The Hon. Ramalingam Chandrasekar - Minister of Fisheries, Aquatic and Ocean Resources

¶ 01 Madam Deputy Chairperson of Committees, today we debate the extension of the State of Emergency by one more month. This emergency was declared due to the disaster caused by Cyclone Ditva on 28 November last year to rescue the nation and its people.

¶ 02 A Member from the Eastern Province has been making incendiary remarks in this House. The war ended 17 years ago, after 30 years of devastation. Decades earlier, Tamils were oppressed: rights were stripped, the Jaffna Public Library was burned with 97,000 books, and democratic processes like the Jaffna DDC election were obstructed, pushing youth into militancy. During the war, the ancestor and father of the Member representing Batticaloa sided with those who killed, imprisoned, and humiliated Tamils.

¶ 03 Groups formed under powerful families hunted Tamil youth and people, and those who collaborated with such groups now shed crocodile tears and try to rekindle ethnic hatred to remain politically relevant among Tamils. That will not work. Even during the last local elections, some inflamed racism saying Tamils’ lands and properties would be seized. Those times have changed in Jaffna, Batticaloa, Ampara, Trincomalee, the Vanni, and the Hill Country—areas heavily affected by emergency and PTA in the past.

¶ 04 The Member from Batticaloa now associates in Colombo and then goes to Jaffna to stir communalism while living luxuriously, sending his children to study with Sinhalese and cultivating hatred among Tamils. That charade will no longer succeed.

¶ 05 In the past, whenever emergency was passed, the next day Tamil youths would be hunted and Tamil women violated. We know the crimes like the murder of Koneshwari and the heinous killing and torture of Krisanthi Kumaraswamy and her family. Those who were in the parties of perpetrators now claim to speak for Tamils. That cannot stand.

¶ 06 We emphasize: we declared emergency due to Cyclone Ditva. With current Middle East conflicts affecting global supply chains, we extend emergency not to curb democracy or free speech, nor to hunt youths, but to manage crises. In over a year of our administration, no ordinary citizen has been punished through emergency like in the past. Today, narcotics have become a national scourge affecting all communities and regions. Before we took action, certain places in Jaffna were unsafe; now parents say they feel relief. Police in the North are improving; while some misconduct remains, leadership is striving to change culture.

¶ 07 We do not use emergency to suppress people. We use it to protect democracy and rebuild the nation. Politicians who lost power try to regain it by false accusations and stoking racism. Our people will not endorse that. Thank you.