Mullaitivu businessman credits his success to the LTTE’s economic policy

• Recalls how the LTTE implemented a thrifty lifestyle for the people in the North and put in place their own economic development programmes

A businessman who runs several agricultural farms including a cattle farm apart from a hardware store in Mullaitivu attributes his successes to the self-sufficiency policy implemented by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the outfit’s heyday.

According to BBC Tamil, Ramalingam Sathyaseelan of Oddusuddan in Mullaitivu claims that he continued the lifestyle that was introduced to the people by the LTTE with the implementation of their economic programmes in the 1990s. He says he has never watched a film in a theatre or on a TV or a mobile phone, in his lifetime.   

He said he did not pursue the Tamil rebels’ policy on armed struggle even under their administration, but is still benefiting from their policy on self-sufficiency.   

Sathyaseelan recalls how the LTTE implemented a thrifty lifestyle for the people in the North and put in place their own economic development programmes, in the face of severe shortage of essential items created by the restrictions imposed by the government.   

The Tamil Eelam Economic Development Organisation (TEEDOR) of the LTTE guided each family in the areas held by them to cultivate various crops in order to face the shortages, he says.   

Sathyaseelan recollects how he came out from the welfare camp with only Rs. 300 after the end of the war started farming and other businesses following the TEEDOR guidance. He boasts that apart from the cultivation of black gram (Undu) and other lentils, 1500 teak trees, 400 coconut trees and number of Palmyra trees were growing now in his lands and the number of cattle in his farm has surged up to 65.   

He says that his family members did not watch TV and he did not have one either. He encourages his daughters to watch news on the mobile phone.