The motive behind the massacres was to drive out the local Tamil population from their villages, in order to replace them with thousands of Sinhala settlers.

The result was that the Tamil people who were expelled remain permanently uprooted from their land, and a Sinhala colony called Weli Oya was formed in their place.

It was interspersed with small and large farms owned by Tamils or held on long lease by Tamil-owned business enterprises.

[6] Throughout the 1980s the Sri Lankan government conspired many schemes to grab the lands of Tamils, and settle them with Sinhalese people.

The Yan Oya settlement scheme was administered by the Sri Lankan minister of Sinhala ethnicity Lalith Athulathmudali backed by President J.R.

[6] In November 1984, alleging Tamils as terrorists, the Superintendent of Police in Vauvuniya Arthur Herath raided and drove away the residents of Kent and Dollar Farm.

In response to the massacres, S. L. Gunasekara and Davinda Senanayake issued a report that recommended the increased militarization of the colonies.

The government implemented the recommendation by increasing army presence in Weli Oya, but the LTTE continued attacking the settlements.

TULF representatives who took part in the Indian brokered APC talks raised the events in Manal Aru with the government.

[6] N.Vijayaratnam in his book 'Manal Aru' describes the events: The next moment the people gathered the few movables they possessed in cloth bundles and ran into the surrounding jungle.

[5] Similar treatment was meted out to numerous traditional villages in the Batticaloa, Ampara, Vavunia and Mannar districts.

In December 1984, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam reprised these colonization attempts by attacking these newly established colonies in North-East which were heavily protected by Sri Lankan military and Sri Lankan Home Guards who had earlier ethnically cleansed the native Tamil population from these villages.

[10] As a result, the demographics of the region had been significantly altered and a new division called the Weli Oya Divisional Secretariat (the Sinhalese equivalent of the Tamil term "Manal Aru") was carved in the southern parts of the Mullaitivu district.