The Hon. (Dr.) Ramanathan Archchuna

¶ 01 Hon. Presiding Member, I will be brief.

¶ 02 Whether public attitudes have changed or not after Easter, among those connected, there is change. A former close friend of Pillayan now sits in the ITAK, fighting for justice. They are turning on each other. We Tamils are used to informers since Ettappan’s time.

¶ 03 When the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk came, you know the deals cut in this Parliament. The same NPP government that gave Hon. Sumanthiran a six-sentence English note to read, stopped me from speaking when Hon. Bimal Rathnayake said “do not speak.” I insisted, as leader of an independent group, to speak two minutes and called for an international investigation into Chemmani. I wrote to the Speaker to release the videos. The Speaker must act neutrally. He replied via the Information Officer saying videos could not be released. I then invoked Right to Information again; today the reply says the videos cannot be released.

¶ 04 Politics is a great stage; those who were friends of killers change roles with time.