The Hon. Sugath Wasantha de Silva

¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, we believe in cause and effect. In 1977 the UNP won five-sixths power; within a year President J.R. Jayewardene said to the Tamils, “If it’s war, war; if peace, peace.” Then, during the Development Council elections, Ministers went to Jaffna and set fire to the mind and heart of Jaffna—the Public Library—igniting the North and inviting militarization, further nullifying votes and democracy there.

¶ 02 Then in the South, they brought a national referendum, staining the electoral map black, to extend five-sixths for another six years. But in 1982’s presidential election, Rohana Wijeweera surged, even surpassing Colvin R. de Silva—signalling that youth, peasants, and workers were rallying to the JVP. The astute Jayewardene realized the JVP was the main threat to the oligarchy. Under the cover of Black July, UNP elements gave J.R. the chance to ban three parties—the JVP first, then NSSP and the Communist Party. The ban on the JVP lingered while the other two were lifted.

¶ 03 When a movement of youthful and oppressed-class aspiration is denied space in the open, inevitably clandestine politics develops. Into that underground, UNP-backed “black dogs,” “green dogs,” PRAs and various masked squads infiltrated, tore our networks and began the hunt. A counter-attack emerges as a natural feature in political evolution. In this dynamic, camps like Batalanda arose—places where youth were murdered, their bloodlust sated by oppressive politicians; where the poison of predatory, even perverse, impulses stabbed into the blooming hearts of youth. This, not the sanitised tale, is what happened in 1988–89 as revealed by the Batalanda Report.

¶ 04 We cannot cast it aside as “old.” Those youth sacrificed for us—for the working poor; they were crushed under the boots of murderers; they offered their lives for our people. Should we have died like curs without fighting? No—we fought for rights. Some of our fellow students never returned from vacation; did they die in rivers, fields or tyre pyres? Karma has its fruits; we saw consequences even on May Day and at Nibirigasthiya. We take no joy, but destiny does its work.

¶ 05 We pay homage to the heroic comrades whose last breath in Batalanda infused strength into us. The Opposition says we took up Batalanda because of Al Jazeera. No—Batalanda is a symbol, one story among many: K-Points at Eliyakanda, University of Colombo and countless places where bodies hung from trees and burned in tyre pyres. We must bring justice and punish the killers—fathers or sons, anyone. We will not let the emancipators’ pain be silent. We shall bring to Parliament accounts of all such camps, so our homage becomes meaningful by delivering justice and rebuilding the nation they dreamed of.

¶ 06 Thank you.