I posted an article on the Mass grave unearthed in Sri Lanka.
I received a comment , which I am reproducing below and offer my comment on them.
I write objectively , based on facts and Documents.
If my views are wrong I am willing to be corrected, but the rebuttal must be based on facts, Documents and not innuendo and abuse .
Comment Received.
“The mass graves in matale and any other place in SL is a symbol of tormented past of SLn people. The good thing is SLn people have been resilient and built their lifes back whatever they went through in late 80s. However this blog post seems more like an attempt to sling mud at sri lanka and its people.
1. Matale mass graves are no doubt connected to JVP insurgency. However continuous mention of tamils in this try to create an impression this is a grave of tamil civilians.
2. Matale mass grave is a result of SLA’s anti insurgency campaign. Whatever the bad it did ultimately it saved Slns and its people from a far brutal Marxist campaign. Trying to paint this in black and white is distorting the whole scenario.
3. Matale mass grave might contain skeletons of innocents as well as armed rebels.
4. The counter insurgency of SLA has been adopted by Indian government in india during anti-khalistan movement in Punjab. So this is nothing new. This has happened in india as well. Saying SL is the Uganda of Idi Amin is an attempt of distorting the whole picture and slinging mud using dead bodies for one’s own political agendas.
Therefore though this blog post try to seems to be sympathetic (unsuccessfully) to the ones died in Matale this is an attempt with a political agenda”
My reply.
Skeletons in The Mass Grave, Sri Lanka
1.For points 1 to 3.
I have clearly mentioned in the post that the dead could have been.
“It could be the result of the standoff between JVP and The Government, LTTEand Government, or The Marxists or innocent Tamils.
Over 200 bodies were found at the last count”
The comment makes no sense as the writer has echoed my views on this aspect from the same blog!
Point 2 of the comment.
Khalistan. No body denies that there Operation Blue Star and the initiative was done in Public view and, mind you, Sikhs, the pillars of India, were a part of the Operation,
How many Tamil officers were in the Killing of the Tamils?
The writer says,
‘
The mass graves in matale and any other place in SL is a symbol of tormented past of SLn people. The good thing is SLn people have been resilient and built their lifes back whatever they went through in late 80s.’
Excellent! Not only the Sri Lankans kil;l the Tamils, Muslims but Sri Lankans as well.
If this can not be compared to Idi Amin Regime. shall I compare it with Emperor Asoka of lord Buddha?
The writer conveniently omits the fact in the post that,
‘As fate would have it ,that another activist who played the role of the ombudsman to the grieving parents, whose offspring had been snatched away by the State military apparatus and deadly para- military groups’ is now the President of Sri Lanka. When Mahinda Rajapaksa went to Geneva, he attempted to smuggle, concealed in a false compartment of his suitcase, the gory pictures of headless corpse of State terrorism in 1989-90. He was stopped at the airport and the photographs were confiscated..
Successive Sri Lankan Governments, including that of previously activist President Chandrika Kumaratunga, let past military atrocities be swept under the carpet, despite the fact that she herself led the campaign for the excavation of the suspected mass grave in Suriyakanda. That highly emotive campaign was the catalyst in Kumaratunga’s speedy rise to the Presidency of Sri Lanka…”
Ironically the source for this blog post is not a Tamil magazine or a News paper, but from a Sri Lanka paper
A mass grave was discovered by Archaeologists in Matale,Sri Lanka.
The problem is not the killing per se; it is de facto.
But the victims?
It is estimated that the remains are 25 years old.
It could be the result of the standoff between JVP and The Government, LTTE and Government, or The Marxists or innocent Tamils.
Over 200 bodies were found at the last count
As fate would have it ,that another activist who played the role of the ombudsman to the grieving parents, whose offspring had been snatched away by the State military apparatus and deadly para- military groups’ is now the President of Sri Lanka. When Mahinda Rajapaksa went to Geneva, he attempted to smuggle, concealed in a false compartment of his suitcase, the gory pictures of headless corpse of State terrorism in 1989-90. He was stopped at the airport and the photographs were confiscated…:
Ceylon Today covered this extensively and has a Leader on this.
“
On Sunday, the Judicial Medical Officer of Matale urged the family members of the disappeared youth of that era (1989-90) to come forward to identify the remains of the 154 nameless victims that had been buried at the site.
