Mahinda Gunasekera

Mr. Scott Reid, MP for Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Assington,
Chair of the House of Commons Sub-Committee on Human Rights
of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development,
and the other members of the Sub-Committee on Human Rights

Honourable Members of the House of Commons Sub-Committee on Human Rights,

Submission on the Human Rights situation in Sri Lanka

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Further to my letters e-mailed to Ms. Miriam Burke, Clerk to the Sub-Committee on Human Rights with copy to Mr. Scott Reid, MP, Chair of the House of Commons Sub-Committee on Human Rights on November 24, 2011, December 1, 2011 and December 12, 2011, seeking an opportunity to appear before the Sub-Committee especially due to the fact that I was proceeding on a six week holiday to Sri Lanka from January 12, 2012. I am now submitting my views pertaining to the period of the conflict in Sri Lanka which was decisively ended by the military defeat of the fighting forces of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an organization designated as an international terrorist movement banned by 32 countries including Canada, by the armed forces of the duly elected Government of Sri Lanka on May 18, 2009.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ I am the President of the Sri Lanka United National Association of Canada, which is a Non-Profit Community Association which has functioned since 1983 bringing an alternative viewpoint on Sri Lankan affairs to the elected parliamentarians, media and general public of Canada. Our association represents Canadians of Sri Lankan origin from all ethnic, religious and other backgrounds with the majority of the members coming from the Sinhalese community, who have made Canada their adopted homeland.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Brief History:

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ A conflict that has raged for a period of nearly 33 years with five separate attempts being made to reach a negotiated settlement by both direct and internationally mediated talks failed to achieve peace, as the LTTE did not bargain in good faith and used the talks and ceasefire periods to re-build their weapons stockpile and fighting forces before breaking off the talks unilaterally and resumimg hostilities. The last round of negotiations took place during the Norwegian facilitated peace process starting in February 2002 with the USA, EU, Japan and Norway functioning as Co-Chairs. The peace talks did not make much headway as the LTTE was not prepared to discuss substantive issues, and they pulled out after 4 or 5 rounds by June 2003. The LTTE refused to attend the talks till the year 2006 when President Rajapakse appealed to the Norwegian facilitators to re-start the talks. They used this opportunity to send their delegation to Geneva and Oslo to meet with the Tamil Tiger international representatives to seek enhanced funding for procurement of weapons to launch their so called final war of liberation to establish a separate mono-ethnic racist separate state called “Eelam”, but did not participate in the peace talks adducing flimsy excuses.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ During the period of the ceasefire which commenced in February 2002, the Nordic Monitoring Mission reported that there were over 7000 complaints against the LTTE of which 3400 were ruled as violations including the killing of over 400 persons comprising Sri Lankan security forces personnel, civilians from the Sinhalese, Muslim and Tamil communities, and high profile citizens such as the distinguished Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Lakshman Kadirgamar, other ministers of the government, Neelan Tiruchelvam a Tamil intellectual and human rights activist, Keethes Logeswaran, Deputy Director of Sri Lanka’s Peace Secretariat, all of latter being members of the Tamil community. Attempts were also made to assassinate the Army Commander, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, and the Secretary of Defence Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapakse. In comparision, the number of complaints against the members of the nation’s security forces amounted to about 800 of which around 150 were determined as violations mainly relating to harassment of persons at the check points manned by the military and police. The LTTE also had conscripted over 6,000 underage children to their fighting forces according to UNICEF, many of whom were under 15 years of age and some as young as ten years, making such recruitment war crimes.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Over the years, the LTTE killed over 10,000 civilians and seriously injured as many by planting bombs in public transit and shopping centres, detonating claymore mines and truck bombs, unleashing nearly 387 suicide bombers, carrying out assassinations and engaging in ethnic cleansing massacres by descending on rural hamlets in the middle of the night and hacking to death the sleeping families with machetes. They also liquidated members of other Tamil militant groups and dissidents to attain the status of sole representative of the Tamil community. Among some of the most heinous crimes committed by the LTTE were the machine gunning of 144 Buddhist pilgrims who were engaged in contemplative meditation at the Sri Maha Bodhi Tree and Ruwanwelseya dagoba in the sacred city of Anuradhapura, hacking and shooting 33 novice Buddhist monks at Arantalawa, bombing the sacred Temple of the Tooth Relic in Kandy, killing of over 200 Muslims at prayer in Kattankudy and Eravur in the eastern province. The 27,000 Sinhala residents of the north were forcibly driven out between 1976 and 1981, whilst the large resident Muslim population of nearly 90,000 were ejected from the Jaffna peninsula in 1990 on 48 hours notice, with each family being permitted to take with them the equivalent of $3.00.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Also, whilst an LTTE delegation was having direct talks with President Premadasa Ranasinghe in Colombo with a ceasefire in place, the LTTE forces surrounded several police stations in the eastern province and demanded the surrender of the police officers. As the lives of a large number of policemen were in danger, the President accepted the offer of the LTTE delegation led by Anton Balasingham and ordered the officers to surrender to the LTTE on condition that that they would be released unharmed as assured at an agreed location. These police officers less the Tamil officers who were separated from the group numbering 687 were instead driven to the jungles of Tirukovil, made to dig their own graves and shot in the back of their heads at point blank range. The immense damage caused to valuable property and lives by the LTTE starting with the truck bombing of the Central Bank and other commercial property in Colombo’s financial district on January 31, 1996, using explosives purchased from the Ukraine with payment of around $7.2 million by the Canadian Tamil supporters resulted in the destruction of several buildings and killing nearly 114 and injuring over 1400 office workers. They attacked trains, buses, and the Katunayake international airport destroying over six Sri Lankan Airlines air buses. They uprooted nearly 125 km of the northern rail track, sank several ships and did untold damage throughout the country causing an inestimable amount of losses.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ War thrust upon the government by the LTTE in 2005:

