Sri Lankan military lashes out at deserter who fled to Canada, gave ‘insider’s account’ of government torture

Passport photo of Ravindra Priyashantha Watudura Bandanage, who was a captain in the Sri Lanka Army until he fled to Canada and deserted. He has told immigration officials the army ordered him to place a bomb in the home of a Tamil Member of parliament in Sri Lanka.

Stewart Bell | Dec 2, 2012
TORONTO— The Sri Lankan military lashed out Sunday at an army deserter who has fled to Canada and claimed his superiors ordered him to place a bomb at the home of a well-known opposition Member of Parliament.

While the defence ministry confirmed the captain had gone AWOL, it said his account of being ordered to plant explosives was a lie by “a man of dubious repute and questionable integrity towards his motherland.”

The ex-captain’s allegations of abuses committed by the Sri Lanka Army during the island nation’s conflict with Tamil rebels surfaced at his refugee hearing in Winnipeg and were first reported last week by the National Post.

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Sri Lankan Army deserter gives ‘rare’ insider account of government forces torturing civilians

• UN failing its duty to protect civilians during conflicts: internal report on Sri Lanka
• The military responded on its website with a statement that attacked the deserter’s credibility but that also confirmed the general outline of his army career that he had provided to Canadian refugee officials.“During his stay in the army [he] was seen as a controversial character who was caught cheating at promotion exams and other actions which are deemed unbecoming for an officer or a gentleman. He had a habit of going AWOL. In fact it was something of a hobby for him to be away from work without informing the authorities,” it read.
• Since the Sri Lankan civil war ended in 2009, the government has been defending itself from mounting allegations its forces committed war crimes ranging from shelling populated areas to abducting and killing opposition figures.
  But the latest charges are considered particularly damaging because they come from a former insider — a commissioned officer who had served in the army since 1993 before deserting in Canada five months after the war’s end.
  In his testimony to the Immigration and Refugee Board the deserter, Ravindra Watudura Bandanage, said in 2008 a colonel had ordered him to place explosives inside the home of an ethnic Tamil MP.
  He said he had refused the assignment and was transferred to Colombo, where he helped with search-and-cordon operations that rounded up ethnic Tamils. He said he was aware the army was torturing, beating and raping civilians.
  The Refugee Board ruled he was not eligible for refugee protection because he was complicit in crimes against humanity. His appeal to the Federal Court of Canada was dismissed last month.
  Both the Tamil Tigers rebels and the government forces have been widely accused of conducting themselves with reckless disregard for the welfare of civilians during the final stages of a civil war that spanned three decades.
  “We remain tremendously concerned about the lack of accountability for the actions taken by both parties at the end of the war,” Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Friday when asked about the captain’s allegations.
  National Post with files from Kathryn Blaze Carlson