Former Sri Lankan president and accused war criminal Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga recently addressed an event at the Science Po Paris, also known as the Paris Institute of Political Studies, despite her history of human rights abuses and crimes against humanity.
Kumaratunga was invited to give introductory remarks at the inauguration of the French university’s South Asia program. She joined the session virtually while other members of the faculty and alumni presided over the event.
The former president studied at the Science Po in 1968, known in French as Institut d'études politiques de Paris, graduating with a diploma in political science in 1970.
The invitation to address her alma mater came despite Kumaratunga’s record of human rights abuses. During her tenure as Sri Lanka’s president from 1994 to 2005, Kumaratunga over several mass atrocities and torpedoed efforts at brokering a peace agreement.
These massacres include the 1995 Navaly Church bombing, the 1995 Nagerkovil school massacre, the 1996 Kumarapuram massacre, the 1998 Thampalakamam massacre, and the 1999 Puthukkudiyituppu massacre.
These massacres saw the indiscriminate killing of Tamil civilians and the use of cluster bombs on churches.
Kumaratunga toasts as she receives France’s highest national honour, 2018.
In 2015, she told an audience, "I have not done anything wrong… I don’t have blood on our hands”. Earlier that year, she had boasted of having won “75%” of the war during her tenure by going to war with the LTTE. And despite her tenure in office marred by the bombing of churches, schools and the massive military invasion of Jaffna, killing countless Tamil civilians.
Kumaratunga has repeatedly denied the need for an independent international investigation into war crimes. In 2017, she told a gathering in Jaffna, “We have no intention to drag the soldiers before courts and send them to gallows”.
In 2018 she was awarded France’s highest national honour, the Medal of “Commandeur de la Légion D’Honneur”.
She continues receiving invitations to speak at events worldwide – including at the London School of Economics last year, where her scheduled appearance sparked backlash. Kumaratunga also addressed that event virtually.
