Eyes Wide Open
“On my instructions, due to the priority given to the policy of zero civilian casualties the security forces are limiting themselves to rescue operations of the entrapped civilians held hostage as a human shield by the LTTE.” – Address by President Mahinda Rajapakse to the diplomatic community, 7 May 2009
“Firing should stop,” Mr. Anandasangaree, a former MP and the leader of the Tamil United Liberation Front party, said in an interview. “The government has no business to kill people like this.” He said he believed the latest casualty figures because he had heard them directly from a doctor at the hospital that received the dead and injured. “These are 100 per cent true,” he said. “We can’t trust the LTTE’s version, but this is from the horse’s mouth.” – Interview with V Anandasangaree in Canada’s National Post, 11 May 2009
A day after torrential rain resulted in widespread flooding in Menik Camp in late August, I published online the first images of what conditions were really like for IDPs interned inside. The photos, taken from a mobile phone, were low resolution but clearly showed the scale of catastrophe. Amongst many who expressed shock and outrage at the Rajapakse government’s inhumanity so evident in these photos, a particularly revealing comment came from an individual called ‘Sunday Sinha’ who noted,
“Your images don’t bear any date or time-marks, and we wonder why. Could it be that your images are doctored, just like many LTTE images were in the last days and weeks of the war?”
“I’ve yet to see a time-stamps and dates on photos published on the Ministry of Defence and Army websites… Prove they are. Go on. Fetch the evidence. And by the same token of scepticism, why don’t you question the images and video released by government during and after war?”
‘Sunday Sinha’ has yet to prove these images were doctored, or for that matter point to any time and date stamped photos published by mainstream media journalists who are actually in Menik Camp covering what is happening on the ground.
One encounters a similar pattern of vehement denial and accusations of falling prey to LTTE propaganda with the video broadcast by Channel 4. Let me be very clear about this. Media literacy rightly teaches us to be sceptical of content such as the photos I published and the video broadcast by Channel 4. New media, such as mobile videos and photos published on the web, allow for new perspectives to emerge. Sometimes these perspectives bear witness to events that we may otherwise have not known about, or add fresh perspectives to events we may only have been told a specific version of. But any camera is a still or moving frame, and no frame covers all angles. So interlocutors who question the bona fides of Channel 4 in broadcasting this video are partly right – we cannot be sure that what we see is real and without context, temporal information or the original video file for digital forensics, its veracity must be held up to scrutiny. Obviously, the government will seek to prove it is well-staged LTTE hog-wash, others will see it as evidence of war crimes with a view to using it as evidence in campaigns of accountability, justice and punitive sanctions against the Sri Lankan government. This thrust and parry of competing worldviews is not new. The President and V Anandasangaree, one of the most senior Tamil politicians in government and hardly a supporter of the LTTE, showed a remarkable difference of opinion during Vesak this year. Whereas the President believes he conducted a rescue operation with zero civilian casualties, V Anandasangaree claimed otherwise. Unsurprisingly, only one of these worldviews found sustained and unquestioned publication in Sinhala and English media. Videos such as the one broadcast by Channel 4 allow for a critical, open contestation between what the government wants us to believe, and what some of us know is a far more bloody, outrageous reality.
This is inconvenient for those who want to keep believing government propaganda. Calling the government’s bluff that this video is false, Philip Alston, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions said last week that “There’s nothing on the surface to indicate that it is not authentic and, if that’s the case, it would raise very grave concerns”. Alston went on to note that the Sri Lankan government had a poor record investigating such cases. “Given the not-very-happy record of such investigations in the past, it would in my view be desirable that this be an international investigation, which would ensure its independence and impartiality”. Alston was being diplomatically polite. Successive Sri Lankan governments have with complete impunity executed civilians. The Rajapakse regime’s emblematic red sash is deeply symbolic of its own complicity in terror. As Amnesty International notes in Twenty Years of Make Believe: Sri Lanka Commission’s of Inquiry published earlier this year, “Commissions of Inquiry have not worked as mechanisms of justice in Sri Lanka. Presidential Commissions have proved to be little more than tools to launch partisan attacks against opponents or to deflect criticism when the state has been faced with overwhelming evidence of its complicity in human rights violations.” To expect this government to conduct any meaningful investigation into the veracity of this video, and those that in invariably surface in the months and years to come, reminds us of the Sinhala proverb “Horaga Ammagen Pena Ahanawa Wage”.
