By Saman Indrajith

Batticaloa District TNA MP Shanakiyan Rajaputhiran Rasamanickam told Parliament on Saturday that it was the Chinese the Sinhalese, we should be afraid of and not the Tamils or the Muslims.

“Since the government is working hard to create bogeymen out of Tamils and Muslims, the Sinhalese are not able to see the real picture,” MP Rasamanickam said, participating in the third reading debate on Budget 2021.

“On 29th of the last month, we had a festival of lights. Police went and disrupted it. Why? Because the government wants to create a non-existing problem and get the majority to think that they are busy working for the Sinhalese’ cause. The government does so because it cannot deliver its promises on development.  They create unnecessary problems and get behind the cover of those problems.  I feel sorry for the plight of the Sinhalese people who have been made into a gullible lot by their own politicians. This is the Sinhala country and its majority of people are Sinhala. They are made to hate other communities. That attitude has been created by their political leaders. For example, yesterday MP Ponnambalam spoke and Sinhala ministers spoke against him and, therefore, the people today talk only of those debates and arguments on the racial lines. You are creating an issue because you cannot run the country properly.”

The MP said that the issue in Sri Lanka was not about Tamils or Muslims, but about the Chinese and the Sinhalese community must understand it. “You have to worry about Chinese investments. China is investing heavily in ports. Do you want to be another Pakistan? Do you want to be another Laos? We are getting into a Chinese debt trap. Go and tell the people that truth. If you are so strong and gutsy tell the people the truth. The Chinese are investing here, but tell me the number of jobs the Chinese have created in this country? None, because the Chinese invest here and bring their countrymen to work on the projects they invest in and so they take the money they gave and take it back. Do you think that they build port cities out of their love toward us? It is being built because they want a base in South Asia in the Indian Ocean, not because they love this country.”