"We do everything possible and suitable for Tamils living in Sri Lanka"- Ambassador Jaliya Wickramasuriya
"We are concerned about the Tamils in living in Sri lanka. And not any other organization....and we do everything possible and suitable for Tamils living in Sri Lanka," but "not according to the people outside of Sri Lanka needs," said Sri Lanka's Ambassador Jaliya Wickramasuriya.
Sri Lanka's Ambassador Jaliya Wickramasuriya to the United States stated this when responding to a question at the "talk" he gave on "Bringing an End to A Quarter Century of Civil War," at The Center for Human Rights and Democracy at the Georgia State University recently.
Dionne Walker, of the Associated Press writing on the appearance of Sri Lankan Ambassador at GSU on June 15th, said:
Ambassador Jaliya Wickramasuriya, speaking to an audience in a police-guarded library at Georgia State University, denied allegations that ethnic Tamils are being held in welfare camps against their will and insisted that "the truth of Sri Lanka is not always the news stories you see." He said the government is working to get the Tamils back into their homes within six months.
According to AP, at the GSU Ambassador also said:
However, releasing them to return to their homes isn't simple, he said, because rebels have peppered the countryside with explosives.
"It would be criminal to send people back to villages and land riddled with mines," said Wickramasuriya, adding the threat is also why journalists haven't been welcomed to the conflict area.
23 Comments
"We DO EVERYTHING....." including sending back the Mercy Mission Aid !!! Jaliya is a close colleague of
Gothabaya and that is how he got this job. The crocodile-tears he sheds for NGOs and Journalist
getting caught in mines is sheer nonsense - they are
experienced in working under such conditions. This
kind of talk is typical of GOSL Politicians and quislings on local platforms!
The Tamils in exile have seen real democracy - not mockery; real human rights - not state terror; real accountability -not violation of rule of law, and real justice - not the denial of it. They have also experienced freedom and equality and not repression and discrimination as seen in Sri Lanka(SL). With this background, Tamils desire good governance in their homeland, Tamil Eelam(TE).
TE is a peoples' demand, established firmly and democratically in 1976 -1977, before Tamil Tiger movement was formed. But the government of Sri Lanka(GOSL), has been prostituting with a blatant lie to the International Community(IC) that Tamil Tigers invented the demand of TE.
Sinhalese know to deceive the Tamils and cheat the world. President Rajapakse recently even cheated the UN Secretary General.
Any GOSL is never prepared to honour any democratic mandate of the people of TE; a reason why armed freedom struggle existed. During the last General Election in SL, the people of TE gave a democratic mandate through TNA, for Tamil Tigers to be their sole representative in any peace talks with the GOSL.
Inspite of repeated calls by the IC to talk to Tamil Tigers, the GOSL defiantly waged a genocidal war.
Now, Tamil Tigers have announced their decision to set up a committee to create a provisional Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam(TGOTE), in accoradnce with the democratic mandate of the people starting from 1976 -1977.
Tamils in exile are glad. But the GOSL, that killed more than 20,000 Tamil civilians last month, has called the attempt to work out the independence of TE by TGOTE as "halucination and another illegal attempt to violate the unitary status of SL".
Tamils of TE had a de facto state for the past 22 years, with its own national flag and own territory. It was not a halucination but a reality.
The territory and the governance of de facto state was even recognised as a separate entity by SL in the ceasefire agreement signed in 2002 between Velupillai Prabaharan and the GOSL. There was legality in the action by the GOSL and the unitary status was buried for ever.
Further, the demand for self determination of TE is legitimate according to the UN charter and conventions.
In desperation, the GOSL hopes that "the world will not react positively" to TGOTE but the facts are against that hope.
The world watched the images of Tamil genocidal activities of GOSL on their TV screens for many days. The world also knows that its supreme body the UN, is arrogantly defied by the GOSL whenever it asks for humanitarian intervention to take care of Tamil refugess and conduct probe on the war crimes committed by government soldiers.
The world, which works for civilised behaviour, justice and peace, will surely recognise the urgent need for a free country for Tamils, to protect and carve out a peaceful future, based on the UN conventions for the self determination of people.
