08 August, 2011
| Unlike most of the other refugees, the residents of Mullivaikkal have not been able to go to back home |
An opposition party in Sri Lanka says the government has decided that the original residents of a key area of the former war zone will not be allowed to resettle in their home villages. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which is the biggest ethnic Tamil party in the country, has demanded an explanation.
The government has declined to comment.
In early 2009, villages with names such as Mullivaikkal and Putumattalan became synonymous with the horrors of the Sri Lankan war.
Here on the north-east coast hundreds of thousands of civilians were trapped as the army fought, and conquered, the Tamil Tigers.
'Sinister reasons'
Unknown numbers of people died or were gravely injured.
The surviving people to whom these villages were once home, remain in displacement camps.
Unlike most of the other refugees, they have not been able to go to back home.
The government says their home area awaits demining.
But the opposition TNA now says it has learned that the people are to be permanently resettled at an inland site and not permitted to return to the Mullivaikkal area.
Interviewed by a newspaper, The Island, the TNA leader, R Sampanthan, asked for an explanation, saying these people were fishermen and wouldn’t be able to do their job inland.
In a separate statement the TNA said that there must be what it called “sinister reasons” for their non-resettlement.
Contacted by the BBC, senior military and civilian officials declined to talk about the matter or were unavailable on the phone.
At the same time a wider row has broken out between the same party, the TNA, and the government.
They have held 10 rounds of talks this year on political reforms to solve the ethnic problem.
The TNA has now accused the government of using the talks as a mere facade of reconciliation.
The government, in turn, has accused the TNA of trying to – in its words – sabotage peace and unity.
