Sri Lanka: The intentions behind the land grabbing process

Introduction

In the so-called ‘post-war’ Sri Lanka context, land grabbing, Sinhalization and military occupation of the Tamil nation have become pivotal points in the political development discourse. The deep concerns that exist amongst the majority of the Tamils, which are directed towards their present and future existence, are these same issues.

The political discourse within the international community is unable to keep pace with the real-time implementation and effects on the ground. The international community continues to talk about reconciliation and the Sri Lankan state seems keener on Sinhala settlements and militarization in the Tamil nation. All three actors have not only different aspects but their own interests as well. For the Tamil people living in the Northeast of the island, the apparent predominant concern is the ability to retain a dignified life; now and into the future. Having said so, this article analyses the real intention behind the land grabbing process being accelerated by the Sri Lankan State, particularly since the end of Eelam War IV in May 2009.

Interpretation

When the brutal war on the island came to end in May 2009, over 146,679 Tamil people, were still unaccounted. Crucial stakeholders of the ethno-political conflict of Sri Lanka thought that it heralded an opportunity for reconciliation between the polarized communities to build durable peace on the island.

In contrast, the Sri Lankan regime began building military bases, Sinhala settlements, Buddhist statues and stupas in the North East of the island. The Government that brought in the disastrous Sinhala Only Act in 1956 seemed to believe that the time for full level implementation and reactivation of the Act had arrived after nearly a four-decade hiatus. Thereby deliberately targeting the Northeast. Out of a total land mass of 65,619 sq km, the Tamils inhabited 18,880 sq km of land in the north and east, but after May 2009, the Sri Lankan Armed Forces have come to occupy more than 7,000 sq km of Tamil land.¹ 

Latest data reveals that at least 6,069 acres of public and private lands are occupied by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces (SLAF) for the purpose of opening up Sinhala colonies in the Vanni region. It is worth noting that this excludes already occupied lands in Jaffna region and the ‘Eastern province’.² There is an official process, which indicates that 6,400 acres of civilian land will be seized for military purposes in Jaffna HSZ.³ People also complain that Sinhala Buddhist archaeologists are engaged in nefarious activities of Sinhalization. They are said to be visiting Tamil areas and 'excavating' Buddha statues that they themselves had planted earlier. The purpose of this exercise is allegedly to claim that the territory in question had been a Sinhala Buddhist area. The Sri Lankan regime has proclaimed that they ‘liberated’ the Tamil people through a so-called ‘humanitarian operation’. If indeed that is the case, the question arises as to why they believe there is a need to deploy the notorious military throughout the Northeast in such a large scale and appoint war criminals as governors of the region? 85,000-86,000 soldiers are at present in the North and East.⁴

This number does not include the separate deployment of a Task Force in the East, and of the Navy and the Air Force. The Sri Lankan Army is comprised entirely of Sinhalese, and the people of the North are almost entirely Tamil.⁵ The military’s increasing control of administrative decisions in the North and East, including distribution and use of land, has turned the issue of land ownership into a deeply politicized and ethnically-charged one. Administrative and developmental decisions in North-East Sri Lanka are frequently taken by the military in consultation with the Presidential Task Force for Resettlement, Development and Security (PTF) and the military is involved in various committees set up as a result of the September 2011 government policy regarding land in the North East. Furthermore, the military continues to impose restrictions on humanitarian, developmental and psychiatric social work, accentuating existing resentments and impeding quick recovery of the civilian residents. The presence of large numbers of army personnel, particularly in the north, has increased the vulnerability of women to violence and other forms of abuse including rape.⁶

To counter the increasing international pressure, the regime is building roads and bridges under the banner of reconstruction and developments. Hon. Christine Robichon, the French Ambassador to Sri Lanka said in an interview, “Healing the wounds of the war is not limited to reconstructing roads and bridges.”⁷ The reconstruction and development process has not focused on the basic human needs such survival, well being, freedom and identity or interests of the Tamils. Rather efforts and priority has been given to the interests of Sinhala businessmen, settlers and the military. Tamil aspirations are being ignored, grievances are being denied and the current expectations regarding reconstruction and development in Tamil areas are not being heard. The State instead continues with its long-term agenda with specific intentions.

Intentions

Soon after the war came to an end, Sri Lanka's Buddhist nationalist party the Jathika Hela Urumaya [JHU], which backs the Sri Lankan government, said: “each road in the liberated areas in the North should be named for the war heroes who sacrificed their lives for the nation's liberty”.⁸ The genocidal war on the Tamil nation has been depicted as the Sri Lankan nation’s liberation and perpetrators of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity have been extolled as war heroes.

