Unity between the two communities was unanimously. Tamil land in the North-East is constantly expropriated for the needs of the state with an increase in incidents of Tamil residents facing intimidation and displacement. In 1927, the Hindu Muslim relations received much attention in the Azad Hind and the Qaumi Report. In the report, HRW state that military occupation of land is among the primary contributors to continuing displacement: according to the government, as of 2017, nearly 40,000 people remained internally displaced in the country, a majority from Jaffna’.ĭespite twelve years having passed since the end of the armed conflict and continuous calls to demilitarise the North-east, military involvement in civilian affairs is rife. The heavy militarisation of Tamil areas has created a culture of fear amongst the local populace and stifled economic growth.Īccording to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report in 2018, the Sri Lankan military ‘occupy private land that is owned and was used by civilians, and state land intended for non-military purposes'. Land grabs and attempted land grabs of Tamil land, often arable land are consistently carried out by all three branches of the Sri Lankan military, which lead to the displacement of Tamil people. The northeast continues to remain one of the most militarised regions on the planet.
Across the North-East, Tamil farmers also led protests against the fertiliser ban but under the intense surveillance of the Sri Lankan military apparatus. Sinhala farmers from the south who had voted for the Rajapaksa regime were protesting often burning effigies of the Agricultural Minister. Sri Lanka's agriculture sector engages nearly 25% of the labour force accounts for 8% of the GDP. Subsequent protests from farmers across the South and Tamil farmers across the Northeast unhappy about the ban forced the government to re-think their position. Their remarks come after the ban of chemical fertilisers was pushed through by the Rajapaksa regime. Sivamohan said, contrasting the years of strife with the current situation." We grew our own food and had enough to eat,” Mr. “Those were extremely difficult times, but we did not go hungry. The Tamil-majority north and east were stifled with violence, an economic blockade, and no access to national markets. "The civil war began a decade later and lasted about 30 years as the armed forces fought the LTTE. We survived on king coconut and manioc mostly.” He vividly recalled the “severe food shortage” during the period, with long queues outside shops as people waited for hours to buy a loaf of bread. "The first was when Prime Minister Sirimavo introduced import substitution in the 1970s,” said the 63-year-old farmer. Muthu Sivamohan, a Tamil farmer leader in northern Kilinochchi described the uncertainty due to the chemical fertiliser ban of this year's paddy yield to "two other periods of crisis". Farmers in Kilinochchi have warned that the upcoming harvest may be worse than during the decades of armed conflict, according to a report in The Hindu, after the Sri Lankan government banned chemical fertilisers.