Trincomalee Under Siege: Land Grabs Target the Tamil Homeland in Sri Lanka

As the 57^th session of the UNHRC addresses the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, a new report from the Oakland Institute, Trincomalee Under Siege: Land Grabs Target the Tamil Homeland in Sri Lanka uncovers the rapidly escalating colonization of Tamil and Muslim lands in Trincomalee District. While Sinhalese colonization and settlements have taken place in Sri Lanka under the guise of development since independence, this new research exposes an intensification since the end of the civil war in 2009 and details the different methods deployed by successive governments and the military to further disempower Tamil and Muslim communities.

As a result of intensive land grabbing, Sinhalese now constitute 27 percent of the district’s population and occupy 36 percent of the district's total land area. The Kuchchaveli DS Division has undergone the worst dispossession during the past ten years as over 50 percent of the division (41,164 acres) has been expropriated. This has been in part carried out under the guise of various “development” projects – including irrigation schemes, port modernization, power generation and tourism – used to expropriate lands from Tamils and settle Sinhalese in a process known as Sinhalization. Various government agencies, including the Archaeology Department, Forest Department, and Tourism Development Authority are implicated in these schemes.

The expansion of Buddhist viharas (temples) in predominantly Hindu and Muslim areas is facilitating Buddhization of the East to change the demographics and erase the cultural landmarks of Tamils and Muslims. Since 2009, at least 26 viharas have been constructed on 3,887 acres of expropriated land in Kuchchaveli DS Division alone. In 2020, the government commissioned an 11-member Presidential Task Force for Archaeological Heritage Management in the Eastern Province, led by the military and monks, with the goal to seize land in the area.