An Australian television station last week aired interviews with relatives of Tamils kidnapped in Colombo, and quoted the Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Australia dismissing the claims.
Dateline, the premier current affairs program of the SBS multicultural channel, investigated families affected by the epidemic of abductions and discussed how their lives have been impacted by the events in Sri Lanka.
Journalist Nick Lazaredes spoke to three Sydney families affected, but the program did not reveal the identities of the interviewees citing possible reprisals against their families in Sri Lanka.
Dateline reported receiving information on about eighteen cases of Tamils, Australian citizens or permanent residents or their relatives, abducted so far.
All of those abducted were held for ransom, with few released and the fate of others are still unknown, the program reported.
When questioned, Sri Lanka's High Commissioner for Australia, Kusumpala Balapatabendi dismissed the claims.
He says that if some Tamils have been found dead, “it's probably just a result of Sri Lanka's long-running civil war,” the reports said.
“I don't like to use the word abductions in that manner. Especially in the sense that every disappearance is not an abduction, because these numbers are exaggerated, highly exaggerated numbers,” he said.
“Amazingly he accuses Tamils of making up their kidnapping stories,” the journalist notes.
“I can hide some and get them to tell police that I am missing, I am abducted, this is happening. This is tarnishing the image of the country. They're trying to destruct the international community from our community,” Mr. Balapatabendi said.
At the end of the program, the host, George Negus noted that “Dateline was told that the Sri Lankan High Commissioner here in Australia says that he has never been approached by the department of foreign affairs in relation to the quite amazing rash of kidnappings.”
In one of the interviews, ‘Murali’ (not his real name) says his brother in law, a wealthy businessman, was abducted almost a year ago and there is still no news of his whereabouts.
Murali says he has paid almost $1 million Australian dollars to the kidnappers within few days of the abduction.
He also adds that a Government Minister told him the paramilitary Karnua Group was behind the abduction.
“The Minister confirmed this, that it was the Karnua group involved?” the reported queries.
“Yes, the guerilla group of Karnua group, that was involved and they will - he will help to release him. But I think they were trying for nearly two months and at the end of two months he said that we can't help,” Murali replies.
When the reporter asks why he couldn’t help, Murali replies: “He said that he can't help, they're not listening to him, the people that have him.”
The family was told by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra, which spoke to the country’s High Commission in Colombo, to contact the Sri Lankan government, and that nothing more could be done to determine whether he was dead or alive, Mr. Lazaredes reported.
Dr Mano Mohan, a leading figure in the Australian Tamil community, told Dateline “the kidnapping and disappearances of Tamils has reached epidemic proportions”.
“Tamils of Sri Lanka are fed up. They live in fear, and Tamils of Sri Lanka who live abroad who are citizens of other countries are unable to visit their kin for fear of being abducted, of fear of being killed, this is a state of affairs. It's anarchy,” he said.
In another case, Devan (again not his real name) says his sister's husband was kidnapped and the kidnappers told her to get a $60,000 ransom from Sydney.
He said “somebody was talking, not in pure Tamil, not in Sinhalese, in between, speaking Tamil but in a different accent, telling her that they got her husband and demanding for 50 Lak, rupees”.
Devan’ brother in law was one of the lucky ones – he was released. But Devan says to date his brother in law refuses to speak about the ordeal.
In a similar story, Tanvir’s sister’s 20-year-old son was kidnapped from their Colombo apartment last Christmas.
Tanvir's family believes the boy may have been taken by the Sri Lankan security forces and handed over to the Karnua group to be trained as a militant, the program reported.
“I think he was arrested by the army or police. I don't think it's a rebel group but there have been stories about the army and police arresting kids and handing them over to Karnua group to fight against Tamil Tigers. Maybe that has happened, I'm not sure,” Tanvir said.
Dr Mohan also believes that many of the younger kidnapping victims are being forcibly recruited to fight for paramilitary groups. But he says none of it would be possible without the approval of corrupt Government officials.
“It's a combination of paramilitary groups, commbination of Government highly placed officials and the military and the armed forces. There should be collaboration between all these groups for effectively to carry this out, again and again and again, without being get caught,” Dr Mohan said.
“As implausible as this sounds, just a few months ago, Sri Lanka's police chief announced that criminal gangs were involved in the kidnappings along with corrupt police and military officers,” the reporter noted.
The Sri Lankan High Commissioner confirmed the involvement of corrupt military and police officers.
“Many of them are ex-service men and a couple of people serving in the police, not many, but two have been thrown out under detention and been charged,” Mr. Balapatabendi said.
