Land – A Raw Nerve

By Rajan Hoole -November 30, 2013 

Rajan Hoole

The Rise and Fall of the Tamil Militancy and the International Legal Implications of the Government’s Counter-Insurgency – Part 5

Weli Oya was conceived as a northward expansion of the Padaviya Scheme with quasi-military motivation. The spirit in which the Padaviya settlement was done in 1957 and the secretive methods employed had some similarity to Weli Oya in 1984 (see T. Sabaratnam, The Murder of a Moderate, pp.52-60, 85-86). A part of Trincomalee District bordering the North Central Province came at the tail-end of the scheme where 400 allotments were to be given to Tamils who were losing their jobs at the Trincomalee Dockyard which was being ceded by the British Admiralty. A group of Sinhalese labourers at Padaviya led by a monk forcibly occupied this land and the Government did nothing. The ideological significance of the scheme was not lost on C.P. de Silva, then Minister of Lands, and his officials. At its very inception Padaviya, in 1958, had become a hot bed of communal violence. It was the first major scheme in which there were no Tamil beneficiaries.

The following testimonies of people in Padaviya are taken from Bulletin No.4 (1995):

“H.N. Somadasa of Walapane, Udapusselawa, came to Padaviya at the age of 21 in 1956 as an irrigation employee. Following the communal violence which sparked off [in 1958], he was remanded. Asked what led him to join in attacks on Tamils, he replied, “There were many Tamils employed on the scheme. A rumour was spread that Tamils were going to take-over the entire scheme. We became angry and attacked them. I later discovered that the rumour was false and felt ashamed.” Asked who spread the rumours, he replied “Why, the papers had them!” He, like the other employees of the scheme received land in Padaviya in lieu of gratuity.

“Asked about the impact of the war, Somadasa said that every year about two or three dead bodies of soldiers are brought for interment to his village of Siyawa, Padaviya. The village has about 200 families. Considering the ten years of war, the impact is quantitatively of the order of what an average Tamil village in the East would have suffered.

“Piyadasa (50), originally from Madawachiya, explained: “Many young boys from here have joined the forces because rains have failed for the last seven years and the reservoir does not store enough water. Consequently, the people are unable to make ends meet through cultivation. During the rainy season (Yala, October-December) our fields tend to flood. Cultivation at this time (rain-fed cultivation) thus tends to be unreliable. Our main crop is therefore during the summer (Maha, May-September) season. This depends on water from the reservoir.” Farmers questioned said they have cultivated about four times in the last three years. For families without an income apart from cultivation, life is hard.

“Gunawathie (40) originally from Madawachiya is unmarried. Her family derive their main income from helping two brothers who cultivate the family plot of 3 acres. They manage because of support from the state (e.g. dry rations) in the event of crop failure. That also means state patronage.”

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To be continued..

*From Rajan Hoole‘s “Sri Lanka: Arrogance of Power  - Myth, Decadence and Murder”. Thanks to Rajan for giving us permission to republish. To read earlier parts click here