1. According to this person (by the way he is not a career diplomat and he got this job just because he is closely related to the current president), during the 83 communal riots, he saved HUNDREDS of Tamils from his fellow Sinhalese by hiding them in his own house.
Question is how did he manage to hide HUNDREDS of people without alerting his fellow Sinhalese neighbors in his 3 or 4 bedroom house that was in a highly populated metropolitan area?
2. According to him, during the war time, HUNDREDS of Tamils called him EVERYDAY to express their unconditional love and support to the actions of the current government.
Question is the term he frequently used HUNDRED is really means 100 or any single digit above ONE can be called as HUNDRED?
Too bad he had a very hard time to sell his lies because his audience at Georgia State University were academics, graduate students and journalists and not high school dropped outs.
"It would be criminal to send people back to villages and land riddled with mines,"
said Wickramasuriya, adding the threat is also why journalists haven't been welcomed to the conflict area.
First of all, get rid of the razor wire, army and the concentration camp. People should have the freedom of movement.
The funny thing is that this very people in the concentrated (so called welfare) camps have been living in the land riddled with mines for more than 30 years. Now these guys are showing land mines to these people. These people are cheating no one other than themselves.
You know, me know, GOD knows, and every one knows what you are talking about. That is all it matters. Not the words itself.
He is a paid spokes of the biggest terrorist organization in Sri Lanka, led by the mass murderer Mahinda, and his gang of brothers. What else do you expect him to say?
They have been brought up and coached by the GOSL to lie with a straight face.
I have copied below a letter that I saw in another media under the heading
"Sri Lanka harass visiting Tamils at the Colombo airport"
"Tamils visiting Sri Lanka are being selectively taken into custody by the Sri Lankan intelligence officials and put under tormenting interrogation for several hours before they are allowed entry.
The Tamils visiting from the European countries, Canada and USA are subject to humiliating investigations by the authorities.
According to a victim, 15 Tamils arrived from UK were taken into custody and held in incommunicado detention for nearly two weeks to find out their connections with the LTTE operatives in London. They were subject to humiliating questioning and accused of involving in th e demonstrations in London. One of the victim said, he went on four week holiday and two weeks were wasted in the cells for no reasons.
He had no connections with the LTTE or its fronts and had not participated in any campaigns in London. He was arrested randomly and said to be treated in an appalling manner by the authorities.
In another incident, a Tamil lady in the mid 20’s was stopped and searched and held for three hours for interrogation. The officials had shuffled some photographs of the demonstrations in London and asked her to identify her in them. She stood very firm and told them that she did not participate in any of the demos and after three hours she was released.
In a separate incident a Tamil visitor from London was asked to part with some of his foreign currencies by the immigration official. He was allowed to go despite his refusal. When he reached his relatives place, he was told an official from the Defence Ministry had phoned to find out whether he had arrived. Soon after his arrival a person identifying himself from Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse’s office had demanded 2 million rupees from him and had threatened if he does not pay the sum he will be arrested.
The person fearing serious consequence had agreed to settle and paid the sum next day.
Lot of B.S.He was lying through his teeth OR just parroting what ever that was fed to him by his masters.Any-way who allowed this morone to step inside a university?Does his audiance know that he ia a grade ten drop out?Does he understand the meaning of words such as"human rights" and "democracy"?The only truth that came out of his mouth was that some Tamils were protected by Sinhala in 1983.Every thing else was a figament of his OR his master's imagination. Cheers,siva
This man is on a propaganda mission to cover-up what GoSL is doing under new guises to continue with 'ethnic cleansing'
http://www.gsu-jaliyaw.blogspot.com/
He contradicted UN and TULF leader on resettlement time frame and land mines. Seems like the new "humanitarian concern" to keep Tamils out of the lands they were evicted from.
