Archive for the ‘Vavuniya’

The absence of Patriotism, Pluralism and Cosmopolitanism: ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ in retrospection

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ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOGRAPHS Former Sri Lankan child soldier Warnakulasuriya Anthony Sunil Rexy (right) laughs with other inmates as they play earlier this month at a government rehabilitation center in Ambepussa. Original in The Washington Times. The TV programme entitled Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, produced by Channel 4 of the UK, sparked substantial debate and discussion in every strata of interest on Sri Lanka, including the realms of high politics and diplomacy, national an international journalism, the non-governmental sector and the programme carried sufficient weight to trigger a renewed interest on Sri Lankan affairs in the West – which – due to the absence of key strategic interests in Sri Lanka, does not generally have a place in Western foreign policy agendas. While the Government of Sri Lanka condemned the programme as false and criticised its intent at causing international embarrassment to Sri Lanka, Western governments reiterated their common request that Sri Lanka should seriously investigate the allegations of crimes of…

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Sri Lanka’s War Burden: Two years on

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Photo credit Eranga Jayawardena/AP, Encyclopædia Britannica Online During the last couple of months, the former UN spokesperson in Sri Lanka – Mr Gordon Weiss has been promoting his book titled “The Cage” and making his case in support of allegations of war crimes committed in the final stages of Sri Lanka’s civil war. The Channel 4, film titled “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields” being broadcast around the world and accessible on YouTube has added raw emotional visuals, adding much momentum to those claims. These two features offer glimpses into the recently concluded brutal conflict in Sri Lanka to the wider world that is already saturated with images of an inflamed middle east and Lady Gaga. Our thirty year civil war is a subject that audiences across the world have rarely had to think about, except fleetingly as a piece in the puzzle about ‘boat people’ from Sri Lanka landing on the tightly guarded shores of Australia and Canada. “Sri Lanka’s Killing…

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Resource book for historians, researchers and media: A year of tweeting from Groundviews

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Visualisation of our Twitter followers. See larger version here. We used the web service Tweet Book to capture all our tweets over the past year in a single PDF. We’ve tweeted thousands of times over the past twelve months and have covered, The media fallout of the farcical fast of senior government Minister Wimal Weerawansa in front of the UN HQ in Colombo. Praise for our model of journalism on C-SPAN video in the US, captured from an event at the United States Institute of Peace. Key statements by world leaders like Desmond Tutu on post-war reconciliation and accountability for war crimes Bell Pottinger’s sickening relationship with the incumbent government, largely hidden from public scrutiny Key reports on Sri Lanka from, inter alia, HRW, AI, ICG and the US State Department, including responses from senior Ministers and the Foreign Ministry Foreign relations and the tussle in Sri Lanka between India and China The court proceedings on Sarath Fonseka The UNP’s perennial…

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Photographic evidence of war crimes in Sri Lanka, or not? (Updated)

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“The resulting carnage, photographed by Harun, was indescribable, but worse was to come.” The Living Scotsman’s review of The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers by former UN spokesperson Gordon Weiss flags, inter alia, photos taken by Ret. Col. Harun Khan when his UN convoy came under attack in the final days of the war. The so-called Convoy 11 incident is covered in detail in Gordon’s book. As our review notes, “Weiss speaks of photographic evidence of the carnage taken by Col. Khan, but there is none to be found in the book itself. Dismembered babies may have been too gruesome to include in the tome, but are photographic evidence of the deliberate targeting of civilians. Weiss does not say who has these photos, but we can assume, amongst others, the UN does.” Referring to the Living Scotman’s review, we asked Weiss, via Twitter, whether Col. Khan’s photos would be publicly released….

