Vanni District Member of Parliament Selvam Adaikalanathan has urged the Sri Lankan government to immediately return gold jewellery belonging to Tamil civilians, warning against attempts to seize the property that was taken by the military during the armed conflict.
The MP's intervention comes in the wake of recent announcements that large quantities of gold and silver, originally in the possession of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the final stages of the armed conflict, had been handed over by the Sri Lankan Army to Acting Inspector General of Police (IGP) Priyantha Weerasuriya. The jewellery is now to be evaluated by the National Gem and Jewellery Authority before being transferred to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.
While the authorities have stated that the valuables will be returned to “rightful owners upon proof of identity and ownership,” Adaikalanathan expressed scepticism over the process. He highlighted the long-standing silence of the state regarding the fate of these items and criticised past and present administrations for withholding the property.
"Under the guise of a so-called humanitarian war, governments with genocidal mindsets massacred people and destroyed the assets that symbolised Tamil cultural identity," Adaikalanathan’s statement read. "These governments have kept a large amount of Tamil people's jewellery hidden without offering any explanation until now."
Adaikalanathan stressed that thousands of Tamil civilians, especially in the Vanni region, had pawned their jewellery during the conflict, only to later lose access to their possessions. He noted that many of those affected are now living in poverty, with little to no means of recovering their assets.
Though the MP welcomed the recent transparency by the government - even if politically motivated in the lead-up to elections - he warned against using bureaucratic loopholes to seize the jewellery under the pretext that rightful owners could not be identified.
"The government must not use the excuse that the rightful owners cannot be identified to nationalise the jewellery," he said, calling for active measures to identify and return the items. He encouraged the public to come forward with pawn tickets or receipts and said he was prepared to raise such cases in Parliament himself.
Acknowledging the reality that many original owners may have passed away or lost their documentation in the chaos of war and displacement, Adaikalanathan also urged the state to adopt flexible mechanisms for restitution.
“The government must take appropriate action and return the jewellery to the rightful owners, rather than nationalising them and confiscating the property of the Tamil people,” he said.
During the final phase of the Mullivaikkal genocide in 2009, thousands of civilians were subjected to intense shelling and mass displacement.