Impressions Of The Prima Flour Factory
Up close, from a boat
For better or worse, the Prima Flour Factory dominates Trincomalee. Apparently this factory supplies all of Sri Lanka’s wheat flour and the government was freaking out cause LTTE artillery in Sampur was threatening the national malu paan supply. And also like 40% of the oil. But that’s over now. Now the Prima Factory just dominates Trinco like a Stalinist monument, grounding your perspective from every angle.
It’s big and it’s there. I’m not sure if it’s pretty, but I have a strange affection for it. It’s like Orion I guess. You look around in a strange place and it’s always there.
From the Navy dockyards. View larger
Closer view from the dockyards, on top of an old British gunnery position
At night, from across the bay
In the early morning
In the clouds (from an earlier trip), from the civilian side, road just before the dockyards
From a water jet (jetboat)
wowzer
“the government was freaking out cause LTTE artillery in Sampur was threatening the national malu paan supply” – nice one! :D
I’ve always thought it looked ugly… It needs to be re-designed by Geoffery Bawa so that it actually fits into the environment it’s inhabiting.
1.Prima Flour Factory has a sad and racist legacy for Trincomalee.
2.It was started so that sinhala people could be given employment and moved into Trincomalee. This move, as part of the state sponsored colonisation of predominantly Tamil and Muslim areas. UNP MP, Cyril Matthew, was famous for this project.
3.In 2006, Sinhalese living in Tricomalee rioted by attacking and burning Tamil shops and people. The armed forces kept quiet, so did the media. This is the legacy that the Prima Flour Factory has embedded in Trincomalee.
4.The LTTE never shelled the factory. But I guess, you have to demonise the enemy. Happy Birthday to Pirapakaran!! (this is not to support all their activities)
5.Now, Tamils and Muslims in Trinco have to keep quiet. That’s the legacy of Prima Flour Factory. But for sinhalese it is a photo opportunity!
6.Funny how you were able to go to the dockyards and take photos? Oh, I guess if your Sinhalese you get special perks.
Below I give excerpts from the University Teachers for Human Rights (uthr) reports on the situation surrounding Prima Flour Factory and other state industries’ involvement with colonisation in and around Trincomalee. These are the kind of activities that creat and give succor to groups like, the LTTE.
(http://www.uthr.org/Reports/Report11/appendix3.htm) (web link for you to check)
Several state-run industrial projects have been established in the Trincomalee District. Mineral Sands Project at Pulmoddai, Sugar Factory at Kanthalai, Fisheries Harbour Project at Cod- Bay, Bulk Petroleum Depot at China Bay are some of these projects. As we mentioned earlier these projects overwhelmingly assisted the influx of Sinhalese into the Trincomalee District. Development projects not only bring in additional Sinhalese into the district, they also result in the renaming or creating of villages. There was a proposal to re-name Pulmoddai, a traditional Muslim village, as Kanijavelipura. Pudawaikakku, another Muslim village, was renamed Sagarapura after settling in a few hundreds of Sinhalese fishing families. We find a model village called Dhanyagama in China Bay. This is an NHDA assisted housing scheme to house Prima Flour Mill employees. A large village called Agbopura has sprung up near the Kanthalai sugar factory.
How these projects were to influence the demography can be seen in the case of the Prima Flour Milling Project, the firm concerned being a private Singapore based firm. It was arranged that all appointments to it had to be cleared by GA/Trincomalee. Security reasons were adduced! Thus a private firm was compelled to take nearly 80% Sinhalese as is employees.