E-mail a friendDr. Palitha Kohona
airdate February 18, 2009
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.
Foreign secretary of Sri Lanka responds to M.I.A.'s accusations of genocide of the Tamil people. (1:50)
Full interview. (14:52)
Dr. Palitha Kohona
[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.]
Tavis: Pleased to be joined now from Colombo by Sri Lanka's foreign secretary, Dr. Palitha Kohona. He has served in a number of key positions throughout his career, including his time as the chief of the U.N. treaty section in New York. Dr. Kohona, I know it's early there in Colombo, and I'm honored to have you on the program. Thanks for your time, sir.
Dr. Palitha Kohona: Thank you very much for the opportunity.
Tavis: I know you heard the comments that M.I.A. made on this program some weeks ago. Let me start by asking a very direct question - is the government of Sri Lanka engaged in genocide?
Kohona: I think there is an accepted meaning to the word genocide. In Sri Lanka, 54 percent or more of the Tamil population does not live in the areas controlled by the Tamil Tigers. They live in the south, in and around Colombo, under government control. If there were genocide in Sri Lanka, I wonder what all these Tamil people are doing living under the control of the government?
Because I feel that they are comfortable, they get about their lives in the normal way, and they have no problem with it. If there were genocide, I don't think this situation would exist. In fact, this entire comment is misconceived and it's the result of misinformation.
M.I.A. is a great artist and we wish her well, but I'm sorry, I think she is misinformed and it's best that she stay with what she's good at, which is music - not politics. There's a whole complex situation on the ground in Sri Lanka, as you heard before. There is a group of terrorists, the Tamil Tigers, challenging the government. For a long time they controlled territory; they even had a basic air facility and a naval facility.
Now, over the last two years, the government has rolled them back. Now they're limited to a very small area in the northeast of the country. As you heard before, they're limited to an area as little as 100 square kilometers, which is roughly about 30 square miles, and it's a matter of time before the - that's the Tamil Tigers - are overrun and the entire country restored to normalcy.
The Tamil people of this country are our people. They're our brothers, they're our sisters. They live amongst us. And I don't think there is a problem that the Sinhalese have with the Tamils. They do have a problem with the Tamil Tigers, the terrorists, who are, you have to remember, proscribed in most of the democracies of the world as a terrorist organization.
Not only are the Tamil Tigers proscribed, their front organizations are proscribed, and many of their leading members are currently being prosecuted in countries like the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia, France, Italy, et cetera.
So we have to remember, this is not a simple case where somebody could come up on the screen and pass judgment on. It's a very complex case. But I must say that the government is doing all it can to deal with this situation, this terrorist situation, without harming the Tamil population of Sri Lanka - the civilian population of Sri Lanka. The vast majority, I must repeat, of whom live in areas controlled by the government.
Tavis: Even the United Nations of late has had something to say to your government, though, about firing on civilians. What say you about the U.N.'s concerns about your military operations and the strategic targeting of civilians?
Kohona: The United Nations later withdrew that statement, because the government demonstrated categorically that it did not fire on civilians. It doesn't need to fire on civilians. The prize is almost within its grasp. It has almost wiped out the Tamil Tigers from the areas that they control. In fact, there's no need for us to fire on civilians.
In fact, we need to get the civilians onto our side. It's the Tamil Tigers who herded the civilians, a large number of them, into this (unintelligible) in which they're surrounded now. There, the civilians are being used as a human shield. You know that this situation exists elsewhere in the world, where civilians are paying the price for the ambitions of a small group.
In the northeast of Sri Lanka, that is exactly what is happening. There are thousands of civilians who are held against their will in this (unintelligible) by the Tamil Tigers, as a shield against the government advance. In fact, over the last few days, over 35,000 of these civilians have escaped - they've run through the Tamil Tiger lines and come over to the government side. In fact in the process, many of them have been shot at by the Tamil Tigers.
I think it's very important to remember that today, the government has embarked on a process of reconciliation. It is not by scratching those scabs or regurgitating the old pain that we can heal our wounds. We have to heal our wounds. As a people, we have to get back together. And the government is determined to follow a policy of reconciliation and rehabilitation.
Tavis: How can you argue, though, Mr. Secretary, that the government is concerned about, is interested in, and is engaging a process of reconciliation when the civil war is still ongoing as we speak, 25 years later?
Kohona: War, I must remind you, is against the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist group, and they have been asked repeatedly not only by the government of Sri Lanka but by the United States, by the European Union, Japan and Norway, India, and many other countries - Australia - to lay down their weapons and rejoin the democratic mainstream.
