Colombo: British Prime Minister David Cameron was mobbed by Tamil protesters in Sri Lanka’s north, who surrounded his car asking for help and claiming their relatives had been killed by the state.
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Hundreds of demonstrators broke through police lines and surrounded the PM’s car, holding up pictures of loved ones lost during, and since, the country’s civil war, which was especially brutal in the country’s north.
“I want my elder brother. Ever since he has gone missing, I am unable to eat, sleep, or study,” a sobbing Vibhshika Palendiran told Fairfax.
Her brother went missing during the final days of the conflict, in April 2009.
Mr Cameron met with some protesters, telling mothers of missing men “I am going to raise these cases with people from your government”.
Mr Cameron’s visit to the former war-torn city of Jaffna - the first by a foreign leader since Sri Lanka gained its independence in 1948 - has fuelled impassioned discussion of Sri Lanka’s human rights situation, a subject which has completely overshadowed all else at CHOGM this weekend.
His trip has infuriated Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, who issued a thinly-veiled warning, clearly aimed at the British PM, that the Commonwealth must not be “a punitive or judgemental body”.
Mr Cameron said he went to Jaffna “to shine a light on chilling events there first hand”.
The Sri Lankan government is not only accused of war crimes at the end of the civil war in 2009 but also of ongoing abuses, including state-sanctioned abductions, torture, and extra-judicial killings.
Mr Cameron visited the offices of The Uthayan (The Sun) newspaper, whose printing presses were recently torched and which has had several reporters killed.
“Everyone is pretending that everything is okay, that Tamils have equal rights, but it’s not true,” editor M.V. Kaanamylnathan said. “This needs to be told to the international world.”
The British PM met with Tamil politicians and civic leaders, but most of the protesters, who’d travelled from across the former war-affected north, were kept away from the Prime Minister by police.
Mr Cameron said there was a chance of reconciliation in Sri Lanka because “the war is over, the terrorism has finished, the fighting is done”.
“Now what’s needed is generosity and magnanimity from the Sri Lankan government to bring the country together.”
The issue of Sri Lanka’s human rights record continues to entirely overwhelm the CHOGM agenda.
A planned press conference by President Mahinda Rajapakse was cancelled, replaced by a fiery, at times farcical press briefing at which foreign and Sri Lankan journalists exchanged barbs and incendiary questions.
Foreign journalists were accused of attempting to “disgrace the country” and “making a mockery of Sri Lankan people”.
Member of parliament A.H.M. Azwer hijacked the meeting and furiously harangued foreign journalists for attacking Sri Lanka.
Additional reporting by Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai, Jaffna