This same report notes that Sri Lanka’s formal justice system is in tatters. It is a raw nerve for the government, particularly in light of vehement and growing local and international condemnation of the sentence handed down to journalist J.S. Tissainayagam. The judgement also comes in the context of growing media reports that suggest Sri Lanka stands little chance of getting the EU’s GSP Plus trade concessions, vital for our garment industry, because of its terrible human rights violations. This is cogently expressed in The Economist last week when it noted that rarely has a government soiled its reputation as dramatically as Sri Lanka’s, and quotes a confidential report from the EU submitted for government review,
“Widespread police torture, abductions of journalists, politicised courts and un-investigated disappearances have all played a part in creating a state of “complete or virtually complete impunity in Sri Lanka”. The internment of the Tamil displaced, which the government claims is necessary to weed out the last Tamil Tiger rebels and to protect them from munitions left in their fields, is “a novel form of unacknowledged detention”.
Prefiguring the EU’s trenchant and wholly justified critique, I noted in my last column that what was needed in Sri Lanka was not more support to maintain these horrendous, inhuman IDP camps, but the international and local impetus to dismantle them and allow inhabitants to return to their homes. It is interesting to speculate whether the Channel 4 video combined with the EU’s confidential draft report contributed in large part towards Tissa’s judgement. Tissa’s incarceration, his treatment in prison, and his case are no small warnings against independent journalists who wish to hold government accountable for its actions, particularly during war and now increasingly in the domains of security, reconstruction and rehabilitation in the North and East. The revealing combination and conflation of high security zones and special economic zones, coupled with new army installations, new cantonments and the resulting demographic shifts colour any appreciation of post-war development and the demarcation of land. Tissa’s predicament suggest that few journalists will dare explore these vital issues rigorously, or name the countries that are guiding and funding these developments.
Ergo, it may also be the case that, public optics aside, the government does NOT really want an extension GSP Plus and the attendant conditionalities that run counter to a growing totalitarianism. A government that sees victory in and the resulting absence of war as peace is unlikely to take kindly to growing concerns of war crimes, human rights abuses and a supine, subservient judiciary to boot. And well beyond the significant war-centric human rights abuse, Nipuna Ramanayake’s case and the fiasco in Angulana suggest that under this government, the Rule of Law exists, akin to minority rights, only as a legitimate aspiration of our peoples. It does not really exist in fact.
We must also ask why journalists who trespass private property now charged under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), despite assurances by the pathetically disempowered Media Minister that the PTA will not be used to clamp down on media freedom? Is it because the owner of the property these journalists trespassed on is really the key agent, even above the judiciary, of the PTA’s application and interpretation? The Sunday Leader editorial today submits that the PTA facilitates arbitrary and capricious official conduct, including torture and also makes serious incursions into the freedom of expression and the media. Sri Lanka’s post-war descent into totalitarian rule by a frothing, murderous fraternity is disturbing because it is occurring without shame or disguise. The corruption, the abuse of power, the hypocrisy, the lies, the rabid racism, the violence – they are all out in the open. This degree of impunity, mirroring the LTTE’s chutzpah, is worrying. It reveals that democracy is hostage to the whims of a powerful few, who are really answerable to no one. It suggests that there is little local and international actors can do to stop this manic lawlessness. It reveals that truth-telling and reconciliation are non-starters, whatever photos, videos and other narratives that make it out to the public domain.
It reveals that eyes wide open, though validation, collusion, ignorance and indifference, voters are supporting a brutish regime that will never bring a meaningful peace to a country that so richly and urgently deserves it.
