{"id":117822,"date":"2021-09-04T17:05:58","date_gmt":"2021-09-05T00:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=117822"},"modified":"2021-09-04T17:05:58","modified_gmt":"2021-09-05T00:05:58","slug":"erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-23-dc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/09\/04\/erasing-the-eelam-victory-part-23-dc\/","title":{"rendered":"ERASING THE EELAM VICTORY Part 23 Dc"},"content":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

(Continued from Pt 23 Db)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hard talk documentary next featured TNA\nleader Rajavarothiam Sampantham. This was   very different\nto the interview with Gotabaya Rajapaksa .The Sampanthan interview was not Hard\nTalk at all. It was nice and gentle. There was no interrogation. Sampantham was\nallowed to speak without interruption.  He\nis shown in heroic mode, filmed in close up, in portrait style,    calmly uttering treasonable statements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sampanthan said with reference to Eelam war,\nthat the government had imposed a military victory. That will never be accepted\nby the Tamil people. What can they do, asked Sackur .Get organized and resist through non violent means, replied\nSampanthan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The present government cannot ram down our throats\nwhatever they wish, continued Sampanthan. Tamils have their rights, dignity\netc. Tamils must be allowed to determine their own destiny.\nTamils want self government. The North-east\nshould be politically independent.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rajavarothiam Sampantham, thank you for being\non Hard Talk. Thank you Sir, it has been a great pleasure\u201d said Stephen Sackur,\ndeferentially, at the end of the interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rajiva Wijesinha took part in a Hard Talk interview\nwith Stephen Sackur in July 2011. https:\/\/youtu.be\/zdelF1R4nQI<\/a> This interview between Rajiva and Sackur was\nconsidered the best performance by a Sri Lankan in response to the charges against\nSri Lanka. The Oxford\neducated Rajiva did not find it difficult to face the Cambridge educated Sackur. Both spoke\nstylish English. If you wish to communicate [effectively] with any of these BBC\nor CNN journalists   master your English advised\na You Tube watcher. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this interview Rajiva was able to meet the\narguments put forward by Sackur, regarding the Eelam war. Why is the military\nstill all over the place when the war is over, asked Sackur. Because the threat\nof LTTE is still there said Rajiva.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rajiva spoke up\non behalf of the army.\u201dOf course there were civilian casualties, this happens\nin any war situation. We have not caused this deliberately, and our record was\nmuch better than those counter which pointed fingers at us said Rajiva <\/p>\n\n\n\n

.You still don\u2019t know how many civilians were\nkilled said Sackur. Oh yes we do, said Rajiva .We have a very clear idea, it is\nabout 5000 altogether. Nobody accepts that figure, countered Sackur .UN\nSecretary General says 40,000. UN Secretary General has nothing to do with\nthis, replied Rajiva.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shelling of civilians was done by Sri\nLanka army said Sackur. No, said Rajiva the shelling came from the LTTE. There\nwas definite evidence only of just one shot and the trajectory showed that it\ncame from the LTTE. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shelling of Pudumatalan hospital came up\nfor discussion. If all the attacks on Putumatalan hospital as\ngiven by Tamilnet were true, then the hospital would not be left standing said\nRajiva.  . But you admit that     shells did land on hospital, so what is\nthe difference, asked Sackur.  The difference\nsaid Rajiva, was between deliberate targeting and accidental fire. Anyway, said\nSackur army had no right to fire on a hospital without first informing and\nclosed the subject. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked Do you think it important to get\nthe truth of what really happened at the closing phase of Eelam war IV,\u201d Rajiva\nreplied Better stick to fact rather than truth\u201d.  When asked, \u2018are you questioning the integrity\nof the Darusman panel, No said Rajiva, I question their judgment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sackur often uses the tactic of cutting off\nthe interviewee whenever the interviewee was about to win the argument. Rajiva was\noften cut off mid sentence by Sackur who then veered off in another\ndirection. Sackur also spoke while Rajiva was speaking, so we could not hear what\nRajiva was saying. Rajiva did not complain.  Palitha Kohona challenged this unethical\npractice. He was interviewed via cable, I think from New York. Palitha told Sackur\n\u2018I will reply your question. Do not\ninterrupt me until I finish.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the March\n2021 sessions of the UNHRC in Geneva, Tim Sebastian, formerly BBC, interviewed\nForeign Secretary, retired Admiral Prof. Jayanath Colombage, for the Deutsche Welle<\/a>  programme \u2018Conflict Zone\u2019. Sebastian said In\nthe last few days, the UN Human Rights Council passed a landmark resolution\nhighlighting your government\u2019s failure to ensure accountability for human\nrights violations and mandating UN investigators to collect and preserve data\nthat can be used in the future judicial proceedings. They did that, Mr.\nSecretary because your abject failure to do it yourself and because of the\nworsening human rights climate in your country. Aren\u2019t you ashamed of that?\u201d he\nasked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sebastian\nalso wanted to know whether Colombage was proud of living in a country where\nchild killers get presidential pardon? Sebastian was referring to President Gotabaya\nRajapaksa releasing a soldier convicted of killing several persons, including\nchildren in the Jaffna peninsula. ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sebastian\nwarned Prof. Colombage of the possibility of targeted sanctions imposed by\nindividual countries. Member states might start applying targeted sanctions,\nasset freezers and travel bans against your state officials and others. Are you\nready for that?  (Continued)\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KAMALIKA PIERIS (Continued from Pt 23 Db) The Hard talk documentary next featured TNA leader Rajavarothiam Sampantham. This was   very different to the interview with Gotabaya Rajapaksa .The Sampanthan interview was not Hard Talk at all. It was nice and gentle. There was no interrogation. Sampantham was allowed to speak without interruption.  He is shown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kamalika-pieris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}