Sri Lanka Tamil farmers allege land grabs after war

Tamil cattle farmers in eastern Sri Lanka have held a round-the-clock vigil for almost three years, accusing settlers supported by a state-funded development scheme of taking grazing land and destroying cattle.

Seenithamby Thiyagarajah, president of the local farmers' association, said farmers benefiting from the Mahaweli development scheme had shot cattle, threatened herders, assaulted them and sprayed pesticide or poison on pasture land. He said more than 5,700 cows had been destroyed and that complaints to police and other authorities had not resolved the dispute.

The alleged perpetrators are mostly Sinhalese farmers who benefited from the state-funded scheme. The disputed land is claimed by largely Hindu Tamil communities in eastern Sri Lanka. The government denies any forcible attempts to remove people from their land.

Sri Lanka's 1983-2009 civil war between government forces and Tamil separatists killed more than 100,000 people, according to the United Nations. Nearly two decades later, land disputes continue to fuel ethnic grievances.

Thiyagarajah said courts had repeatedly ordered the eviction of scheme-backed settler farmers, but that they returned after periods of calm. Other communities in the Eastern Province are also seeking land they say they lost during or after the war.

Indigenous community leader Ambalavar Nallathambi Velayutham said Forest Department officials told villagers in Kunjankulam that rice fields they had returned to farm were part of a reserve. He said appeals to local authorities, the prime minister and the president had not resulted in the land being handed back.

Sabarathinam Sivayoganathan, president of the Eastern Province Civil Society Activists Union, said the scale of land occupation was unclear because there are no public statistics and residents risk intimidation when asking questions.

Opposition MP Rasamanickam R. Shanakiyan accused the government of failing to keep election promises to release land, protect minority rights and deliver wider reforms. Environment Minister Dhammika Patabendi said the government had commissioned a report on land record changes since the civil war and would never forcibly acquire people's land.