SRI LANKA UNITED NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CANADA

The much publicized Channel 4 video sponsored by Amnesty, HRW and other rights organizations is fast crumbling following the revelations that the scenes contained therein have been staged or deliberately distorted to hide the truth by the Tamil Tiger propaganda arm called Tamilnet that fed the material to this television station. With the tainted credibility of Channel 4 crashing rapidly and the true nature of the video footage unravelling, Channel 4 has come up with new footage where a darkened figure claiming to be a Sri Lankan soldier named Fernando whose voice is disguised by a ‘voice over’ in English spoken with a British accent alleges the most horrendous acts of violence against displaced Tamil civilians by fellow soldiers at the latter stages without a scrap of evidence to support the alleged crimes.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ This so called soldier called Fernando has taken over two years and two months to disclose these crimes as he says he took that long to recover from the nightmares that bothered him, despite his having participated in a military action as part of the 58th division that started on the west coast and ended on the northeast coast of the island in operations which lasted over 30 months against a fully armed, well trained and vicious terrorist group. His list of allegations have obviously been taken from a page in the Tamil Tiger’s propaganda book, where it has become the typical strategy to put together a string of horrific crimes to rattle the viewer without paying the least attention to providing supporting evidence. We have extracted some of the statements said to have been made by this fictitious ex-soldier who is shrouded in darkness and voice disguised from the Channel 4 News website: ” They shoot people at random, stab people, rape them, cut their tongues out, cut women’s breasts off, “Fernando” was so horrified by what he saw that he described himself as ‘like a walking corpse’. For the soldiers at the battlefront, their hearts had turned to stone. Having seen blood, killings and death for so long, they had lost their sense of humanity. I would say they had turned into vampires.” Channel 4 likely took these scenes from a Harry Potter adventure in the Middle Kingdom and not one experienced by a soldier in Sri Lanka that helped to rescue nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians including some 11,000 Tamil Tiger cadres that surrendered to the authorities.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The descriptions given of alleged crimes are so harrowing, as Channel 4 wanted it to match the horror of the fake video containing the doctored footage showing the summary killing of naked and bound unknown men by unknown armed men in military fatigues where the narrator Jon Snow rushes to state that the victims are Tamil Tiger cadres and the perpetrators are Sinhalese soldiers of the Sri Lankan Army without identifying a single person. We did point out in an earlier release that the sound track with meaningless Sinhalese words said to have been spoken by the armed perpetrators making references to ‘state property’ while carrying out the extra-judicial killings which did not synchronize with the rest of the video, obviously dubbed later, along with several questions as to the recording device, ill fitting 17 frames and encoded date showing UTC 2009-07-15 13:17:23, all of which went to support the position that the footage had been doctored by the Tamil Tigers to hide their crime and frame the Sri Lankan authorities.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Further evidence to support the charge that the footage represents yet another Tamil Tiger atrocity is firmed by the following news report in the Canadian media, as well as evidence forthcoming in Sri Lanka relating to the killing of 8 Sri Lankan soldiers and 18 Naval Ratings held captive by the Tigers who were done to death in the latter stages of the

war. “A Tamil asylum seeker (Tamil migrant may have taken part in shooting of soldiers, hearing told – Global News ) who arrived in Canada on the ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”¹…”MV Sun SeaƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢ admitted to have been one of the LTTE fighters who had been asked to shoot and kill Sri Lankan soldiers held captive towards the end of the war, per news report of 4/19/2011 by Doug Quan in the Postmedia News.” No further proof is required to establish the fact that Channel 4 was distorting the truth by airing Tamil Tiger propaganda footage than the ORIGINAL Video now submitted in attachment, where the gunmen clearly speak Tamil words which have a direct bearing to the action taking place during the transpiration of the gruesome killing of Sri Lanka security forces personnel by the LTTE.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Jonathan Miller’s reporting or Jon Snow’s narration does not authenticate bogus claims from being anything but a fake. We recall a Channel 4 video aired soon after the conclusion of the military action in May 2009, where Jonathan Miller interviewed a pro-Tamil Tiger diaspora member, where the latter made the outlandish allegation that there were several dead bodies of Tamil IDPs lying around in the interim camp grounds housing the displaced Tamil civilians which were rotting causing a health hazard, to be hurriedly confirmed by a western woman attached to an INGO, which allegation was rejected by the reputed INGO such as Save the Children Canada, UNICEF and others who were volunteering their services within the camps. Miller also had access to the elusive Kumaran Pathmanathan also known as KP who was wanted by INTERPOL for his role in procuring weapons for the LTTE at a secret location in some part of South East Asia where he interviewed him to promote the Tigers military capability. These deliberate acts to distort the news caused the removal of the Channel 4 media crew from Sri Lanka, giving rise to the Channel 4 News – LTTE conglomerate to jointly concoct video footage to demonize Sri Lanka and the 20 million people of the island nation that was breathing the air of freedom after 30 plus years of Tamil Tiger terrorism and making efforts to heal the wounds of the past and move forward in peace and harmony.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ We also want to provide links to related articles written by Siri Hewavitharne a video technology expert who is the Executive Director of IPTV Systems in Sydney, Australia, where he has given his analysis of the disputed video, and an analysis showing the background and qualifications of the so called experts hired by the UN Special Rapporteurs, namely, Phillip Alston and Christof Heyns to report on the authentity of the footage dealing with the extra-judicial killings by the veteran jourbalist, Hassina Leelaratne of San Francisco:

UN misled on Channel 4 video – by Siri Hewavitharne

Web link: http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2011/07/31/fea02.asp

UN Officials’ Channel 4 Video Analysis a ‘Forensic Hoax’ – by Hassina Leelaratne

Web Link: http://srilankausa.weebly.com/un–forensics-hoax.html

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ In conclusion, we wish to draw your attention to the documentary released by the Sri Lankan authorities to deal with the various allegations carried in the 50 minute video aired by Channel 4 News, wherein the doctors who served in the war zone, Tamil civilians who were used as a human shield by the LTTE and their former cadres spoke freely and openly to give an accurate account of what took place during the military action against the Tamil Tigers, clearly refuting the feigned portrayal by Channel 4 News where they carried footage from the Tamil Tigers propaganda site called the Tamilnet to distort the real situation on the ground: http://www.youtube.com/user/onslorg?blend=5&ob=5#p/u/0/Sqvyip55w3A.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Yours sincerely,

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Mahinda Gunasekera

Honorary President

Encl.