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ In and around 2005, a confident LTTE began extorting large sums of money from the Tamil diaspora resident in western countries and Tamil businesses to procure weapons to commence their so called final war of liberation to carve out a separate state called “Eelam” which has been confirmed by HRW in their report of March 2006. The LTTE unilaterally commenced attacks in December of that year on military camps, naval installations,etc. killing over 450 security forces personnel. They avoided participating in the peace talks in February and March 2006 in Geneva and Oslo as arranged by the Norwegian facilitator at the urgent request of President Mahinda Rajapakse, and went on with their killing spree without counter action by the government. By July 2006, the LTTE cut off irrigation and drinking water to 15,000 farming families at Mavil Aru in a strategic move to draw the government forces out from around the Naval Base of Trincomalee so that they would be in a position to use their forces concentrated in the region to endanger the Naval Base which was the point of supply via sea to the 40,000 troops and the 500,000 civilian population in the Jaffna peninsula. The war was thus thrust on the government and they then took measures to rid the LTTE fighters from Mavil Aru and restore water to the farmers, and also retake Muttur which fell to a lightening attack by the LTTE and move from there to secure the Trincomalee Naval Base from LTTE fire directed from Muttur and Sampur at the southern end of the harbour.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ A war thrust on the government by the LTTE was effectively countered by forcing the LTTE to withdraw their forces from the eastern province and thereafter moving against the LTTE forces in the northern Vanni region from several fronts, fighting them on the beaches, marshes, and jungles without giving the Tiger terrorists room to regroup or resort to any of their tactics of using human waves of child soldiers interspersed with suicide bombers. The Tigers were on the backfoot constantly retreating and forcing the resident civilian population to move with them burying millions of landmines, IEDs and anti-personal mines as they went. They had also removed the roofing sheets of the civilian houses which they used to fortify bunkers, which action led to the ultimate decay and destruction of these homes by exposure to the elements for 30 months, making it more difficult for the government to re-settle the displaced civilians after the military action. They temporarily held out behind 12-20 foot earthen bunds and 10 foot deep ditches, but the Sri Lankan military having suspended the use of heavy weapons adopted strategies in the latter stages to painstakingly dig zig zag tunnels at night time to take these earthen bunds and move forward without harm to the displaced civilians being held by the LTTE.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The government in consultation with the ICRC and members of the international community zoned off safe areas for the civilians, but unfortunately the LTTE entered these ‘no fire’ zones with their fighters and heavy weapons from where they directed fire at the advancing military. The armed forces used unarmed aerial vehicles (UAVs) to locate the LTTE’s heavy weapons and to ensure that the civilians are not in the immediate vicinity before engaging in retaliatory fire to eliminate the threat to themselves. The LTTE even placed their heavy weapons close to hospitals and UN compounds used for delivery of food and other essentials as confirmed by the UNSG’s panel report, apparently with the mischievous intent of endangering the patients and hospital staff from the retaliatory fire. The Sri Lankan authorities declared two 48 hour cease fires in February and April 2009 to enable the displaced Tamil civilians to move into government controlled territory via safe corridors where they would be out of harms way and provided with all necessities, but the civilians were prevented from moving out by the LTTE under threat of death as it was their intent to use these civilians as a human shield and a bargaining factor in a future deal to be ferried out of the country to continue their military goal of breaking up Sri Lanka.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ After the LTTE forces were completely surrounded with no way of escape from their last redoubt in the Pudumatalan strip which was essentially a safe zone earmarked for the displaced civilians, they continued to fight and even fire on desperate civilians who attempted to flee to safety in government controlled terrain. The government called on the LTTE to surrender unconditionally in the interest of civilian safety, but they would not heed that call as they presumed that their supporters in western capitals would bring enough pressure on these governments through their demonstrations which would compel the western powers to intervene and pluck them out to asylum in another country such as Eritrea to continue the fight another day. Although the British and French Foreign Ministers did attempt to exert pressure on Sri Lanka, and some moves were afoot at the US Embassy and some officials of the UN, Sri Lanka refused to yield as they were now seeing the end of a ruthless terror campaign which gripped the nation for 33 long years.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Allegations of human rights violations and war crimes:

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ This war fought within the bounds of Sri Lanka with the limited means available to this developing nation which took several measures such as establishing civilian safe zones, declaring ceasefires and even calling on the terrorist fighters to surrender when there was no escape for them, has reaped the highest number of allegations of wrongdoing and calls for accountability from international rights groups who apparently act selectively, western media and several western countries. The accusers were far removed from the battlefield and are solely dependant on tattle tales from members of the pro-Tamil Tiger diaspora, the LTTE’s propaganda arm called the Tamilnet and other Tamil asylum seekers eyeing greener pastures in developed countries to base their allegations of wrongdoing. The information so provided to the UNSG’s panel, and rights groups such as the ICG, HRW, AI, ECHR, Channel 4 News, ICJ Australia, etc. filtered through Tamil translators adding their spin to it is coming from prejudiced sources, on which reports running into hundreds of pages have been written is only a collection of unsubstantiated allegations. Furthermore, it is totally one sided, which fails the test of natural justice.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The reports published by the UNSG’s panel and the other rights groups have confined their focus to the last 3-4 months of he 35 month military operation where they allege various war crimes and human rights violations. None of them had access to the battlefront, and in fact commenced their work of investigations several months after the military operation had been concluded on May 18, 2009. These groups are seeking an international probe into these allegations, and seek to haul Sri Lanka before the international criminal court, when Sri Lanka which is a sovereign nation with a democratic framework and functioning courts is quite capable of dealing with war crimes or violations of international humanitarian law if any, that may have occurred during the course of the internal military action. Sri Lanka has in fact appointed a Presidential Commission to look into all matters relating to the conflict called the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission with respected citizens from the three main ethnic communities serving as commissioners. The LLRC report was published in November 2011 and steps are being taken to implement the many recommendations in a timely manner.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ These very same rights group had little or nothing to say about the horrendous crimes committed by the LTTE over a period of 33 years, a brief outline of which has been given above. Neither have they commented on the very serious violations that have taken place in other theatres in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc. where powerful western nations have been involved in highly aggressive bombing campaigns.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The allegations which range from shelling of hospitals, civilian safe zones, UN centres, and non-provision of food and medicine to the civilians in the territory temporarily usurped by the LTTE. The allegations relating to short supply of food and medicine have been refuted by the Sri Lankan authorities giving statistics and evidence from doctors, government agents who always maintained a three month buffer stock, WFP manager who confirmed that there were 6 weeks stock at the end of January 2009 plus weekly convoys of trucks carrying supplies to the region till the very end, when ocean transport was resorted to due to the land route being dangerous and difficult. Sri Lanka has been a rare example of a country that provided food, medicine and other essentials throughout the conflict to regions controlled by the Tamil Tiger terrorists, which also went to feed and care for the armed cadres of the terror group that waged war against the state. As far as shelling of hospital, civilian safe zones or UN centres, the UNSG’s panel and the rights groups have noted that the LTTE had placed their heavy weapons at those sites to attack the army resulting in retaiatory fire.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Civilian casualties:

