Human Rights
UN Screens Sri Lanka war crimes film
A special investigation by Channel 4 featuring devastating new evidence of alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka was screened at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Friday (June 3) as pressure mounts for action.
The documentary is an hour-long investigation into the final weeks of the bloody Sri Lankan civil war and features damning new evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Titled Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, Jon Snow presents the investigation which was shown to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday.
WARNING: This page contains disturbing images
Disturbing footage in the film includes the apparent extra-judicial massacre of prisoners by government forces, the aftermath of targeted shelling of civilian hospitals and the bodies of female Tamil fighters who appear to have been sexually assaulted.
Also examined in the film are atrocities carried out by the Tamil Tigers, including the use of human shields, and footage depicting the aftermath of a suicide bombing in a government centre for the displaced.
The UN screening was attended by a number of ambassadors from nations including the US and UK. A Sri Lankan delegation also attended. It was the first time they had seen the new alleged evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
WARNING: This page contains disturbing images
Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields will be broadcast on Channel 4 on 14 June.
War crimes claims
In a world exclusive, Channel 4 News first broadcast the footage allegedly showing Sri Lankan government forces shooting dead bound prisoners in August 2009. Last November, a second video of the same massacre emerged, revealing the naked dead bodies of at least seven women. The faces of some of the government troops could also be seen.
WARNING: This page contains disturbing images
Following an investigation, Channel 4 News identified one of the female victims in the video as a high profile member of the Tamil Tiger communications team. A potential date and location of the massacre was also determined. The Sri Lankan government has consistently rejected the footage as falsified.
As the UN says it will continue its investigations, pressure has increased on the Sri Lankan authorities to allow an international inquiry into allegations that thousands of civilians were killed at the end of the 26-year war.
UN report
In April a 200-page report commissioned by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon concluded that up to 40,000 civilians may have died in the final push by the government to defeat the Tamil Tigers. The UN report found credible evidence that both sides of the conflict committed serious war crimes. The report called for an international inquiry – that call has so far gone unheard.
The Secretary-General said he lacked the authority to personally order an investigation into the mass killings. Earlier this week, a UN special envoy said the footage appeared to be evidence of “serious international crimes”. The Sri Lankan government has consistently rejected the footage as falsified.
As the UN says it will continue its investigations, pressure has increased on the Sri Lankan authorities to allow an international inquiry into allegations that thousands of civilians were killed at the end of the 26-year war.
A spokesman for Ban ki Moon has said that without the consent of Sri Lanka’s government ,or a decision by the UN Security Council, General Assembly, Human Rights Council or other international body, Ban will not move to set up a formal investigation of the civilian deaths. UN officials concede that Colombo would never consent to such an investigation of its conduct in the conflict.
Sri Lanka has acknowledged some non-combatants were killed in the war, but says the numbers have been inflated by LTTE supporters.
2 Comments to “UN Screens Sri Lanka war crimes film”
June 24, 2011 at 10:05 am
My comment under ‘International groups examine Sri Lanka war crimes allegations’ found in this website with the answers given by Maj.General Shavendra Silva explained that the atrocities committed by the LTTE has been transferred to the Army by interested propagandists .
June 5, 2011 at 11:59 pm
What is human rights? The west talks about human rights violation with their blooded hands. Forget about the past, look at what’s happening in Afghan, Libiya, Iraq and thorough out the world. 80 percent of middle east people feels that they have to secure themselves from west’s aggression. UN is an official agent of the west to manipulate the human rights for their own interest. The oppressed Tamils in Sri Lanka will not get anything from them. They have been watching when they have been massacred by Rajapaksa regime in Vanni. Two years later while the government is committing an ethnic cleansing UN talks about war crimes.
Just some months after this Sri Lankan humanitarian disaster, India, a country regarded as one of the biggest democratic powers, has started to massacre in order to evacuate poor hill country forest inhabitants from acres and acres of their own land for exploitation of mines. Similar atrocities of power against the innocent poor people and against those who resist, is becoming social recognition in the otherparts of the world. The war between the business power and the innocent is the real Avatar.
Is Sri Lanka an example for eliminating the resistant politics, for the international power? Is this the new feature of new world order? Will it be the general phenomena of the world’s power? In the west people fought for their rights such as pension, free education etc.. The world’s powers get together to destroy them and to create an insecure place to live. Example followed in Sri Lanka to exterminate the resistance politics can be applied throughout the world.
So, what are we going to do? Don’t we have to talk about new norm of human rights? Don’t we have to think about a alternative body for human rights?
Are we all going to depend on the western funded NGO to be under their imposed limitations? How are we going to find the oppressed one’s place in the knowledge based society.?
Just try to think about all these .. we can start our journey towards a new world…