Monday, April 26, 2010

Jaffna Tamils Decry Development Plan of Sri Lankan Gov't

Two cyclists from the minority Tamil community are shooed away by government soldiers as they approach this northern Sri Lankan city’s only Buddhist temple while President Mahinda Rajapaksa is paying a visit.

But when a family from the majority Sinhalese family ambles toward the guards, they are treated more amiably.

These twin incidents during Rajapaksa’s rare visit to Jaffna on Apr. 1 illustrate the contrasting ways in which soldiers from an army made up largely of Sinhalese treat the majority and minority ethnic groups.

Nearly a year after the war ended, burnt out, shell-shocked buildings can be seen lying side by side with spanking new ones for banks or financial services as Colombo firms rush to grab a share of the new business opportunities in Jaffna.

But youngsters and city elders clamor for a different kind of development. "We need to be able to own rather than be bystanders (to development)," said a city businessman, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisal.

Nirmala (not her real name), a high school student, said banks and financial services are not helpful to the Jaffna Tamils.

"A lot of banks setting up branches here are employing people from Colombo. We don’t have jobs. On the other hand, the banks take our deposits, but getting a loan is difficult because the banks want collateral, which we don’t have because our properties have been destroyed or have been taken over by the army for military purposes," she said.

Nirmala was one of a group of 30 16- to 17-year-old high school students who met with IPS recently to discuss their future in an environment where livelihood and employment opportunities are scant. They were unanimous in saying that the people of Jaffna are not part of the development that the government is carving out for the north.

Most of them want to go abroad for studies and live there permanently. "There is no future here. We will always be second-class citizens,"

Perceptions of widespread insensitivity of the Colombo establishment to the city residents became more pronounced when a group of businessmen and bankers flew into the city in late March to lay the foundation stone for a new 80-room hotel being built by a Colombo bank.

Few Tamils from Jaffna were invited to the event and all the speeches were delivered in English even if the majority of the 700,000 people speak only Tamil. Furthermore, local residents questioned the location of the hotel as it is close to a sacred Hindu temple, visited by millions of Tamils every year.

"How can you sell alcohol or meat in a sacred location?" asked Arudpragasam Sivathamby, a taxi driver. Outside the same temple premises, dozens of Sinhala traders are doing business, in some cases displacing the Tamil merchants, causing resentment among the minority ethnic group.

"This is causing a huge problem," said Tamil parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran.

Development is only seen in the form of banks, finance companies and consumer firms opening up in Jaffna while job-creating industries or factories are still inexistent.

Tamils are hoping for a greater role in power sharing. However, Dr. S. I. Keethaponcalan, a political scientist from the University of Colombo, said that is not a priority for the government at the moment. "The government won a commanding majority at the recent parliamentary polls, and trying to appease the Tamils is not the biggest priority at the moment," he declared.

8 comments:

  1. Hello

    How to post on my blog
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    Below the “post a comment “window you will see “comment as: select profile”. Click on drop down menu and choose an “Anonymous” option.

    By using “Anonymous” option from the drop down menu will not prohibit you to use your pen name, any links or any text in the comment itself.

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  2. I think, Rajapakse is a tyrant and does not have to be careful and the seeds of a future conflict are growing rapidly. The Tamils now are leaving in open prisons in subjected daily to numerous road checks, roadblocks, checkpoints, patrols, systematic surveillance, harassment and intimidation by the Sri Lanka Army.

    The Tamils say ?We lost everything we had bit by bit in this displacement and at last we became beggars. Now we are beggars.?

    Clinton Anandeshan and Vishnunathan, aged sixty and sixty two respectively. They had come to North of Sri Lanka after the 1983 Black July riots from Kandy.

    Clinton has three girls and a boy. Vishnunathan had lost two sons, aged nineteen and twenty two in the final battle of the Civil War. His son in law lost his hand and the old aunt?s stomach was ripped open in a shell attack.

    ?From Paranthan, as other people were leaving, we too joined. It was terrible as the Sri Lanka Air Force attacks were fierce and the ground attacks were merciless. Some of our relations were killed with their little ones. Attacks were random and haphazard. We collected all our belongings including the asbestos sheets, door frames, furniture and the sacks of paddy, loaded them in a tractor and moved towards Murasumottai. We just settled there for a few months, midst heavy shelling. We put up a small hut for us only to sleep and built a bunker for safety. When it was unbearable we collected all we could take and moved towards Dharmapuram. On this journey we did not have a vehicle, so we had to take all we could on foot. The journey to Udayarakattu was very hard.

    Some of our own people, three of them died due to the tiresome, hard journey and bombardment. A few weeks there and we moved to Suvandirapuram. Every displacement reduced our traveling baggage.

    Then to Vaikkal, Vattuwal and Rettai Vaikkal (Double Canal) were the last places of our displacement. In all these places we suffered.?

    When asked: ?Do you enjoy peace now??

    ?There is some kind of normalcy. We lost everything. We want the Sri Lanka government to compensate our loss. At least the Sri Lankan government must help us in self employment by income generating projects. We were not beggars but today we have been made beggars. Recently we had to come to the Catholic convent to beg for some cash to buy some food to survive. We need employment

    We, the Tamils are still struggling to live, to survive now. There are so many of our children in detention camps, some more in the IDP camps. There are armed groups and the Chavekachcheri incident (A seventeen year old boy was murdered by unknown persons) proves the point. There is continuous checkingby the armed Sri Lankan soldiers in our resettled areas day and night . Any time the military can break the door down and the Tamils are taken away, never to return. We treated like criminals. We are afraid and there is no hope for us, no future now. Then do you think we enjoy peace in freedom??"

    ReplyDelete
  3. “In what country do you appoint an arsonist to put out fires?” Reporters Without Borders asked today after learning that Mervyn Silva, a politician notorious for insulting and physically attacking journalists, has been appointed deputy minister of media and information. "
    http://en.rsf.org/sri-lanka-mervyn-silva-gang-boss-minister-26-04-2010,37152.html
    Reporters without Borders and
    White Vans without Plates:
    This minister is widely known as Kudu Mervyn (a right hand of Gotabaya Rajapakse, Defence Secretary and former 7/11 outlet manager) is notorious for employing white vans to make opposition party members and journalists disappear without trace.
    He, like the President uses deregatory remarks about Tamils and profanity is his second language.

    ReplyDelete
  4. “In what country do you appoint an arsonist to put out fires?” Reporters Without Borders asked today after learning that Mervyn Silva, a politician notorious for insulting and physically attacking journalists, has been appointed deputy minister of media and information. "
    http://en.rsf.org/sri-lanka-mervyn-silva-gang-boss-minister-26-04-2010,37152.html
    Reporters without Borders and
    White Vans without Plates:
    This minister is widely known as Kudu Mervyn (a right hand of Gotabaya Rajapakse, Defence Secretary and former 7/11 outlet manager) is notorious for employing white vans to make opposition party members and journalists disappear without trace.
    He, like the President uses deregatory remarks about Tamils and profanity is his second language.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Appointing a deputy minister, Mervyn Silva, notorious for insulting and physically attacking journalists, tells the whole story about the Sri Lankan president and their real intentions against freedom and journalism.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Tamils have long suffered and deserve justice!

    War crimes are war crimes, so Sri Lanka's crimes should be subject to investigation by UN.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Appointment of Mervyn as media mogul confirms President Rajapakse's stand on democracy and freedom of expression.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Appointment of Mervyn as media mogul confirms President Rajapakse's stand on democracy and freedom of expression.

    ReplyDelete