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The UN spokesperson in Colombo, one Gordon Weiss claimed at the end of April 2009 that the number of civilians killed was in the range of 7,000. His boss, Sir John Holmes, Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs rejected the number saying that the UN did not have a presence on the ground and could therefore not be in a position to ascertain accurate figures that could be verified. Much later, after leaving the UN, Gordon Weiss published a book called the ‘Cage’ aimed at the market within the one million strong Tamil diaspora where he went on to state that the final number would run into tens of thousands of civilian deaths, and concluding that atleast 40,000 had been killed. In a book launch in Canberra, when he was challenged about the number of casualties, he rolled back the figure to about 10,000. In another interview given by him at a book show in Dublin, he said his method was ‘Unscientific but yet Scientific’ which is extremely confusing.

 

It appears that he is basing his calculations on one single incident that had taken place in January 2009 when Food Convoy Number 11 made its way to the Vanni accompanied by two UN security officers (one retired Bangladeshi military officer and a Canadian Tamil) who had travelled without notifying the UN Resident Representative, Neil Buhne, and had camped out in Mullativu where they got some some Tamil civilians to dig a bunker for them to stay during the night. Their presence in Mullativu was subsequently brought to the attention of the Sri Lankan Army which had to immediately suspend hostile actions in the region to ensure the safety of the UN personnel. They claimed they had gone there to try and negotiate the release of the UN’s local staff who were Tamil residents of the Vanni who obtained employment in the UN Agencies with the permission of the LTTE The LTTE merely played games but would not release a single local employee. As they camped out in this place which they assumed was one of the declared safe zones, they had the terrible experience of being bombarded with artillery shelling through the night. In the morning they discovered that 23 of the civilians who came to pass the night where the UN officers camped including children (or child) had been killed by the shelling. They immediately assumed that the shelling came from the Sri Lankan Army, and this information was relayed to Gordon Weiss and ended up in the hands of the UNSG’s panel and the rights groups. These UN security officers managed to safely extricate themselves and reach Colombo. Later, when the Sri Lankan authorities came to hear of it, they summoned the UN Chief Security Officer, Chris du Toit (who had earlier trained Joseph Savimbi’s terror group in Angola at the behest of the white South African Aparthied regime) and his deputy the Bangladeshi officer, and questioned them as to how they concluded that the artillery shelling came from the Army (see Rajiva Wijesinha’s blog) when the Army had suspended operations due to their presence. They had then admitted that they could not figure out from which direction the shelling had come, but had dentified one shell as having come the LTTE. This single incident resulting 23 deaths was extrapolated by Gordon Weiss into the estimated number of artillery duels to arrive at his unverified number.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The UK Sunday Times reporter who overflew the final battle ground estimated 20,000 civilian deaths and carried this number in his column. The ICG from their headquarters in Geneva determined that the number of civilian deaths was in the tens of thousands and guessed it had to be 30-40 thousand. So the number began to snowball with Channel 4 News picking up same and fixing the number at 40,000. Some of these rights groups and media began to even estimate the total number of civilians that lived in the Vanni coming up with numbers pulled from a hat, whereas the LTTE prevented any census being taken in the region after 1981. The population in the Vanni has changed constantly with some going to South Indian refugee camps, some paying a tax to the LTTE and moving to the the capital city of Colombo making the Tamil community the largest group in the city. Yet others may have migrated overseas or moved to the Jaffna peninsula. The Government Agents in charge of the four districts in the Vanni region have estimated a total of 305,000 which is likely to include some exaggeration as the LTTE would give bigger numbers to receive largerquantities of food and other supplies. The Sri Lankan authorities have estimated the number of civilian deaths based on the population figure of 305,000 as stated in the video ‘Lies Agreed Upon’, and accounted for the 294,000 rescued and cared for in the welfare camps and rehabilitation centres, added approximately 3,000 others who escaped from the Vanni and went to India and other SE Asian countries to catch a boat to Canada or Australia, plus LTTE fighters killed in the final stages estimated at 4,000 as compared to loss of nearly 3600 Sri Lankan soldiers who battled with small arms following the suspension of heavy weapons around mid-April, leaving about 4,000 to be accounted for, who may have met their death as a result of being caught between the two forces, some killed by the LTTE when they attempted to flee, or died of sickness waiting to be rescued by the Sri Lanka Army. If the number of LTTE cadres who were felled in combat is more than 4,000, then the balance to be accounted for is reduced. Considering the fact that half the Tamil Tiger cadres engaged in battle in civilian attire, the number of cadres killed in action could far exceed the estimated 4,000 deaths, which brings the balance unaccounted for to a still lower number.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Dr. SinhaRaja Tammita-Delgoda, a historian and son of an old soldier was given special permission to enter the battlefront in March and April 2009 as an independent observer and given a vehicle with a Tamil soldier at the whelel, and granted access to all ranks in the military, displaced Tamil civilians who fled into government controlled areas, and allowed to record his observations as he saw what took place on the ground. He was attached to most of the army divisions that did battle in the final phase He has written two very insightful essays on the military manouvres and strategies adopted by the Sri Lankan Army to breach the high defensive earth bunds constructed by the Tamil Tigers in their stand to hold on to the diminishing land area and keep the herded Tamil civilian population as a human shield, which have been published by the Centre for Land War Studies (CLAWS) of New Delhi, the most recent of which could be accessed at the following link, i.e. http://www.claws.in/index.php?action=Claws%20Paper . In Dr. Tammita-Delgoda’s view, following the suspension of the use of heavy weapons, the amry offensive was mainly an infantry operation, which involved tactics, night time operations and surprise manouvres to defeat a well equipped and hardy fighter who knew the terrain well.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Submitted in attachment are photos taken by Dr. Tammita-Delgoda at the end of April 2009 of the final strip of land to which the LTTE was confined to along with the civilians who were used as a human shield , where one could see some tents and cadjan covered huts in which the Tamil IDPs were housed. He has pointed out that if a single incendiary had been fired into that place, all of the tents and huts would have been burnt to the ground, contrary to the allegations by rights groups, and others that there was relentless shelling of this area. There is also a picture of a truck where the wooden floor has been removed under which a hole has been dug to make a very deceptive bunker and strong point in the midst of the civilian huts where armed LTTE cadres operated, showing that the LTTE was least concerned about the safety of the Tamil civilians.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Channel 4 News:

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Channel 4 News continually broadcasts new and varied video clips to support their position that the Sri Lankan Army deliberately targeted Tamil civilians and that they tortured and executed Tamil Tiger cadres.

The witnesses whom they have cited such as Vany Kumar have now turned out to be members of the front organization called the Tamil Youth Organization headed by a man code named Castro, who had undergone weapons training with the LTTE and later assigned to deal with the foreign media.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The much hyped extra-judicial killings shown in the Channel 4 video has been shown to be a doctored one of LTTE men dressed in Sri Lankan Army uniforms killing captured Sri Lankan security forces personnel or Tamil dissidents, or a staged video done with the intention of framing the Sri Lankan authorities. The descrepancies in the main segment relating to the extra-judicial killings has been questioned by video technology experts. Experts hired by both the UN as well as the Sri Lankan government, i.e. Grant Fredericks and Siri Hewavitharne respectively, have stated that it has been filmed with a video camera and not a mobile phone as originally intimated by Channel 4, and that it has been digitally altered with more than one video layer being present. Channel 4 initially stated that these summary killings had taken place in January 2009, and now claim that it had happened in May 2009, whereas the inscribed date on the video is UTC 2009-07-15 13:17:23 which is after the war ended on May 18, 2009. Also, Jon Snow concludes that the perpetrators are government soldiers as they are wearing Sri Lanka Army uniforms and supposedly speaking some meaningless Sinhala words in the background, and that the victims are captured Tamil Tiger cadres, without identifying a single person. The experts have concluded that the Sinhala sounds appear to have been later dubbed, and that the voice recording together with 17 frames are not synchronized with the rest of the video. In fact a second video has been found where the gunmen speak clear Tamil words which are directly related to the action taking place, making it more than likely that the perpetrators are Tamil Tiger cadres masquerading as Sri Lanka Army soldiers dressed in army uniforms which came into their possession when they previously overran army camps, vide http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohI3CSD4neM . This video has been made by the Tamil Tigers as a propaganda ploy to raise funds for their war effort from the Tamil diaspora by displaying their killing capabilities. It had been carried in a Tamil website, i.e. www.pulligal.blogsite.com , as far back as November 2008, which pre-dates both of the dates cited by Channel 4 and subsequently doctored to frame the Sri Lankan authorities.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ A.A. Gill writing in the Sunday Times of the UK about the same video commented as follows:

ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-The channel has accumulated a large collection of samizdat amateur footage from mobile phones and video cameras – mostly un-attributed 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.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

Further analysis of the Channel 4 News video has been given in a well researched article written by Prof. Michael Roberts of Australia where he has revealed suspected collusion between the Tamil Tiger network and Channel 4 News which could be accessed at the following url: http://colombotelegraph.com/2012/01/07/visual-evidence-ii-torture-images-on-channel-4-and-weiss/ . Hassina Leelaratne’s article titled ‘UN Officials Channel 4 Video Analysis A Forensic Hoax’ should be studied to realise the background and qualifications of the UN hired experts who concluded that the Channel 4 video concerning the extra-judicial killings was authentic, despite the many questions that came up in their own analysis, by accessing her article: url http://srilankausa.weebly.com/ .

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The narrator named Vany Kumar who described scenes from pictures taken by the Tamil Tigers was not an innocent British university graduate visiting relatives living in the war zone in the middle of a hard fought war, but a LTTE activist with three aliases and military training who was volunteering her services since 2008 on the request of a LTTE leader named Castro. Even Isipriya described as a journalist is a military trained cadre of the LTTE who has taken part in several armed attacks. The injured Tamils in civilian clothes shown at a makeshift hospital could well have been those injured at the frontlines where the Tiger cadres supported by an equal number of civilians engaged in combat roles dressed in civilian attire, and not any hit by shelling as made out. The video showed one hospital where some of the roofing tiles got dislodged but there was no structural damage or a crater formed by the shell to be seen, as it could have been caused by the vibrations from the firing of long range weapons placed close to the hospital by the LTTE .

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.

The gruesome scenes of a Tamil youth tied to a tree being tortured by men in military fatigues wielding a knife whose faces are not shown later succumbs to his wounds and dies at the spot. This is made out to be an act carried out by Sri Lankan soldiers. However, Dr. Noel Nadesan a leading Tamil domiciled in Australia who is the editor of the only Tamil community newspaper ‘UTHAYAM’ has in his article of July 14, 2011 titled ‘Media and the suffering of the Tamil people’ published in Sri Lanka’s Daily Mirror, says ” I was told by sources in the Wanni that this was an LTTE operation and pictures were taken for propaganda purposes by LTTE. Have a close look and you will find among the so-called soldiers a man in slippers. Sri Lankan soldiers never go about in slippers when they go out on operations. ”

Doctored segments of key footage, misconstruing facts behind some of the pictures presented, and the narrator Jon Snow acting as the accuser, jury and judge, thereby displaying conduct unbecoming of a journalist as he accepts the pictures and story lines given to Channel 4 by Tamil Tiger elements at face value, almost a willing collaborator of the agenda of the pro-Tamil Tiger Rump hell bent on discrediting Sri Lanka in revenge for the elimination of the three decade long terrorism on the part of their heroic Tamil Tiger forces on whom they depended to break up Sri Lanka by force of arms. This video with its lack of journalistic ethics, and numerous falsifications and fraudulent alterations will no doubt end in the heap of journalistic dung that is cast aside by the discriminating viewer.

I trust the honourable members of the House of Commons Sub-Committee will not be swayed by the heap of allegations based on unsubstantiated tales presented by pro-Tamil Tiger elements whose dream of a separate state ended with the total defeat of the Tiger forces and the elimination of the terror leaders on the banks of the Nandikadal Lagoon, along with the capture or destruction of millions of dollars worth of weapons, aircraft, and fleet of naval craft including specially designed suicide boats. I would be pleased to come before the Sub-Committee and answer any questions or even submit further material for your study and understanding of what took place in the land of my birth, and speak of the peace and development currently taking place in Sri Lanka.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Yours sincerely,

Mahinda Gunasekera

Copy to: Ms. Miriam Burke, Clerk to the Sub-Committee – Shall appreciate if you would kindly make copies for all of the member of the Sub-Committee. MG

By E-mail
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Agincourt, Ontario CanadaƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 

January 11, 2012