Extremist Sinhala Buddhist monk, Ampitiye Sumanarathana, threatened to kill all of the Tamils in the South this week, in yet another racist outburst that was caught on camera.
“Every single Tamil person will be cut into pieces!” exclaims the monk. “They will all be killed! All the Tamils in the south will be cut into pieces and butchered! The Sinhalese will massacre them.”
The clip was reportedly taken on Wednesday in Batticaloa, as the monk clashed with police and locals.
“He’s inciting racial hatred & violence,” said parliamentarian Mano Ganesan. “This is unacceptable & disgusting.”
Sumanarathana has a long history of racist hate speech and assault.
The monk has threatened to kill a Tamil government official in 2016, subjecting him to verbal slander when he described him as a “Tamil dog” and a “bloody tiger”, while a Sri Lankan police officer watched. He has similarly spewed anti-Muslim hate speech. The same year he was arrested after leading a group of Bodhu Sala Sena (BBS) monks from the south into Batticaloa. Sumanarathana climbed on top of police barriers and recited hate speech against Tamils and Muslims.
In 2019, he physically assaulted a Christian man in Batticaloa whilst Sri Lankan police officers watched on.
In 2020, he threatened to choke a government official over a purported archaeological site. Colombo Gazette reported that the monk said, “tell your superior to come or I will take this pole and kill you”.
In 2021, he threatened officials in Batticaloa, as he staged an impromptu protest at the Divisional Secretariat office demanding land be allocated for the construction of a Buddhist shrine.