Sri Lanka’s Fisheries Minister Ramalingam Chandrasekar has announced plans to compensate Tamil landowners or allocate alternative land for property seized for the construction of the controversial Buddhist Tissa Vihara in Thaiyiddy, Jaffna - a move that has provoked renewed concern among Tamil politicians and civil society.
Speaking at a Valikamam North Regional Coordination Committee meeting on 12 June, held at the Divisional Secretariat conference hall, Chandrasekar confirmed that efforts are underway to resolve the land dispute surrounding the vihara.
“The Vihara issue cannot be allowed to drag on and we have decided to complete it within a month,” he said. He added that instructions have been issued to the District Secretary to return lands surrounding the vihara, excluding the area directly occupied by the temple, to private owners via the Divisional Secretariat.
“If the Vihara has indeed been constructed on private property,” he continued, “steps will be taken to either compensate the landowners based on the land's value or provide them with alternative lands.”
The Tissa Vihara has been at the centre of ongoing protests over its construction on approximately six acres of land originally owned by Tamil families who were forcibly displaced. The Sri Lankan military subsequently occupied the area, designating it a High-Security Zone (HSZ), and refused to return the land even after the war ended in 2009.
In 2018, the foundation stone for the vihara was laid by then-Northern Governor Reginald Cooray, and construction was completed by the military the following year, reportedly without the consent of the original landowners or approval from local civil authorities. The site had previously been home to the Vairavar Kovil, an ancient Hindu temple, further fuelling Tamil concerns of cultural erasure.
Tamil residents, politicians and civil society organisations have consistently opposed what they describe as the state’s Sinhalisation efforts through illegal land grabs and Buddhist construction projects. Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam has raised the issue in Parliament, accusing the military of acting with a “counter-insurgency mindset” and continuing to control Tamil lands under the guise of national security.
He also criticised the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress (ACBC), whose president Chandra Nirmal Wakishta, a former Director of the National Intelligence Bureau, has been accused of lobbying for the formalisation of the vihara and surrounding land.
Despite local and international condemnation of forced land acquisitions and demands for accountability, the NPP government’s latest move appears to formalise an occupation widely regarded as illegal, prompting fears that future disputes may be similarly resolved without proper restitution or justice for displaced Tamils.
