Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, along with two Guardian UK journalists have revealed information which embarrasses governments including the UK, US, India and Sri Lanka among others that there had been concerted efforts by these countries to carry out the battle against the LTTE and that these super powers in no uncertain terms collaborated with the ruling regime to cause the island’s worst atrocities against a hapless ethnic minority group disregarding all norms and ethics of human rights while paying lip-service to protecting the rights of the minorities who are ethnic Tamils.
by Pearl Thevanayagam
(April 09, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) We, as media, have failed miserably and the sooner we admit this then the sooner we could see redemption. Now that we see the end of the protracted war between Tamil separatists and the government, two years hence we still have not communicated. The North-South divide is real. The North cannot see what the South is doing and vice versa; exchanges of students taken on scholarly tours and welcomed warmly on a token basis notwithstanding.
Let us forget for one moment that Tamils from the North and East cannot comprehend Sinhala and the Sinhalese do not understand Tamil barring a few naughty words such as you know what. As that old colonialist Rudyard Kipling said while swinging in his hammock in Mumbai, `East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet’ the North and South are poles apart thanks to our curtailing of media freedom.
What went on during the last horrific months of the war was hidden to the general populace and what the state media fed to the world and the locals are what the islanders believe to be the ultimate truth. It is to the credit of the international community which witnessed the war surreptitiously and broadcast to the world the horrific crimes committed on innocent civilians in the name of wiping out a presumably terrorist outfit known as the LTTE.
The LLRC (Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission) has concluded its evidence and quite honestly the media in general, popularly the Sinhala dominated media, truly believes and cross their hearts that the submissions are the true picture from the theatre of war.
How wrong they are. Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, along with two Guardian UK journalists have revealed information which embarrasses governments including the UK, US, India and Sri Lanka among others that there had been concerted efforts by these countries to carry out the battle against the LTTE and that these super powers in no uncertain terms collaborated with the ruling regime to cause the island’s worst atrocities against a hapless ethnic minority group disregarding all norms and ethics of human rights while paying lip-service to protecting the rights of the minorities who are ethnic Tamils.
The Island editorial a few days ago took umbrage at US Assistant Secretary of State for Central and South Asia Robert O. Blake’s concern about the human rights violations during the war by pointing fingers at the US governments’ track record. It went on to state that the LLRC report would suffice to right the wrongs if at all committed.
When there is glaring evidence such as Channel 4 videos, witness statements from the survivors and of course Wikileaks revelation involving statements US official by Patricia Butenis, India’s involvement in supporting the war and providing intelligence and weapons and a whole list of revelations pertaining to the secret deals made between interested countries and the Sri Lankan government, the media in the South stubbornly refuses to believe that thousands of civilians were massacred in the war.
After today’s public speaking by Julian Assange in London today there is bound to be further outcry among the international community and mounting pressure on the government to face charges of war crimes. And quite rightly so. No stone should be left unturned and this war should not be left unquestioned as was the July pogrom against ethnic Tamils in 1983 which led to the exodus of Tamils to the four corners of the world including those countries which then went on to support the war against the ethnic minority who sought their protection.
So how can these countries who signed the UN charter on refugees according to the Geneva Convention of 1951 following the murders of six million Jews while crying foul for war crimes also could have lent its intelligence, surveillance and weapons to annihilate the LTTE and thousands of innocent civilians?
Continued agitation by the media is crucial to keep alive the subject of war crimes and communications between the North and South is paramount to mete out justice to those affected by the war. Compensation is long overdue although it alone cannot heal the wounds.
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