One hundred Wanniyala-Aetto tribespeople have returned to their land, more than twenty years after they were evicted. The Wanniyala-Aetto were forced to move to government resettlement areas when their last forest refuge was turned into the Maduru Oya National Park in 1983. Park guards have threatened to take those who have returned to the Park to court in an attempt to force them out once again.
The Wanniyala-Aetto are the indigenous people of Sri Lanka, and are thought to have inhabited the island for many millennia, long before the arrival of the Sinhalese and Tamils. In the 1950s, the government began to settle thousands of Sinhalese on the tribe's land, bulldozing their forests and flooding their hunting grounds.
Since the 1983 evictions, the Wanniyala-Aetto have been unable to practice shifting cultivation, and struggle to grow enough food on the small plots of land they have been allocated. Hunting and gathering in the forest is also banned. Some men now have permits to hunt in a small area of the park, but those without risk fines or imprisonment if caught hunting. Three hunters, all with permits, have been shot dead by park guards in recent years.
Please write to the President of Sri Lanka urging his government to immediately allow all those Wanniyala-Aetto who so wish to return to their land, to hunt for their own consumption and to gather forest produce inside the park, without fear of further eviction, harassment or violence.
His Excellency the President of Sri Lanka
Mr Mahinda Rajapakse
Presidential Office
Colombo 1
Sri Lanka
Fax: +94 112 4333 46
