Tamil landowners campaigning for the release of military-occupied land in Valikamam North held a sixth consecutive weekly demonstration at Palaly Junction on Sunday, after police removed the drinking water and sanitation facilities the protesters had been using.
Police took away a drinking water tank and a temporary toilet from the nearby community centre. The facilities belong to the Valikamam North Pradeshiya Sabha and had been used by participants — many of them elderly women and senior citizens — through the earlier weeks of the campaign. Demonstrators continued without water or sanitation in severe heat; July and August are among the hottest months in Jaffna.
Protesters said police also refused permission to put up even a temporary shelter, including wooden poles to hold a tarpaulin, leaving elderly participants to hold the sheeting up by hand for shade.
Palaly Police recorded a statement from the Chairperson of the Valikamam North Pradeshiya Sabha over the placement of the equipment, and said the items would be produced before the Mallakam Magistrate’s Court ahead of legal proceedings. The tank and toilet had reportedly been installed at the community centre for visitors and tourists. Protesters allege they were removed specifically because demonstrators were using them.
Residents of Valikamam North were displaced in June 1990, after which the area was designated a High Security Zone. More than 6,000 families remain displaced and campaigners are demanding the withdrawal of a 2013 defence ministry gazette under which some 6,317 acres were acquired for military use. Protesters say the military farms and runs commercial and leisure operations on the land while the owners remain without homes or livelihoods.
Deputy Defence Minister Aruna Jayasekara told parliament this month that a further 1,661 acres in the North-East would be permanently acquired for military infrastructure and would not be returned. A separate weekly protest outside the military commander’s bungalow at Myliddy has continued for more than three months. The landowners say they will keep demonstrating until the land is released.
