> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The NPP’s Promise Was to Return Tamil Land. The Latest Release Was Just 11 Acres. - URL: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/the-npps-promise-was-to-return-tamil-land-the-latest-release-was-just-11-acres/ - Published: 2026-10-18T14:18:17.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-18T14:19:44.000Z - Author: Our Reporter - Tags: October 2026 **JAFFNA, Sri Lanka, Oct. 18 —** The Sri Lankan military returned 11.23 acres of private land in Jaffna this week, about 0.4 percent of the more than 2,500 acres of private land that the security forces still occupy in the Tamil-majority district, according to government figures. The release documents were handed over at the Jaffna District Secretariat by Col. W.M.A.M. Nisanka, the senior civil affairs officer at the military’s Palaly headquarters, to the district secretary, Maruthalingam Pratheepan. The parcels comprise 1.29 acres in the Valikamam North division, also known as Tellippalai, 5.06 acres in Nallur and 4.88 acres in Maruthankerny. Military-held land is among the most persistent legacies of Sri Lanka’s civil war. The war ended in 2009 after more than 25 years of fighting between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s National People’s Power alliance took office in September 2024\. It then won most Tamil-majority districts in the parliamentary election that November, after campaigning in part on returning civilian land. In a written response to a Right to Information request, the Jaffna District Secretariat said the security forces occupy 3,440.78 acres in the district. Of that, 2,570.18 acres are privately owned**,** and 870.6 acres are state land. The secretariat said 61.5 acres had been released since 2024\. Its response, published in August, predates this week’s handover. The figure has changed little since early 2025\. In February that year, Mr. Pratheepan told a district coordinating meeting attended by Mr. Dissanayake that the military occupied more than 2,500 acres of civilian land in Jaffna District. ## **Promises Without Dates** On his first visit to Jaffna as president, in January 2025, Mr. Dissanayake said land held by the military would soon be returned, and that land belonging to the people should remain with them. He also said the state retained the authority to acquire land for security or development if those affected received alternative land. Reports of the visit cite no deadline or acreage target. The party had campaigned in the north on the message that the people’s land belongs to the people. When it published its manifesto in August 2024, the document made no reference to the military presence in the north and east. Officials have repeated the commitment since. In June, the Defence Ministry said the National Security Council would finalise the return of military-held land in Jaffna to its owners. At a July 31 meeting in Mullaitivu, the Northern Province governor, N. Vethanayahan, said the president was firmly committed to returning the people’s land. He described national security and residents’ demands as equally important. The government’s own figures on releases are inconsistent, and most do not separate private land from state land. In October 2025, Deputy Defence Minister Aruna Jayasekara told Parliament that 672.24 acres had been returned in the Northern Province between Jan. 1 and Oct. 10 that year. Of that land, 86.24 acres were privately owned. In Parliament in July, Mr. Jayasekara said 64,663 acres had been released in the north and east between 2009 and 2024, and 692 acres since the current government took office. He said a further 243 acres would be released within two months, a period that ended in September. At the July 31 meeting, he gave different figures: 9,480 acres released from 2009 to December 2024, and 615 acres from then through June. A UN human rights report last month said the government had reportedly released almost 1,000 acres in the north and east. ## **The Legal Basis** Sri Lanka’s Constitution does not explicitly protect private property as a fundamental right. Under the Land Acquisition Act of 1950, the state may take private land for a “public purpose” by gazette notification. It must post notices publicly and pay compensation. The government says much of Valikamam North is held under that law. In August, Mr. Jayasekara told Parliament that three village-level administrative divisions fully occupied by the army had been acquired for the Palaly High Security Zone through a gazette issued on April 26, 2013\. He ruled out releasing 774.98 acres used by the air force around Palaly airport. In July, he said procedures were underway to permanently acquire 1,661 acres the army already uses at Palaly, with compensation for private owners. The 2013 acquisition was challenged in court. A total of 2,176 landowners filed writ applications in the Court of Appeal in two cases, CA Writ 125/2013 and CA Writ 135/2013\. Another group filed a fundamental rights petition in the Supreme Court, arguing in part that the notices violated the constitutional guarantee of equality. The U.S. State Department reported in 2019 that the cases had stalled. Jaffna Monitor could not find a final judgment in any of them. Land held without formal acquisition stands on weaker legal ground. Human Rights Watch has argued that when Sri Lanka’s emergency regulations lapsed on Aug. 30, 2011, high security zones and other military occupations not established through acquisition lost their legal basis. Sri Lanka is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which protects freedom of movement and the freedom to choose one’s residence. The UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, which address the return of displaced people, are not binding. Last month, the UN human rights office recommended that Sri Lanka release military-occupied land and halt further acquisitions in the north and east. This week, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka described the military’s occupation of parts of Valikamam North since the 1990s as “one of the most egregious and longstanding instances of military occupation of private land.” It called for an end to the occupation of private land unless legally justified. ## **Families Still Waiting** The government says some land must remain under military control. Mr. Jayasekara told Parliament that navy sites in Valikamam North are needed to monitor northern waters and to counter drug, arms and human trafficking. He said the sites are also used to respond to illegal fishing by Indian vessels, and that air force land at Palaly is needed for airport operations. About 80,000 people lived in Valikamam North before residents were displaced in June 1990, and many have not been allowed to return. Landowners in Myliddy have protested outside a military camp for 24 consecutive weeks. A separate protest at Palaly has run for 16 weeks. V. Jeganathan, a Jaffna teacher campaigning for the land’s return, told a media briefing in Colombo on Aug. 3 that the government’s plans amounted to keeping more than 2,500 acres of residents’ land in Valikamam North. “That causes us heartache,” he said. In early August, after meeting representatives of six Tamil parties, Mr. Dissanayake requested a report on the land, according to M.A. Sumanthiran, secretary of the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi. That month, Mr. Jayasekara told Parliament that plots totaling 353 acres had been identified for release “over the coming weeks and months.” Despite repeated government assurances, more than 2,500 acres of private land remain under military control in Jaffna, with no publicly announced timetable for their return.