Tamils Squeezed Between Militant Islam On The Ascendancy & Sinhala-Buddhist Territorial Expansion!

By Veluppillai Thangavelu –MAY 9, 2019

Veluppillai Thangavelu

History, it is claimed repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce. In Afghanistan, the Western countries, notably the US, trained and armed Muslim Taliban to fight Soviet invasion in the seventies. It took ten years of grinding insurgency before Moscow finally withdrew, at the cost of millions of lives and billions of dollars. In their wake, the Soviets left a shattered country in which the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group, seized control, later providing Osama bin Laden with a training base from which to launch terrorist operations worldwide.

Taliban like Al-Qaeda is an Islamic fundamentalist outfit which enforces the Islamic Sharia law, which resulted in the brutal treatment of many Afghans, especially women.

The war lasted for 9 years from December 1979 to February 1989.  Thereafter, the Taliban used the same weapons provided by the US to fight its enemies and capture power. Today, the Taliban, which rose from the ashes of Afghanistan’s post-Soviet civil war, is fighting the US and US-backed Kabul government. The US and its allies declared war on the Taliban on October 17, 2001. Daily scores of innocent civilians are dying.

We witness a similar scenario in Sri Lanka.  Till 2009, the Sri Lankan government armed and used the Muslim Home Guards in its war against the LTTE.  This outfit aided and abetted by the Sinhala army killed and drove thousands of Tamils from border villages in the east.

At least 10 villages in the eastern provinces that were once occupied by Tamils 100 % are now occupied by the Muslims. Worse the village names have been Arabised like Meeravodai, Jinnah Nagar, Meelath Nagar etc.  Prior to 1985, the Muslims lived mainly in Oodamavadi, Eravur and Kaththankudi. Today more than 50 Muslim villages have sprung in the eastern province thanks to Arab money!

In 1990 Muslims destroyed the Kalikoil temple at Oodamavadi. MLAM Hizbullah, presently the Governor Eastern province boasted that it was he; he alone as the Chairman of Batticaloa District Development Committee took over the Hindu temple land (once 100% Tamil village) and handed same to the Mosque Trustees. This takeover took place despite vehement opposition from Tamil MPs. Hizbullah also boasted that it was he who was instrumental in building a three storey market that included meat (https://youtu.be/YKy75wxbDpI) stalls! Obviously, he was promoting Islamic fundamentalism.

The above is the general pattern in the eastern province since 1983. Tamils became victims of militant Islam aided and abetted by power wielding hungry Muslim politicians. The periodical riots between the Sinhalese and Tamils were used as a cover to dislodge Tamils from their homes using brute force.  Successive Sinhalese governments pampered Muslim militancy and Islamic fundamentalism at the expense of Tamils.

Today, both Trincomalee and Amparai are Muslim majority districts. TABLE 1 below shows the ethnic–wise demographic changes that took place between 1946 and 2012 in the Trincomalee District.

TABLE 1

Population of Trincomalee District by ethnic group 1827 to 2012
Year	Muslim				Sinhalese		Other		Total No.
	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
1827	3,245	16.94%	15,663	81.76%	250	1.30%	0	0.00%	19,158
1881 Census	5,746	25.89%	14,304	64.44%	935	4.21%	1,212	5.46%	22,197
1891 Census	6,426	24.96%	17,117	66.49%	1,105	4.29%	1,097	4.26%	25,745
1901 Census	8,258	29.04%	17,060	59.98%	1,203	4.23%	1,920	6.75%	28,441
1911 Census	9,700	32.60%	17,233	57.92%	1,138	3.82%	1,684	5.66%	29,755
1921 Census	12,846	37.66%	18,580	54.47%	1,501	4.40%	1,185	3.47%	34,112
1946 Census	23,219	30.58%	33,795	44.51%	11,606	15.29%	7,306	9.62%	75,926
1953 Census	28,616	34.10%	37,517	44.71%	15,296	18.23%	2,488	2.96%	83,917
1963 Census	40,775	29.43%	54,452	39.30%	39,925	28.82%	3,401	2.45%	138,553
1971 Census	59,924	31.83%	71,749	38.11%	54,744	29.08%	1,828	0.97%	188,245
1981 Census	75,039	29.32%	93,132	36.39%	85,503	33.41%	2,274	0.89%	255,948
2012 Census	152,854	40.42%	122,080	32.29%	101,991	26.97%	1,257	0.33%	378,182

The population of Muslims climbed from a mere 16.94% in 1921 to 40.42% in 2012 while the population of Tamils declined from 81.76% to 32.29% during the same period. And thanks to planned state-aided Sinhala colonization the percentage of Sinhalese dramatically increased from 1.30% in 1921 to 26.97% in 2012!

In the Amparai district carved out of Batticaloa district in April 1961, the Tamil population has decreased from 23.23% in 1963 to 17.40 in 2012 while the Sinhalese population increased from 29.28% to 38.73%!

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