G G Ponnambalam
The leader of the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) G G Ponnambalam has condemned the Sri Lankan government's complicit support of colonisation in the North-East and the deliberate "pauperisation" of the Tamil people across the homeland.
Addressing parliament this week, the lawmaker said that ‘this government is not empowering the people of the North-East, they are pauperised and deliberately kept in that position".
"But infrastructure is given prominence, Buddhist viharas are given prominence, why?”
In recent weeks military personnel and senior Sri Lankan ministers attended a ceremony following the construction of a Buddhist Vihara which had been built on a destroyed Hindu temple in Mullaitivu.
Ponnambalam went on to add, "You are pauperising them so they cannot compete with the rest of the country, and you are facilitating colonisation to take place and to change the demography of that area. We condemn this act... This is downright racism".
Watch the full speech below.
