil Nadu to secede from India and to establish a separate sovereign and independent nation. The Indian political leadership in New Delhi knowing very well that this would usher in the beginning of the breakup of the Indian configuration, enacted legislation to make any separatist movement in India illegal and the central government of India took drastic action against the separatist movement in Tamil Nadu, not only to bring to an end all such activity but also to totally eradicate any possibility of such effort in the future in that state.

The political developments in Tamil Nadu that espoused separatism were also an encouragement for power hungry Tamil politicians to commence such activity in Sri Lanka too. Unable to establish a separate sovereign and independent nation for the Tamils in cradle of its civilization and in an area that the majority of the Tamils live in the world, due to stringent action by the Indian central government in preventing any such a move, the Tamil political leadership in Tamil Nadu as well as in Sri Lanka focused attention on efforts to establish a separate sovereign and independent nation called Eelam in Sri Lanka. The Vadukoddai Resolution of 14^th May 1976 clearly indicates these intentions of establishing a separate and independent Tamil homeland called Eelam in the northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka through separatist activity.

In this context the word ILAM (Eelam), today, comes into much prominence. It is, apparently, being used to connote the impression of ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-a land of the TamilsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚. Indeed, the Tamil word ILAM was never before used in that sense. On the contrary, this Tamil word ILAM did not refer to Tamil land but to the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Land of the Sinhala peopleƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚. None other establishes this than the Tamil lexicon published under the authority of the highest seat of Tamil learning- the University of Madras. Page 328 of this Tamil lexicon has the following entry: ILAM, n< Pali, Sinhala, 1. Ceylon. What it says is that ILAM means the land of the Sinhala people. The Tamil word given as the meaning of ILAM reads ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-SINHALUMƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚. The term ILA in Tamil means ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-SINHALAƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚, having its origin in the word HELA, by which term the ancient people of LANKA were known. Thus ILAKKACHU in Tamil means ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-Sinhala CoinsƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚- ILA means Sinhala, Kachchu means Coins. Similarly, since NADU means LAND, ILANADU means the Sinhala land. According to the said lexicon the word ILANADU was derived from ILAM. The foregoing establishes the fact that the word ILAM (Eelam) never referred to any Tamil land but always signified the Sinhala land. Therefore if one were to ask for ILAM (Eelam), what is being asked for is the traditional homeland of the Sinhala people. ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 

Being a retired Army Officer I must confess that I have little or no information regarding the strategy of the present government in its implementation of the Uturu Vasanthaya. However the accelerated pace at which the two hundred and eighty thousand internally displaced Tamil people are being resettled though commendable leaves many questions unanswered.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  I have been informed by a very reliable source that of the very recent internally displaced Tamil families resettled in the Mullaittivu district one hundred and fifty families are not citizen of this country.

When I visited the Manik Farm on two occasions last year, I was very surprised to meet several people of Indian Tamil origin from the older generation who spoke good Sinhalese. When questioned with regard to their ability to converse so fluently in Sinhalese, they informed me that they were estate Tamils who had lived at one point of time in the hill country among the Sinhalese. Many of them may be those that were identified to be repatriated to India under the Sirima Shastri agreement. They were subsequently resettled in the Mullaittivu and Kilinotchchi districts after communal riots by International Non Governmental Organizations such as the Redd Barna in an effort to link the Northern Province to the Eastern Province to create a land mass exclusively inhabited by Tamils. This was a surreptitious effort to establish a Tamil homeland in the Northern and Eastern Provinces better known as Eelam and thereby to divide and destabilize our country.

Before LTTE took control of the Northern Province, illicit immigration from Tamil Nadu to Sri Lanka was prevented by the Army through a Task Force for Illicit Immigrants. For thirty years after the government lost control of the Northern Province the said task force did not function and the possibility of many illicit immigrants migrating from Tamil Nadu to the Northern Province during this period cannot be over ruled. How then is the government going to establish who is a citizen and who is not when resettling internally displaced people in the Northern Province? I am made to understand that the accepted procedure for those who have lost their National Identity Cards is to obtain an affidavit from the Grama Niladari confirming residency in his division.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  On the strength of such an affidavit a new identity card is issued. This may be the only country in the world where citizenship can be thus established on an affidavit from a single government servant.

