Hon. (Dr.) Ramanathan Archchuna

¶ 01 Madam Presiding Member, thank you for the opportunity. I am very happy, as a representative of the people of Jaffna, to fully support the Motion brought by Hon. Rajeevan Jeyachandramoorthy focusing on small and medium exporters in Jaffna.

¶ 02 Hon. Rajeevan, however much you align yourself with the 1/1, remember that we are Tamils. You are older than me, like my elder brother. Do not forget that once, due to State oppression, both of us and other Tamil MPs fled the Northern Province on bicycles with school bags via Kilali. Also, when you bring development Motions, as Hon. Nizam Kariapper said, do not forget the Eastern Province. The North and East together form the Tamil homeland; keep that in mind. This Motion appears somewhat parochial; perhaps inadvertently so.

¶ 03 On exports, adding my experience: after tea, Sri Lanka’s next major export is tanned leather. Yet today there is not a single leather-tanning factory in the North or East. We need one, for example in Chavakachcheri. The Economic Centre built in 2017 at Chavakachcheri is still unopened to date. I have raised this repeatedly at the DCC. The next DCC meeting is on the 30th; let us both attend, and the media will come — we will sort it out.

¶ 04 I will say this in Sinhala as well. For years, we Tamils fought against Governments. Our leaders — called terrorists by you — were our leaders to us for 30 years, and we still respect them. But you cannot bring yourselves to call those who fought for the Sinhala people “war heroes”. That is one issue.

¶ 05 Second, your Minister Sunil Handunnetti told me today that he is fighting to stop salt produced in the North from coming to the South. I told him under the Parliament (Powers and Privileges) Act I will take him on. We Tamils never say North-made salt should not come South. We say it should be packed in the North and then distributed countrywide. Is that too hard? Instead, salt is brought South and sold by private companies and co-operatives at higher prices. When we raise this, what does Minister Handunnetti say?

¶ 06 Further, he accuses me of regionalism; claims I block appointing a Kilinochchi person as a Manager. He does not even know that the current Manager at the Alimankada saltern is from Jaffna. How can I ask to remove him?

¶ 07 Also, they falsely brand me as LTTE. If I were, with 159 of your MPs in power and the CID at your disposal, you could arrest me any time. I am not afraid to say what the Tamil people feel. But with 159 MPs, you still cannot call your soldiers “war heroes”. You lack the spine. We never insulted or defamed our leader Prabhakaran’s name. We treated him as a war hero. Likewise, we regarded Elara with respect; Elara ruled Anuradhapura for years.