Too close for comfort

Admiral Thisara Samarsinghe was recently approved by the Australian Government to become the next Sri Lankan High Commissioner in Canberra. He joined the navy in 1974 and retired in January 2011.

Admiral Samarsinghe was chief of staff of the Sri Lankan Navy at a time when the navy shelled Tamil soldiers and civilians trapped in what had been declared a safe zone at the end of the civil war. The navy then blocked attempts by the International Committee of the Red Cross to evacuate the injured, women and children from the safe zone.

From 1983 the Sri Lankan navy detained and shot Indian fishermen from Tamil Nadu who ventured into Sri Lankan waters on the basis that they were likely to be helping Tamil separatists. Until 2009 400 were shot and killed, with several thousand more wounded.

According to the recently-released UN report into war crimes committed at the end of the civil war, both sides were guilty of breaches under the Geneva Conventions, however the Sri Lankan government has refused the UN panel which prepared the report further access to Sri Lanka and has condemned the report as biased.

The report estimates 40,000 Tamil civilians were killed towards the end of the war, some, as already noted, by the navy. In addition, 4,000 Tamil soldiers (LTTE) are being held incommunicado by the victorious government forces.

The 500-page UN report notes that, “The fact that interrogations and investigations as well as ‘rehabilitation’ activities have been ongoing, without any external scrutiny for almost two years, rendered alleged LTTE cadre highly vulnerable to violations such as rape, torture or disappearance, which could be committed with impunity.”

It is wrong for Sri Lanka to have put forward a senior naval officer intimately involved in the civil war as High Commissioner and wrong for Australia to have accepted Admiral Samarsinghe.

There are precedents for rejecting Samarsinghe.

In 1995 Australia rejected the nomination as Ambassador of retired Indonesian General Herman Mantiri. His nomination was rejected on the basis of war crimes committed by Mantiri against the East Timorese.

In 2005 and 2008 the Canadian Government refused to accept nominations for the position of High Commissioner put forward by the Sri Lankan government, for reasons associated with human rights abuses.

It is a crying shame that the Australian Government has settled for lower standards.

In the interests of fighting people smuggling, the AFP has posted officers to Colombo to liaise with their Sri Lankan counterparts. However the Sri Lankan police have blood on their hands, having engaged in the extra-judicial killing of Tamils for several decades.

They have been involved in the murder of Sri Lankan journalists. Press freedom is all but dead in Sri Lanka. In 2009 the editor of The Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickrematunge, was murdered. In the same year JS Tissainayagam, a Tamil journalist and newspaper editor, was jailed for 20 years for publishing editorials critical of the government in 2006. He was held in jail for two years before being sentenced by the Sri Lankan High Court under anti-terrorism legislation, a catch-all law similar to but more draconian than Australian legislation.

Australia took sides with the militarised Sinhalese majority in the civil war. At the end of the war, instead of offering humanitarian assistance to Tamils trapped in government camps, it sent the deputy chief of the navy, Rear Admiral Davyd Thomas, to Colombo in June 2009 to liaise with his counterpart, the then Rear Admiral Samarsinghe, on action to stop people smuggling.

Thomas also met with the President’s brother, the Sri Lankan secretary for law and order and defence, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa , a man accused of war crimes. He also met with the chief of the defence force, the chief of the navy and the chief of the coast guard. No doubt it was seen useful to have Samarsinghe in Canberra to assist when and where necessary in stemming the flow of Tamil asylum seekers.

Over the years the Sri Lankan High Commission in Australia has conducted a campaign of harassment against Sri Lankan Tamils living in Australia. They were assisted by the AFP, which saw nothing wrong in visiting and intimidating Tamils in their homes at odd hours.

A Victorian Supreme Court judge, Paul Coghlan, strongly criticised the AFP during his summary at the conclusion of a trial into the alleged terrorist activities of three Tamil males at the end of March last year. One of the accused, Arumugan Rajeevan, had the novel experience of being “unarrested” by AFP agents. He was pulled over as he was driving to a meeting, and arrested and handcuffed at gunpoint. Realising they did not have the legal grounds to arrest him, the AFP “unarrested “him.

Coghlan also commented that Rajeevan had been abused during his interview which was an “absolute departure from normal principles.” No admission of fault or attempt at recompense was made.

Although not guilty of any crime, all three pleaded guilty under pressure in order to minimise sentences. In the event the state withdrew charges but in view of their pleas the men still had to be sentenced. None went to prison.

The Age newspaper commented at the time that, “Coghlan’s damning critique of police behaviour in relation to Rajeevan’s treatment spanned not only his arrest but his subsequent treatment at the hands of federal agents. But the Tamil Tigers case – in which prosecutors last year withdrew all the terrorism charges against the three accused men – raises greater issues than just the quality of police work...The sentencing provides the final chapter in what has been a complex, international tale that raises questions about how Australia should deal with citizens caught up in another country’s civil war.”

The appointment of Samarsinghe again raises that question.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2717966.html

அவுஸ்திரெலியா(Radio Australia) வானொலியில் வந்த ஆக்கம்

Radio Australia:Asia Pacific:Story:Tamils mark two years since end of Sri Lanka's civil war

Tamils mark two years since end of Sri Lanka's civil war

Two years after the end of the bloody civil war in Sri Lanka, reconciliation between Tamils and the Sinhalese remains fraught with challenges.

