This unprecedented intervention of the nationalist Minister Milroy Fernando is expected to cause considerable tensions in Jaffna. The government is planning to use its military to force settle this politically motivated Sinhalese families, who have travelled to Jaffna with the political backing and currently staying at the derelict Jaffna Railway station.
The organisers of the Sinhala settlement campaign are engineering a story that the Tamils are intolerant and are not allowing the Sinhalese to settle amidst them. Minister Milroy Fernando has said that these Sinhalese families were uprooted in the 1983 violence and were living in camps in abject conditions in Anuradhapura - a story that was not told, published or campaigned for the past 27 years until the current planned invasion.
When this matter was raised at a United Kingdom House of Commons discussion on Oct 14, 2010, Prof. Rajiva Wijesinghe categorically denied any government involvement in the current influx. The co-speaker R Jayadevan of Alliance of Peace and Reconciliation in Sri Lanka responding to the very same question said: ‘Tamils are not against Sinhalese settling in the north. If they want they can go peacefully and settle without politicising their effort by going en masse and demanding the government to support them’. He further said: ‘When Tamils were uprooted from the South in the 1983 violence none of them went back to Colombo and agitated like this demanding the return of their homes and provision of facilities’.
Prior to the 1983 anti- Tamil violence, Sinhalese settled in the Jaffna peninsula, were running bakeries and was serving in the police. In July 83, the LTTE mine killed 23 soldiers in Thirunelveli, Jaffna which sparked off the anti-Tamil violence in the country. The army in Jaffna went on the rampage by shooting and killing hundreds of innocent civilians in Nallur, Kandar Madam and Jaffna town on the same evening to avenge the killing of the soldiers. Fearing reprisals from the Tamils, the Sinhalese families sought sanctuary at the Sinhala Maha Vidyalayam in the Jaffna town. They were taken out of Jaffna by the military, fearing attacks.
After 27 years it is now claimed they were living in rehabilitation camps in Anuradhapura.
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