The mindset of the Sinhala chauvinists is that the entire island belongs only to Sinhala Buddhists. This entrenched mentality encourages the destruction of any identity that seems to be a counter or a threat to Sinhala Buddhist domination. This mindset has emerged from a chauvinistic interpretation of the Mahavamsa, which states that Buddhism needs to be preserved for a period of 5000 years in the island until the next arrival/reincarnation of Buddha.⁹ This idea has led to the Sinhala Buddhists believing they are of racial superiority with the island belonging to them alone as they were the chosen ones.¹⁰ The extreme form of this ideology has led to the belief that other communities in the island are invaders or mere visitors with no entitlement to the same privileges as the Sinhala Buddhist.

The Jathika Chintanaya, a concept originated by Dr. Gunadasa Amaresekera in the 1980s, buttresses this Sinhala Buddhist majority mindset. Jathika Chintanaya which transalates loosely to mean ‘National Thought/ National Conciousness’ seeks to create a common national polity, economy and culture irrespective of religious and ethnic divides.¹¹ It seeks to promote Sinhala nationalism to reassert the dominance of the Sinhala community and the protection of Sinhala rights, which it believes diminished during colonial rule.¹² The Chintanaya promotes the fact that all communities in Sri Lanka belong to one culture and hence refers to Sri Lanka as ‘one nation’. This alienates other communities because it attempts to subsume their identity within the most dominant Sinhala Buddhist identity.

This mindset supported by the Jathika Chintanaya has led to the adoption of a cruel attitude, which assists their acts of annihilation of the Tamil nation through the process of genocide of the Tamil people. Twelve days [11 July 1983] before the 1983 pogrom, which was considered the first mass level genocidal attempt against the Tamil people, the Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene said in an interview to the UK based Daily Telegraph, “I am not worried about the opinion of the Tamil people..… now we cannot think of them, not about their lives or their opinion ... Really if I starve the Tamils out, the Sinhala people will be happy”.

After a quarter century, former Sri Lankan Army Commander and 2010 presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka said; “I strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our people...We being the majority of the country, 75%, we will never give in and we have the right to protect this country... They can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things.”¹³

The statements of the Sinhala leaders clearly articulate their intention to eliminate the Tamil people from the island. This deliberate process has been executed through either mass level slaughters or the eradication of the ethnic and cultural identity of the Tamil people. The forcing of the Tamil people to assimilate into Sinhala identity is also part of this agenda. The statements and actions across Sinhalese party lines validate the view that a change in leaders or regime will not be a change in policy of the Sri Lankan state, the prime architect of genocide of the Tamil people.

Strong evidence of this notion can be ascertained from statements made as early as the first Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, D.S.Senanayake in his address to colonists in Padaviya (an area linking the Northern and Eastern provinces): “Today you are brought here and given a plot of land. You have been uprooted from your village. You are like a piece of driftwood in the ocean; but remember that one day the whole country will look up to you. The final battle for the Sinhala people will be fought on the plains of Padaviya. You are men and women who will carry this island’s destiny on your shoulders. Those who are attempting to divide this country will have to reckon with you. The country may forget you for a few years, but one day very soon they will look up to you as the last bastion of the Sinhala.”¹⁴

Fundamentally, the Sinhala chauvinist belief is that the entire island belongs to Sinhala Buddhists only and the Tamil existence in the island is to be considered a major threat against them. Therefore, following the Mu'l'livaaykkaal mass atrocities, the present post-war period is deemed to be the ideal stage to grab the Tamil lands through militarization and Sinhalization. The next step will inevitably be an attempt to erase the Tamil ethnic and cultural identity completely. This development will lead to the annihilation of the Tamil nation from the island. Hence, it can be concluded that ethnic cleansing and Sinhalization is thus a vital component of the genocidal agenda of the Sinhala state. 

© JDS

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Nirmanusan Balasundaram is an exiled journalist and a human rights defender. He holds an MA in Peace and Conflict Studies from the European University Center for Peace Studies in Austria. 

Notes:

1. http://www.theweekendleader.com/Causes/615/Exclusive:-Inside-Lanka.html

2. http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=35339

3. http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=36248

4. http://www.theweekendleader.com/Causes/615/Exclusive:-Inside-Lanka.html

5. http://www.thehindu.com/news/article3915391.ece

6. Chatham House, Asia Programme Paper ASP PP 2011/05, Sri Lanka: Prospects for Reform and Reconciliation, Charu Lata Hogg, October 2011.

