Return Of Exiles: To The President & Prime Minister, “Cleaning Up Is Not Quarrelsomeness”

By S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole –AUGUST 10, 2018

Prof. S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole

Return of Exiles and the State

In responding to a question in Parliament by Charles Nirmalanathan on Wednesday 8 August, 2018, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe assured the country that all facilities and help are being and would be afforded to returning exiles, including airfare. He stated that from 2010 to date 9,509 persons had returned from India, and a further 3,815 exiles domiciled in India have expressed their desire to return. 

This Prime Ministerial policy of inviting exiles to return is not new. It was stated as Item 94 of the new government’s 100-point program, and followed up by a special announcement by the President in Parliament on 01.09.2015 promising a “Red Carpet Welcome” to returnees. That promise, three years later, remains unfulfilled, except for party supporters and dual citizen applicants who more often than not, use their citizenship to come into Sri Lanka on vacations without visas and use the duty free allowance for citizens. Few have made this their home.

That day, 08.08.2018, also brought refreshing news. Judge M. Elancheliyan of Trincomalee High Court sentenced to death by hanging two soldiers, a colonel and a major, who on 10.09.1998 had taken in for questioning a young man from Jaffna and murdered him. His body had 21 wounds. The army claimed that he had jumped off an upper floor!

Future of Tamils

I am so glad and thankful. The future of Tamils in this country, to which I feel deeply committed, depends on a stable, secure population protected by a caring state.  These policies must continue and the government must stop, as it does from the highest levels, calling murderers our national heroes. We do not need bestial brutes on our streets claiming to protect us. We need the security of numbers revamped by the absence of the state’s bid to settle Sinhalese in traditionally Tamil areas. Of the many horrific stories, that of Manal Aru (now Weli Oya) and how it was ethically cleansed of Tamils in 1984 by the army tells us the importance of Tamil homelands and why we are keen on federalism as a means of protecting not only our way of life but also our lives. While any citizen has the right to live anywhere, the government must stop inducing Sinhalese to come and live in Tamil areas. 

It is a simple matter for the government administratively to rectify the injustices of the past – for example, those displaced fishermen in Mullaitivu whose fishing rights have been abridged by settling fishermen from the Negombo area. In India there are many refugees whose children were born there or are married to Indian-born refugees. Hampered by administrative hurdles when they returned by boat, they were arrested in Kankesanthurai and not offered the kindly treatment we owe them.

Higher Levels of Tamils

Most refugees who return are at the lower levels of society and are an important component of making Tamils feel that this is their home. However, Judge Elancheliyan’s presence shows the importance of upper level Tamils seeing this as home and playing their role fearlessly. That is all the more difficult because that is the segment of society that finds it easiest to settle comfortably abroad. 

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