Sinhala intrusion of fishing trawlers accelerate with military backing in North

The livelihood of Tamil fishermen from Mukaththuvaaram in Kokkuth-thoduvaay in Mullaiththeevu district to Naakar-koayil and Point-Pedro in Jaffna has been seriously affected by the fishermen from South who operate multi day boats off Vadamaraadchi and Karaithu'raip-pattu with the full backing of the occupying Army and Navy of genocidal Sri Lanka, says S. Mariyathas, the chairman of the society of fishing associations in Mullaiththeevu. The Tamil fishermen are not allowed to operate multi day boats. Sinhala fishermen from South deploy banned methods, including the use of poisonous leaves to catch cuttle fish in large scale. The fishermen park their boats at military camps and transport the catch to South, Mariyathas further said.

All the SL ministers from Colombo, including Rajith Senaratne, promise to Tamil fishermen that they would not provide more than 23 licenses to fishing operators from South to engage in such fishing. But, there are hundreds of boats operating in the seas off North and all of them are encouraged with festivities at SL military camps along the coast, Tamil fishermen complain.

Tamil fishermen are not allowed to operate multi day boats and their resourceful fishing beds and key jetties continue to be seized by the SL military.

The Northern Provincial Council authorities have implemented strong measures against the local fishermen who deploy illegal methods to fish. But, the NPC is not able to control the Sinhala military backed intruders.

While the whole media focus is on trawlers coming from Tamil Nadu in India, no one is paying attention to the Sinhalicisation of the entire fishing industry in North, the fishermen societies in North accuse.

Even the people-to-people centric initiatives such as the Cey-Nor, which began to construct plastic boats from Jaffna decades ago, have been transformed into Establishment-centric business ‘foundations’ operating from South, the fishermen in North further complained.