Dr. Palitha Kohona responds to comments about the SL gov. made by hip-hop Singer M.I.A. Part 2

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

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[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.

[Maheshlic]

Only when you said who takes care of the hundreds and thousands of beggars in the streets of sri lanka and atleast for the idp's there are ngo's, govt and the army taking care for them I commented send not only beggars but all your citizens to the camps they will then be taken care of by the ngo's, foreign govts, sl govt and the un. Only when you compared the plight of the tamils to beggars I said those words. It seems you will be happy only if the Tamils are reduced to the level of beggars.

[11tigers]

Maheshlic, let's face it; the LTTE has always used lies & propaganda to support its claims. Sadly, you are still doing this. The UN said the camps were some of the better camps they had seen. No camp is ever going to be like home, granted. The reason why there are no beggars from Colombo in the camps... don't waste people's time by asking ridiculous, irrelevant questions. If you truly don't know the answer, stop discussing this topic.

[Maheshlic]

Yesterday I checked the UN sites and WHO sites, Human Rights watch etc. In all those sites i found no evidence for your words. Today I called a person known to me working in UNICEF. I put him the same question. He said he doesn't know anything of any report which praises the SL Govt for the conditions in the camp. You say you are a Journalist and you have reported it. Why not give a link to it. You have not logically shot down my point.

[tmorgan1000]

Reports by the UN give Lanka poor marks for dealing with women, children & minority issues.

[pubuman]

And what context was that? Its blatantly obvious what you are trying to do there, so don't shy away from it when your point has been logically shot down. I didn't call you stupid, I said that's the stupidest thing you have said so far. (smart people can say stupid things). No, not the UN sites, their annual/ 6 monthly/ quarterly reports - they are publicly available through their offices (I do not know where you live so I cannot give you contact details, but it should be easy enough to find).

[Maheshlic]

You could have read the context in which the above words were spoken. I don't think you had read it in context. Okay but I will not call you a stupid for that. Instead of name calling and using abusive words if you can talk I can appreciate it. if not I will only think it is not etiquette. We can concentrate on the issue and not target the individuals. By the way I had checked many UN sites and not come across anything as you said. Can you give me the link please.

[pubuman]

That's one of the stupidest things you've said. Only people in the war ravaged areas were in the camps in the first place. There were no non tamils there thanks to the LTTE killing anyone who is/was not tamil in their controlled areas (check the UN reports). And of the ~2m tamils in SL, there are now ~100k in the camps (5% of tamil pop) - so why do you make it sound like all the tamil people in the country are in these camps?! When facts aren't on your side, it seems you like to make stuff up.

[pubuman]

The thing is, every war has refugees, the majority of the tamil people in Sri Lanka live in the rest of the country, and are happily doing so, how many outlets report these facts? The UN has acknowledged that the conditions in these camps are a lot better than most refugee camps anywhere, and more than half the displaced are now back in their homes, no refugees in the history of the world have been able to return to their homes so quickly after war, but of course, who is reporting on that?