Standing next to a long, wired feet, Sinthurai Chitravaluham appears on its farming land. It has been almost 20 years as they were allowed to use it.
The 68 -year -old told DW, “Don’t ask me how I feel, I will get upset.”
Chitravaliyutam is a farmer of Sampur in Tinkomle district of eastern Sri Lanka. He fled his motherland in April 2006 after heavy shelling in the region during the Sri Lankan civil war.
The struggle, which ran from mid -1980s to mid -2009, is mainly known as a conflict between Sinhalese majority and Tamil minorities, along with the separatist liberation tigers of the Tamil Eelam (LTTE) – hence known as the Tamil tigers – the forces fighting for an independent state.
When he returned after the struggle ended, he and 107 others found that his cultivated land was under government control. He said that his efforts to cultivate land were with the danger of arrest, and later a fence was made to prevent them from getting access.
To date, they say that no compensation has been received.
Now, his land has been allocated as a site for a new solar power plant, which will be built as a collaborative project Sri Lanka’s Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and the State-Duned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) of India.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sri Lankan President Anua Kumara Dissanayake jointly inaugurated the project during Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka in April.
A fight for compensation
The land belonging to Chitravaluham and other villagers was designated in 2008 as a high-second area at the height of the civil war.
Kandumani Lavakusarasa, coordinator of the important Humanist Resource Center in Trincomle, said that now more than 500 acres were allotted.
Among that clan, he said that 147 acres of land used to be land related to villagers including Chitravutham, and another 58 acres of land was residential land.
The Governor of the Media Division, the eastern province, told DW that “legal action” was taken to provide the contenders to prevent “who have the rights of the land, while they can apply for the compensation process.”
Although the villagers have temporary deeds, they said that the Divisional Secretariat, which handles land allocation, requested to look into the original deeds and survey plans before investigating any claim.
The villagers told DW that they wanted their original lands back, they were fertile and well irrigated, and that other lands would probably not fulfill the same specifications.
In a statement, Muthur Divisional Secretariat (DS), who is responsible for the monitoring of the country in Sampur, told DW that only two people had applied for compensation, but did not say what he had found.
This was said that the authorities received a report from 33 people to request the land to be returned to them, but they are “currently in other government land and are engaged in farming.” DS said that steps would be taken to provide alternative land “if they are really confirmed to be landless”.
Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) spokesman Dhammak Vimalaratne told DW that he had no knowledge that anyone had come forward to claim land, which was identified as ownership of the government.
However, he said that “people are number one” and said that they should meet the Divisional Secretariat to prove the right to ownership.
India’s NTPC and government officials reached the DW comment, but no response was received until the time of publication.
India-Sri Lanka Relations
Initly, India and Sri Lanka wanted to cooperate on a coal power plant in Sampur, but in 2016, plans were made after widespread outrage.
Janath Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) of the current President Dissanayake was a stocch rival of the party initial plan.
“People were happy because they felt that they would get their land back, but it did not happen,” important coordinator Lavakusarasa told DW.
Rural Chitravaliyutham said that he had voted for the Left Disinayac, whose government had taken power in November, in the hope that things could change.
“We thought that when this government came to power, they will give us back our land, but it does not seem that Wayne is going to get anything,” Heer said.
He believes that Sampur was “chosen because it is a Tamil region” and the government “will not do so in a Sinhalese region.”
But Chitravutham refused to criticize India. “This is the Sri Lankan government that gave it and it is his responsibility to solve the problems here,” he said. “The Government of India does not know that this land belongs to the people.”
Alkurasa Mathan, deputy coordinator of the crucial Hume Hume Humanitraian Resource Center, said that he believes that the “real cause” for cooperation between India and Sri Lanka was the “real cause” for the east, and that the plant could never be built.
“In the interests of international politics, the livelihood of poor farmers has been sacrificed,” he told DW. “That’s true.”
The Governor’s media division dismissed the claims of Tamil AEAS being targeted and as “false” of India’s security, “saying that” there is no need or purple for any group of people or a selected group, which is uncomfortable. ,
Losing the legacy of farming
58 -year -old Namsivayam Sivapatham said that the villagers are not against the idea of a solar power plant, but that “there are many other lands that are not used for farming” where it will be built.
He is therefore doubt about the proposed compensation. “They have no plans to give us compensation. They have a plan to cheat us,” said.
For villagers like Sivapatham, construction will come at the cost of their land, through which they pass.
“I feel sad. What we should do? I worry about how to bring back my land, it is a very big contractor. How will I give it to my children?” He told DW.
“What is the matter in giving land to another country?” Shivapatham asked. “What can you do with electricity? Farming provides us with food. Can you eat current?”
Edited by: Carl Sexton
