Return of land will take SL Tamils wounded by conflict closer to peace

15 yrs since war ended, dispossessed Tamils pin their hopes on new govt to regain property

- PON VASANTH BA @Jaffna/Mullaitivu

November 2024 was the first time in 36 years that 75-year-old Anantharajah Kandiah had visited the Palali-Achuveli road in Jaffna district in Sri Lanka. Ruins of the retired government school principal's home stand on a small piece of land on the side of the road, which was opened to the public on November 1 after being under the army's control for over three decades. "I grew up in a hut. I built the house after becoming a teacher by taking a loan against my then monthly salary of LKR 212," he said.

In the late 1980s, he and his family had to abandon the house and belongings after fighting broke out between Tamil militants and the army. When he visited last month, he could only see the building from a distance as fenced lands by the road remain under army control. Though he lost his land, Kandiah, a poet who publishes as Kavimani Annaidasan, has done well for himself and his four children are in good positions now.

Selvi Sivaprakasam Ariyakala is not as fortunate. The 61-year-old was also once a teacher whose family was among the hundreds evicted by the army from close to 200 acres of land in Kepapulavu and nearby villages in Mullaitivu district and shifted to the Menik Farm, a camp for Internally Displaced People in Vavuniya district, in the final phase of the civil war in 2009.