if Tamils allowed to live any where why not Sinhalese Muslim Burgers live anywhere

Now, US probes TNA allegation of GoSL changing demographic pattern in NP

February 21, 2014, 9:14 pm 

By Shamindra Ferdinando

The government has alleged that the US was making an attempt to justify allegations propagated by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that Sinhala families were being settled in the Northern Province in a bid to change the demographic pattern in the region.

 Authoritative sources told The Island that US diplomat Michael A. Ervin accompanied by an interpreter had visited Navatkuli, a village close to the Jaffna town, where he interviewed some of those Sinhala families who had returned to the peninsula after the conclusion of the conflict in May 2009. They were among those driven out of the Northern Province in the early 1980s. Sources said that the interviewed were among about 30 families now settled at Navatkuli. The US Political Officer had asked them about the circumstances under which they had been displaced, who supported them now and details pertaining to Sinhala population in the Jaffna peninsula at the time they fled the area.

The following day, the US diplomat visited Mullaitivu, where he received a briefing from TNA Northern Provincial Council member, Arumugam Ravikaran on what the provincial administration called ongoing attempts to change the demographic pattern in the Northern and Eastern Provinces.

Asked whether the US official had met TNA members when he toured Navatkuli and Mullaitivu to investigate TNA allegations, a spokesperson for the US embassy told The Island: "As we do on a regular basis, embassy officials meet local government and civil society in provinces across Sri Lanka.

This is part of our normal diplomatic work."

 Government sources pointed out that the TNA-US project should be examined against the backdrop of the recent British Tamil Forum (BTF) organised event in the House of Commons, where the Sri Lankan military was accused of taking over land belonging to Tamil civilians. Those allegations are likely to figure at the forthcoming 25th session of the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva.

According to the 1981 census before the outbreak of war in July 1983, 19,334 Sinhalese lived in the Northern Province and the majority of them in the Jaffna peninsula.

 The Defence Ministry said it was the LTTE that had changed the demographic pattern in the Northern Province by driving nearly 20,000 Sinhalese and over 100,000 Muslims from their villages. The Muslims had to leave the Northern Province within 24 hours in late Oct 1990.

 The US official’s visit coincided with British High Commissioner John Rankin and Foreign and Commonwealth Office official Ms. Julie Scott visiting the Jaffna peninsula. They, too, expressed concern over land issues among other matters.

And Indian parliamentary delegation in April last year raised the issue of the GoSL resettling Sinhala families in the Northern Province.  The six-member delegation was speaking on behalf of the TNA. Responding to the Indian delegation, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa emphasised that there hadn’t been a single such settlement since the conclusion of the conflict, while inquiring whether the Indian delegation was aware of any.