Environmental Conservation Trust (ECT) Director Sajeewa Chamikara, speaking on behalf of the environmental groups protesting against the Panama land grab, told The Island that Minister Gamage, who had encouraged the people in Panama to protect their land rights during the previous government, was now trying to construct a luxury tourist hotel in the same area.
According to the ECT Director, around 350 families in Panama had been displaced for the last six years due to land disputes and majority of them had lived there since their birth. It was their ancestral lands and they were believed to be descendents of those who staged the 1818 Wellassa rebellion against the British.
Therefore, it was imperative that those families be kept in Panama, he added. People in Panama were engaged in paddy cultivation and fishing and as they had been moved out of their own lands, they had lost their livelihood, Chamikara said, noting that in 2009 and 2010 around 1,220 acres including beaches, forests, cultivations and temples in Shasthrawela, Ragamwela, Egodayaya, Horekanda and Ulpasyaya in Panama had been taken over forcibly by the Navy and the Air Force.
Accordingly, lands in Shasthrawela and Ragamwela were under the Navy and Hore Kanda and Ulpasyaya under the Air Force, he said. Around 480 acres of cultivations and 840 acres of forest reserves were retained by Navy and Air Force and electric fences had been put up around their boundaries, Chamikara said.
One hundred and sixty four acres had also been acquired by the Presidential Secretariat under the previous government in a bid to legitimate the land grab, he said.
Elephants had also lost their habitats owing to the land grab and a hotel named Panama Lagoon Cabana had been built by the Navy on a land owned by the Forest Conservation Department (FCD), Chamikara said.
The people of Panama have formed an organisation called 'Panama-Paththuwa Surekime Sanwidhanaya' (Organization to protect Panama-Paththuwa) to safeguard their land rights and made a complaint to the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission under no HRC/AM/105/10/B/OT. The Commission has recommended that the people had a right to remain in their ancestral land.
With the continuous agitations made by the people in Panama, a Cabinet decision was taken on Feb. 11 in 2015 to release the lands except 25 acres.
However, authorities have failed to release the lands, the ECT Chief stressed.
Chamikara alleged that with the aim of relocating the Panama people, a foundation stone had been laid by Minister Gamage to construct 300 houses in 150 acres recently. But, the project had been started in an area where an elephant corridor was situated.
Chamikara said the blocking of the elephant corridor would worsen the elephant-human conflict in the area. He claimed the government was trying to avoid releasing the lands of the Panama people and relocate them to a forest reserve as the Panama area was rich in bio-diversity. As it was surrounded by Kumana, Yala and Lahugala national parks, the area had a great potential as a tourist destination. The Arugambay beach, which is a main tourism attraction in the Eastern province, is close to Panama, he said.
Minister Gamage, contacted for comment, denied the allegations made against him. Rejecting them as baseless, he said he was not planning to construct a hotel in Panama. He said an NGO and around 30 people in the area were trying to sling mud at him.
Minister Gamage said he would construct new houses for all the people in Panama and a project to construct 4,500 houses in Ampara District had been launched.
(by Maheesha Mudugamuwa - island.lk)
