ANURADHAPURA, Sri Lanka — Ramanathan Archchuna, a doctor-turned-member of Parliament from Jaffna whose statements have repeatedly drawn controversy, told a Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna rally in this Sinhala-majority city on Saturday that he would never again demand a separate Tamil state, and predicted that his “machan,” Namal Rajapaksa, would be elected president in 2029.
Dr. Archchuna, who won a Jaffna District seat as an independent in November 2024, delivered the address in Sinhala to an audience that included Buddhist monks and party leaders.
“Until the day I die in this country, I will not ask for Tamil Eelam,” he said, according to a Tamil translation of the speech. “But what I want is these Sinhala people.”
He opened by apologising for his Sinhala, which he said he had learned as a small child, and by establishing his standing to speak. He was born in the north, he said, and had lived his 40 years there and in this country. He had not come from abroad.
Dr. Archchuna said the Tamil diaspora had raised and handed over large sums of money in connection with the election that brought the current government to power, that neither the public nor the government’s own supporters knew of it, and that the donors had since instructed him to say so publicly in front of a Sinhala audience. “We were deceived,” he said.
He also referred to a consignment of 323 containers and said the Criminal Investigation Department had questioned him over earlier remarks on the subject, adding that he had declined to answer, citing parliamentary privilege.
He offered no documentation to support the claim. The National People’s Power has not responded to it, and it could not be independently verified.
Dr. Archchuna described Mahinda Rajapaksa as the only figure who came to mind when Sinhala people were mentioned, and said that if the country could name a single president, it would be him. He criticised the present leadership through an animal analogy, saying a jungle can hold a lion and a tiger, the emblems conventionally attached to Sinhala and Tamil nationalism, but that voters had installed a fox instead.
His warmest remarks were for Namal Rajapaksa, Mahinda Rajapaksa’s son. Dr. Archchuna said that after he entered Parliament, Mr. Namal Rajapaksa had taken him aside and asked whether he was genuinely an enemy, and that he had decided in that moment that he was not. He said he had told Mr. Namal Rajapaksa that his election as president in 2029 was certain, and that if Sinhala voters in the south and Tamil voters in the north could be brought together, he would be there to drive Namal’s car. He returned to the prediction at the close of the speech and offered to bet on it.
He said that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, or AKD, whom he mocked as “the coriander president,” a jibe at the herbal drink promoted as a Covid-19 remedy, had brought 29 cases against him since he entered politics. He said he had faced none in 10 years as a doctor.
He warned that the violence of 1988 and 1989 would return in 2029. Tens of thousands were killed in those years during the second insurrection mounted by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and the state campaign that crushed it. The J.V.P. is the dominant party in the governing coalition.
Speaking in the city where tradition holds that the Tamil king Elara was killed by Dutugemunu, Dr. Archchuna told the audience that the victor had ordered that respect be paid at the spot where his adversary fell, and said he was addressing people who had honoured even an enemy. He also mocked the competence of governing-party legislators, and cited court cases against Jaffna District NPP M.P. Ilangumaran over the alleged theft of a goat and a telephone.
The speech comes a week after Tamil advocates asked the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva to open an international investigation into whether Sri Lanka’s treatment of Tamils amounted to genocide, and to appoint a special rapporteur on the country. Tamil parties in the Northern Province have built their platforms on self-determination for five decades.
Dr. Archchuna closed by asking the audience to remember his face the next time they insulted a Tamil. “If you want to kill Tamil people, kill me,” he said.
