The Eviction & Return Of The Northern Muslims & The Question Of Coexistence

By Shreen Abdul Saroor and Mahendran Thiruvarangan –OCTOBER 31, 2021

The eviction of Muslims caused a serious rupture in the coexistence of Tamils and Muslims in the North. The Tamils in general could not dissociate themselves as a group from this heinous act or condemn it openly when it was unfolding perhaps due to fear of reprisals from the LTTE. Small groups of Tamils, however, pleaded with the LTTE to stop the eviction but their pleas did not move the LTTE. Now when a section of the evicted Muslims is in the process of resettling in Jaffna and have begun to stabilise themselves in socio-economic terms, the doors to a renewed coexistence are slowly opening. A genuine process of coexistence can begin only if the members of the Tamil community are willing to interrogate, even belatedly, their narrow nationalism and their silence in the face of the LTTE’s militarism which allowed the LTTE to commit an act of ethnic cleansing. The coexistence of Tamils and Muslims in the North depends largely on how these two communities work together in addressing the challenges the returning Muslims are faced with. This piece is an attempt to reflect upon the question of the return, the social, economic and political challenges the evicted Muslims face in their resettlement and their implications to ethnic coexistence in the North.

Since the civil war’s end in May 2009, northern Muslims have started returning in substantial numbers. But many Tamils who remained in the North have not welcomed their return. Political and economic rivalries between Tamil and Muslim communities persist. Northern Muslims are disappointed that government authorities pay little heed to the needs of returning Muslims and give preferential treatment to resettled Tamils. Senior government officers, for instance, are said to under-quote Muslim returnee numbers, which significantly reduces the allocation of resources and the development support required for resettlement. When confronted over this perceived bias, government officers in the North respond that Muslims are already ‘well-settled’ in Puttalam, so the government’s priority should be on the war-affected Tamils. It is certainly true that the plight of war-affected Tamil civilians remains distressing especially in the Vanni. A decade after the end of the war, many still lack land, housing and other basic needs and continue to struggle for truth and justice in a dangerous, militarised space. These needs are critical, but addressing them should not forestall northern Muslims’ right to collective return. The suffering the two communities experienced during the civil war, instead of alienating them from one another, should lead them to empathise with one another and commit themselves to pluralistic coexistence.

On one occasion, when journalists asked Tamil government officers and religious leaders about claims that returning northern Muslims have not received adequate assistance, the leaders responded that the Muslim community had not returned in any significant way and that only a few had returned to engage in trade. In a dismissive, unsympathetic tone, these leaders stated that the Muslims are keeping one foot in Puttalam and one foot in the North. While it is true that some Muslims do not want to return to the North, their desire to maintain their connections in Puttalam reflects the obstacles that impede their resettlement. With their lands overtaken by jungles and made uninhabitable, people cannot be expected to leave completely the places where they have lived for 30 years before new homes and livelihoods can be established. Not only is there no basic infrastructure but they are also not welcomed by government officers or even neighbours. Most of the Tamils, after 30 years of separation, do not recognise their former neighbours. A new generation has grown up amidst the war which has no memories of the coexistences of Tamils and Muslims in the North. The few (mostly in Mannar) who received decent resettlement assistance have been able to return mainly owing to the political patronage of a former minister. For new families that return, accessing their lands and providing decent schooling for their children are daunting enough, leave alone the challenges in accessing livelihood assistance and jobs.

Mistakes Upon Mistakes

Although the LTTE faced heavy criticism for their act of ethnic cleansing, the LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was conspicuously silent on the issue during the peace negotiations of 2002-2005. At a press conference in 2002 during the peace talks, the late Dr. Anton Balasingham, the political ideologue of the LTTE, with the LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran on his side, stated that the LTTE had already apologised to the Muslims for the eviction. However, Dr. Balasingham’s statement sounded hollow and tokenistic at a time when Muslims were facing severe obstacles to their resettlement in the North. Further, none of the parties engaged in talks — including the Norwegian mediators — were willing to recognise the right to collective return of the northern Muslims as one of the primary conditions for establishing normalcy in the North. This was the main reason for the low rate of return of expelled Muslims in comparison with Tamil internally displaced persons (IDPs) who returned during the 2002 peace process.

When international delegations inquire with the government about the plight of northern Muslims, they have been told that the evicted Muslims no longer want to resettle in the North and that their desire to return to the North now stems from business opportunities or a desire to sell their properties. A few non-Muslim religious leaders go so far as to say that if all of the expelled Muslims were now to return to the North, it would alter the ethnic composition of the area. They spuriously suggest that Muslims being outside the war zone and the religious proscriptions among the Muslims against birth control have combined to create a boom in the Muslim population over the last 29 years, thus making a full return an unfair burden on Tamils who remained and suffered through the war. Such claims reeking of chauvinism highlight the extent of the challenge northern Muslims face in seeking justice. They indicate that a section of the Tamil civil society too is actively involved in constructing the ‘returning Muslim’ as the over-populating, outsider-Other that poses a threat to the existence of the Tamils in the North.

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