Ceylon Today Editorial

IS THERE A RIP OFF? TAMIL RESETTLEMENT STINKS

14 September 2016

Deeply agonizing human issues persistently cling on to us. Such as the Tamil resettlement scam. Read on.

Politics is not called a cesspit and the last resort of the scoundrel as mere off-the-cuff remarks.

Those who lived in Valikamam North are to be settled in Keerimalai and a few others are to be resettled in the Myliddy areas. Let's remember that vested interests cut deals with those in power to grab comparatively better lands on which their original homesteads were located.

Let's not forget that Tamil politicians too come under either or both of the categories given above....As Churchill had it "Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year....and to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen." We are telling you, now, why things are happening the way they are.

Let us quote a report on Lakshman Kadirgamar's ancestral property in Jaffna: " The former Minister who inherited the land from his mother, was a strong critic of the LTTE and considered Sri Lanka's best Foreign Minister of all time. Minister Kadirgamar's brothers have also extended yeoman service to Sri Lanka, as military officers of rank and eminent lawyers.

His son's petition against the Government's acquisition of his personal property .... will join several other petitions filed by some 2,000 land owners in the Northern Province alleging acquisition of their traditional lands by the Government. The struggle for land has been a root cause of the ethnic issue since the 1950s.

We do not know how many Muslims are among the resettled nor do we hear a word from the combined Muslim leadership in Parliament, except when it's time for them to campaign for votes to get back into Parliament.....even if it means resettling them by driving out the wild animals from nature parks!!..

Let's take the blinkers off and look at what's happening in the South where the poor get kicked out from lands which show a track record of three generations of their ancestors, on the pretext that the land was wanted for 'Urgent public projects' as this paper highlighted in a recent scam in Slave Island exposed by Ravi Ladduwahetty. If marginalized Muslim and the poorer sections of the Muslim community can be sold a dud steer under both Yahapalanaya and MR-Palanaya as badly as it was done under Prabhakaran Palayanaya, it's about as clear as a summer sky that the Tamil refugees of today can also expect a fast one pulled on them and white-washed by Tamil politicos.

The track record tells us that successive governments, in cahoots or not, with Tamil and Muslim political leaders who kept silent or absented themselves from Parliament, used, turned, twisted or introduced retrograde legislation to acquire land for either real development purposes, for ensuring security of sovereignty or for outright militarization that flies in the face of all pretentions to human rights, while extending high security zone perimeters.

As food for thought, especially, to Tamil leaders and to make politicians in Colombo wiser in the ways of politics and in human affairs, may we submit a quote from Wikipedia, and those who can read between the lines can be called the blessed ones.

Wikipedia on the Cherokee lands: "In March 1883, Kansas cattlemen incorporated under the laws of Kansas to form the The Cherokee Strip Live Stock Association.[They negotiated a five-year lease for the entire outlet for $100,000 per year, payable semi-annually in advance. At the end of the five years, the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council put the lease up for bid, hoping to get a better price. The Cherokee Strip Live Stock Association eventually got the bid for $200,000 per year, but the lease was nullified by Congress, which then authorized purchasing the land for $1.25 per acre. Having previously rejected a bid from the cattlemen to buy the land for $3.00 per acre, the Cherokee protested in vain that the government price was too low. President Benjamin Harrison forbade all grazing in the Cherokee Outlet after 2 October 1890, which eliminated all profit from leasing the land. After that, the Cherokee sold off the land at prices ranging from $1.40 to $2.50 per acre. The Cherokee Strip Live Stock Association would disband in 1893, the same year the Outlet was opened to non-Indian settlement. [LETS CALL THEM FOREIGN INVESTORS]

Actual payment did not occur until 1964, when the Cherokee finally settled their claims against the US Government for the actual value of the Cherokee Strip land opened to settlement in 1893. This amounted to about $14.7 million, which was paid to the original allotment holders or their heirs. The tribe also received an additional $2 million in accrued interest".