Tamara Kunanayakam

Tamara Manimekhalai Kunanayakam is a Sri Lankan diplomat. She was the former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Sri Lankan Ambassador to Holy See. Her father was an Anglican Sri Lankan Tamil from Chundikuli in Jaffna who was a member of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party and the Government Clerical Services Union. She then returned to Geneva and enrolled at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. She graduated in 1982 with a Master's degree in International Relations.

Kunanayakam is fluent in Tamil, Sinhala, English, French, German and Spanish.

Just received news that Valvettiturai town has been razed and all inhabitants killed. Navy has killed 1,000 in Trincomalee. Two refugee camps in Colombo have been attacked. Food supplies of Jaffna are being blocked by the Army. Our sources of information are UNDP Colombo, NORAD Colombo and Tamil Information Centre London.

The fax was leaked to the media, some of whom mentioned Kunanayakam's name.

Kunanayakam was a human rights officer for the United Nations Centre for Human Rights from 1989 to 1990. Kunanayakam was elected Chairperson/Rapporteur of the United Nations Intergovernmental Working Group on the Right to Development in August 2011 and as Vice Chair representing the Asia Group of countries at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) at its 58th Session.

Other activities Kunanayakam is the founder of the Foundation on Multilateralism in Geneva and a founding member of the Observatory of Globalization in Paris, the South Group in Geneva and the Asia-Pacific Task Force, Geneva. She is author of several publications on international relations, including on the international monetary system, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, the United Nations reform process, and humanitarian interventions in Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Afghanistan.