I was there at this presentation. He was not a great presenter but he did do his job OK. The audience were mostly the State University kids for whom this was part of their course work in Political Science. Jaliya said that he will read a written script for 20 minutes and then he will open the floor for questions. One thing I liked about him was he did not loose his composure and kept cool all the time. The audience had a fair number of local Sinhalese who were his friends already. They were there to ask the soft questions and they did so. There was this lady who was flaming about Sinhalese not being allowed to buy land in Jaffna and he sort of ignored here. And one elderly Singhalese man even went to the extent of answering the question on behalf of Jaliya – vow !
Most of the speech was propaganda consisting of inaccuracies. He in fact said that they ( the Tamils ) did that ( propaganda ) and they ( the Sinhalese ) too have to do it. I was wondering why would a government want to do propaganda but tell the truth as it is ?
The questions from the students were fairly basic and ignorant. There were some clever students who asked some real stuff and stumped him. Most of this happened towards the end.
As usual there was reference to the riots of 1983 and how the good Sinhalese saved 100s of lives but he did not mention the 1000s who lost theirs ! And other crap like Tamils own most property in Wellawatte, Colombo is populated with all Tamils etc. etc.
Overall if you ask me to rank his talk I will give him a C+ . He is not a bad sort of guy to have a beer afterwards. I guess he is paid to do the job of telling the not so accurate things and he does it.
He is planning to do this in all 50 states ( you mean including Idaho, North and South Dakotas ? ) and I am fearful for him now !!!
Noel
SL Ambassador to US? The creme de la creme of the SL foreign service? Just amazing! Now people will understand why the country can't solve its internal political problems. Perhaps some meritocracy is in order--you know, the best and brightest of the country being allowed to govern the nation, instead of goons and lackeys?
Traditionally the Lankan Mission in Washington has been manned by diplomats of exceptional ability, learning and education who held their own and kept the Lankan flag up in that virtual capital of the modern world where the finest diplomats are sent by most countries One recalls names like Shirley Amerasinghe, Neville Kanekaratne, Mr de Silva (father of Ajith Jayaratna – former Chairman, Forbes & Walker and our HC to Singapore during the Tsunami) and the academic Devinda Subasinghe of more recent vintage. Previous governments in those prim and proper days usually sent senior civil servants to the US capitol. This strange regime has once more chosen “a square peg for a round hole” in Mr Jaliya Wickramasuriya - reportedly because he was a friend of one of the Rajapakses. We have nothing personal against the individual but as a public figure now he is subject to critical comments. The man is unable to express himself intelligently in English – a virtue no doubt picked up from his boss and brothers. Referring to July ’83 he says here “mob violence came and attacked so many groups” which must have puzzled that audience in the backwaters of that Southern State. Poor man! He may not have heard of the old Tamil saying “Poi sonnalum porunthatch chol” (Even if you chose to tell a lie, do it in a manner believable) For God’s sake, there are’nt many houses in Colombo in that dark period where spies were everywhere to hide 100 people, Mr Ambassador – although we do not dispute you may have done the admirable thing in protecting your Tamil friends. The world knows and - tamils have gratefully acknowledged many of our Sinhala friends indeed risked much to help their Tamil friends. And to make the shocking statement “most Tamils in the diaspora are paid agents of the LTTE” clearly gives away you know neither the Tamil diaspora or much of the LTTE network. Dayan Jayatilake is streets ahead here. In referring to “INGOs and NGOs are something else” you are merely and simultaneously displaying the pidgin English of the Galle Face Hotel waiters of yester-year and the ill-educated of Harlem in NYC. Few will believe you when you contradict yourself saying “they (INGOs, NGOs, aid agencies) are all there” (meaning in Sri Lanka). Hilary Clinton, David Milliband, David Kouchner et all, according, to you must be lying through all those pores in their individual systems. Either you do not know the ground realities in the Wanni or you are being naively very economic with the truth. I am afraid that the lady questioner in the audience exposed your poor and unconvincing performance when she commented in sheer exasperation “if all what you say is true are you saying all those (NGOs, diplomats in the ground and others in Sri Lanka and the Wanni) are lying?” It is good for him the Ambassador chose a little known place like Georgia U and avoided the more prestigious ones like Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Princeton or those in California. He would have been torn to pieces there – in that land where Lincoln left his immortal thoughts to posterity “you can fool some of the people........…”
ISS
In regard to theo's comment about harresment at the Colombo airport I too agree , since two of my friends who visted Sri lanka from Canada were detained at the airport grilled for a few hours ad had to pay money.This has become a common occurance at the Airport.
