A Temple tree adorned with full of white hued flowers gives the beholder pleasing and serene feelings making him spell bound for a moment. The heavenly fragrance of the flowers of the tree is also equally pleasing. The particular tree in the picture, however beautiful it might be, silently tells us a very sad story reminding us a tragic incident that took place over two decades ago. The tree is in the village called Sagarapura located 45 KMs northwards of Trincomalee on Trincomalee –Pulmudya road. (About 05 KMs from Kusalaveli (Kuchchaveli).
This village is just one of the unfortunate hundreds of Sinhala villages in North and East that became the victim of brutal ethnic cleansing programme carried out by the LTTE. The fateful day of 6th of October 1987, twenty seven unfortunate Sinhalese people including women and children were shot and hacked to death. Those who reached to the scene of mayhem in the following day morning only saw highly mutilated and burnt dead bodies.
This tree stands in the place where the burnt bodies of 08 members of an entire family were buried who had been hacked to death. The tree was later planted in the memory of those dead family members by their relatives. Sagrapura was a flourishing village with 300 families before the mass scale ethnic cleansing programme of the LTTE was started. Another Sinhala village named Kallarawa in Yan Oya basin located about further 15 km north of Sagrapura had also been the victim of constant harassment of LTTE culminating 48 people being hacked to death in 1990. After the massacre Sagrapura was abandoned by the villagers. The tree has become a monument signifying the furry unleashed by the Eelamists poisoned by mythical Eelam homeland fantasy.
Ancient Sinhalese villages in Yan Oya basin have been a throne in the flesh of the Eelamists as the strategic location of the villages disproves the bogus Eelam theory. So the Yan Oya Sinhala villages had to bear the brunt of the ethnic cleansing programmes of the Eelamists.
The only way to pay the homage to those unfortunate souls would be to resettle thousands of Sinhalese who fled their ancient villages after spate of massacres in the North and East. The government should pay the same degree of enthusiasm and the effort that it shows in resettling the Tamil and Muslim villagers in resettling the Sinhalese too. Otherwise, it would be a great betrayal to those who scarified their lives in thousands to create an environment where every community can live peacefully in any part of the country. It will equally be a great betrayal for the brave Sinhalese who opted to live in their ancient villages despite ever persistent danger of being hacked to death at any moment. 
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