Tamil villages being given Sinhala names in HSZ Jaffna
It is reported that the SL military and some government officials are engaged in subtle program of Sinhalising the Tamil names of villages that are now under military occupation and classified as High Security Zones. Sinhala name boards are said to be installed in some places.
Senthankulam a village closer to Maviddapuram within the HSZ has now been named Sanghamiththapura in Sinhala. The military sources say that the Buddhist emissary Sanghamiththa is said to have landed here and therefore this territory belongs to the Sinhalese. Similarly, the commercial town of Kodikamam, south of Jaffna, it appears is to renamed Kottigama in Sinhala. This has been the practice of successive Sinhala governments from the time colonization of Sinhala settlers in Tamil homeland started in the 1940s. Pattipalai, Amparai, Kanthalai in the east and Manalaru and Mankindi malai in the north were all Sinhalised and renamed as Galloya, Ampara, Gantalawa, Welioya and Janakapura respectively. It is noteworthy here that the name of the military commander Janka Perera who ordered the eviction of indigenous Tamil farmers of Mankindimalai by force and Sinhalised it has been given to that colony, Janakapura in the Mullaitivu district. It is this very same commander who headed the military that invaded Jaffna in the operation Riviresa during 1995 and made 500, 000 Tamils as refugees overnight. Already many Tamil villages in Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Puttalam and Mannar have been renamed in Sinhala and the new landscape map of Sri Lanka contains the Sinhalised names for these Tamil villages.
24 December 2004
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Europe which has a total population of 800 million is made up of 45 language based nation states. South Asia which has a total population of one billion, (1000 million) is comprised of four states. Who is preventing and therefore benefiting by limiting new nation-states in South Asia?
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