TULF Leader urges President Rajapaksa to abandon the new Land Registration Scheme currently being implemented in North-East
“North and the East people faced enough problems due to the war and repeated displacements. Some are not in their homes. Some have lost all their documents along with their belongings. Some had gone aboard and some are missing,” writes TULF leader V. Anandasangaree in a letter to President Mahinda Rajapaksa urging for abandonment of the new scheme of land “registrations” in the North-East by Ministry of Lands.
“The people who had lost almost all their possessions are now scared that they will lose more under this scheme”, the TULF leader points out in his letter to the President of Sri Lanka.
His Excellency Mahinda Rajapaksa, 2011-09-30
President of the Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
Temple Trees
Colombo – 03
REGISTRATION OF LANDS BY THE MINISTRY OF LANDS
Your Excellency,
I regret to bring to your notice the concerns of the people of the North and of the Tamils living aboard about the action that is now being taken by the Government, to register the lands owned by them or held in trust or otherwise by them. No one can succeed in collecting the required details asked for in the questionnaire form No. PS/01/2011 issued by the Ministry of Lands and Land Development for the registration of ownership of lands under the new scheme.
The people very genuinely feel that this scheme is neither justifiable nor beneficial to them. They also feel that this is yet another scheme to harass them and are convinced that the Government has an agenda of its own for collecting the details asked for in the form. During the last fifty years or more some activities of the Government had caused a lot of unrest and pain of mind for the Tamil People.
If this scheme is going to be implemented Island wide, why can’t the Government start this in districts where normalcy prevailed for several years and people are living in their homes and not displaced for any reason. But in the North and the East people faced enough problems due to the war and repeated displacements. Some are not in their homes. Some have lost all their documents along with their belongings. Some had gone aboard and some are missing.
Many died without leaving a will. The heirs of persons died intestate do not know whether they are also beneficiaries of his properties. There are children who died leaving property for which there may be many claimants. There are many more complicated problems. Problems arising from certain properties cannot be solved by the Ministry of Lands. Let those problems be handled by the Court of Law and not by the civil or military officials.
The people who had lost almost all their possessions are now scared that they will lose more under this scheme. I do not believe that this is going to be a useful scheme. The people, left alone, will sort-out matters themselves without any body’s interference. If they fail, they can seek remedy through courts of law.
If the people who are landless, wanting land for themselves, the Government can very well indentify some crown lands and meet their requirements. Please warn the officials not to harass the people who had suffered enough and lost enough. Above all due to the loss of their kith and kin and living with the expectation that their dear once will return one day, they are not in a mood to get involved in this type of problems now.
I humbly request you to advice the Land Ministry to abandon this scheme which is very unpopular among the people in the North. In respect of disputed property the parties can go to courts or to the Government Agent if the dispute relates to private lands or crown lands respectively.
I hope you will intervene at least at this stage and give relief to the people of the North and the East by abandoning this scheme, which has caused a lot worries for the people of the North, where the scheme is now about to be implemented.
Thanking You
Yours Sincerely,
V. Anandasangaree
Secretary General
Tamil United Liberation front
Your are really showing leadership as a Srilankan Tamil.Thank you for your input.
Now is not the time to look at the land ownership & land deed in the Tamil areas.
Enough is enough. At least the Tamils should be giving some breathing space.
Guruparan.
It IS happening in other districts as well (Gampaha for instance).
Mr.Anandasangaree has appealed to the president to stop the land registration in the North.What he says is right at the moment. How about the TNA members of parliament, Mr.Douglas Devanamda. What are their views? They all represent the Tamil people. How about Mr.Vinayagamoorthy, the junior minister for resettlement. I think he has no voice.
BECOUSE THE GOVERNMENT WANT TO GRAB TAMILS’S LAND AND COLONISE SINHALA (THEFT)simple to understand
Thank you, Mr Anandasangaree.
Unless the excesses of the army of occupation stop and civil administration is restored like the rest of the country, people will not move back from the rest of the country to which the people of the Northeast have been fleeing in the last thirty years of aerial bombing, intense shelling, economic embargo, growing army of occupation and very low economic and social investment by the government.
Civil society objected to the Pensions Bill matter. Are they not mature enough to object to this type of injustice?
Sellam
Douglas Devananda and Vinayagamoorthy are Rajapakse’s party. They are NOT TNA MPs.
Registration of land is a must to ensure the legitimate ownership and security of that ownership as freehold titles to real estate is something that people keep for generations.
Srilanka under the British rule skewed the land ownership in favor of their mates and their loyal servants at the expense of the poor rural people.
One of the main obstacles to proper town planning and providing infrastructure facilities like roads to access land is due to the uncertainty of most titles.
North and the East ,especially the former that has been abandoned by most inhabitants, need land registration as a priority for very important reasons,
The thousands of abandoned homesteads ,that are in most derelict state, belong to people who have taken refuge overseas.
It is the responsibility of the Govt to ensure the titles to these homesteads are protected as these areas are now under the Govt.
The Govt is therefore responsible to ensure that these homesteads are available for the genuine owners to claim them, if and when they want them.
Due to the Terrorist activities, 90 percent of the North in particular. hasn’t seen any development or any real estate activity.
Besides these areas have been traditionally crown land where not many people lived.
So obviously there can’t be any legal titles to these lands.