For over thirty years the LTTE controlled most of the Northern Province and accordingly it was the LTTE that alienated land to the people and not the government of Sri Lanka. Most of these lands were alienated by the LTTE to Maha Weera families. Therefore if resettlement is to be implemented with people moving back to lands alienated by the LTTE, the government would only be implementing LTTE strategy of establishing a Tamil Eelam that the Security Forces fought so hard to destroy with so much blood, sweat, tears and toil and sometimes by sacrificing even their life and limb.

The Tamil people who lived in the Northern Province be they citizen or not did suffer untold misery during the last thirty years under the Jackboot of the LTTE. Tamil people living in Jaffna district were first driven down to the Kilinotchchi district like a herd of cattle when the Security Forces took control of the Jaffna district. When the Security Forces commenced operations in the Mannar district the Tamil people living in that district too were driven like a herd of cattle to the Kilinochchi district. When the Security Forces advanced into the Kilinochchi district the Tamil people that were driven from Jaffna and Mannar districts to Kilinochchi district were next herded like cattle to the Mullaittivu district by the LTTE. The so called humanitarian organizations, the International Non Governmental Organization and the western nations that now express much concern with regard to the conditions in the government run welfare centers for the internally displaced Tamils were totally silent when the LTTE was driving these innocent Tamil people from one district to another like cattle, to use them as a human shield. These Tamil people be they citizen or not finally broke away from the LTTE cordon and moved into government controlled areas, seeking protection from the government, risking their very life and limb.

It was the LTTE and not the Security Forces that established mine fields round the areas where these innocent Tamil People were forced to live, to prevent them escaping into government controlled areas. Clearing such mine fields around villages in the Jaffna, Mannar, Kilinochchi and Mullaittivu districts has become a daunting task for the Army, though they have succeeded in doing so in double quick time, to make these villages available for human habitation once more.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  However since the Tamil people left the areas under LTTE control and arrived in government controlled areas voluntarily, the government was granted a golden opportunity to resettle these people in villages with proper infrastructure facilities where electricity, water and communication etc could have been provided. Has the government squandered away this opportunity due to pressure from some powerful western countries? If people are resettled in small pockets where they were originally settled by the LTTE, it may become a nightmare for the Security Forces to provide security to such resettled areas in the future. It is important to understand clearly that there can be no development through the Uturu Vasanthaya sans proper security.

Screening of 280000 internally displaced people to identify LTTE carders also has to be implemented very carefully to prevent ex LTTE carders from being released to live in resettled villages. If they are not identified and rehabilitated they will regroup once released and commence sporadic guerilla attacks on resettled villages. No amount of pressure from western countries can be a good enough reason for speeding up resettlement compromising on proper screening. It must also be remembered that the 280000 internally displaced Tamils are those who moved into government controlled areas during the final stages of the war against LTTE terrorists.

There was an exodus of many more internally displaced people from the Northern and Eastern Provinces to the South, perhaps approximately 300000 during the thirty year period that the LTTE destabilized the country. While most of these people were Muslims there were also some Sinhalese who were displaced from the Northern and Eastern Provinces. These people have suffered as internally displaced people for much longer with little or no help from humanitarian organizations than the recently internally displaced Tamils in the welfare centers. It is the duty of the government to resettle these people in their original habitats with the necessary infrastructure, if the government is to give serious consideration to national integration as opposed to segregation. Resettling Tamils be they citizen or not in strategic areas that link the northern province to the eastern province will result in the creation of a land mass exclusively inhabited by one ethnic community namely the Tamils. The human conflict in Sri Lanka with relation to land acquisition for the establishment of a homeland for the Tamils has to be understood in this context.

