Ahead of the CHOGM in Perth, writing in the Trinidad Express on Monday, Peter Kellner, journalist and chairman of the Royal Commonwealth Society, accuses the conference and the institution of the Commonwealth of "sleeping walking into irrelevance".

An umbrella organisation consisting of 180 groups, representing over a million Canadians, passed a resolution last week expressing its support for the self-determination of the Tamil nation and calling for an immediate halt to the ongoing genocide in the Tamil homeland.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has had an indictment filed against him, in Melbourne Magistrates Court, for war crimes.

The indictiment was filed by Arunachalam Jegatheeswaran, an Australian Tamil who witnessed the government's aerial bombardment of hospitals and other civilian buildings during the height of the conflict in 2009.

The charge comes as Rajapaksa is scheduled to arrive in Australia, for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth this week.

Speaking to Australian media channel, ABC, Jegatheeswaran explained what he has witnessed:

"Patients were killed and patients who were in the hospital were killed and there were other patients waiting for treatment, they were killed.

"And there was a medical store where they kept the medicines, those were destroyed, scattered all over the place, you can see.

"Ambulances was destroyed. So I have seen that personally."

"The hospital, clearly a big red cross sign was marked on the roof, and drones usually take surveillance, so I'm very positive that they know where the hospital is and they know it'll be damaged. So, that's what I can tell at this stage.

"He's [Rajapaksa] the commander-in-chief and nothing would have happened without his knowledge or his directions, and ultimately, he should be answerable to what was happening."

See here for full interview.

Jegatheeswaran's lawyer, Rob Stary, urged the Australian government to investigate,

''The government will need to show a bit of backbone to investigate it, but there is absolutely no reason on the face of it why they should not pursue it.

"It's incontrovertible in our view that war crimes have been committed."

Stary confirmed the hearing is scheduled to take place on the 29th November.

The Global Tamil Forum and Australian Tamil Congress co-hosted an international conference in Sydney, reaffirming the role of the international community in pressure Sri Lanka to address human rights violations that occurred during the war on the island. 

The conference, held on the 20th October in Sydney, was entitled “Accountability in Sri Lanka: Common Justice in the Commonwealth” and saw a vast array of distinguished speakers from all over the world, including MPs from Malaysia, South Africa, Australia and Sri Lanka.

Geoffery Robertson, an eminent QC, who was appointed by the UN Secretary General as one of the three distinguished jurist members of the UN’s Internal Justice Council and part-time appeal judge at the UN-backed court for war crimes in Sierra Leone was also in attendance, along with guests from Amnesty International (Graham Thorn - AI's Australia Refugee Coordinator, and Senthorun Raj - NSW president of AI Australia) and diplomats, including, Sisa Njikelana, an MP from South Africa's ANC (African National Congress).

Prof Suriyanarayanan of India, member of the National Security Advisory Board of the Government of India during 2008-2010, also spoke at the event, which recognised that “India must revisit its approach and strategy towards Sri Lanka.”

Other notable speakers included Lionel Bopage, former general secretary of the JVP in Sri Lanka who resigned from the party on principle as he disagreed with the party's approach to the Tamil issue; Professor Damien Kingsbury from the Schoool of International and Political Studies at Deakin University, and Associate Professor Jake Lynch, the director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney.

Those who have witnessed first hand alleged war crimes and human rights abuses that took place were also present, including, Meena Krishnamoorthy, who was caught up in the No-Fire Zone and two Malaysian MPs, Manogaran and Ramakrishnan, who visited Vanni shortly after the conflict unofficially.  

The conference was held ahead of the 2011 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth, the conference called for Sri Lanka to be denied privileges such as hosting the 2013 CHOGM and 2018 Commonwealth Games until the issues of war crimes and crimes against humanity were effectively dealt with. Furthermore, they called on the international community to “take all necessary steps to implement the UN Panel recommendations in its entirety”.

Amongst those injured was a Tamil man, who was left with a suspected broken nose and teeth, thought to have been inflicted by a guard at the centre.

The TNA were urged under no circumstances to barter away war crimes accountability for "political concessions" by the Tamil National Peoples Front (TNPF) during a press conference on Sunday.

The TNPF is a group of former TNA parliamentarians and civil society members, formed in early 2010 in exasperation at the TNA's reluctance to base its policies on the Tamil nation's rights.

A district court in The Hague ruled on Friday, in the case of five Tamils accused of procuring funds, that the LTTE is not a terrorist organisation.

Speaking in parliament on Thursday, UPFA member, A H M Azwar, expressed sorrow at the end of Gaddafi's rule.

Writing in the Canberra Times, retired Australian diplomat Bruce Haigh called on Australia to reject the Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Australia Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe.

The head of Channel 4 News and Current Affairs has told a Lords communications committee that a protest against the broadcaster earlier this year was arranged by the Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence.

An internal report by a panel on the Commonwealth, due to be presented at the summit in Perth next week, has slammed the ‘failure’ of the 54-member organisation to address human rights issues of its members and said only prompt action will save the Commonwealth from irrelevance and its eventual demise.