Published in The Sunday Leader, 6th September 2009
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Gosh…Do you really mean all what you say here? Menik farm photos seem doctored. I’m afraid its no rocket science. Just basic Photoshop & Illustrator knowledge.
For argument sake let’s say I agree with you, what could the government have done? I don’t think there was flood, but even if there was, it should be treated as natural disaster. Why make a big deal of it? No matter how cautious you may be whilst driving, at times you can’t prevent an accident. Can you Sanjana? Similar logic applies here. Flood my friend. Flood. So what?
Let’s not forget these are make shift places, SL is a third world country with limited resources etc… I’m not suggesting “lets blame it on the rain”, all i’m saying is you need to appreciate it is the government that is feeding these people, it is the government that is making all arrangements to re settle them and is a gradual process. Its only a matter of time before they were let out and given a new lease of life. Patience they say is a great virtue. May be you should try have it
Dear Bawa,
If you ride on your own ‘freely’ and if it is flood, no one can prevent an accident machang! but if u were forced and encircled in a formula one type ‘barbed wire’ route map, u cant lay there and blame the flood for an accident.This is not rocketscience bang!
Machang did the ppl ask tht we r deaf dumb and retarded and cant work so please keep and feed us? nop its the government which is screening them and keeping them and ‘feeding’ them..
Patience is a great virtue ela ela.. quoting LW’s last words.. ” Then they came for me but no one was left there to speak for me” cmon sana lets be patience till the sword turns at us!
Sanjana,
You are very outspoken. I salute your truth-telling. The Sunday Leader is certainly carrying on Lasantha’s work “unbowed and unafraid.” But I urge you all to take all possible defensive measures against reprisals by the State thugs who fear such criticism and who murdered Lasantha. If you haven’t done so, please write the same Sinhala. A large number of Sinhalese people need to see the reality that you describe for there to be any fundamental change for the better.
Sanjana your last paragraph reads, “It reveals that eyes wide open, though validation, collusion, ignorance and indifference, voters are supporting a brutish regime that will never bring a meaningful peace to a country that so richly and urgently deserves it.”
The problem in Sri Lanka and other Dictatorial Utopia’s is that when you point to the truth, the vast majority looks at your finger…the frightening part is that the educated few amongst this majority, see the truth but turn back and looks at the finger. To them…I guess, ‘War is Peace…Freedom is Slavery…and Ignorance is Strength.” They also read, listen, watch and believe everything the ‘Ministry of Truth’ puts out through it’s media…and they have always believed the casualty figures put out by the ‘Ministry of Peace.’
It’s Orwell’s ’1984′ happening once again ’2009′…in Mahinda’s Sri Lanka.
…take care…they got Lasantha, now they’ve got Tissanayagam…they might come for you, Gongalaygodaya, Mr.Vanderpoorten and everyone at the ‘Leader’ next…and the majority will stay silent…what a sad…sad…Utopian Paradise we live in.
where were these bleeding harts when the same people were forcibly kept as human shield n they were heard like cattle by their sole representatives?
as long as there will be a threat to the national security, these people has to be kept there for get over it!
security and the right to live of 20mil people is far more important than the freedom of movement of some 200000 people!
it seems ,being anti sri lankan and going against the national interest seems to be the new cash cow for these ngo coolies after their project ltte crash landed!
its very interesting to see these snajanas n lasanthas r the darlings of the diaspora while hardly any locals know these people!