With the proper registrations and surety of the titles, it will be quite easy to develop these lands to accommodate the expected population growth in these areas soon,due to the rapid expansion of industry , commerce and tourism.
Also a proper land registry will provide planning authorities,facilities to develop these lands the same way as the Land is developed for residential housing and commercial activities in the Western countries where the great majority of the ex inhabitants live.
Therefore Mr Anadasagaree’s argument here does not hold much water, unless he is providing another lead to the anti Govt and anti Srilankan heavies in the West, to start a new campaign on Land grabbing by Lankans.
The North and East was besieged by the LTTE for 30 years and for the last two years they are slowly but surely getting their freedom. When we act as one people with equal rights and one law for all Sri Lankans, all these problems could gradually get resolved. Sri lanka belongs to all whether they live in the North, South, East or west or the central provinces. We should have only two parties in this small Island. There should be elections every 6 years where one or the other party comes into power on their policies. Minorities can decide the outcome of the winner and have their grievances met. Minorities have the ability to shift the power with an independent vote. All these splinter parties whether JVP, or TNA could ruin the country. If anyone could buy land in the south, then anybody should be able to buy land in the North. We have to have just laws and an independent Judiciary.
This land registration is a means for the great Rajapakse land grab in Jaffna and the northeast. They have been grabbing and selling lands in other parts of the county – in a less systematic fashion as at Kalpitiya where it is known that Basil Rajapakse has 4000 acres of land! The national parks (Wilpattu and Yala) and Sinharaja rain forest are being destroyed and logged for their valuable timber under the guise of road construction for “development”!
The Rajapakses and their goons are grabbing land, cutting trees, and denuding Colombo as well. Colombo is suffering a heat wave due to the up-rooting and hacking of its tree canopy as an environmental officer recently noted.
Rajapakse Bros Inc. have been working very hard on Colombo 7 which they fancy now belongs to them. They have sold Galle Face to the Chinese and now go they go for walks at independence square after up-rooting all the beautiful old Ashoka trees and planting Na Mal saplings for the presidential brat! The Hambabtota thugs think that they are Colombo elite now!
This land grab and timber trade of Colombo city’s oldest and most beautiful trees is being disguised as “city beautification” and opening space! The fact is that Colombo is suffering a heat wave due to the destruction of trees and the economy will soon crash due to the mounting Hambantota debt, and corrupt state enterprises including Mihin air- despite the official boasting about foreign currency reserves. They are grabbing private lands to sell to the lowest foreign bidder and pretend that the economy is booming! This economic “development” program is making the new rich richer and the poor poorer. They are more noeliberal than the IMF and World Bank put together!
Mr, Sangaree it looks like you have been on long slumber and seem to profess surprise at the various moves of the government to subjugate the tamil people. This is exactly what we, the right thinking tamils(going by the track record of the sinhala government that rules Sri Lanka since independence ) , feared would happen when they annihilated the armed Tamil liberation struggle. This is why we chose to side with the struggle in-spite of its faults. You on the other hand supported the government to the hilt in suppressing the freedom struggle, obviously for personal reasons. You were so vociferous against the struggle as if the Mshinda angel would restore the freedom and rights of the tamil people the moment Prbaharan was gone. We all knew very well what is happening now would happen when the armed struggle was suppressed and therefore we are not surprised, unlike you.
Still there is no Freedom of speech and no freedom of movement, no freedom of expression in North east Sri Lanka. Mysterious deaths continue under the auspicious policing Of Scotlandyard Trained Sri Lanka Police . Inaddition SL police has been Trained by India and other countries. All these trainings are to Train SL police and army about how to kill the Tamils, about How to create antisocial anti Tamils elements in Tamil areas and how to perform genocide on Tamils, How to escape from these charges. India US ,UK and some countries Trained SL security forces. What did they do? They Killed and Raped Tamils. That’s what they are trained for by these countries. They can get better Training on these aspects from China also .
THE TRUTH
“BECOUSE THE GOVERNMENT WANT TO GRAB TAMILS’S LAND AND COLONISE SINHALA (THEFT)simple to understand”
????????
What about our land?
If the North is to be treated like the rest of the country, the pro-ltte diasspora need to mind their own business if they do not want to assist in the development.
T^NA must categorically renouce and pledge that they are no more ltte proxies. They can not say one thing in SL and say another thing in another land.
There should be no representatives of TNA with the TNA who serve today.
Why demand land control & police control or 13 ammendments.
So far, (since May 2009) government has NOT shown any sign of accomodating Tamils in Sri Lanka or abroad. I wish, they just let us live in peace, rather than provoking and intimidating at every instance. You can win war by weapon but if there is a fresh civi unrest, it will be very difficult to control by arms. The world has changed and respects, civilian protests like in the middle east.
If the gentle and affable Anandasangaree wants to be accepted as a voice of the Tamil people he must do more than merely write letters to the President. He has done this regularly and can not show much proof they have moved the stony regime.
Besides, being part of the TNA, he should voice his thoughts through this medium.
Writing to Sampanthan does not enhance Sangaree’s strength. The Land Registration issue worries the Tamil people who suspect a regime that has mis-appropriated their valuable land on flimsy gounds in recent times. One way to show his popular validity is to organise a few large demonstrations pressurising the Govt to his way of thinking. The Govt must also offer consideration to this senior leader – was one of the first to weaken the LTTE monolith – a fond regime dream.
ISS