7. http://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/172-opinion/20947-healing-the-wounds-of-war-is-not-limited-to-reconstructing-roads-.html

8. http://www.colombopage.com/archive_091/May1242654127RA.html

9. See L. Marasinghe, The British colonial contribution to disunity in Sri Lanka, 6 Sri Lanka J. Int'l L. 81 (1994); also see J.L. Devananda, The Mahavamsa mindset: Re-Visiting political Buddhism in Sri Lanka, http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/1886

10. See Charles R.A. Hoole, A Reassessment of Sinhalese Utopia: Explorative Essay on the Sri Lankan Political Crisis, 33 J. Church & St. 95 (1991)

11. Kanishka Goonewardena, ‘National ideology’ in a Buddhist state, October 2007,http://himalmag.com/component/content/article/1333-‘National-ideology’-in-a-Buddhist-state.html

12. ibd.

13. Interview with Stewart Bell of the National Post newspaper of Canada, 23 September 2008

14. The excerpt quoted by M.H. Gunaratna was related to him by Davinda Senanayake, D.S’s grandson. (p.201 of ‘For a Sovereign State’, by M.H.Guna¬ratna).

The article first published in http://www.jdslanka.org/index.php/2012-01-30-09-31-17/politics-a-economy/314-sri-lanka-the-intentions-behind-the-land-grabbing-process

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November 28: Appalling attack and deafening silence

On the evening of the November 27 at 06:07 PM (local time), flames were lit in commemoration of Maaveerar Naal 2012 (Martyrs’ Day 2012). It was initiated by the Tamil students from the Jaffna University.

Pre-deployed Sri Lankan troops forcibly entered into the Ladies’ Hostel and attacked the students and damaged properties, soon after they realized that the flames were lit inside the Ladies’ Hostel of the Jaffna University. The victims called the University administration to escape from the attack and seek safety. However, following the attack tensions prevailed.

More troops and policemen were deployed to the university vicinity by the Sri Lankan defense establishment in Jaffna. The next day (November 28), the students called for a nonviolent protest in opposition to the military attack against the students. The sit-in protest which took place within the university premises revisited memories of the Satyagraha campaign led by the late S.J.V.Chelvanayagam.

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Sri Lanka: Militarizing the land and terrorizing the minds

“Given that 75% of the army’s divisions are stationed in the Northern Province, in addition to other formations such as task forces and independent brigades and regimental units, it is not unreasonable to assume that at least 60% of the army, i e, approximately 1,80,000 personnel, are stationed across the Northern Province.” - Notes on the Military Presence in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province | Economic & Political Weekly, July 14, 2012

Nearly four decades of asymmetric war between the Sri Lankan state and the Tamil guerrillas ended in an unprecedented bloodbath, which was seen by some as "unacceptably high".  Regardless of the fact that such statements naturally arouse anyone's cynical curiosity to know what could be an "acceptable level of bloodbath", it confirmed that the State's decisive victory over the guerrillas was achieved by massacring hundreds of thousands of Tamils. It was a well calculated and masterly executed systematic war plan which was grounded on state's unwavering determination to annihilate any number of Tamils to reach their ultimate goal.

Consequently the Tamil inhabitants who traditionally lived in those areas were forced to vacate their native lands due to obvious concerns for their safety and security.  These traditional places of habitation consisted of residences, places of worship, schools, community buildings, farm lands and coastal fishing zones.

War and peace.., and war again

In the aftermath of the large scale military offensives, the displaced survivors hoped that their right to return would be granted. But they could not have been more wrong about the intentions of the state. Instead, the end of the decades long military standoff has triggered off an accelerated plan aimed at further weakening and destroying the collective national life of the surviving Tamil population in the north-east of the island. Therefore the new wave of militarization and land grabbing taking place in the Tamil areas, should be seen as an integral part of the same systematic military offensives waged to subjugate Tamils.

The current land grabbing plans need to be understood as the calculated outcome of a state policy. The grabbed land is mainly taken for either militarization or colonization purposes. In principle, both militarization and Sinhalization projects are mutually interconnected and they are specifically designed to complete the annihilation plan of the Tamils as a nation. In addition, the policy is aimed at eliminating the collective national existence of the Tamils, and intends to ensure that any future Tamil national revival would never materialize.

'The almost entirely Tamil-speaking north is now dotted with Sinhala sign-boards, streets newly renamed in Sinhala, monuments to Sinhala war heroes, and even a war museum and battlefields that are open only to Sinhalese. Sinhala fishermen and businessmen are regularly given advantages not accorded to Tamils. The slow but steady movement of Sinhala settlers along the southern edges of the province, often with military and central government support and sometimes onto land previously farmed or occupied by Tamils, is particularly worrying. These developments are consistent with a strategy – known to be supported by important officials and advisers to the president – to change “the facts on the ground”, as has already happened in the east, and make it impossible to claim the north as a Tamil-majority area deserving of self-governance.' (Read : Sri Lanka’s North I: The Denial of Minority Rights") To fulfill this policy without facing much obstacles and challenges, the incumbent regime has started appointing ethnic Sinhalese as administrative decision-makers on every prominent level in the north, which is an area where solely Tamil speaking people live.