Noel,
You are very generous when you say he is OK. I thought he was woeful. The insincerity and the lies stand out like the crownless Palmyrah trees on the Mullaitivu coast! He could have sounded more convincing if he admitted to some reporters and NGOs being shut out of the camps and given the government's "reasons" for it. Also, to admit to some strategic shelling of LTTE artillery possitions and command centres would have won the credibility of his audience and make them try to understand the situation and the harsh choices made in war.
If I was the embassador or a PR man I would have said the following. (Although I am no more clearer about the truth than this man Jaliya)
"We have given unfettered access to Internationally accepted and well known organisations like the UNHCR, Red Cross and Medicines sans Frontiers. However we have had to restrict access to some other smaller and less well known NGOs. The reason for this is because the Government feels there is a need to ensure that unscrupulous parties do not enter the camps as NGOs and foment unrest. There have been a number of instances in the past were the LTTE have exploited NGOs either willingly or unwillingly to smuggle explosives and arms in and out of their areas. The Army is determined not to let such things happen again. We also know that there are a few hundred dangerous terrorists who escaped the war zone as civilians who are now in the camps. They have to be weeded out before the Army relaxes their control of the camps"
Not that I agree with any of the above. In fact I believe the Government should set itself a traget of screening and releasing 2000 civilians a day. Thats the only way they'll achieve their target of 80% by the end of the year. I dont buy the story about landmines. The IDPs are best placed to know where they are as they know their home terrain better than everyone else. If they are willing to take that risk and go home how can the Govt stop them?
The senior civil servant and diplomat in Washington I referred to in my earlier comment as Mr. de Silva is Mr. M. F. de S. Jayaratne - father of Ajith Jayaratne, the well known and popular Colombo Corporate businessman. Ajith made an impressive and beautiful impromptu speech in Singapore as our HC there in the company of a galaxy of Singaporean and Asian leaders - including Dr Lee Kuan Yew and Prime Minister Goh during the Tsunami week. He began that speech with the words "From today the world will have a new word in the language of many countries - Tsunami" I personally congratulated him for doing his motherland proud when I met him in Cbo a few months later. So we do indeed have still exceptionally brilliant material among us still although the political and government structure fails to utilise and recognise them in the narrow interests of petty party politics.
ISS
most boring stuff badly delivered with a strong sri lankan acsent. he does not know what the hell he is talking about. how can this man represent us? he prevaricates.
Truly I would like to introduce me as a Sinhalese who has never blind eyes with racism or with politics. I do respect cultures of any community and love to live in a mix community. I generally read many article on various web and also used to read comments on them. Some people do comment with out proper base. Some never concern weather article is true or not. In another word it is not important for them the content of the article they just need the name of the writer or the one who made statement, to agree or disagree with it.
Just look at comment here by Mr. Jaliya it doesn’t matter at all he is a close relative of Mr.president or not. Practically as a responsible government they can not send its citizen’s to a land which full of mines. It is understandable to every one that demining can not be completed within a day or two. Government has given a time frame for re settling IDP’s and let’s questions if they fail to meet this dead line. Until that I prefer if commentators can refrain by spreading mud in keeping personal, political, and racial differences in mind
***We DO EVERYTHING....." including sending back the Mercy Mission Aid !!! ***
ardneham,
If the DIASPORA TRULY WANTED THAT SHIP TO MAKE PORT AND THOSE SUPPLIES TO REACH THE INTENDED PEOPLE, THEN WHY DID THEY TRY TO BYPASS THE SRI LANKAN GOVERNMENT???
It is the TAMIL ARROGANCE of the DIASPORA that they think they can just go anywhere in Sri Lanka, violating our Laws and Procedures. You cannot just INVADE our territorial waters as and when you feel like it. You are really Luck that the ship was not sent to the Crushing Depths as we would have been well within our rights to Sink it.
