Sanitising plunder

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake visited Kachchativu on Tuesday amidst a campaign by some Tamil Nadu politicians to pressure India into seeking control of it.

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Among them is Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam Leader and popular actor Joseph Vijay Chandrasekhar popularly known as Vijay. Tamil Nadu film stars, given to melodrama and known for their ludicrous celluloid stunts that not only insult human intelligence but also defy every known law of physics, bellow anti-Sri Lanka rhetoric to gain political mileage.

The Kachchativu issue was settled once and for all about five decades ago. On 30 Nov. 2011, the then Foreign Minister Prof. G. L. Peiris, answering a question in Parliament, stated that Kachchativu had not been ceded to Sri Lanka, and therefore the question of India officially giving up her claim on it did not arise. He pointed out that during negotiations between India and Sri Lanka on 'the 1974 Maritime Boundary Agreement on the Historic Waters in the Palk Bay and Palk Straits', Sri Lanka had established its claim to sovereignty over Kachchativu based on historical records since 1665 belonging to the Dutch East India Company and the British Colonial Government. Based on official correspondence, maps and specific legislation made by Ceylon in respect of the island, Sri Lanka had been able to establish through evidence the regular exercise of administrative control over the Island as well, Prof.

Peiris said, noting that accordingly, the 1974 Agreement had formally confirmed Sri Lanka's sovereignty over the island.