Ignored by successive governments, their own politicians and international community
by Latheef Farook :
The unfortunate plight of northern Muslims refugees, abandoned by Muslim politicians, the successive governments and even the international community speak volume for the bankrupt nature of the Island’s Muslim politics and even the community. Muslims were part and parcel of northern soil and society. Over
centuries this was their only place and their Tamil neighbors were the only people they knew. Most of them often felt alien when they visited the island’s south as they found it somewhat uncomfortable there due to the different social environment especially when it came to speaking in Sinhala.
Even around the late 1980s, the bulk of their concentration was in Jaffna city where they lived predominantly in three densely populated areas, namely Sonaka Theru, Ottumadam and Bommaively which were collectively known as Muslim ‘vattaaram’ -zones.
Their main activities were retail and wholesale hardware trade, lorry transport, jewellery and tailoring besides agriculture and fisheries. They owned houses and properties besides paddy lands and fishery boats.Muslims dominated the trade at one stage to such an extent that two-thirds of the blocks in the new market in Jaffna, built by the Mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiappah, and was monopolized by them.