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Sri Lanka’s Diplomatic Offensive Won’t Make Killing Fields Disappear

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Screen grab from Channel 4′s Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields (New York) – The Sri Lankan government continues its diplomatic offensive, denying and dismissing the growing evidence of war crimes during the final bloody battles between the Sri Lankan armed forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that ended in May 2009. Last week, at a panel presentation of the Channel 4 film, the ‘Killing Fields of Sri Lanka’, Sri Lanka’s United Nations Ambassador Palitha Kohona said, “To suggest that the Sri Lankan military was so foolhardy as to deliberately target the civilians, I think is a blatant lie… We had no intention of creating martyrs, we had no intention of creating more volunteers for the LTTE.” If the killings of civilians were not deliberate, the Sri Lankan army attacks were clearly indiscriminate, which is no less a war crime. The recent findings of the panel of experts set up to advise UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon concluded that…

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The war that confronts us: Looking at Sri Lanka’s official responses to Channel 4 video

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Image courtesy Channel 4 Channel 4’s Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields is anything but understated. It is designed to shock, even if you are the most hardened of viewers. Images of blood-soaked bodies assail you from every angle. As a cellphone camera jerks around, you see the bulging eyes of a man-turned-killing machine. He appears to be enjoying himself. You feel disoriented. When you think you cannot take it anymore, there it is: Another body eviscerated, another child screaming for her mother, another man’s eyes tied shut, another gunshot through the head, and still another naked body piled atop a truck laden with violated human flesh. And then you are left with nothing but darkness. And silence. That silence lingered as the lights went up on the UN Church Center, where NGO workers and UN staffers, reporters and diplomats attended a subdued screening of Channel 4’s controversial (and at times sensationalist) documentary, Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields. Though the screening was punctuated…

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Provoking, persecuting and pushing Sri Lanka: Enough!

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Photo credit REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte: Special Forces Combat soldiers ride in a parade during a war victory ceremony in Colombo May 27, 2011. Sri Lanka holds a military parade and memorial for fallen soldiers on Friday to mark the second anniversary of the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, which ended a quarter-century civil war in the Indian Ocean nation. “Revolution is not a dinner party, not an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly and modestly”. – Mao Ze Dong The matter is rather simple really. What do you do, or more correctly, what does a state do, and what does a leader at the helm of state affairs do, when faced with a situation of a heavily armed movement dedicated to dismembering the country through secession; a movement which has repeatedly resorted to terrorism; has repeatedly returned to war after episodes of ceasefires and negotiations with successive…

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Sri Lanka ‘Killing Fields’: Will there be progress and what does that mean?

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‘Killing fields’ can be a phrase used to describe a most mundane fact known to humanity, or it could be a most provocative phrase to an ethnic majority or minority group. When viewed from the standpoint of a human being, one need not try hard to realize that the moment one factors in the number of killings that may have taken place, the amount of brutal wars that have been fought by man against man in the past, the kind of death and destruction that resulted in policies and practices of various states, such as colonialism etc., all of us belonging to the human race belong to one large ‘killing field’. But we are sentient beings with a lot of dust in our eyes, we are easily provoked and even enjoy being provoked at times, and we often view things from a narrow ‘ethnic’ or ‘nationalist’ lens (merely conventional truths or sammuti-sacca, as a great philosophical teacher has stated; or,…

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Thoughts on a documentary: We are complicit in Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields

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It was the most gruesome of visual feasts and it when it ended, the most disorienting sense followed. One is struck, not by the extremity of human suffering; but by stillness, by the insouciance of the pools of blood. They appear on screen as almost as if they are the everyday aftermath of one of the island’s heavier monsoon rains. Excepting, of course, the fact that happy children do not float paper boats in these pools, nor is the water that comfortable colour of milky tea. The children are dead; the water runs red with blood. And it is simply, understatedly there. “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields” is a damning indictment of the various parties involved in the last few months of the civil war. It must be watched critically, and to do so, it is necessary to separate Jon Snow’s narration and open your eyes to the story that you must yourself piece together. Image upon images plays towards you,…

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Exclusive interview with Callum McCrae, Director of ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ produced by Channel 4

