By CASEY NEILL
DANDENONG MP John Pandazopoulos is being urged to apologise for “siding with a vicious oppressor” during a recent trip to Sri Lanka.
But Mr Pandazopoulos has played down the Tamil Refugee Council’s reaction to his meeting with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
He was part of a five-member Victorian Parliamentary delegation to Sri Lanka last month alongside MPs Liz Beattie and Marsha Thomson.
Tamil Refugee Council spokesman Aran Mylvaganam said they had enraged the local Tamil community by meeting Mr Rajapaksa and later lauding him at a press conference.
“It was staggering to read that Ms Beattie and her colleagues had ignored a log of war crimes piled high at the United Nations and described Rajapaksa as a ‘man of courage’,” Mr Mylvaganam said.
He said the airport the delegation arrived at was a place of fear and horror for many Tamils.
“While this trio were whisked off to five-star hotels and meet-and-greet sessions with the Rajapaksa regime, forcibly-returned Tamil refugees go out another door, to a jail and court room, and often to torture, rape and beatings,” he said.
“If they were unaware of these things they should apologise immediately.
“If they knew it, they should do the honest thing and ditch their pretence about representing the downtrodden people of this world.”
Mr Pandazopoulos said he was “very much aware of the issues”.
“I am the patron of the Victorian Tamil Cultural Association for many years,” he said.
“There is much more to the Sri Lanka conflict than what this group says.”
He said the trip was organised in conjunction with the Sri Lankan High Commission in Australia and the Australian High Commission in Sri Lanka.
“A number of meetings were held with ministers, members of parliament, provincial governors, a business reception, the Sri Lankan Parliament and the president,” he said.
“The purpose of the trip was to look at reconstruction and reconciliation since the end of the war and opportunities in this environment to grow trade and investment.
“Politicians need to engage with politicians in Sri Lanka and raise issues where they have made progress and where more needs to be done.
“This is what we need. For too long we have had groups take sides in the conflict rather than engage directly with government.”
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