Dr. Palitha Kohona responds to comments about the SL gov. made by hip-hop artist M.I.A. Part 1

In '07, Dr. Palitha Kohona was appointed Foreign Secretary for the government of Sri Lanka, which is home to Asia's longest-running civil war. He previously helmed the government's Peace Secretariat and was chief of the U.N. Treaty Section, the largest of the organization's Office of Legal Affairs divisions. He was also with Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Kohona is an attorney and holds a doctorate from the U.K.'s Cambridge University. He has dual citizenship in Sri Lanka and Australia.

Begin film clip.]

M.I.A.: Basically since I've fled till now, there's been a systematic genocide which has kind of been a quiet thing, because no one knows where Sri Lanka is. And now it's just escalated to the point there's 350,000 people who are stuck in a battle zone and can't get out, and aid's banned and humanitarian organizations are banned, journalists are banned from telling the story. It's just, like, one-sided, 100 percent, and I think it's just escalated because Obama was coming into power, because only under sort of Bush's presidency that you could get away with doing as much as that.

Tavis: When you say there's genocide happening there, what's your sense for why a story of genocide isn't being covered more in the media? Why don't we know more about this?

M.I.A.: You don't know more about it because due to the propaganda, when you think Tamil, you automatically think Tiger, and that is completely disproportionate. So human beings, like, around the world have to be taught to go Tamil equals Tamil civilians first, and the Tamil Tigers are a separate thing. And both of those groups are different. It's like a square and a circle.

And the thing is, there's only 4,000 Tamil Tiger soldiers in Sri Lanka, and if you want, you could just sneeze and wipe them out in a day. And they're not that sophisticated with their weaponry and stuff like that. The Sri Lankan government, which is, like, a million soldiers big, can handle that.

But using those people, we're managing to wipe out the whole Tamil population, the civilians, and that is why you don't hear about it. Because the propaganda and the media, because if you're a terrorist organization you don't have the right to speak, that is passed on to the Tamil civilians. The Tamil civilians don't have the right to speak or right to live, they don't have any liberties. So that's been, like, the key thing, that when you think al Qaeda, you're not thinking Afghanistan.

That if you want to go and fight and kill al Qaeda then you can, but you can't wipe out Afghanistan. And that's what's happening in Sri Lanka.

[End film clip.]

source : Tavis smiley

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Sri
• Lanka
• M.I.A
• War
• LTTE
• Mahinda
• Rajapaksha
• Human
• Rights

[murali2011]

Mr. Palitha is wrong. Many got it wrong. The same situatation, in Durfur, the group attacked by Sudanese gov, were members in the gov. Their group people were living in Khartoum.

Tamils is north-east were targetted for so long. SL's First PM started colonization in 'Pathavia' by dividing north and east.

Tamils living in South can live with Sinhalese as long as they are quite on politics. Even 3000 Tamils killed by Gov mobs in Capital colombo (south). Still 1400 people missing since 2006

[regentps]

Dr. Palitha! ..... physco

[TheTruth8018]

@murali2011 No it was the rebels who attacked the government

[randomnessgurl46]

Hi I'm Tamil and after all these years, I still don't understand the main reason fir this "genocide". Can someone please explain? *desperate*

[surendee]

somebody who is living outside of the SL making statement just like she knows everything about the two decades of war,It's really a joke,I need to know what does she think now, about sri Lanka.....

[Urugai]

Dr. Cock hona ;-D

[balathanushan]

@balathanushan i count that... 14 "you know"...

[balathanushan]

So much "U kno" lol <3 but this all true.... i like you MIA... :P

[tmorgan1000]

Google Lanka war crime allegations surface ABC

"nothing to suggest Dr Kohona was directly responsible for committing these alleged war crimes, though international law does recognise principles of what's called command responsibility..."

- Don Rothwell, professor of international law at the Australian National University

The Prevention of Terrorism Act / media black out is used to shield international criminals in the military/police/govt of Sri Lanka.

[tmorgan1000]

Which of those peers who published disputes made Marquis Whos Who in the World list? Francis A. Boyle has many right wing critics since he takes strong liberal left stands in regards to minority & aboriginal rights.