Insight By Sunil Kumar

September 25th 2014

It seems somewhat high handed and disconcerting to those who know the true facts about events that transpired during the decades long Tamil Tiger insurrection on which basis foreign journalists continue to denigrate and falsely portray Sri Lanka where everything presented sounds plausible to some but the proof and tangible evidence is glaringly absent.
The latest example of this which needs to be challenged for credibility has surfaced through a document circulated by an Australian journalist by name of Trevor Grant whose forte is said to be sports and whose lack of knowledge about the topic he has chosen~ namely discrediting Sri Lanka and her administration entitled ” Sri Lanka’s Secrets How the Rajapaksa Regime Gets Away with Murder” By Trevor Grant who is a known Tamil sympathiser being actively involved in Tamil refugee matters in Australia which makes his conflict of interest towards commenting about Sri Lanka plainly visible albeit pathetically misguided or delibaretrly obnoxious as he seems to know little or nothing towards his compilation of allegations and seems to have borrowed a leaf or two from the pages of other critics and levellers of accusations against Sri Lanka and whose arguments would in all probabilities never hold up in any international court of law simply because of the lack of tangible evidence or proof beyond hearsay rather than reasonable doubt.

When the blatant suggestion is made that “As the civil war in Sri Lanka drew to its bloody end in 2009 the government of this island nation removed its protection from UN officials and employees, who, along with other international observers, were forced to leave the conflict zone” it obviously had to do with the personal safeties involved if at all where government policy towards this seemed unquestionable and not as though President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his inner circle wanted, it seemed, a war without witness.” which becomes irrelevant towards the greater priority of the protection and safety of the independent observers despite the conjecturial nature of the comment. Furthermore as this was not a conventional warn but a fierce conflict involving a legitimate Army protecting sovereignity and territorial integrity against illegitimate criminals who had banded themselves into the most dangerous terrorist outfit in the world, then legitimacies involved certainly do not lean in favour of the Tamil tigers despite all the exaggerated numbers and statistic.chalked up which by themselves are fabrications and uncontestable in any legal terms!
It is therefore an affront to the realities involved and a clear intention to mislead to suggest that ” the end result was the deliberate slaughter of an estimated 70,000 innocent civilians. However, many survivors, and some who died, were able to capture on camera the horrifying conclusion to the war and the cruel deprivations of the internment camps that followed. Today, through their images and testimony, Rajapaksa stands accused of war crimes.” which are grossly distorted, misconcieved and misinterpreted bordering on ignorance and stupidity to even suggest such allegations where the so called images captured on camera have now been proven by expert analysis as cooked up and graphically enhanced pack of unsubstantiable lies by some who have deliberately attempted to discredit the Government of Sri Lanka. While it needs to be emphasized that these types deserve to be incarcerated for fraud and criminal intent to mislead the world it also needs to be pellucidated that the slaughter beyond a doubt was inflicted by the Tamil tigers against innocent citizens where their own Tamil people were held as human hostages and it was the prompt action of the armed forces that saved many of them. And perhaps the writer’s fecund imagination has gone further to suggest that The President of Sri Lanka has been accused of war crimes by any credible authority which if it were true he would be before an international tribunal today which is not the case.

In this respect Mr Grant therefore should put his money where his mouth is or stop propagating disparaging rumours of no accountability and probably be better off focussing his attentions on sports writing while not distorting facts in that area either!
Indeed the world at lage has now been intimated as depicted in ‘Sri Lanka’s Secrets ‘ the composition of  journalist Trevor Grant’ the so called ‘shocking story’ of the final days of the conflict misnomered as a  war, alongside the photographs and eye-witness accounts of many Tamils, including Maravan, a social worker who fled to Australia by boat after being allegedly tortured by soldiers. Phorographs and accounts more than likely distorted akin to the presentations of Channel Four and others of similar ilk who bombarded the world media with their presentations with the sole intention of creating a means to discredit the Government of Sri Lanka which by virtue of the graphic deyails presented falsely disturbed  the undiscerning world and preyed on related sympathies with nothing tangible beyond the clever art of distorting through graphic illustration!
Indeed while it portrays the continuing torture and abuse of Tamils in Sri Lanka as suggested with no mention of the attrocities of Tamil Tiger terrorists against innocent Sinhala and other civilians including Tamils there seems to be a one sided bias that seems to swing towards the Tamils as the only victims of the conflict which seems rather curious and untenable. Was Grant preoccupied with some breaking sports story at this time one wonders and missed the whole scenario where the sufferings of the Sinhalese and other ethnicities Sinhala  were conveniently bypassed  as it appears despite the stark realities involved.

To clarify his laments that “some national governments’ ongoing support for a regime that has abandoned any pretense of democracy where foremost among these enthusiastic supporters has been the Government of Australia, cynically preoccupied with ‘stopping the boats’ fleeing Sri Lankan state terror. At any cost.” once again is a gross misrepresentation of what the basis of Australian Government policy is and one which is welcomed by many regimes as linked to the perception that Sri Lanka of today has encompassed all citizens and offered then opportunities towards improving their lives where the refugee seekers in the present climate are mere opportunists in quest of greener pastures in the West!

 Furthermore the Term “Sri Lanka State Terror is one which needs to be clarified and qualified towards realities where Mr Grant has no Carte Blanche to post information about Sri Lanka that’s preconcieved irrationally and with no tangible proof beyond hearsay, conjecture and at times glaring innuendo!

Maybe he should stick to sports writing instead of this pathetic attempt to attract world attention for all the wrong reasons !