AN AUSTRALIAN citizen and senior Sri Lankan diplomat has been accused of complicity in the murders of three surrendering Tamil Tigers in an application to the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands. The man, Palitha Kohona, was the international face of the Sri Lankan government's war with separatist militants, the Tamil Tigers, and played an important role in the surrender of Tamil Tiger soldiers in May 2009.
But reports of mass killings and the extrajudicial killing of surrendering Tigers have since surfaced. Dr Kohona and the Sri Lankan government strongly deny the claims, and so far the international community has been reluctant to investigate them.
However, two international Tamil organisations have made a series of war crimes allegations to the International Criminal Court involving Dr Kohona and his role in the negotiated surrender of three Tamil Tigers who are believed to have been killed.
While Sri Lanka does not recognise the jurisdiction of the court, Dr Kohona's citizenship of Australia - a country which is a party to the court - means unlike other senior members of the Sri Lankan government, he can potentially be prosecuted.
That does not mean that a full investigation is likely, however, as only a very few of the requests for prosecutions each year are pursued by the court.
Dr Kohona became an Australian citizen in the 1980s while working in Canberra with the Foreign Affairs Department. He is now the Sri Lankan government's representative at the United Nations.
During the 2008-09 civil war which led to the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, Dr Kohona was secretary of the Sri Lankan foreign affairs ministry and played a role in negotiating the surrender of Tamil Tigers.
Among those who surrendered were three senior Tiger members, Mahindran Balasingham, Seeveratnam Pulidevan and Ramesh.
On May 18, the three men, along with at least a dozen others, negotiated a surrender with the Sri Lankan army. They waved a white flag when surrendering to show their intent.
Watched by hundreds of other Tamils, the group walked into an army-controlled area. Several minutes later shots and explosions were heard, witnesses said.
Balasingham and Pulidevan have not been seen since and Ramesh was seen at a hospital months later but subsequently disappeared. The Sri Lankan government has confirmed the death of two of the men.
The request, filed by the Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils and the US group Tamils Against Genocide, alleges Dr Kohona had been involved in the trio's surrender in the days before their death.
''On about May 17, 2009, in the evening or night, Palitha Kohona communicated … that the surrendering [Tamil Tigers] members would be safe if they surrendered with a white flag raised,'' the request claims.
A day later the three men surrendered. ''Some time after 8.15am [the trio] walked towards SLA lines with a white flag, along with 12-40 combatants and non-combatants … the SLA attacked by gunfire.''
A spokeswoman for the Home Affairs Minister, Brendan O'Connor, would not comment on the case except to say: ''Australia is a party to the Rome Statute and, as such, supports action by the court to prosecute crimes falling within its jurisdiction.''
Dr Kohona told the ABC yesterday the claims had no substance and were politically motivated.
Read also: "War Crimes Complaint Filed Against Former Australian DFAT Official"
Tamil rights groups submitted a complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC), calling on it for the investigation of Dr. Palitha Kohona, a dual Sri Lankan-Australian national and former senior official at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Dr. Palitha Kohona is alleged to have been involved in war crimes against Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka.
The two leading organisations involved in the submission are US-based Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) and the Swiss Council of Eelam Tamils. “The argument thus far has been it is impossible to file at the ICC because Sri Lanka is not a signatory to the Rome Statute. However, Australia is a signatory, and Kohona's dual nationality creates a jurisdictional workaround for this crime,” says Rajeev Sreetharan who leads the TAG team.
In Australia, the Australian Tamil Congress (ATC) has continued to gather evidence of war crimes committed in Sri Lanka during the last five years. “Many in the Australian Tamil community have lost loved ones due to what strongly identify as war crimes by Sri Lankan officials onto the Tamils. If a potential criminal is an Australian citizen, this raises questions of whether Australia will indirectly protect a war criminal or whether it will assert its jurisdiction over this crime,” says Dr. Sam Pari, spokesperson for the ATC.
Dr. Kohona was one of a number of senior officials who had negotiated a surrender agreement promising prisoner-of-war status for 3 senior Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam combatants and up to 40 accompanying civilians. There is strong evidence to suggest that these surrendees were executed after their surrender. The submission calls upon an independent investigation into what unfolded during and since their surrender and focuses on all senior United Nations (UN) and Sri Lankan government and military officials involved.
In the months prior to May 2009, during the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka, up to 40,000 civilians, notably Tamils were estimated to have been killed. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International, International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch have continuously called for an international independent inquiry into war crimes but the Sri Lankan government has been defiant. The UN has since established an ‘Expert Advisory Panel’ but there has been hardly any progress.
Kilde: Tamilsydney.com
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