The Sri Lankan cabinet has approved an application by EPDP leader Douglas Devananda to restore and commence salt manufacturing at the Elephant Pass saltern, in the Jaffna peninsula.
Devananda, who is head of the paramilitary group and also Minister of Traditional Industries and Small Enterprise Development, submitted the proposal on behalf of a new state owned corporation.
Another EPDP run company the ‘Maheswari Foundation’ is already involved in the illegal excavation of sand Vadamaraadchi, also in Jaffna.
See reports from TamilNet here and here.
Devananda and his group have been accused of committing a vast array of human rights abuses, including running child sex trafficking rings with support from the Sri Lankan government, in a 2007 secret US embassy cable.
See our earlier posts:
Sri Lanka’s leaders complicit in forced prostitution and child sex trafficking (Dec 2010)
2007 US cable: Sri Lanka killing through Tamil paramilitaries (Dec 2010)
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