The Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) has issued a letter to Sri Lankan president Anura Kumara Dissanayake, calling for the immediate withdrawal of a Gazette notification issued under Section 4 of the Land Settlement Ordinance, which could pave the way for the mass appropriation of lands in the Tamil North-East.
The letter, dated 3 May 2025 and signed by ITAK General Secretary M.A. Sumanthiran, raises grave concerns over Gazette No. 2430 issued on 28 March 2025, which gives landowners just three months to formally assert ownership claims before their lands are declared state property under Section 5(1) of the Ordinance.
“This Ordinance was enacted during colonial days by the British government to take away lands which our people had used as their own for centuries, but who had no clear formal title to them,” wrote Sumanthiran. “This law ought to have been repealed a long time ago.”
The warning comes amid growing fears that the measure is part of a broader state strategy to formalise land grabs across Tamil-majority areas, including around Mullivaikkal — the site of the 2009 genocide of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians by Sri Lankan government forces. The Sri Lankan state has moved to seize thousands of acres in the region, further displacing war-affected families and obstructing resettlement and memorialisation efforts.
“People in the Northern and Eastern Provinces have been displaced multiple times over the last half-a-century and are yet to be resettled fully in their own lands,” Sumanthiran added.
The letter outlines several specific concerns:
1. Multiple displacements have disrupted normal life and delayed resettlement.
2. Many families have lost vital documents such as title deeds due to war and the 2004 tsunami.
3. Land deeds often remain in the names of deceased persons, with no formal conveyance made to surviving heirs.
4. Hundreds of thousands of Tamils fled the country during the armed conflict and now live abroad as formally recognised refugees — including nearly 100,000 in Tamil Nadu, India — making it nearly impossible for them to meet the Gazette’s three-month deadline.
“In the aforesaid circumstances, it is nigh impossible for these people to make their claims to these lands,” the letter emphasises.
Sumanthiran warned that proceeding with this Gazette action would deprive Tamil people of the Northern and Eastern Provinces of their ability to reclaim their lands and further damage North-South relations.
“Such action is inconsistent with due respect for the rights of the People of the Northern and Eastern Provinces and would be inimical to the repair and restoration of the fractured relationships between the peoples of the North and South in this country,” he wrote.
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