C4 Accused Of Falsifying Data In Documentary On Climate Change
http://www.countercurrents.org/connor080507.htm
Police Accuse Channel 4 of distortion
http://warwithinabreath.frolix.org/2007/08/08/police-accuse-channel-4-of-distortion/
F Word was faked, admits Channel 4
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-468574/F-Word-faked-admits-Channel-4.html
Following thousands of viewer complaints, the Independent Television Commission delivered one of the most damning verdicts in its history, with the result that Channel 4 had to make a humiliating prime-time apology and the series director, Martin Durkin, had to resign from the company he works for.
http://www.worldcarfree.net/resources/freesources/activist.htm
UK s Channel 4 Cut & Paste Job in Dispatches Documentary Caught by UK Police
http://www.mujahideenryder.net/2007/08/09/uks-channel-4-cut-paste-job-in-dispatches-documentary-caught-by-uk-police/
Supernanny ‘forced kids to cry’. Scenes from the show were doctored and manipulated, it was also alleged
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/supernanny-forced-kids-to-cry/story-e6frewyr-1111114522912
billy…were they all ‘Human Shields’…how many of them stayed with the LTTE because of what they knew would happen to them if them came over to the GOSL side? I’m assuming that you saw the ‘Channel 4′ video. They got out from the frying pan and have entered another frying pan on the side of the ‘Utopian Paradise of Sri Lanka!’
@ Sanjana
//“There’s nothing on the surface to indicate that it is not authentic and, if that’s the case, it would raise very grave concerns”.
Now what is the qualifications this fellow has to judge the authenticity of a video? He’s not an expert and no one will listen to his bull crap about authenticity. And here you get an explanation from an expert. And it shows the nudity of Challe4 once again.
“whats one more body in the foundations of utopia?” – rorscach from the movie watchmen
@ Mulli,
Hi & thanks for responding.
As for the IDPs, I do think screening or weeding out process is required if not mandatory. While i agree a majority of them could be innocent civilians, however this could only be revealed by investigation or by scrutinizing them 100% if not 1000%. Let’s not dispute that. My Mom for instance would demand a Police clearance plus Grama Niladhari clearance etc.. even before employing a domestic aide, that too from the hill country and even if its a Muslim or Sinhalese. Weird but true. Such is the world we live in and there is nothing wrong in taking some precautionary measures. You would appreciate there have been many former rebels posing as IDPs now and they have been caught many times. Given that a small fraction of them (however small they may be) could well be rebels, why should anyone oppose to this screening process? 30 years of war and you want everything back in order overnight? Isn’t that an over ambitious expectation?
Like I said in my earlier comment, Patience ! Just be patient for a while. Its only a matter of time.
As for your claims that Lasantha said something, let me set the record straight for you. It was German theologian, Martin Niem ller who said
“First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me”
This was in German under Hitler’s Nazism. No sane person can relate that to Rajapakse’s humane regime. No, you are not going to convince me. Let’s agree to disagree pal. Thanks
Well, billy lets kee mum about the vast amount of monies paid by the NGOs to distort the truth and potray a satanic image of the govrenment to the rest of the world. Well done groundview, you not only create racial tensions here, but have sucessfully started to create tension between Buddhists and Catholics….., Why can not everyone help the goverenment to do their job. After all it is a democratically elected govrenment. And no matter how bitter the truth is, MR is 1000 times a better choice than RW….,
first it was the peace movement, then the cease fire movement , now the idp movement, what ever the name their project is to weaken the lankan state so well be a puppet of the west, thats what these people r paid for!
John of Arc…around 47 percent voted for RW…what about them?
Nibras Bawa…under Hitler’s Nazism they openly killed jews and persequeted them…under Mahinda’s Chinthanaism the same happens to the tamils…but his government trys to act like angels and blame it all on the LTTE, NGOs and International Conspirators!
This is why Sri Lanka is a ‘BIG Hypocrisy’ and not a ‘Small Miracle!’
Obviously CBK and RW are weak leaders. They thrive on party votes from die hard UNPers and SLFPers. Now ppl like JR and MR are visionaries and know clearly what to do and are able to steer through troubled waters with ease. Wholeheartedly it is a privilege to watch them govern audaciously. Those leaders get voted in for clearly what they do and what they stand for. I assert the reason for valuable 47% of the vote base wasted on RW in 2005 is because ppl didn’t know who MR is. But now it’s a different game of ball. The reluctance of RW wanting to contest with MR bears testimony to these facts. I am not in anyway trying to blow MRs trumpet but I believe leaders should be fearless and daring and should have the ability to inspire others. Given MR and RW who would you choose? It’s your call mate. Cheers…
All these people who are talking supportive of government action definitely know inside the wrong they are doing. They just don’t want to admit it. Once you start the lie, you have to continue the lie. Even the army officers and government supporters don’t deny these facts. They know they have committed crimes and they know that have to cover it up.