There is much evidence to prove that the Tamil Diaspora together with many international and local nongovernmental organizations backed by several western nations have been working surreptitiously to destabilize and divide this country. Even certain United Nations agencies such as UNHCR where majority of its local staff are Tamils sympathetic to the Eelam cause have been guilty of such activity. A good example to prove this fact is the UNHCR Draft for Discussion on proposals to the parties, for comprehensively addressing land, housing and property rights in the context of refugee and IDP return within and to Sri Lanka, prepared and presented by UNHCR to the government of Sri Lanka in 2003.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The Draft for Discussion is based to a great extent on extensive experiences gained by UNHCR in the area of refugee and IDP housing, land and property rights, in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, Croatia, Guatemala, Georgia, Tajikistan and many other countries undergoing postƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…”conflict reconstruction. Though such experiences maybe helpful, it would be inexpedient to rely entirely on such experiences, without giving due consideration to the cause of the conflict in this country. For conflict resolution to be successful in the long-term, just and fair solutions accepted internationally have to be found and implemented, without which post conflict reconstruction would be similar to building sand castles on the beach, since they get washed out to sea at high tide. As in most countries, here too the cause of the conflict is territorial ambition. It is therefore necessary for the international community that includes the UN agencies such as the UNHCR, to evaluate the claim for the disputed territory by both parties in a just and fair manner, giving due consideration to all relevant facts.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Without giving due consideration to relevant facts, if opinions are expressed by UNHCR in a Draft for Discussion, this could not only mislead the international community, but would also be counterproductive for conflict resolution in the long-term.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Such an incorrect opinion is expressed in the UNHCR Draft for Discussion under Obstacle 6, in the last paragraph of page 13 and the first paragraph of page 14, which is quoted below.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-settlements were implemented in the Eastern Province under the Allai, Kanthalai and Mahaweli irrigation schemes. With the escalation of the conflict, strategic settlements were also established by the central Government with the support of the military in various locations. One such scheme is the Weli Oya scheme, as part of the Mahaweli L System. This area which engulfs various districts- Trincomalee, Mullaitivu, Vavuniya and Anuradhapura- is now exclusively administered by the Anuradhapura District authorities, Tamils have perceived these Sinhalese settlements as a strategic military move to disrupt the settlement pattern from North to East and the establishment of a militarized Sinhalese settlement corridor. These settlements could very easily undermine the return process. In other cases unseen forces with the help of the Army and Police are unofficially settling persons from outside the district along the main road from Habarana to Trincomalee and in the fish market area in Trincomalee. This has caused concern among the Tamil community as they are seen as calculated attempts to disturb the ethnic ratio or demography in the region. There are also reports that agencies, such as the Mahaweli Authority, have given land in the Eastern Province to people with no reference to previous ownership/occupancy.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The Allai and Kanthalai scheme were commenced over sixty years ago, when there was no ethnic conflict and it is a fact that land was alienated without any ethnic bias. In the early eighties, there was an effort by the Gandhian Movement, to settle Indian Tamils repatriated from the plantations, in the Yan Oya basin. This Movement was a front organization formed to support the separatist effort in this country. Their intention was to link up the Northern Province to the Eastern Province, through a corridor of exclusive Tamil settlements. In this endeavour LTTE was later successful in driving away twenty-three ancient Sinhalese villages from the Gomarankadawala Divisional Secretariat Area, in the Trincomalee District. Efforts were also being made by the LTTE to destabilize the Padaviya settlement, in the Anuradhapura District that was established in the early fifties, in an exclusive Sinhalese area. These are two areas in the Yan Oya basin with many ancient Sinhalese villages that have existed for thousands of years. The aim of the LTTE was to terrorize and drive away the Sinhalese population from the Yan Oya basin, a landmass needed for their future Eelam, in order to link the Northern and Eastern provinces. The government therefore had no option but to establish the Weli Oya settlement, to give defence in depth to both Padaviya and Gomarankadawala. Terrorists used to operate in small groups at night, in uninhabited areas along the Habarana Trincomalee main road, blasting electric pylons and burying land mines. Therefore families were settled along the main road, in such uninhabited areas for security reasons. These families were from the vicinity and not brought from outside, as mentioned in the Draft for Discussion. The ethnic ratio in the Trincomalee district does not become problematic, if the ratio that existed according to 1981 census is accepted, and the land policy formulated on that basis.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The Government of Sri Lanka represents all citizens, namely the Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslims and all other communities. It cannot therefore be expected to represent only the Sinhalese people. The LTTE however have claimed that they are the representatives of the Tamil people. Therefore when Tribunals are formed for conflict resolution, it is not only the Tamil and Muslim point of view that needs to be considered but also the Sinhalese point of view, more so as they are the majority population. In page 36 of the Draft for Discussion, where Step 3 to appoint a Tribunal on land, housing and property rights are dealt with, the majority Sinhalese population is entirely ignored, as observed below.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-When the Commission and district-level Boards are unable to resolve land, housing or property disputes, other problems or are otherwise unable to give satisfaction to returnees seeking to repossess their habitual residences and lands, claimants should then have access to an independent and impartial Tribunal to provide judicial solutions to outstanding issues. The Tribunal on land, Housing and Property should be comprised of five members, including two international judges nominated by the United Nations, and one judge each nominated by the Government, the LTTE and the Muslim Community.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

