By Maheesha Mudugamuwa
The Army has announced that it will return all the civilian-owned land in the North and East under a five-year plan.
However, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) raised questions over the proposal saying the process should and could be done sooner.
Military Spokesman Brigadier Sumith Atapattu said that the authorities will return all military-held land seized from civilians in the Northern and Eastern part of the country during the nearly three decade long civil war with the LTTE, by 2020.
He told The Sunday Morning that the lands would be released under a five-year plan launched by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in 2017.
“We are planning to hand over all the lands obtained from civilians latest by 2020. Even though it should be completed by 2021 under the five year plan, we want to complete the task one year in advance,” Brig. Atapattu said.
According to SLA, there were around 84,433 acres of lands in the North and East regions under the military occupation in 2009 and the SLA had successfully released around 64,973 acres at the end of July this year. The lands are situated in Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Mulaitivu, Vavuniya, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, and Ampara.
Out of the remaining 19,300 acres, there were only around 2,500 acres which were originally owned by private individuals. The rest, 16,700 acres was owned by the Government. Out of these 2,500 acres, 522 acres will be released by the end of this year, the Military Spokesman said.
Elaborating the land releasing process, Brig. Atapattu noted that the military camps situated in these areas had to be relocated and therefore the lands were released after the necessary funds were allocated by the Ministry of Resettlement, Rehabilitation, Northern Development and Hindu Religious Affairs.
When asked whether the military camps in North and East would be removed under the five-year plan, the Military Spokesman stressed that there was no such decision taken by the SLA or the Government to close down any military camp in the North and East.
Explaining further Brig. Atapattu noted that the Army while continuing this amalgamation process will not close down any camps in the North and East and continue to maintain combat readiness and efficiency at all times and at a strategic and operational level.
However, Jaffna based TNA member Suresh Premachandran told The Sunday Morning the process could be done sooner.
He noted that despite the war ending in 2009 the Army has delayed the process to release the land.
Premachandran said the Cabinet can take a decision to release the land owned by civilians and the Army can then gradually release the remaining property.
“The Army occupied the land without notification and when the public demanded the land back the Army made a huge noise over it. They refused to allow the people to go back to their own property. So demanding another five years is absolutely not acceptable,” he said.
He also recalled that the current Government had given an assurance to the international community that the land will be released soon.
Premachandran warned that a further delay to release the property will seriously hurt the Government at the next Presidential and Parliamentary elections.