For example, under this process, an ethnic Sinhalese has been appointed as the Government Agent (GA) of Mannar district and interestingly, this measure was taken following the intense Sinhalization process taking place in the district since the LTTE was militarily defeated in May 2009. In a similar move, out of 15 Divisional Secretariats that comes under Jaffna district, already three Divisional Secretariat (DS) posts have been filled by ethnic Sinhalese, even though the people who live in all the three divisional zones are Tamil speaking families.  'In the North, Jaffna included, the military and especially the Army is for all intents and purposes the government as the civilian administration remains enfeebled; the Province itself is run by a Governor, who until just prior to his appointment was the head of the Security Forces Headquarters, Jaffna.' (Read: How Credible are the Latest Official Claims Concerning Troop Reductions in Jaffna?)

The motto: 'Grab and occupy'

According to parliamentarian M. A. Sumathiran, "out of a total land mass of 65,619 sq km, Tamil people inhabited 18,880 sq km of land in the North and East. But after May 2009, the defence forces have occupied more than 7,000 sq km of land owned by Tamil people.”  Moreover, the latest data reveals that at least 6,069 acres of public and private lands are occupied by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces (SLAF) for the purpose of opening up Sinhala colonies in the Vanni region. It is worth noting that this excludes occupied lands in Jaffna and the ‘Eastern province’.

The Tamil people are compelled to live through the negative effects of militarization in their day-to-day life while fearing that the state aided Sinhalization process would flush them out of the area in the long run. 'The Tamil-majority north remains under de facto military occupation, with all important policies set by Sinhala officials in Colombo. The slow but undeniable movement of Sinhala settlers into the fringes of the north and other forms of government-supported “Sinhalisation” are reigniting a sense of grievance and weakening chances for a real settlement with Tamil and other minority parties to devolve power.' (Read: Sri Lanka’s North I: The Denial of Minority Rights)

The occupation by the SLAF affects the normal civilian activities, including resettlement, education, religious and cultural activities and free access to resources such as agricultural and fishing zones. The latest edition of the Economic and Political Weekly (quoted at the beginning of this article) points out that given the extent and nature of the military presence in the north, it is not hard to see why some view it as an “occupation”. ‘Three years after the war, the Northern and Eastern Provinces together are the focus of 18 of the 20 Divisions of the Sri Lanka Army, besides other military units and formations. The military occupation of land and the militarization of land administration are especially serious issues with several ramifications. A ratio of 1 security personnel for every 5.04 civilians in the Northern Province or a force density of around 198.4 security personnel per 1,000 civilians' cannot be defended in any circumstances, and is simply for the purpose of the Sinhalization and militarization of the Tamil nation.

The review further states that a '2012 memorandum of the US Department of the Army, building on the IDA study, notes that the force density in Iraq in 2007 (the time of the “surge”) was around 20 per thousand civilians. According to a Joint Doctrine Publication (JDP) of the UK Ministry of Defence, in the mid-1970s the force density in Northern Ireland was 23 security personnel per 1,000 civilians. Further it refers to  Goode’s (2009-10: 46) estimate that counter-insurgency security forces under French command in Algeria peaked at nearly 60 per 1,000 residents while the Russians committed more than 150 soldiers per 1,000 civilians in Chechnya in 2003, in the course of the bloody second Chechnyan war.'

'Occupy Jaffna'

The entire land area of the Jaffna district is 1,025 km² (out of 8884 km² of the North). It has always been one of the favourite targets of consecutive governments as it holds a symbolical value as the cultural capital of the Tamil nation. The city withstood the massacre on the occasion of the World Tamil Research conference in 1974 and the burning down of the Jaffna public library in 1981, which was known to be one of the largest libraries in whole of Asia, containing over 97,000 books and manuscripts. In addition, Jaffna is the only district in the island that has at least three daily news papers, despite various attacks on free media, including the assassination of at least fourteen media workers within a period of six years. Furthermore, Jaffna is relatively well-connected with the Tamil Diaspora living scattered around the world, despite it being occupied by the SLAF since 1995.