The general tendency at the conclusion of brutal and costly civil wars and insurgencies is to forget the past, ostensibly to look forward to a much better future. The common argument, which is put forward in defence of this practice – and against retributive justice – is that investigations into past brutalities blamed on the security apparatus would complicate the reconciliation process. In some of the highly polarized and unequal societies in Latin America, the wheels of justice turned exceedingly slowly. In places like Guatemala, where nearly 200,000 people were killed and 40,000 disappeared during the US- supported counter insurgency campaign against a populist and largely indigenous rebellion, the victims had to wait until 2012 to put ex-dictator Gen Ríos Mont on trial for monstrous atrocities he and his forces had committed.
However, in some better enlightened and relatively prosperous places in Latin America, such as Argentina, the process had been much faster, though it too had to overcome numerous hurdles, including uprisings in the barrack by soldiers and officer corps who were complicit in past atrocities.
Mass Grave in Sri Lanka
Skeletons in The Mass Grave, Sri Lanka
Successive Sri Lankan Governments, including that of previously activist President Chandrika Kumaratunga, let past military atrocities be swept under the carpet, despite the fact that she herself led the campaign for the excavation of the suspected mass grave in Suriyakanda. That highly emotive campaign was the catalyst in Kumaratunga’s speedy rise to the Presidency of Sri Lanka.
Mass Grave, Sri Lanka.
Skulls in Mass Grave,Sri Lanka.
However, barring a handful of cases, the majority of nearly 30,000 victims, who were documented as missing and disappeared by the Truth Commission instituted by President Kumaratunga’s administration did not receive justice. Their killers are roaming freely, and their ilk, momentarily resurface in white vans, which continue to haunt this country.
Sri Lanka has repeatedly shied away from instituting due legal mechanisms to punish the perpetrators of grave human rights violations, which characterized the nation along with its famed Ceylon tea during various phases of our history: 1971, 1983, 1988-89, and the three-decade-long Northern conflict.
The indifference of the political leadership towards the human rights violations of monstrous proportions and the lack of courage and political will to act decisively was instrumental in cementing a climate of impunity in the country.
Earlier Channel 4 telecast last Year the Genocide of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Now a New Documentary is being released and it will be shown to UNHR.
The bodies of Tamil women civilians lay smouldering on the floor in northern Sri Lanka after being deliberately targeted by Sri Lanka nationalist forces of Mahinda Rajapaksa. These bodies are not only the result of strident uncontrolled nationalism, but the direct effects of Globalisation between the world’s largest powers, the United States, China and India in the first initial pre-amble to multi-polarity developing throughout the world.
Would they take action against Rajapakshe and his band of Thugs at least now?
n one of the most repugnant images yet seen during the so-called War on Terror, A Tamil woman between 20 and 30 years of age lies dead in the mud after being raped and shot to death by nationalist Rajapaksa military forces during the ethnic cleansing of 2009. As an increasing body of evidence now illustrates, scenes like this were common throughout the north of Sri Lanka despite initial claims by government sources that incidents of this type were exceptional. In an attempt to explain this behaviour, the Sri Lankan military have claimed that disrobing and open handed detailing of bodies is required to search for weapons, explosives or documents as standard operating procedure. In many of these incidents, females have been found naked, blindfolded with clothing removed just enough to expose sexual organs with hands tied behind the back and gunshot wounds to the head. In almost all cases, females are found in face up positions with their legs splayed. It should be noted that the operation conducted by nationalist forces in Sri Lanka has not been made possible by competent anti-terrorist training for the role, or a degree of professionalism, but by a sudden influx of finance and military weapons and ordnance from the United States and China. This influx simply brought the Sri Lankan military into a position in which it had the military capability to overshoot its natural lack of competence.
Carefully evidenced and powerfully measured, ‘No Fire Zone’ is a feature length film about the final awful months of the 26 year long Sri Lankan civil war told by the people who lived through it. It is a meticulous and chilling expose of some of the worst war crimes and crimes against humanity of recent times – told through the extraordinary personal stories of a small group of characters and also through some of the most dramatic and disturbing video evidence ever recorded.
This footage allows us to document the day to day horror of this war in a way almost never done before: Footage recorded by both the victims and perpetrators on mobile phones and small cameras – viscerally powerful actuality from the battlefield, from inside the crudely dug civilian bunkers and over-crowded makeshift hospitals.
Footage which is nothing less than direct evidence of war crimes, summary execution, torture and sexual violence.
