Sri Lankan foreign minister Aly Sabry harshly criticised Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and said his allegations against India are “outrageous” and “unsubstantiated”, referring to the North American leader’s claims that India played a role in the death of Khalistani separatist-terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
“The Canadian PM has this way of coming out with some outrageous allegations without any supporting proof. I saw yesterday he had gone and given a rousing welcome to somebody who had associated with the Nazis in the past during the Second World War,” Sabry said.
Sabry was referring to Justin Trudeau and Canadian House of Commons speaker Anthony Rota giving a standing ovation to a Ukrainian man who served in a Nazi unit during World War Two.
Yaroslav Hunka, 98, was sitting in the gallery and got a standing ovation in the Canadian parliament during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Ottawa.
Trudeau said the incident was “extremely embarrassing”. “It’s extremely upsetting that this happened. The Speaker has acknowledged his mistake and has apologised. But this is something that is deeply embarrassing to the Parliament of Canada and by extension to all Canadians,” Trudeau said.
Ukrainians fought on both sides – for former German chancellor and dictator Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Army and Russian strongman leader Stalin’s Red Army – during World War Two.
Ali Sabry also took the opportunity to claim that there was no genocide of Tamilians living in Sri Lanka during the two and half decade long period of civil war between the Liberation of Tamil Tigers Eelam and successive Sri Lankan government.
“The same thing they did for Sri Lanka, a terrible, total lie about saying that Sri Lanka had a genocide. Everybody knows there was no genocide in our country. So this is questionable and we have dealt with it in the past,” Sabry said.
“I am not surprised that sometimes PM Trudeau comes out with outrageous and substantiated allegations,” Sabry said.
Sri Lanka engaged in a diplomatic tussle with Canada earlier this May when Trudeau said the experiences of the Tamil-Canadians affected by Sri Lankan Civil War “serve as an enduring reminder that human rights, peace, and democracy cannot be taken for granted. That’s why Parliament last year unanimously adopted the motion to make May 18 Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day”.
Sabry summoned Canadian High Commissioner Eric Walsh and stated that Mr. Trudeau’s “politically motivated statement was divisive and issued for domestic political consumption”. “Sri Lanka vehemently rejects this unsubstantiated allegation of ‘genocide’ relating to the country’s almost 3 decades of terrorist conflict perpetuated by the LTTE,” the Sri Lankan government said in May.
Sri Lanka denies allegations of mass killing despite the presence of international evidence of mass civilian deaths in the final battle in Mullivaikkal in the northern Mullaitivu district in 2009.
The Sri Lankan military is said to have assured that an area in Mullivaikkal was a “No Fire Zone” but despite that some 40,000 civilians died during the final battle.
(with inputs from CNN-News18)
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