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Tamils’ lands in north, east Sri Lanka to be released by December 31
Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has ordered the release of all Tamil civilian lands held by the state in the country’s Northern and Eastern provinces by December 31, the President’s office said on Thursday.
By
migrator
migrator
Colombo
Sri Lanka witnessed a three decade-long civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during which the military occupied civilian lands in the Northern and Eastern provinces for military purposes.
It was not clear if the latest release instructions came from Sirisena in response to representations made by the main Tamil party, Tamil National Alliance (TNA), in late August.
The TNA had told Sirisena that even nine years after the end of the civil war both agricultural and residential lands continued to be in the possession of the armed forces.
Pointing to the lands in Keppapilavu in Mullaitivu district, the TNA said 75 acres of private land owned and possessed by locals for generations and centuries was held by the Army.
Sirisena told them then that more than 85 per cent of the lands held by the military belonging to civilians had been released.
However, the TNA urged that to achieve reconciliation and national integration all land belonging to the people which are now in the possession of the armed forces should be released without any further delay.
Earlier this year, the Lankan government was set to return over 800 acres of military-occupied land to its original Tamil owners in the Eastern Province as part of the reconciliation process.
The decision was made after the Resettlement Committee received the Cabinet approval to return 818 acres of land in the Sampur area back to its original owners, the Lankan government’s official news portal reported.
In 2017, the Lankan military had said it ended its control over a major fishing harbour it had occupied in 1990 in the former war zone of Jaffna.
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