Here the parties to the conflict are the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE. Therefore nominating a judge from the Government and another from the LTTE is not disputed. However what is the rationale behind the nomination of a judge from the Muslim Community? It is not only the Tamil and Muslim communities that have been internally displaced. Many families from the Sinhalese population too have been displaced from the Northern and Eastern Provinces of their country. Why is it not proposed to nominate a judge from the majority Sinhala population? Is it a deliberate effort not to redress the grievances of the internally displaced Sinhalese people of the Northern and Eastern Provinces?

Finally in the last paragraph in page 39 of the UNHCR Draft for Discussion, which deals with Land Allocation. The paragraph concerned states as follows.

ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-The problem of landlessness and essential homelessness will also need to be addressed by the parties within the context of refugee and IDP return. Although by their very nature incapable of submitting restitution claims, the CLHPR is designed to also provide assistance to the landless, and these processes require the support of the parties. As a first step to solving the problem of the landless, State lands in each of the nine districts where the Boards on Land, Housing and Property Rights will operate should be identified for distribution to the landless. These reserve lands will be of use both in solving long-term landlessness and for providing a pool of land for distribution to current secondary occupants who will need a land or housing solution once they move from refugee or IDP lands or homes.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

Most Provinces other than the Northern and Eastern Provinces in the country are over populated and there is an acute shortage of land for development projects. It is also a fact that most of the land that could be developed is available in the Northern and Eastern Provinces. If the envisaged Interim Council is established for the merged North and East with full administrative powers over alienation of land, in such an event land will be inevitably reserved for the future generations of Tamils and Muslims. The Sinhalese majority, presently living in over populated provinces in the rest of the country, will thus be deprived of land for development in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, of their own country.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Every citizen, living in this country should have the right to purchase land and live in any part of the country, without harassment. This basic human right of a citizen is practiced without any discrimination, in the Government administrated areas, while it was not so in areas which were under LTTE control. What UN agencies such as the UNHCR should endeavour to achieve is to extend the right for any citizen of this country, to develop land in any part of his country, without any ethnic bias. The quoted suggestion in the UNHCR Draft for Discussion contravenes this basic human right, encouraging land to be reserved for the landless descendants of Tamils and Muslims. It completely ignores the needs and Sinhalese majority.

The latest news with regard to surreptitious efforts by western countries to destabilize and divide this country is that USAID is taking thirteen government officials from the central and provincial ministries on a seven day study tour to Timor-Leste (East Timor) to learn how land ownership issues are resolved in that US and Australian colony. East Timor became the first new sovereign state of the 21^st century on 20^th May 2002. It is a tiny state completely dependent politically, economically and militarily on major powers. Is this what USAID is planning for Sri Lanka by surreptitiously helping to divide the country to accommodate a tiny Eelam?

I am placing these thoughts on record for those who are formulating policy to act upon without further delay. If the concerns expressed in this article are not addressed by those who are now formulating policy, it would not be long before we revert back to square one on land acquisition for the establishment of a separate state of Eelam, through the division of our country as envisaged by vested interests and then all the effort of the Security Forces in defeating the LTTE to protect and preserve the unity and territorial integrity of our nation for posterity would have been of little use.