Dr. Chula Rajapakse MNZM Spokesperson,United Sri Lanka Assn.

TO:Dan Shanon
Doc Edge.

Dear Dan,

Captions From Internet  Trailer For Documentary To Be Screened at The Roxy Cinema Miramar, Friday 20th May

Film documenting the controversial treatment of Tamils in Sri Lanka ….. refugee, asylum seekers in New Zealand ”

….. Sri Lankan civil war and the continuing abuses against Tamil people. Loved ones disappearing bombs exploding,intimidation and kidnapping are common experiences”

I write to convey the shock , horror and consternation of much of the Sri Lankan community, especially the Sinhalese in Wellington, at the totally distorted impression given by the above trailer caption, of the ..continuing .. common experiences”  , in Sri Lanka, today.

Nothing is further from the truth  than to say  that continuing”  abuses against Tamil people , loved ones disappearing , bombs exploding , intimidation and kidnapping are common experiences  in Sri Lanka,  even today as implied by the use of the word continuing”. What is also implied is that the blame for this lies at the feet of the Sri Lankan state , and so it’s people, the majority of whom are Sinhalese like many of us . What is cleverly concealed is that when these abuses did  happen for three decades  , before the end of the  Sri Lankan civil war on the 19th of May  2009, the perpetrators of these crimes were the “Tamil Tiger Terrorists”. It is very likely that it is the Tiger Terrorist  international diaspora with their billion dollar war chest who are now the funders of  this caption and film. Cunningly they are turning it around to blame their bloody”  crimes on the Sri Lankan state as they have done , is very much a hall  mark of  Tamil Tiger Distortion.

Kidnapping  and conscripting  children even as young as  seven years, exploding bombs to cause maximum carnage, introducing suicide bombings to the world to have maximum carnage,kidnapping and intimidating tamil youths to forcefully join the Tigers,  referred to in the caption above,  are very much the way Tamil Tigers” were formed and acted. The reality is that since the Tiger’s were silenced on 19/5/2009 , not a single terrorist bomb has been detonated in Sri Lanka, unlike all of it’s neighbours. Today, more than sixty percent of Sri Lanka’s Tamil population live in and around Colombo among the Sinhalese and other communities in Sri Lanka. Would they do so if the  alleged Tamil abuses referred to in your caption above was true.

If this caption is anything to go by, this film, like many similar documentaries” before  this  would be fifteen minutes of clever distortion misleading the unsuspecting viewer regarding the realities of Sri Lanka, to discredit it and to build the case for more refugees & asylum seekers” from Sri Lanka . These more than likely would be queue  jumping  economic migrants seeking a better life in the west,  who have paid large sums of money to people smugglers with connections to the Tiger Diaspora. Sadly, local political groups who see them as fattening their voting block would also lend a helping hand to this distortion.

The extent of distortion refugees” seeking asylum would go to was shown recently in the UK, where the courts rejected an asylum application supported by physical evidence of torture ,with multiple burn marks in the most private of parts  and  marks  of  multiple lashings  on the back, claimed to have been inflicted by security forces back in Sri Lanka. It was later established that all of these marks of torture could be acquired in the UK, by having them inflicted under anaesthesia on the payment of a fee. There have been more than one such case going through and being thrown out by the UK courts

Dear Dan, many of us came to New Zealand , fleeing Tiger Terror in Sri Lanka, for a quiet and peaceful life in New Zealand living as law abiding citizen contributing to it’s economy and other facets of NZ life . We did not come hear to face barbs brickbats  like this especially  when we least expect them. Do not permit unsuspecting Doc Edge to be used to throw these at us. Do not permit Doc Edge to be used to help subvert the law of the land in New Zealand.

Dan, might I also add that by design or otherwise, the screening of this film on the 19th of May , is on the eighth anniversary of the liberation of Sri Lanka from three decades of Tiger Terror and and precisely at the time when we in Wellington would be meeting to remember and record our respectful gratitude to those who sacrificed life and limb to achieve this for all of us Sinhalese, Tamil and all. We do this  just as New Zealanders remember the ANZAC’s annually for they sacrifices. The timing of this screening  to us is more than a coincidence.

Sadly and very significantly  films such as these only serve to be offensive, provocative &  to re-open healing wounds and undermine the delicate reconciliation process ongoing now, between the Sinhalese and Tamil peoples , all over the world.

You would help this  reconciliation immensely, if you were able to suspend the planned  screening on the 19th.

Thank You.

Yours Sincerely,,

Dr. Chula Rajapakse MNZM

Spokesperson,

United Sri Lanka Assn.

141 Knights Rd.,

Lower Hutt.