Tamils around the world have gathered to commemorate the tens of thousands of lives lost during the final months of the war - when there was a sharp escalation in violence.

In Melbourne, the Tamil diaspora called on the Australian government to back the findings of a UN advisory report, which recommended an independent investigation into claims of atrocities perpetrated by both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tiger sepatratists.

The Sri Lankan government says the report was "shoddy" and refutes any claims of atrocities.

Reporter: Alma Mistry

Speakers:Rajiva Wijesingha, Sri Lankan MP and the Secretary General of the Sri Lankan Government Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process; Adrian Sinnappu,The Consortium of Tamil Associations; Adam Bandt, Australian Greens Member for Melbourne

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MISTRY: In May 2009, after three decades of bloodshed and conflict, the Tamil Tigers were defeated by the Sri Lankan Government. Two years later, M-P Rajiva Wijesingha is in Australia to promote the Sri Lankan government's effort to unify and rebuild the country. Mr Wijesingha's asking the Sinhalese and Tamil diaspora to lend their expertise and finances to help heal their homeland. He says the government has been working hard to shelter and rehabilitate the estimated 330,000 people that were displaced in the fighting.

WIJESINGHA: We've been able to resettle most people an we've actually dont quite a lot in terms of infrastructure development, making sure they've got schools, hospitals, roads, water facilities and so on. But where we need to much more is in terms of human resource development and I was hoping some of the communities here would also contribute.

MISTRY: But for Tamils who have left Sri Lanka, deep scars remain. In Melbourne, about 60 people gathered at Federation Square, to remember those killed during the military's final offensive in 2009. The protestors say 40,000 civilians were killed. Adrian Sinnappu is from The Consortium of Tamil Associations. He says Tamils can't forget the brutality of the past and he says the ethnic conflict is far from over.

SINNAPPU: Tamil people are still living in fear in incarceration and detention centres and refugee camps. What we've been fighting for is not solved. It's only the Sri Lankan government militarily defeated an organisation fighting for the independence. That's all that happened so the problem remains.

MISTRY: In April a U-N commissioned report found that 'tens of thousands of civilians' were killed in the final stage of the war, adding that most of those casualties were caused by government shelling. It accused Colombo of shelling indiscriminately and targetting hospitals and other safe zones. But the Sri Lankan Government has rejected the allegations. Rajiva Wijesingha is also the Secretary General of the government's Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process. He says he has personally looked into the allegations contained in the report, and found they aren't supported by evidence.

WIJESINGHA: It's actually quite shoddy let me give you an example. They'd make an allegation about sexual buse in camps. And they'd cite a footnote, which was the Secretary General's report. But when we went to the report and looked at that paragraph it was about what happened in the LTT controlled areas.

MISTRY: The report also criticised the Tamil Tigers, for using civilians as human shields and contributing to the death toll. Wijesingha says Tamils living overseas have been slow to acknowledge atrocities committed by the Tiger rebels and is more concerned with prolonging the conflict, than moving on from it.

WIJESINGHA: The Tamils in Sri Lanka, although they suffered very much from the LTTE. They know they were taken as human shields so they're not holding this against us but obviously some Tamils abroad, not all of them. They realised that they want to push this argument for the moment.

MISTRY: Adrian Sinnappu says if the Sri Lankan government knows it has no case to answer it should agree to an inquiry into possible war crimes.

SINNAPPU: If the Sri Lankan Government has nothing to hide then there is no need to to fear it. We welcome that. We welcome an independent inquiry. We are happy to listen to the independent umpire's decision. If Sri Lanka is genuine about reconciliation they should be willing to come forward and conduct and inquiry and find a peaceful solution to the problem.

MISTRY: Rajiva Wijesingha says he's written to the Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki Moon to point out problems with the advisory report, but the Sri Lankan government is yet to formally respond, because it was assured the report was not official, but meant only to advise the Secretary General.

WIJESINGHA: The Sri Lankan Government didn't want to dignify it by answering immediately. My view is that we still should through an agency such as the peace secretariate now. Make it very clear that we disagree and provide the evidence. But as I said that is a decision for the Executive branch of Government to make, not for me.

MISTRY: So they are still deliberating on that?

WIJESINGHA: I have no idea, I've been away for some time.

MISTRY: But the Tamil community overseas is pressing for a UN resolution for an independent inquiry. The Australian federal member for Melbourne, Greens MP, Adam Bandt, spoke at the rally. He says the Australian government should use its influence with Sri Lanka to ask it to co-operate with the UN.

BANDT: We trade with them we have negotiating and dipolomatic influence with them. And I think perhaps in a country closer to home or pehaps in a country where they were a group that had a louder voice, we would be jumping up and down saying this is unacceptable treatment.

MISTRY: Sri Lankan MP Rajiva Wijesingha says the government is working to engage more Tamils in the reconciliation process. But Tamils say there can be no reconciliation without an independant examination of the past. Adrian Sinnappu again.

SINNAPPU: Without justice there cannot be true reconciliation. They can continue to subjugate and threaten the community but without an international investigation and trying to find the truth and then the perpetrators on both

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/asiapac/stories/201105/s3220641.htm