Spokesperson for the Global Tamil Forum (GTF), Suren Surendiran, slammed the Parliamentary Select Committee as "delaying tactics", and the government's 'reconcilatory efforts' as disingenuous, in an interview with Shamindra Ferdinando of the pro-government newspaper, The Island. Mr Ferdinando was part of the Sri Lankan government's official delegation to the 19th Session of the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year.
See interview in full here.
Extracts reproduced below:
Q: Did the GTF and the BTF pressure former UK Foreign Secretary, David Miliband to rush to Colombo in April 2009 in a bid to persuade President Rajapaksa to halt the offensive? Miliband is on record as having told the US mission in London (according to Wiki Leaks) how he spent 60 per cent of his time on the SL issue, because of impending parliamentary polls.
A: Like I said before, the GTF came into being only after the end of the war. However, the answer to your question is yes, we did pressure the then British government as members of the BTF and the Diaspora community with loved ones caught up in the so called ‘no fire’ zone. It didn’t take too much of persuasion for Mr David Miliband or for other world leaders to see what was happening as reports and evidence of massacres and carnage were coming out regularly. It is a shame that there was a deafening silence from communities in the country outside the war zone and from local journalists who kept numb without reporting independently.
Regarding WikiLeaks - it is interesting isn’t it that in the same token of reporting what Mr Miliband had said or otherwise, it also reports that President Rajapaksa and the brothers were responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