What this Act shows is that the STUBBORN ARROGANT TAMIL DIASPORA will once again let their own people Suffer to Score Political Points for their Agenda. They all knew FULL WELL that the Ship would be turned away, it was nothing more than a Political Chess Piece (at the Cost of the Tamils in the War Zone) that the Diaspora was using to gain sympathy in the West. Now you can go Cry to the White People and say:
" Sri Lanka is turning away Aid for Displaced people. "
"Its a conspiracy against Tamils!"
"Genocide, GENOCIDE, GENOCIDE!!!!"
BWAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRK! (thank you parrot)
In response to Jaliys's speech, Sri Lankan minister Mahinda Samarasingha 2 weeks ago said that 90 % of the former rebel territory has been cleared of all land mines ? Is he so worrid about journalists,foreign dignatories & Ngo's getting injured by these land mines? Or is he & the GOSL wants to hide what is going on in the IDP camps. Look at the IDP camps in North western Pakistan & in Sri lanka, there is one glaring difference. The camps in Sri lanka are surrounded by Barbed/Razor wire & Armed soldiers & the ones in Pakistan are out in the open with the people free to go out & come in! The fact of the matter is that the GOSL thinks that every Tamil in Sri Lanka is a Tiger.
In response to Jaliys's speech, Sri Lankan minister Mahinda Samarasingha 2 weeks ago said that 90 % of the former rebel territory has been cleared of all land mines ? Is he so worrid about journalists,foreign dignatories & Ngo's getting injured by these land mines? Or is he & the GOSL wants to hide what is going on in the IDP camps. Look at the IDP camps in North western Pakistan & in Sri lanka, there is one glaring difference. The camps in Sri lanka are surrounded by Barbed/Razor wire & Armed soldiers & the ones in Pakistan are out in the open with the people free to go out & come in! The fact of the matter is that the GOSL thinks that every Tamil in Sri Lanka is a Tiger.
Devinda Fernando,
Your statement about sinking the ship is utter nonsense and reveals you to be either ignorant or a virulent Sinhala chauvinist. The Lankan Navy knows they cannot behave like pirates or savages on the global stage. Such an aggressive act would have forced Japan to withdraw aid, the US to cancel the IMF loan, International Maritime lawyers to sue, etc.
Diaspora donates through regular western charities.. so our help is not always visible to those in Lanka.
Doctors without Borders
CARE
UNICEF
GlobalMedic
etc.
Very smart of us considering what GoSL does with aid when they find a Diaspora Tamil assoc. involved with it...
http://www.navy.lk/index.php?id=1356
SL Navy inspected...
FOUND NO WEAPONS...
sent the ship & LEGITMATE HUMANITARIAN cargo away due to paperwork.
The Vanni Mission web site details how they notified the Lankan embassy & that the GoSL had a local shipper/receiver to arrest indicates to the world that Vanni Mission made every attempt to follow Lankan law.
http://tiny.cc/sOcQ4
http://tiny.cc/rBPuS
I wonder if SL Ambassador Jaliya Wickramasuriya and the GOSL realise that in this information age it is impossible to get away with BS and outright lies - this attitude may work to fool the masses back in SL though.
Unlike the SL masses, these US students will do their own homework and find out for themselves ... and then what?
What I can understand from these comments is that it's hard to make the tamils happy. What ever the SL government do is wrong for them. They should understand that this is not a easy job, I wonder whether you all will do better than Rajapaksa's if you got the job.
I don't think it is difficult to do a better job than MR!! Killing 20,000+ innocent Tamil civilians in order to win the war. Using bombs and shells and banned weapons and chemical warfare on 300,000 civilians trapped in a sliver of land. Preventing food and medicine from reaching the stranded civlians. Arresting and torturing doctors who did tremdondous service!! Burying un-known number of civilians alive and preventing any one going to into the war zone so that he could kill without witness!! Abductions, extra judicial killings even in the heart of Colombo in broad daylight with army check points by his goons!! No inquiry, no punishment, no attempt to find the culprits. These are some of his specialities!!