Repeatedly, Sinhalese people have committed crimes against Tamils since the independence start with 1956 ratios which killed 150 Tamils for protesting for their rights!
Our Buddhists, listen to Bana, Pirith 24 x 7 but failed to follow even the 5 precepts. Forget abour Nirvana, at least 5 precepts will ensure harmony among people, communities and ethnicities…
“Dharmadeepa”!!!!
“After all it is a democratically elected govrenment.”
Actually its not a democratically elected government. In a democratically elected government, one family doesn’t control so many important civil service posts. Secondly, you forget about the Executive Presidency and Prevention of Terrorism Act, neither of which have anything to do with democracy. No need to throw around words here; that bandit with the red scarf is head of a dictatorship. He has already promised to throw out Western economic models and to come up with “home-grown” solutions… all evidence of a “Mahavamsa Mindset,” not democracy by any means.
“Obviously CBK and RW are weak leaders.”
At least CBK and Ranil did not come to power by bribing the LTTE. I would also say, these two had good intentions, but the Sinhala Public, spoon-fed the myth of Tamils and separatism for decades upon decades, could not see the need for negotiating with the LTTE. If the people in the South had been more educated, things would have been much different. So its not really the fault of CBK and Ranil. Especially Ranil was well ahead of his time.. unlike the man with a scarf, most of Ranil’s policies were geared toward long-term sustainability. It would have taken a while for his policies to really take effect.
“Now ppl like JR and MR are visionaries and know clearly what to do and are able to steer through troubled waters with ease.”
JR – Black July and introduction of the most useless Constitution ever.
MR – Came to power by bribing the enemy of the state
MR – Deposited stolen tsunami money in sister’s bank account
MR – Massacred 30,000 unarmed Tamils during the “final battle.”
I don’t know about visionaries, but they are definitely know what to do to keep their pockets full and their seats on the throne. At least JR had a few good economic policies.
Bawa Bawa!
Screening and weeding is mandatory is that wat u say? okay for how long pal? one year? six months or lifelong till a stable, illiterate, slavery generation is established? My family will also require a clearance and grma niladari my dear but the situation is not the same here. Are they(security officers) asking for identity cards and grama niladari certificates in IDP camps? no bawa keeping them in camps against their will. Will your family ask a domestic helper to be kept in a camp for some(how long) time against their will for screening purposes? This is violation of fundamental human rights.
Nothing can be understood until it comes to us. Just imagine a situation, you were forced to be with the Tigers as human shield or watever during the last days and you hope for a brighter future and finally crossover to the government side. There you are just in the same situation. Coming out from a devil’s mouth into another.
Be that as it may! Just tell me how long can you stay in a camp without freedom of movement? 3 days? a week? We are just creating another generation frustrated of our inhumane screening procedures which are slowly but steadily building the base of another terrorist outbreak. I m afraid!
and they came to Bawa! but no one was there to speak to me!
I m not a nationalist bro! think neutrally! think wat will be, how will it be only if that happens to me! how will i feel? wat was my mistake? then you can see the world with ‘eyes wide open’
NGO’s pay for locals, send them to ivy leage universities and get them masters and doc’s in things like “conflict management”/ journalism and then there locals have to tow the line…. welcome to other side of utopia…
one of the commenter’s here may have said flooding images were doctored. In fact without any geo-tagging and subsequent correlation, it’s hard to prove otherwise where it was taken. But the government never issued statement denying it completely? They said it wasn’t bad as it was said to be. Everyone knew Manik camp flooded and everyone acknowledged it. Doctored or not, it’s a fact!