This was supposed to be a war conducted in secret. The Government excluded the international press, forced the UN to leave the war zone and ruthlessly silenced the Sri Lankan media – literally dozens of media workers were killed, exiled or disappeared. While the world looked away in the first few months of 2009 around 40,000 to 70,000 civilians were massacred – mostly by Sri Lankan government shelling, though the Tamil Tigers also stand accused of war crimes.
The film starts in September 2008. An air of deep foreboding hung over Kilinochchi– the de facto capital of the Tamil homelands of Northern Sri Lanka. The armed forces of the ultra-nationalist Sinhalese government of Sri Lanka were on the move, and the brutal secessionist army of the Tamil Tigers was on the retreat. After a twenty-six year revolt – the scene was set for the final awful endgame.
We have looked at and translated hours of raw footage which captures the day-to-day life of the people who lived and in many cases died – during the 138 days of hell which form the central narrative of our film. This footage is an incredibly intimate account of human suffering.
But the film is also built around compelling personal stories. There is Vany – a young British Tamil who was visiting relatives in Sri Lanka who became trapped along with hundreds of thousands of other men, women and children, desperately fleeing the government onslaught. She had trained as a medical technician in the UK, now she found herself helping in a makeshift hospital while doctors tried to treat hundreds of desperately injured people, in some cases performing major surgery without general anaesthetic.
Other people who tell their stories include two of the last UN workers – Peter Mackay and Benjamin Dix – forced to leave on the orders of the UN which, they feel, was betraying its fundamental duty to protect.
Inevitably too, this film is the personal story of some who didn’t make it.
‘No Fire Zone’ also brings the story up to date. The Sri Lankan government still denies this all happened in what thy describe as an “humanitarian rescue”. The repression and ethnic restructuring of the Tamil homelands in the north of Sri Lanka continues – journalists and government critics are still disappearing. The government will tolerate no opposition and have even turned on their own judiciary, impeaching the Chief Justice of the country when she found they had acted unconstitutionally.
Without truth there can be no justice in Sri Lanka. And without justice there can be no peace. We hope our film can be part of that truth-telling.
We offer this film, not just as the definitive film of record, but also in the hope it will jolt the international community and audience to call for action.
Like all crimes, it was all supposed to be conducted in secret.
In September 2008, as Sri Lankan government forces pushed the fighters of the Tamil Tigers further and further back into the Tamil homelands of the north, the government ordered the UN to evacuate their last few international workers from Kilinochchi, the Tigers’ de facto capital.
The reason, they said, was they could no longer guarantee their safety.
The real reason was far less honorable: They did not want any witnesses to what was coming.
One of the UN staff, communications Officer Benjamin Dix, recalls how distressed and angry they felt. A mood which was not improved by the celebratory party the UN threw for them when they escaped the war zone.
“I remember feeling pretty disgusted by that party. I didn’t see that there was anything there to celebrate. What we had actually done was complete abandonment of our duty of protection of civilians in a conflict situation,” he said.
The next day Dix resigned from his post. But even he had no idea just how catastrophic that abandonment was, how awful was the disaster that was about to befall the people left behind.
With the UN out of the region, with international media excluded and local journalists and critics silenced, exiled, disappeared or in fear of their life, the government felt ready to launch the final offensive.
On January 2, 2009, Kilinochchi fell. Between 300,000 and 400,000 civilians were on the run, fleeing further into the Tiger-held territory. But they were fleeing into a terrible trap – a trap which would see tens of thousands of them die, mostly (as a UN panel of experts later concluded) as a result of targeted government shelling.
Back in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo, the increasingly autocratic regime of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother, the Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, was determined to finish the Tigers off. As the then UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Sir John Homes told me: “They were not going to let anybody stop them do that. Either the international community, the media or the fear of humanitarian issues of civilian casualties. And that’s the way it worked out.”
And if any local journalists were thinking of challenging that plan, they were about to receive a painful reminder of what the consequences might be.
Soon after the fall of Kilinochchi, the founding editor of the Colombo Sunday Leader, the Sinhalese writer, Lasantha Wickrementunge, wrote an article attacking the government’s military triumphalism and commitment to a military solution to the Tigers 26-year insurgency. It was not an easy article to write; he had once been a personal friend and admirer of the president.
A few days later, as Wickrementunge was driving to work, he was ambushed and executed by four unknown assailants on motorbikes.
After his death his newspaper published a front page editorial he had written in anticipation of his own murder. It was addressed to his former friend, the president. “For all the dreams you had for our country in your younger days . . . you have trampled on human rights, nurtured unbridled corruption and squandered public money like no other president before you.”