Sri Lanka is a democratic country. We have regular elections; we elect governments and throw them out on a regular basis. The Tamil Tigers have held sway over that small area for the last 25 years with no change. They've recruited children by the thousands, there are thousands of young children, as young as 14, carrying weapons in that area, forced to carry weapons.
They pioneered the suicide bombers. The government is carrying a campaign against this group, not against the Tamil civilians. A huge number of measures have been put in place to make the Tamil civilians feel comfortable in the country. In fact, I believe that this is - we have done more than many other countries in the world which have a minority.
Tavis: You referenced in our conversation a moment ago, Mr. Secretary, my conversation earlier with Ravi Nessman, who is the bureau chief for the Associated Press in Colombo. You referenced him when you suggested that earlier in this program we did in fact hear that the Tamil Tigers have been cornered in a 30-square-mile area in the northeast part of the country.
What you did not reference that that reporter also said is that it is very difficult for reporters to get this story out. You heard me ask M.I.A. if in fact there is genocide going on, and you've already addressed that issue. When I asked her if there was genocide going on, why we are not hearing more about it around the world, her response was the same as Mr. Nessman's - that the government won't let the media cover this story. True or false, and if true, why not?
Kohona: There are two or three things here. We must get back to the issue of genocide. For genocide to occur there are certain conditions to be satisfied, and I do not think anybody who's familiar with the concept of genocide believes that there is genocide going on. As I said, the vast majority, literally hundreds of thousands of Tamils, live in areas controlled by the government and not in the areas controlled by the Tamil Tigers. So we have to lay aside this entire allegation of genocide.
Second, reporters into this area - allowing reporters into this area. The government regularly conducts reporters into areas close to the fighting. It does not allow anybody to go into the area where there is fighting continuing for the simple reason that it is not safe. You must really have a death wish to want to go - get into that 30 or 35-square-kilometer area, because there is fighting going on - sometimes fierce fighting.
Tavis: There's no way, as we saw with Iraq, for journalists to be even embedded with the government to get a chance to see what really is happening? So there's no way for journalists to know the truth about what's happening there? Wouldn't the government even benefit, if what you're saying is true, that story could be told?
Kohona: In fact, a week ago a group of journalists from the BBC, Al Jazeera, CNN, Reuters, and others were taken up by the government. They were conducted around the area. In fact this will continue to happen - journalists will be taken up and given access to the front areas. But as I said, we do not encourage anybody to wander around freely in the area where fighting is going on because it is not safe, and as a government, we do have an obligation to ensure that guests in the country do not come to any harm.
Tavis: Is there no solution here? Is the question of an independent state out of the question?
Kohona: Well, can you imagine an independent state being carved out of the 35-square-mile area which Tamil Tigers control and which they're likely to lose over the next few days or weeks? I think this is not what the majority of Tamils want, either. If you were to take the views of the majority of the Tamils, they will say they would rather be part of Sri Lanka, rather than be part of this elusive Tamil Eelam.
If you come to Colombo, you will see that the vast majority of the people living in Colombo are Tamils, or Tamil-speaking. Thirty-nine percent of Colombo - that's our capital - is Tamil. Another 20 percent is Muslim. So Colombo is a minority city - 59 percent of our citizens in Colombo are from the minorities - two major minorities. There are other minorities also.
And here they go about their lives with no interference, they have their professions. Some of the leading professionals in Colombo are Tamils. Some of the leading business houses in Colombo are Tamil-owned. Their children go to school here; they carry on with their lives without interference.
It is not the same in the small area controlled by the Tamil Tigers. There was a report issued by UNICEF yesterday that thousands of children, some as young as 14, have been conscripted into fighting with the Tamil Tigers. This does not happen in government-controlled areas. Children go to school; they do not get dragged off to the front line in areas controlled by the government.
Similarly, every family has been forced to contribute at least one child to the cause. You do not get that in the areas controlled by the government. My view is that - and I believe that this is shared widely - that most of the Tamils of this country would rather live under government control than under the control of the TT.
Tavis: I have just 30 seconds left, right quick. When and how do you expect this civil war to end?
Kohona: I wouldn't even categorize it as a civil war anymore. It is a bunch of terrorists who are carrying on an armed struggle, a terrorist struggle, against an elected government, a democratically elected government. I hope that it will end soon so that the people of this country can get on with their lives, that normalcy can return.
The people want peace, and I believe that they deserve to have peace in this country.
Tavis: Dr. Kohona, foreign secretary of Sri Lanka. Thank you for your time. I appreciate your insight.
Kohona: Thank you very much for the opportunity.
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