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“Come forward to rehabilitate Tsunami struck villages in the Tamil Homeland”

“The North-East coastal habitats of the Tamil Homeland have suffered immensely in the destruction caused by the recent tidal wave and the Tamil Diaspora has a moral responsibility to extend the hand of fraternity in mapping out a strategy to select villages and rehabilitate them and we appeal to our brethren to take over this magnanimous humanitarian task” said the Sea Tiger Chief Col. Soosai in a media briefing recently. Excerpts:

“It is our Tamil brethren overseas who have, during the past two decades, helped to sustain the economy of our people. Most difficult periods of war and economic embargo saw the Tamil Diaspora helping our people survive. This time round it is Mother Nature’s fury that has hit our people unlike the hitherto man’s inhumanity to man. It is true that many parts of this island are equally affected, but there is a difference, a stark difference at that.

Mullaittivu was a lush hamlet in the Tamil Homeland with rich paddy fields and an active commercial town laced beautifully with a sandy beach and the ocean rich of sea life. Farmers and fishermen had equal potential in this district. The political agenda of the Colombo regimes made use of this potential to induce Sinhala colonists and thereby implement the subtle intention of bifurcating the contiguity of North-East Tamil Homeland with state aided colonisation of Tamil habitats with Sinhala settlers. Sri Lankan military harassed the indigenous Tamil population of Mullaittivu, chased them away, established military complexes and made it a fully militarised zone without civilian population. With this buffer zone, interior parts of Mullaittivu were Sinhalised. The village of Manal Aru was literally given the Sinhala name Weli Oya.

After ten years of occupation, we successfully evicted the military in 1998 in a major offensive operation. What was left to the original inhabitants then was devastation of the infrastructure and mine fields left by the military. It is the resilience of the people and our organisation that brought Mullaittivu back to what it was when the tidal wave struck. This is what makes the disaster different from other places in Sri Lanka. Also, a sizeable population in the sea coast consisted of people from many fishing villages in the Jaffna peninsula that are classified as High Security Zones and access denied to the people who were condemned to continue their displaced life in spite of three years of cease fire and the peace process. Many of such families too were wiped away by the tidal wave.

It is under these circumstances, that we make this appeal to our brethren overseas to consolidate their contributions and make meaningful interventions in taking villages for rehabilitation in an organised manner. We, as a responsible freedom fighting organisation, have successfully accomplished a major task in the rescue and immediate relief operations. This major humanitarian challenge of rehabilitating and reconstructing these Tamil villages is in your hands now”

02 January 2005

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