The Hon. Bimal Rathnayake - Minister of Transport, Highways, Ports and Civil Aviation and Leader of the House of Parliament

¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Chairperson of Committees, during this Adjournment Debate regarding the Easter attack victims, I intended to briefly state a few points. This is a matter of national importance, a hole in the conscience of Sri Lanka. We must heal it. Though full healing may be impossible, one way is to judicially prove who the real planners and operators were. Politically and socially, there is no doubt about who the perpetrators are. We are saddened when some Opposition Members applaud those perpetrators here. Though they are in Opposition today, this heinous crime occurred during their time in Government. Teaming up with those criminals now to attack the NPP Government is shameful.

¶ 02 The Easter attack cannot be viewed in isolation. After the 2015 defeat of the Rajapaksas, they needed to manufacture conditions to return to power, including fomenting political conflict between President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe; Sirisena’s attempt to run again for President aided that. Ranil Wickremesinghe, ever ready to do anything for power, also contributed, weakening the Government—yet the 2015 mandate was strong, as strong as ours in 2024. The Rajapaksas did not have a substantial platform, so they devised an objective situation—cultivated since 2013—through intelligence channels among Sinhala and Muslim nationalists. Read about Cambridge Analytica—how to manufacture conditions to win an election over years, not just in the final months. Thus, anti-Muslim sentiment was built. Even before the Easter attack, a psychology had formed that being a Muslim in Sri Lanka was a curse. Seeing politicians now join hands with those political criminals burns my conscience. Attack us all you want; it will not stick.

¶ 03 That is how they operated in 2015–2018. Fair-minded Muslim youth were pushed to margins; some were drawn to extremist formations; even where not, people gravitated to extremes. Noam Chomsky said ISIS grew from the US strike on Iraq.

¶ 04 I need two more minutes, Hon. Deputy Chairperson.

¶ 05 These attackers did not act randomly. I do not know the intelligence minutiae. To seize political power against Muslims—because cases had commenced and they were afraid—many cases we initiated from 2015 were betrayed by Ranil, Sajith and Maithripala. We have revived them, and started new ones. Within that objective situation created to return the Rajapaksas to power, this happened. It could have been prevented with strong intelligence and security services. The greatest crime of Sajith Premadasa and Ranil Wickremesinghe was to ignore CID evidence reports and intelligence on such an attack. Islamic bodies including the Ulema warned repeatedly. With all that, national security was wrecked by those leaders.

¶ 06 Where did today’s economic crisis begin? Tourism collapsed from the Easter attack. After the attack, the Ranil–Sajith Government remained for about a year and a half. What investigations did they do? What responsibility did they take? In Katana alone, about 300 Christians, including my own relatives, died. Muslims still suffer the stigma; the economy fell. Can you be trusted again to run the country? You utterly bankrupted national security. The attack occurred despite available intelligence. National security is essential for stability and development. This is not about four or five killers but about a failed group that wrecked national security. Even thereafter, for some time you remained in power but did not conduct proper investigations. You know who handled them after the attack—then came Gotabaya, then Ranil as a foster of the Rajapaksas. What happened? Investigations were not properly conducted. What happened to honest officers? Shani Abeysekara is a victim of the Easter attack and of Thajudeen’s murder; Ravi Seneviratne too became a victim for investigating these killers. Shani did not casually walk into our office; Shani and others were removed; true investigations were halted. Who will reappoint Shani? The Catholic leadership, including His Eminence the Cardinal, asks for that. They also ask to reinstate Ravi Seneviratne.

¶ 07 What did the President do? He ended the era where criminals held both the investigations and the criminals in their hands—seven long years. Now investigations have begun. Evidence was erased; officers were hunted and removed; I recall about 700 officers at the CID were reshuffled soon after Gotabaya’s win. Yet today they come and talk of reports. Those reports were cooked in Medamulana. They now join hands with murderers and criminals. My pain is seeing politicians stoop this low, joining those who destroyed our motherland for power.

¶ 08 Finally, there are many victims—Christians and Muslims—all Sri Lankans. Our children’s future was blighted. In a country where investigations were buried, officers removed and barred, we have now begun investigations. Our government is only seven months old. We are proceeding sincerely. We will heal this wound and build harmony among Christians, Muslims and the general public, and we will inevitably expose and jail the true godfathers and conspirators you embrace. Thank you.