In reality people live under fear, while the military administration functions on the policy of the Rajapakse regime, projecting itself as a 'symbol of normalcy and good governance '.  Civil liberties, from freedom of expression to freedom of assembly, are denied. The desperate need of the people to live a normal life with dignity was clearly expressed even after the recent visit of an Indian delegation. “The people of Jaffna want the army to go back to the barracks,” said Congress MP E.M Sudarsana Natchiappan after his meetings in Jaffna in April 2012.

However, the details below reveal the gravity of the unaddressed humanitarian issues while the accelerated militarization and Sinhalization schemes are rapidly dominating the normal life in Jaffna.

Some 70,000 members from 26,000 families have been living as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in 23 Grama Niladari Divisions in Valikamam DS Division alone for more than a decade.  While the pleas of these Tamil people who keep demanding their right to return to their ancestral lands has been conveniently neglected, programs for the Sinhalization process have been speeded up. For example, under the direction of the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry, steps have been taken recently to acquire 20 acres of land which belong to private owners in Oddakappulam, Vasaavi'laan East. It has been further confirmed that these lands have been occupied by the SLAF for the last 20 years which originally belonged to 200 families. In a similar move, a large Navy garrison is being constructed in Mandaitivu on 200 acres of agricultural land, which also belongs to Tamils.

The Sri Lankan Navy in Valikaamam West near Thiruvadinilai has acquired 100 acres of land belonging to a private owner in order to build a Navy Camp. The Navy in Maathakal have acquired lands forcefully in three Grama Niladari Divisions (J/150, J/151, J/152), blatantly violating  the rights of 258 families who owned the lands.

Since May 2009, 151 families have been resettled in Ki'laali, where a Northern Forward Defence Line (FDL) was maintained during the war. Now, they have been moved back to IDP camps and are not even allowed to engage in fishing, upon which they depend for their survival. A similar development is also occurring in Seanthaanku'lam, which is located close to the Thellippa'lai area.

Despite the fact that the people have demonstrated their will to return to their native areas by making repeated appeals to the government officials, no decision has been made to grant them their lands. As a result, around 119 families of Va’lalaay Division are still not granted permission to resettle who currently live displaced in Ma’natkaadu,  Ampankudaththanai, Point Pedro and Munai.  Similarly, 45 families from the Allaarai Raamaavil area have requested the GA to stop the SLAF, from constructing a camp on private land by preventing the owners from returning. 73 schools, from four educations zones in Jaffna, have been shut down while the military governor of the Northern Province has announced that permission will not be granted to recommence activities of the Palaali Teachers’ Training College, since 57 acres of land belonging to training school remains under the occupation of the army which is a part of Palaali high security zone. Many more similar cases can be listed in the same manner, if needed.

Lessons unlearned

Military occupation and Sinhalization are not only causing worries. But such policies create an atmosphere of permanent fear. 'The army has grabbed vast expanses in the north, either to set up military bases, farm for profit or, many Tamils fear, resettle Sinhalese from the south and change the demographics. The construction of Buddhist monuments where no Buddhists live reinforces those fears.' (Read: Abuse by Sri Lanka’s army rubs salt in wounds of war)

The massive slaughter campaigns carried out during the war did not achieve ultimate success in deterring the Tamils in the long run and forcing them to abandon their collective aspirations. Therefore, the victimized Tamils is now being subjected to a new wave of terror campaign through state aided land grabbing plan which go hand in hand with the processes of militarization and Sinhalization. A refreshed plan of selective assassinations, abductions and torture is being used as the relatively soft coercive tactics failed to deliver the expected results. Therefore the policy of colonizing the land is supplemented with a policy of terrorizing the minds of the surviving population.

Even three years after a destructive and protracted war, the repressive and intransigent character of the ethnocratic Sri Lankan state remains same and nothing but naked brutality lies at its heart. It does not show the slightest willingness to change itself into a democratic and pluralistic civilized body, since it does not contain the potential to transform itself.  It is a lesson that Tamils learned in blood of several generations. But it still remains a lesson that needs to be learnt by the rest of the world.




http://www.jdslanka.org/index.php/2012-01-30-09-31-17/politics-a-economy/136-sri-lanka-militarizing-the-land-and-terrorizing-the-mind

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Reconciliation in Sri Lanka: Breaking the Myth and Bringing the Truth

“There cannot be reconciliation without justice. Justice and equity are at the core of reconciliation” – Professor Hizkias Assefa

The platform for an “genuine reconciliation” should be rooted via the democratic exercises, rights and participation of all citizens throughout a country. But, if people are under fear to express their grievances and aspirations, including opposition political parties, dissident voices, independent media and even some ruling party government ministers how can a national minority discriminated and oppressed for more than five decades practice their rights in Sri Lanka?

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