C 4 Video ‘Killing fields of Sri Lanka’ – LTTE propaganda
Posted on June 19th, 2011

P.A.Samaraweera, Australia.

The programme ‘Killing fields of Sri Lanka’ screened by Channel 4 UK refers to crimes committed by both sides but highlights alleged crimes by the Sri Lanka security forces. Channel 4 backed the LTTE before and after the war for the simple reason that it was heavily funded by the Tamil diaspora.
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ThoseƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ traumatised during the 30 year war, wereƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ not the affluent Tamil diaspora, the western countries depending on Tamil votes, foreign TV channels which made money out of the war or the LTTE sympathisers of the UN, but the people of Sri Lanka. And the LTTE, listed as a terrorist organisation which brutally fought to fracture Sri LankaƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ needed to be defeated.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 
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TheƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ govt has indicatedƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ that it will get forensic experts to look at the footage and respond accordingly. Some experts have already observed that it is a fake as there is evidence of manipulation. Even the UN admits that it had been edited. So its authenticity is challenged.
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The LTTEƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  had torture chambers for those who did not tow the line. Tamil dissidents were executed. Then there were execution of security forces who surrendered , for example 600ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ police personnelƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ who were coerced to give up their arms. Therefore, the footage obviously shows what the LTTE themselves have been doing during the war.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ According to Channel 4, the video was supposed to have been taken from a mobile phone by a soldier but experts have argued that it comes from a small hand held camera. Further, it is highly unlikely, that soldiers coming from poor ruralƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ familiesƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ and risking their life fighting a war, would be walking around taking photos with an expensiveƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ mobile phone.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Towards the end of the war Sri Lanka showedƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  on TVƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ how the soldiers treated civilians fleeing from the LTTEƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ to army territory. Despite this the C4 Programme harps that the military targetted civilians!
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The commentator refers to human right violations by the LTTE. But the leaders who survived have been given asylum in western countries. The worst human right violation by the LTTE was the recruitment of child soldiers and giving them cyanide capsules. The Australian nurse,AdeleƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Balasingham,ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ who was instrumentalƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ in this, is now living in luxury in the UK.
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A former Tamil National Parliamentarian, who was trapped inside the war zone, in an interview to The Asian Tribune of 18th April 2011, had said, “… He had seen the horrors of the war and noted innocent Tamils who were treated as stray dogs, shot and killed mercilesly by LTTE gunmen…” He rubbished the UN Report and comments by the west saying that, “…they were not privy to any first hand information about the horrors, torture,ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ killings and human tragedies that occurred during the final days of the battle. He challenged the UN experts and other groups to authenticate any allegations raisedƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  and included in the report…” He also explained how the LTTE moved heavy artillery closer to civilians and hospital compounds and those who objected were brutally shot. And added how LTTEƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ fighters during theƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ last stages moved around in civiesƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ with weapons.
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40,000 casualties mentioned by the commentator in the footage is the figure shown by the British Tamil Forum, UK., branch. Channel 4 programme about the war is visibly doctoredƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ by the LTTE rump to fracture Sri Lanka.
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P.A.Samaraweera,
Australia.
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3 Responses to “C 4 Video ‘Killing fields of Sri Lanka’ – LTTE propaganda”

  1. Vis8 Says:

    The London Times on the morally-bankrupt “channel-4”:

    “Choosing to Die [Terry Prachett’s BBC 2 documentary on euthanasia] was billed, hyperbolically, as the first time the moment of death has been shown on television. It isn’t. Not by many, many deaths. What they meant was the first death of a white western man in a sitting room; there is death all over television all the time. Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, Channel 4’s documentary on that country’s civil war, was made up of little else but the moment of death. Just before we get into it, I am going to pause, yet again, to have an eye-rollingly weary word about Jon Snow’s comic ties and jocund socks. And to explain why I mind and why they matter. The ugly garish ties are worn to semaphore the fact that this is a chap who is only wearing a suit because the headmaster says he must. Inside, he is really a far more relaxed, counterculture kind of dude, not at all the establishment flunky the two-piece single-breasted implies. It is a pathetically and worryingly childish pose in a man approaching retirement who wants what comes out of his mouth to be taken seriously. Back to the programme.

    Channel 4 has been flogging this story for more than a year, ever since it was given an unattributed but disturbing clip of footage that appeared to show Tamil Tiger prisoners being executed. It has showed it so often, to righteously harangue the Sri Lankan ambassador and various spokesmen, that now nobody will talk to it. The channel has accumulated a large collection of samizdat amateur footage from mobile phones and video cameras – mostly unattributed and uncorroborated. It mixes this footage with comment from unnamed sources with distorted voices and shadowed faces. And human rights lawyers. It was brutal, it was shocking, but it wasn’t journalism.

    Not a second of this has been shot by Channel 4; none of the eyewitness accounts comes from journalists.

    Snow’s commentary was intemperate and partisan, and it was all held together by assumptions. Channel 4 News has drifted from providing news broadcasts into being an outlet for nodding spokespeople and assorted NGOs and environmental pressure groups, or anyone who can provide interesting or sensational film. It follows the old American news adage, “If it bleeds, it leads”.

    What was depressing about this particularly bloody special was not just that it had precious little context or considered thought, but that the people who will suffer most from it are not governments or soldiers, but the victims of this brutal war, who deserve a more measured professionalism and due diligence, and who deserve better than this compilation of gore, topped and tailed by a man in a comedy tie.

    Finally, the most demeaning and prurient part of it all was that the penises of the naked men being executed were smudged out, as if they were the shocking part. And the pubic hair of abused and murdered women was coyly pixelated so as not to be titillating. The horror of war tidied up like Japanese porn, to save us the embarrassment and distaste of having to look at the genitals of the dead.

    This was a piece of politically correct sanitising that was degrading and humiliating for the viewer and the viewed, but was symbolic of this programme’s contorted news agenda. It really was the most astonishing and misjudged editorial decision from a news broadcaster that has grown into the habit of poor judgment on almost everything. Channel 4 News once had clever and astute reporters; now it boasts a revolving handful of Autocue readers with hair issues. And its arts coverage, which was by far the best of any terrestrial news, is now ill-informed, naff and embarrassing. This documentary was a low point in a continuing slump.

    What both Choosing to Die and the Sri Lankan documentary suffered from in different ways was empathy – which is very popular in documentaries these days. What both should have had was a buttoned-up sober detachment.”

  2. A. Sooriarachi Says:

    The killing of captured SriLankan soldiers by LTTE terrorists had been fairly common. They did not believe in human rights. If you visit the Northern province today you would see some of the LTTE torture cages the prisoners were kept in. If you talk to some of the lower ranked soldiers, they would relate the gruesome things LTTE did, not only to armed forces but also to their own Tamil civilans who failed to obey them. Torture was one of the favourite weapons of the LTTE, but at the same time they are supposed to have taken blood and whatever else from these prisoners for LTTE medical facilities.
    As for Ch-4 video, it was always a strong possibility that these videos are LTTE trophies of what they did to the soldier prisoners. It will be interesting if someone could identify one or two persons in these videos, but the LTTE seem to have deliberately avoided showing their faces to protect their identity.

  3. Vis8 Says:

    A documentary showing American army command was complicit in the killing of 3,000 prisoners who were separated out from the total of 8,000 POWs and transported to a prison compound in the town of Shibarghan, was aired in Germany in 2002. It was covered-up nicely by the West:

    German TV aired documentary charging American war crimes in Afghanistan

    http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/dec2002/docu-d21.shtml

    Wonder if Channel-4 and its ltte cronies saw this.

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