Orchestrating Tamil Hordes
By Rajan Hoole -October 10, 2014
Dr. Rajan Hoole
The declared Government policy on encroachment as contained in a cabinet decision, was to regularise all bona fide encroachments made prior to 31st March 1979, if the land did not fall within reservations, and to debar encroachers after 7th April 1980 from be- ing considered for land. Deserving non-citizens on encroachments prior to 31st March 1979, were to be allowed to remain on their encroachments until their citizenship was decided (see Gamini Dissanayake, referred to below).
Following the announcement of JOSSOP’s ‘flushing out’ operation, cabinet minister and Ceylon Workers Congress leader Mr. S. Thondaman made a statement to the Press in India which was carried in the Hindu of 13.10.83. He said:
“Instead of implementing the declared policy of regularising the settlements of people of Indian origin in these areas where they were transported and dumped as refugees after the previous holocausts, a concerted attempt was made by officials to drive them out of their holdings under various false pretexts. This was further intensified around the middle of July when Police and security personnel set in motion a wave of terror intimidating settlers and driving them away.”
Thondaman’s argument was that in accordance with the cabinet decision the encroachments of Plantation Tamils who went into the North-East as refugees following the 1977 communal violence, and thereafter for reasons of insecurity prior to 31.3.79, should have been routinely regularised. But instead there had been a concerted attempt to drive them out. Technically, the cabinet decision would not cover Plantation Tamils who came to the North-East following the August 1981 violence which badly affected Tamils in several areas, including Ratnapura.
