‘Allegations will not damage SL-Australia relations’

Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Australia Admiral (Retd) Thisara Samarasinghe said that allegations of war crimes will not damage relations between Sri Lanka and Australia.

High Commissioner Samarasinghe

In an interview with the Queanbeyan Age, the Sri Lankan High Commissioner also cast himself as a ‘uniter’ of the Sinhalese and Tamil communities in Australia, saying he devoted much time and attention in his role to the two groups. The submission before federal police states, military superiors hold “a command responsibility’’ for the actions of subordinates. “There is no command responsibility in the navy in that sense,’’ Samarasinghe said.

“You send a ship out with rules of engagement. At sea [the commanding officer] has to take his own mission to safeguard the men he commands. I was the eastern commander in 2007. When the conflict ended I was northern commander. The final conflict was not in the northern command, it was in the eastern command,’’ he said. Samarasinghe said human rights groups and other pro-Tamil campaigners were being manipulated by the Tamil expatriates in Australia, which was a major fund-raiser for Tamil separatists in Sri Lanka.