A re-merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces as a single political administrative unit alongside acknowledgment of the Tamil people’s right to self-determination, is the only way to achieve a true political solution for Tamils in the North-East, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) spokesperson told the Sunday Leader.

Deeming the de-merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces as an attempt to deliberately change the demography of the North-East, Suresh Premachandran said,

“The military has formed Sinhala colonies in the North, thereby depriving our population the right to their own lands. This issue started after the controversial Court ruling to de-merge the two provinces. This situation deteriorated after the end of the war. Sinhalese from the South had been settled in our lands and the government has deliberately changed the demography in the North and the East. Tamil ancestral lands in Murugandi that the military had taken over had been used to construct housing projects consisting of more than 10,000 housing units with Chinese aid, for the military personnel.”

Highlighting the Sri Lankan government’s refusal to hand appropriated land to Tamil owners, he said, 

“The lands were taken over for security purposes but never returned to the owners after the war. When we filed a petition in the Supreme Court demanding that the lands be returned to the rightful owners, we were told that the lands will be returned after the de-mining process is concluded. But the lands in question are yet to be given back, although the government keeps claiming that they have de-mined most of the areas.”

“Most of the beach-front properties in the North and the East had been taken over and given away to those in the Tourism industry to build hotels. These were ancestral properties of the Tamils, and in addition, their agricultural lands too had been taken over which is distressing,” he added.