UN employed former Sri Lanka Army officer alleged of killing Tamils in Madu Church
[TamilNet, Friday, 27 September 2019, 16:50 GMT]
The United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS), tasked with providing security services to the UN system in delivering its programmes globally, has had a former Sri Lanka Army officer among its rank and file the security staff in the recent years. The ex-SLA officer has previously “killed Tamils in Madu church,” during the times of war, according to allegations made by New York based Inner City Press (ICP), a non-profit organization, which has critically exposed the wrongdoers within the UN system for almost 15 years. The former SL Army officer in question, Lt Col Parakrama Siriwardana, is currently the Head of Security and Emergency Unit at the China-led Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB), since May 2018.

Parakrama Siriwardana
During his AIIB tenure, Parakrama had openly exchanged views on social media platforms supporting Sinhala-Buddhist ultra-nationalist SL Minister such as Champika Ranawake, especially when the latter proposed a 10-point anti-Muslim programme after the Easter Attack.
“The United Nations under Antonio Guterres is so corrupt that it not only accepts ‘peacekeepers’ from the Sri Lanka army run by war criminal Shavendra Silva - it’s had as official of UN Security run by Gilles Michaud a man links to earlier crimes in Sri Lanka where Tamils were killed in the Madhu church: Parkrama Sriwardana,” wrote Matthew Russel Lee, a lawyer and online journalist of the ICP, who has critically covered the United Nations since 2005.
Despite suffering hard-hitting retaliation for his critical coverage, Mr Russel Lee has not given up exposing the UN system employing and embracing alleged war-criminals and genocidaire commanders of the SL State as well as personalities from some other states involved in rights abuses and corruption.
The information available online suggests that Mr Parakrama has served in the UNDP as a Chief Security Advisor between 2002 and 2015 and he has been absorbed later into the central UN system for the same role between 2015 and 2019.
The former SLA officer seems to have held various UN security assignments according to the reports and news items that are available in the public domain. He has served in Somalia and Somaliland (2006) and Sudan (2011). He has also served as the Chief Security Advisor of United Nations to Pakistan in 2015.
Parakrama, an alumnus of the Royal College, was commissioned as an officer in the Sri Lanka Light Infantry after passing out in the Sri Lanka Military Academy between 1980 and 1982.
The alumni association, ‘Group of 76 of Royal College’, describes him as having served as a Grade 1 officer at the SL Military Secretary’s Branch at the Army Headquarters in Colombo.
According to a news report filed by The Sunday Times on 27 February 2000, Lt Col Parakrama Siriwardana, with 18 years of the military background behind him at that time, was in charge of the cross-loading point at Piraam’ ana-Aala’ng-ku’lam in Vavuniyaa. He was in charge of checking the vehicles in and out of the LTTE-controlled Vanni.
The exact nature of the crimes committed by Mr Parakrama while he was an SLA officer is yet to be brought in to the public domain. Patterns of such crimes committed much earlier than 2009 gain significance in seeking international justice for the crime of all crimes against Eezham Tamils.
Several former SL military officers, including those who committed grave crimes during the genocidal onslaught in 2009, have gained diplomatic immunity through various postings in foreign service and the UN.
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