But the Channel 4 news footage is entirely different story. That is vehemently denied and all technical analysis leans towards the fact that the video footage wasn’t obtained using a mobile device as first claimed. Add insult to injury there is not the faintest clue for a verification other than it was supplied by JDS or whatever it is. The ghost “exile” group of people.
BBC and Channel 4 has become a joke really. Channel 4 is like a cheap current affairs channel. BBC is infiltrated with LTTE supporters. So you can’t turn to either for authoritative journalism on Sri Lankan matters.
Heshan, ru saying MR bribed LTTE to get into power? That is rather stupid of LTTE when MR was campaigning on a platform to wipe out the LTTE. Word out there is Prabakaran wanted MR to instigate ellam war 4 but hey…look what happened!
JR is the root cause of all the trouble we have. curse!
Premadasa was too socialist.
CBK was too corrupt.
Ranil is a spineless squid.
MR had the balls despite his other flaws.
end of the day no one is perfect.
@ Mulli & President Bean,
Please see this link.
http://www.dailymirror.lk/DM_BLOG/Sections/frmNewsDetailView.aspx?ARTID=60823
Happy ?
“Heshan, ru saying MR bribed LTTE to get into power? That is rather stupid of LTTE when MR was campaigning on a platform to wipe out the LTTE.”
Of course one must blame the LTTE too… they helped bring MR to power, knowing that he would eventually declare war. Nevertheless, it is a fact that MR broke laws when he bribed the LTTE. The very same laws that sentenced Tissa to 20 years in prison! One of the charges brought against Tissa is that he was given money by the LTTE. The hypocrisy and double standards here are obvious, and that is what I’m condemning.
@Heshan
I don’t think people get these ideas. They are stuck in their own world. They are full of “Ditti”. If you put their statements to a computer program which analyzes logic. 100% of the time they will contradict themselves.
What to do, this is what Buddha said in his teachings. This is the normal way but we are trying to go the right way. Buddha also said, no point in trying to change the world. Just change yourself!
Grim Hope,
It’s all common sense. If you have a set of laws, why judge two people differently? What good is the law if you do that… in fact, we can go all the way and ask the question, why bother making such laws in the first place? They do not protect the man on the street, they simply serve the interests of the ruling despot. The Tissa case is a beautiful illustration of all these issues. Unfortunately, as you pointed out, quite a few patriots miss the forest for the trees. They view the Tissa case in a vacuum; e.g. Tissa is guilty of abetting terrorists, therefore the verdict is just. The only evidence they can point to is largely circumstantial. As for precedent, I’ve shown how Mahindas much more provable (and similar) offenses went unpunished. The Tissa case is so full of irregularities the phrase “politically motivated” is simply begging for attention.
It’s interesting that people are still arguing that the quarter of a million citizens should be imprisoned until they have been vetted – but still nobody seems to know what the witchfinder general is going to look for.
How will they be able to tell if someone might have “had links with” the LTTE – and what does that mean, anyway? If they will incarcerate everyone who had a relative kidnapped and conscripted by the LTTE, everyone who came from the same village as an LTTE member, everyone from the same ethnic group as the LTTE, there will be a lot of people locked up for a long time.
And what about someone who was prepared to be loyal to the state, who hated and feared the oppression of the LTTE, and who is discovering that the state keeps them imprisoned in a smaller area, not in their own home, with inadequate food and medical care, in floods, behind barbed wire? How much will their love for the new Sri Lanka increase?
What sort of divided society will this build?
How will this lessen the very tensions that led to the creation of the LTTE in the first place?
Sanjana,
Interesting article. We have always had hypocracy, abuse of power, violence and the lies. However, I feel that rabid racism is a new thing and needs to be addressed and controlled. I feel that education is the key and perhaps race relations legislation might be an idea.
Truth telling and reconcilaition are definitely non-starters unless there is a change in direction.