Uprooted Tamils demand occupying SL military to vacate from Keappaa-pulavu

More than one hundred families, languishing at a jungle pocket named Sooriyapuram a few kilometres away from their fertile village Keappaa-pulavu, which has been occupied by the occupying Sinhala military of genocidal Colombo, staged a protest on the first working day of 2016 demanding Colombo to fully de-militarize their village and hand over their village back to them for resettlement. The occupying SL military was harassing the protesters by posing intelligence wing soldiers to take photos and videos of those participated in the protest. Despite the intimidation by the occupying SL military, the protesting people remained firm in demanding the SL military to vacate from their ancient village.

The locality of Keappaapulavu and the former airstrip of the LTTE

The entrance to Sinhala Military Zone at Keappaa-pulavu

Keappaa-pulavu along with 2,500 acres of lands by the side of the Nanthik-kadal lagoon and nearby jungle, where the last stages of the Vanni war was fought, has been transformed into a Sinhala Military Zone (SMZ) by the occupying military during the regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Protests staged by the people of Keappaa-pulavu in the past, particularly during the sessions of Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, were ignored by the drafters of the ‘US-resolutions’ on the violations of human rights in the island and the crimes committed during the genocidal onslaught on Eezham Tamils.

The protest comes while the SL regime in Colombo was trying to wage a PR campaign by freeing just 700 acres of 7,000 acres of lands seized by the SL military in Valikaamam, Jaffna on the occasion of Thaip-pongkal festival in 10 days.

The occupying regime has also announced that it will be providing alternative lands to the uprooted Tamils. This is a deceptive move to keep the occupied Tamil lands as Sinhala Military Zones, the protesting people from Keappaa-pulavu told TamilNet.

Selvarajah Kajendren, the secretary of Tamil National People's Front (TNPF), was present at the protest demanding complete de-militarisation of Keappaa-pulavu.

In the meantime, people who have entered nearby Vaddu-vaakal, where the SL military is still not allowing people to enter an area where people were detained in large numbers on the final day of the genocidal onslaught in 2009 said the SL military was still trying to conceal key traces of the massacre. There were no military camps, but the SL military has prohibited people from entering the area marked with military signs starting from A1 to A8, they said.