The Hon. Shanakiyan Rajaputhiran Rasamanickam

¶ 01 Hon. Chairman, please verify my time; I believe I have 18 minutes—an additional three minutes should be added by the Office of the Leader of the Opposition.

¶ 02 I speak with deep disappointment about the Government’s accountability policy. The Hon. Minister briefly mentioned a domestic mechanism for gross human rights violations—that brevity is precisely the problem. The State protects itself regardless of who is in power.

¶ 03 I refer to former President Hon. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s recent Al Jazeera interview. I do not understand why he defended the previous Government on wartime conduct. According to reports, he acknowledged aid blockages and that some hospitals were bombed, while denying it was systematic: “There had been occasions where the Air Force had bombed hospitals and action was taken against some of them. But on a large scale, I wouldn’t say that.”

¶ 04 Human Rights Watch, in “Sri Lanka: Repeated Shelling of Hospitals, Evidence of War Crimes,” documents at least 30 attacks on hospitals in the combat area since December 2008, including the deadly May 2 strike on Mullaivaikal Hospital in the declared “no-fire zone,” killing 68 and wounding 87. I table this article.

¶ 05 An aid worker’s account from Valayanmadam Hospital on 27 April describes a drone overhead, people lying on the ground fearing an imminent strike, a loud air explosion followed by multiple ground explosions, and a doctor killed by shrapnel. I place this in the Library in the interest of time.