Muslims' Land Issues in Trincomalee District

Abstract

After the 30 years of civil war, Muslims in the North East are encountering many problems within which the land issue is in the first priority. Especially, Muslims in the Trincomalee district are mostly affected by the land issues and still continuing. They have been encountering three kinds of land issues: 1. Problems due to not having permits for residential land, paddy and farm lands. 2. Problems due to not granting title deed for permit lands 3. Problems due to the lands which have been bordered and or captured by the government agencies The root cause for all of the above problems is no permits for land. Rejection for supplying of land permit has created law and order problem and even magnified political and ethnic tension among the communities. The effected people used to face land related issues on a daily basis due to inefficient and negligence of responsible authorities, such as Divisional Secretariat, District Secretariat, Provincial Land Commissioner’s Department. So far, four meet ings were held and more than 1000 applications were filed. Responsible officers for accepting public complain and documenting are involving in ethnic discrimination and prioritising the cases of their community while ignoring other communities. Trincomalee Muslims are suffering a lot from land issues and associated legal problems where they have been ignored for granting land permits. During the war period, people displaced from their resi dential properties, farm land and paddy land. These areas became barren land and forest. While taking this opportunity, many government agencies including forest department, wildlife department, coastal protection department and archaeologi cal department took over many private lands for bordering and as conservation sites. Moreover, some more private lands were captured by air force, navy and STF. The land owners are facing a serious issue in releasing these lands because of not having proper documents such as permits and deed. More than 15,000 acres Muslim lands are encountering the above mentioned issue. Within which, the land permits have not been granted for about 80% of the land. Trincomalee Muslims' land issues differ from place to place and therefore, these problems can be resolved through the fol lowings: 1. Some land issues can be resolved through Divisional secre tariat- District secretariat-Provincial land commissioner. 2. Few other land issues can be resolved through negotiation with the defence ministry 3. Another type of land issue should be resolved through leg islation 4. Remaining land issues can be resolved through negotiation with the president’s level It is noteworthy to mention that nearly 90% of the land issues can be solved by an honest and sincere Divisional Secretary. Secondly, about 50% of land issues of North East can be solved through imposing amendment in the circular (No 2001/5 which was published by the ministry of wildlife and the environment) that is transgressing the land legislation.