Calling her a ‘Tiger supporter’: Tamara to sue Mangala

by Manjula Fernando

Former Permanent Representative to Geneva Tamara Kunanayakam said she would take legal action against Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera for calling her a Tiger supporter. Hosting a press conference at the Centre for Society and Religion yesterday she said, the LTTE is an organisation she had consistently and relentlessly fought against and criticised throughout her personal and professional life, adding that she is a victim of a ‘blatant lie’.

Minister Samaraweera on the Ratu Ira, a prime time talk show on a private TV station last week, had allegedly said Kunanayakam came forward on behalf of the LTTE in 1989 – 90 and she was a member of the pro-LTTE World Council of Churches while criticising her comments against the former Foreign Secretary Kshenuka Seneviratne of offering a house renovation contract to an alleged LTTE contractor in Geneva.

“You will agree that there is no such thing as an unsuccessful slander. Once a lie is out there it sticks, no matter what arguments are offered to refute it,” Kunanayakam said.

Questioning the rationale behind not publicising the audit report on the controversial renovation of the Ambassador’s residence in Geneva, the former Sri Lankan diplomat asserted that she did not raise it in public due to a personal dislike for her predecessor.

She said the inquiry will give the former Foreign Secretary the opportunity to defend herself and explained that it was the norm to suspend the officer concerned till the inquiry is over, none of which had happened in this case. The former Sri Lankan Permanent Representative to Geneva Dayan Jayatilleke, said as a progressive leftist who had always opposed terrorism, Kunanayakam never had anything to do with the LTTE.

She had been associated with Tamils such as Kethesh Loganathan, who had been targeted and murdered by the Tigers. “Tamara has never spoken on behalf of the Tigers and if at all, she had spoken against the Tigers. She had been subject to a lot of hostilities by the Tigers for representing and defending the interests of the Sri Lankan state at international fora.”

He said she did this with a lot of courage because unlike for a Sinhalese, for a person of ethnic Tamil origin, a lot of pressure is being brought upon them by the Tigers. He said it is such person that the Foreign Minister is falsely accusing for having ties with the LTTE, “I am quite disgusted.”

Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha also spoke on the occasion.