JAFFNA, Sri Lanka: Using a bat made of coconut tree bark, 15-year-old Gunasekaram Shatheeskumar was playing with his friends outside his house. Three stones were on the ground to create a baseball-style setup.
Minutes later, they heard explosions and a helicopter overhead. Shatheeskumar, his mother, grandmother, and younger siblings fled.
That was 33 years ago, and his family have never been able to return to their home and ancestral land in Palaly, a small town north of Jaffna in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province.
The explosions in 1990 were the start of the second phase of the civil war between the Sri Lankan military and ethnic Tamil separatists that ravaged the island from 1983 to 2009. Almost all of Palaly’s 44,000 residents who were mostly Tamil, either fled or were evacuated by the Sri Lankan government in June and July 1990.
For many in Palaly, that was the last time they would set foot on their ancestral land, and for almost all of them, the last time they would see their homes.
Shatheeskumar, who is now 47, says his house no longer exists. The land that once belonged to his family is now part of a massive barricaded military camp. Imposing barbed wire arches stretch over the camp’s entrance, just opposite where Palaly Junction used to be, a popular spot for fishermen to come and sell their produce. As Shatheeskumar looks into the distance, a motorbike drives into the camp.
“Where that motorbike is going is where our house was,” he told VICE World News, squinting at the sun. “You can only see the place from here because you’re not allowed to go past this point.”
Gunasekaram Shatheeskumar says the land that once belonged to his family is now part of a massive barricaded military camp. Photo by Kumanan Kanapathippillai
Army land grabs are widespread across the north and east of Sri Lanka, where most of the country’s ethnic Tamils live. The military says they are there for security, but Tamil landowners VICE World News spoke to said their precious land has been in military possession for 33 years and is being used for farming and economic activity by the military.
More recently, land owners organised by area into unions and organised protests to demand the return of their land. In November, university students led a protest outside a government building near Jaffna amid concerns that the seized land would now permanently be occupied by the military.
Tamil university students protesting land grabs and military presence outside a government building near Jaffna in November, 2022. Photo by Kumanan Kanapathippillai
Even though massive citizen-led protests that launched last year over the economic crisis have died down in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, most Sri Lankans are still struggling to make ends meet. And the situation is dire in Tamil areas.
Tamil university students protesting land grabs and military presence outside a government building near Jaffna in November, 2022. Photo by Kumanan Kanapathippillai
Tamils make up 15 percent of the population of Sinhalese-majority Sri Lanka. Many of these seized areas, like Palaly, are now designated as a high security zone by the military. Some land has been released since the end of the war, but the army also continues to seize and acquire more land using government decrees and orders.
C.V. Wigneswaran, a former chief minister of the Northern Province, told VICE World News he believes the army is acquiring land, “to help the government in its ethnocratic pursuits.” The 83-year-old Tamil judge and current member of parliament continued, “The idea is to chase off as many Tamils from their traditional homelands as possible by land grabbing and harassment by the military and others. Future looks bleak. Unless the Tamils get back their lost lands and their control over them quickly the Tamil areas would soon be colonised by Sinhalese.”
Shatheeskumar claims that the army is using their land for farming and business purposes, and says he believes his house was demolished after 2009. At the beach, he points out tiles and stones that he believes belong to demolished houses, and that were flung into the sea by the army.
The closest Shatheeskumar has gotten to his home was overhead, after the war ended, when he flew into Palaly from the capital Colombo.
“When I travelled by airplane, I could see all the houses and buildings clearly,” he said. “I flew about four or five times from Palaly to Ratmalana, and the plane swooped low towards where our house was, and you could see everything clearly. There was the Saint Sebastian church, and the paint was peeling off and dancing in the wind, but now that church isn’t there anymore.”
A military camp now stands where Shatheeskumar’s home used to be. Photo by: Jeevan Ravindran
Although Shatheeskumar now lives in Jaffna town, and many others originally from Palaly have shifted to other parts of the north and east, or even abroad, some have stayed or returned to the town after the end of the war.
Ponipas Mary Yogarani, 43, and her husband Mathuranayakan Mariyaseelan returned with their children to Palaly in 2019. Both of them are native to the area, and they now live in a hut on a government-allotted plot of land they were given in exchange for their ancestral lands. They are now building a permanent house using the one million rupees ($2,720) they were given by the government, but the actual cost of construction has increased due to runaway inflation in Sri Lanka amid the current economic crisis.
“Our land was next to the church of Our Lady of Good Health,” Yogarani told VICE World News. “When we go there, we’re reminded of when we used to run and play, and of the time we spent with our parents and siblings. Then we were displaced and went from place to place. When I go and look at it now, I feel so sad.”
Ponipas Mary Yogarani, 43, now live in a hut on a government-allotted plot of land they were given in exchange for their ancestral lands in Palaly. Photo by: Jeevan Ravindran
Although the family are thankful for the land they have been given, Yogarani’s 13 siblings are spread across other areas of Sri Lanka’s north and east, and she hopes that they will be given land so they too can return to Palaly.
“If they had given us the land back, we could’ve gone and lived [there] with my mother for a bit,” Yogarani said , bursting into tears. “My mother wanted to go and live in her own house, but now she’s dead.”
Her husband Mariyaseelan estimates that the family has moved house about 20 times since their initial displacement in 1990, living largely in huts. They still have not been given a permit for their current plot of land, but believe they will receive one soon.
“Our farming lands are now under army control,” Mariyaseelan said. “If the portion of land they occupied when we left in 1990 was one percent, it’s now more than 50 percent. People are longing to come back to their own soil, to Palaly, but they still can’t.”
VICE World News reviewed multiple deeds from former residents that certified that the land occupied by the military belongs to their families, » …
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