And he concluded:
“When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.”
But pleas concerning this dead journalist had no effect.
To the regime in Colombo, it must have seemed like all the elements were in place: There was no one left to witness what was about to happen.
Past may be forgotten but not forgiven unless the criminals are brought to justice for genocide.
Champika RanawakaSri Lankan Minister Threatens Tamils.
By the way what happened to the much touted summons from the US Court to Rajapakse and the report of the UN Human Rights Commission on Civil Rights and Channel 4 Video?
India is gloating over the proposal of Panetta of CIA to co-operate more closely with India at the expense of China.
What about the Genocide of the Tamils in Sri Lanka?
‘A Sri Lankan cabinet minister has threatened with ‘hundred more massacres’ unless the island’s Tamil population avoid following the politics of the main Tamil parliamentary group. The warning came during a news conference on the 8 June in Colombo.
“Does Sambanthan want to create 100 more Mullivaikkals? We are ready to forgive and forget the past and think about the future” said the minister. “But, if Sambanthan is calling us to a fight, our nation would proudly accept the challenge” he further said.
The leader of the TNA, 79 year old veteran Tamil politician while delivering the keynote speech at the ITAK national convention the week before, said: “The position that the North and East of Sri Lanka are the areas of historical habitation of the Tamil speaking people cannot be compromised. We must have unrestricted authority to govern our own land, protect our own people, and develop our own economy, culture and tradition. A meaningful devolution should go beyond the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.” If the Sri Lankan state continuously deny this right, “we will claim our right under international law to external self determination” he said.The ITAK convention was held following failed attemps by the TNA to arive at an agreement with the government on an acceptable solution to the National Question.
Expressing anger over the remarks of the Tamil leader, the Sri Lankan minister cautioned the island’s Tamil population saying “we appeal to the Tamil people not to go behind this kind of people and end up in getting 100 more Mullivaikkals”.
Mullivaikkal is an area on the northeastern coast of the island where tens of thousands of Tamils were cornered and massacred during the final stage of the war between Sri Lankan troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009. Since then the area has become known as the final ‘killing field’ of the war and Tamils around the world hold annual commemorations named “Mullivaikkal Remembrance Day”. (Video courtesy: ETV) ‘
The Hindu‘s coverage of the news relating to Tamil Genocide warrants this conclusion.
The Hindu which was known for integrity and unbiased reporting is no more.
Image via Wikipedia
‘Activists of Delhi Tamil Students’ Union, Democratic Students Union, Students for Resistance and other common students raised slogans against N. Ram accusing him of being a ‘media fascist’ and ‘a stooge of Rajapaksa’ at a public meeting in JNU after his reply to a question on The Hindu’s role in whitewashing the Sri Lankan state genocide of the Eezham Tamils, wherein he had extensively blamed the LTTE. The meeting on ‘Paid news and media ethics’ was organized at JNU on Wednesday by the Student’s Federation of India, which is the students wing of the CPI(M). The fact that N.Ram and The Hindu have unethically manipulated news to cover up the war crimes of Colombo makes them complicit in the genocide committed on the Eezham Tamils, a Tamil Nadu research scholar in JNU told TamilNet.
Mr. Ram was talking about journalist coverage in India elections and during the US’ wars and on the theme of media ethics, referring greatly to Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, a classic on understanding how news is manipulated and on editorial bias.
An activist of the DTSU raised a question on why Ram, who had talked about journalists being attacked in Palestine and Iraq, had nothing to say about media freedom and assault on journalists in Sri Lanka, including murder of Sinhala journalist Lasantha Wikramatunga.
When he has been silent about this, used his newspaper to support the genocidal war on the Eezham Tamils, called a visit to the IDP camps in Vavuniya an uplifting experience when they were reality in concentration camps, how could he talk about the ethics of journalism, the activist further asked.
As a reply, N. Ram had said that those who criticize the GoSL do not criticize the LTTE [an argument highlighted by Mahinda Rajapaksa too nowadays]. After criticizing the ‘ruthlessness’ of the LTTE in his reply, he added a line that had the GoSL committed excesses, he would criticize that too…..
When an activist of the DSU observed that his bias was obvious in his reply itself, where he had criticized the LTTE for ten minutes, but had only one line to say about the GoSL, and whether this was his idea of media ethics, Ram fumbled for a response. At this, students in the audience remarked loudly that ‘this is why they gave you Sri Lanka Ratna’ and shouted ‘shame’.
