The Hon. Thurairasa Ravikaran

¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, in this debate on international sovereign debt restructuring, I urge that the aspirations and needs of all our people—especially Tamils in the North and East deprived of their rights—be prioritized.

¶ 02 On education, resources must be allocated equitably to schools. The Northern and Eastern Provinces have insufficient funding. Many schools in Vanni lack adequate digitalization; in Mannar and Mullaitivu, there are no proper computer resource centres; some schools in Mullaitivu operate with just one computer.

¶ 03 Schools also lack sufficient health staff and non-academic staff like office aides and night guards, and need sports equipment to encourage athletics. Despite this, there have been excellent achievements: a student from Thottaveli Government Tamil Mixed School in Mannar won gold in javelin; another from Karachchi Imaduvatnam Bandara Vanniyan Maha Vidyalaya in Mullaitivu won national U-20 wrestling gold; a student from Vellipunam Maha Vidyalaya placed sixth nationally in U-14. Ten more athletes from the same Mullaitivu school won medals. I congratulate them and urge the Minister of Sports to address the shortage of coaches and equipment.

¶ 04 On remembrance: on 27 November 2024, people peacefully commemorated their dead without disturbances. I appreciate the President’s stance on this. Tamils have long faced genocide; the final war in 2009 inflicted immense suffering. Many still live as walking corpses, their wounds unhealed, having lost loved ones and unable even to bury the dead during shelling.

¶ 05 People in those areas ask for an officially recognized memorial site to remember their loved ones. The Tamil community, one of the world’s ancient civilizations, has profound traditions of remembrance. Like the tsunami memorials listing every victim’s name, there should be a Mullivaikkal memorial for those who died in May 2009, with names inscribed, so generations can remember and our culture is reflected. I request the Government to permit a memorial at Mullivaikkal without ethnic bias, in the spirit of goodwill. Thank you.