THE Sri Lankan military on Sunday dismantled the Cheddiku’lam Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp and forcefully removed the inmates, without making any permanent arrangement for their resettlement or return to their original villages.
The most seriously affected group are the villagers of Keappaa-pulavu of Mullaiththeevu district, whose village has now been grabbed by the occupying military.
The Sinhala military was quick to announce on Sunday, ‘There will be no more Internally Displaced Persons in the country from today.’
On Friday, the camp inmates, having lost all confidence in the Colombo government, had demonstrated and directly appealed for international intervention to enable them to return to their homes.
But on Sunday evening, the occupying Sinhala military dismantled all the fences and other structures at the Cheddiku’lam IDP camp.
The families didn’t want to vacate without an assurance of returning to their own homes and lands.
The SL military, that now occupies their village, wants them to move to a school building for now and then accept alternative lands in other places for resettlement.
When they dismantled the camp on Sunday, the SL military left the people exposed to the elements.
Knowing the ‘techniques of intimidation’ of the Sinhala military and the repeatedly proven complicity of the International Community and its institutions like the UN in subjugating them to the genocidal state of Sri Lanka, the inmates of the camp were watching the heavy vehicles transporting their belongings on Sunday night.
They were told that they would be transported to Vattaappazhai by buses on Monday morning.
They have no idea where they will be eventually dumped for ‘resettlement’.
Last week, the villagers of Chooriyapuram in the IDP camp were taken for ‘resettlement’ and were dumped at a nearby jungle tract without any facilities, including water to drink.
Meanwhile on Sunday, a commander of the occupying Sri Lanka Army, Maj Gen Boniface Perera who is appointed by Colombo as the ‘competent authority’ for IDPs in the northern region, told Colombo-based Daily Mirror that there are ‘no more displaced people in Sri Lanka from today’.
‘A total of 1,186 people from 361 families – the last of a group of more than 300,000 displaced during the war in the north – will leave the Vavuniya Manik Farm (Cheddiku’lam camp) for their original places of residence in the Mullaitivu district today,’ he said.
Eezham Tamils were gagged from exposing the farce of resettlement that on one hand, forces economic subservience on them for generations to come and, on the other hand, facilitates militarisation, Sinhala colonisation, demographic changes and, on the whole, a structural genocide.
Following Friday’s demonstration at Mullaiththeevu for resettlement of the people of Keappaa-pulavu back in their own village, on the next day, Saturday, the SL military started threatening the villagers in the IDP camp at Cheddiku’lam to immediately vacate it, and move temporarily to a school building at Vattaappazhai and accept the SL government offer of another place for resettlement.
When the people insisted that they want their village and cultivation lands back, the Sinhala military commander started shouting in his language that either willingly or not, all people would be removed from the camp before Monday.
Speaking to TamilNet on Saturday, the TNPF leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam blamed the International Community for the current plight of Eezham Tamils.
Also, the occupying Sinhala military was deployed in large numbers to intimidate the demonstrators in Mullaiththeevu on Friday
‘As in the case of Champoor and the case of Valikaamam, if the people from Keappaapulavu leave the Cheddikku’lam camp, without any assurances that they will be returned permanently to their own homes within a specified timeline, they will never be able to return to their homes
‘Their so-called temporary residences would in fact become their permanent residences . . . as a result, they would lose their livelihoods and everything they possess.’
‘This is a strategy to make Tamils orphans in their own land.
‘If the International Community continues to handle the resettlement in such a way, the very existence of Tamils as a distinct nation in the island will be a story of the past’, he warned.
Unless the International Community comes forward in a meaningful way to ensure the rights and welfare of the oppressed nation of Tamils in the island, the annihilation of the nation cannot be prevented, Gajendrakumar added.
According to TNPF circles, the SL government is in a hurry to shut down the Cheddiku’lam camp, even by dumping the people in temporary shelters at other places, just to be able to pretend to the world that all people have been resettled.
‘This is a farce, as we all know, that everyone is entitled to go to their homes,’ Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam told TamilNet, reacting to the news from Cheddikku’lam camp.
‘They have been intimidated and are today either living in areas which are not their own, or are forcibly sent to new areas, but the world is informed that the people have willingly accepted the alternative lands, and the government is “people-friendly”,’ Gajendrakumar said.
Also on Saturday, the commander of the occupying Sinhala military for Keappaa-pulavu region, Samarasinghe, took the SL Government Agent of Mullaiththeevu and other district officials along with him and went to the Cheddiku’lam camp.
At the camp, the representatives of the Keappaa-pulavu village were told that they would be vacated from the camp and would be taken to Vattaap-pazhai Mahaaviththiyaalayam School for a temporary stay, until alternative land is identified for their ‘resettlement’.
The people were also told that all facilities would be provided to them in order to facilitate their new settlement in alternate lands.
However, the representatives of the Keappaapulavu people insisted that their only request and condition to leave the Cheddiku’lam camp is that they should be allowed to resettle in their own homes and in their lands that belonged to them, and that they are not interested in temporary or alternative ‘facilities’.
The civilian representatives further told the SL military commander and the SLGA that the lands that belonged to them and were fertile lands where they had all the resources necessary for livelihood and a life of contentment.
But as the people reiterated their stand, the SL military commander and the officials changed their tone and started to force them to accept the Sri Lankan ‘offer’.
A Sri Lanka military intelligence operative took a video of the demonstrators.
This has become a routine intimidation tactic of the occupying SL military.
Then, the SL military intelligence operatives accompanying the team started with their usual intimidation technique of photographing and videoing the people and their responses.
The representatives of the villagers were ‘reminded’ that there were ‘government employees’ among them and that they were getting salaries from the SL government.
Despite the threatening and very confrontational behaviour of the officials, including the SL military and intelligence officials at the meeting, the Keappaapulavu representatives stood firm.
As a compromise, the villagers suggested that a written undertaking from responsible high officials of the SL government should be made ensuring that they will definitely be resettled in their own homes within a specified period.
In that case, leaving Cheddiku’lam camp for the school at Vattaappazhai could be considered, they said.
But the military and officials were not prepared to give any such assurance.
The meeting ended with the SL military official, who was speaking in Sinhala, losing his temper and shouting in a hostile and aggressive way that under no circumstances would the villagers be allowed to remain in Cheddiku’lam camp after Monday.
