Sri Lanka Tamils fight to regain land army seized long ago: 'This govt too playing tricks'

“Lord Buddha gave up everything he had to attain salvation. But in the name of Buddhism, our land has been taken away in Sri Lanka. Is this right?”

The anguished words pour out from Pathmanathan Sarujan, one of the thousands of Tamils in the island-nation's north desperate to get back their land and property the military seized decades earlier during the war against the Tamil Tigers.

Also read: How Indian-origin Tamils in Lanka are quitting tea estates to carve a new identity

Sarujan, 37, was one year old when his family was shooed away from Valikakam North in Jaffna Peninsula as the army expanded its defence theatre once fighting resumed after a lull in 1990.

The armed conflict finally culminated in 2009 with the rout of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), ending one of the world’s bloodiest and longest insurgencies.

Almost 2 decades since LTTE fall, Tamils seeking own land

But 17 long years later, many of the Tamils whose land was usurped without compensation in the name of “national security” are increasingly pressing the authorities to return what legally belongs to them, not the state.

A key reason so many in the country’s Tamil-majority north voted for the Sinhalese-Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in general elections in 2024 was because President Anura Dissanayake promised to undo some of the historical wrongs, the land alienation included.

But it's not even two years since the new president took over, and most Tamils are bitter that Dissanayake, not a politician Sri Lankans were traditionally used to, has not kept his public pledge.

“We have been holding protests asking for our land for the last three years every Poya day,” said Sarujan, referring to the full moon day Buddhists view as auspicious. “But we are losing hope. This government too is playing tricks with us.”

The building contractor is not alone.

“We have lost hope. We are frustrated,” added a leading doctor in Jaffna town, whose two family houses too were taken away by the military from the Kankesanthurai area near Jaffna’s northern tip in 1990.

A sprawling military complex declared out of bounds for civilians is where the doctor’s family has two houses — one measuring 1.188 acres and another 0.25 acres. Like so many others, the doctor too thought that the army would give up all the private land they seized once fighting got over.

Also read: Sri Lanka’s ‘Indian Tamils’ allege racial bias, seek justice and dignity

While many land holdings have been returned to civilians, Tamil activists say a lot more — the estimates range from 3,000 to 6,000 acres — are still with the security establishment.

Military running commercial enterprises on Tamil land

Worse, the military now runs restaurants, farms, boutiques and other commercial enterprises on occupied Tamil land, adding insult to injury.

People like Sarujan pay 5,000 Sri Lankan rupees a month as house rent where they now live while their own houses are with a military that seems most reluctant to give up Tamil civilian property.

The situation is very bitter for Sarujan because the military used curfew-like curbs of the Covid era to build an imposing Buddhist vihara on his land complete with a place of worship, a monks’ residence and a meditation hub.

Sarujan admits a small vihara did exist in the area as far back as 1946 but that ancient site now lies in ruins.

“I have Buddhist friends in Colombo and I am not against Buddhism,” he underlines. “I even told army officers that the old vihara could have been rebuilt. Why punish us by building a new one on our land?”

A Jaffna-based academic said the military was overwhelmingly Sinhalese and Buddhist, and their aim was to ride roughshod over the Tamil community now that the Tamil Tigers had been crushed.

The academic aired a widely held view in Jaffna that Dissanayake did seem keen on returning the land to the Tamils but the military appeared intransigent.

Sri Lanka’s Deputy Defence Minister Aruna Jayasekara, a retired army officer, told parliament some time back that over 700 acres of land in the country’s north and east had been returned to the public.

Also read: Sri Lanka placing roadblocks on Tamil refugees’ return from India

At the start of 2025, he said 672.24 acres were given back in the north. Another 34.58 acres were freed in the east.

Leading Tamil politician M A Sumanthiran said Tamil land under military occupation totalled some 11,000 acres when the war raged but has steadily fallen. He believes the military still holds about 3,000 acres of private land in Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Vavuniya and Mannar, the five districts constituting the Northern Province.

'Govt must respect law of law'

The Jaffna doctor complained that the military did respond once to letters from his wife and her sisters but had since become indifferent. The government, he said, kept asking for documents proving land ownership. “We give them but there the matter ends.”

“This is totally illegal,” he said. “The government must respect the rule of law. We are only asking for our own property but they don’t give us.”

Other Tamils pointed out that the military produces vegetables on occupied land. These are then sold in the open market where, ironically, Tamils buy them for consumption.

Also read: Should Sri Lankan Tamils in TN get Indian citizenship? Tamils are split

Somasundaram Sugirthan, chairman of the Valikamam North Pradeshiya Sabha, said, “We keep petitioning the government. The government passes the buck to the military, and the military passes the buck to the government.”

Tamils say they never took up the land issue during the war against the LTTE as that may not have been fair. But not returning the land and houses to the rightful owners even so many years after the dawn of peace was unfair.

“What the military is doing is an insult to Buddhism. True Buddhists would never steal anything that belongs to others,” Sarujan said.