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Groundviews caught up with Callum McCrae, Director of the highly controversial and very disturbing film by Channel 4, Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, in New York, a day before the film was due to be screened for senior diplomats, UN staff and others at the Church Centre, in front of the UN Headquarters. Callum was joined by Marion Bentley, Channel 4′s Publicity Manager. The interview is around 43 minutes. Download the MP3 (~51Mb) of this interview here to listen offline. This podcast is anchored to the following questions. General What was your objective in doing the C4 video now, more than 2 years after the end of the war? Killing of unarmed civilians, collateral damage, has occurred in other wars, other contexts British troops have been involved in? Has C4 covered them in as great detail? What is accountability for you? Do they think the video will help in achieving accountability in the SL case? How so? Who is your primary…

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Exclusive: Syllabi and timetables from compulsory University ‘leadership’ training course

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Image from Virakesari Online Great controversy and concern surrounds the ‘leadership’ training programme designed by the Ministry of Defence for under graduate students, conducted in around 28 military installations around the country. As the Young Researchers Collective recently noted on Groundviews, “Although the government has stated that this will be a leadership training program rather than a military training program, it has conceded that the military will be involved in a number of aspects of the program. Students have also been informed that this training is “mandatory” for university entrance, though there now appears to be a great deal of confusion with regards to this provision as Government officials have issued a series of contradicting statements. These decisions have also been challenged by many students, rights groups, student unions, teachers’ unions and academics who have raised a number of concerns about the way in which this program has been conceived and implemented. This issue has also exacerbated a worsening crisis…

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Giving the middle finger: Sri Lanka’s conflicting responses to war crimes allegations

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Mr. A Nawan, Deputy Solicitor General of Sri Lanka This symbolic screen grab is from a short video on Channel 4′s website, on the occasion of screening in Geneva a one-hour documentary into the denouement of the war in Sri Lanka. As Channel 4′s website notes, “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 Deputy Solicitor General of Sri Lanka notes in response to the screening of the documentary, “We have already made a preliminary investigation on the video and we have scientific material established that this particular video is not authentic.” Clearly he knows…

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Mojo for mayhem or source of serendipity? Sri Lankan Army’s model to defeat terrorism

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Since May 2009, we have been told by government that the Sri Lanka army defeated the LTTE using a combination of new tactics and strategies, undergirded by an unswerving political will helped by weapons supplies, credit lines and diplomatic support from the likes of China, Iran and Pakistan. There are many versions to the story, but the essential ingredients remain the same. To its credit, the government’s recently concluded Defeating Terrorism: Sri Lankan Experience seminar in Colombo placed on record, from the perspective of the army, the reasons for its victory over the LTTE and lessons learnt. It is far too interesting a document – for what it states as much as for what it does not – to be limited in circulation to the conference attendees alone, and we publish it here for debate and discussion. To view full screen, click here. Repost This Article

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Placing ‘Defeating Terrorism: Sri Lankan Experience Seminar’ in a critical light

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Admirably, the Government was kind and open enough to provide a live web feed of the proceedings of the three day Defeating Terrorism: Sri Lankan Experience seminar, held in Colombo. This allowed for non-invitees and non-participants like us to monitor the saccharine presentations via the web, flagging inconsistencies as well as inconvenient truths that were unsurprisingly left out or marginalised in the proceedings. Often tongue-in-cheek but flagging serious issues and concerns, our updates over Twitter and on this site were anchored to content presented at the seminar by a range of government and army representatives. We published a key address by Australian counter-terrorism expert David Kilcullen on Day One and, given it’s official stance, rather surprising comments by the US Embassy’s Defence Attache on Day Two. On day three, the final day of the seminar, we listened in real time to the presentations by Ajith Nivard Cabraal, Governor of the Central Bank, Lalith Weeratunge, Permanent Secretary to the President of…

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US Defence Attache’s observations on the end of war in Sri Lanka (Updated with US State Department response)

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The on-going ‘Defeating Terrorism: The Sri Lankan Experience‘ seminar is providing much food for thought. The Global Context of Counterterrorism: Strategy, Ethics, and Sustainability in Sri Lanka’s COIN Experience by Dr. David Kilcullen published on this site is based on a speech delivered at this seminar. The proceedings are webcast live (though our experience is that the webcast only works on the Windows platform and not on OS X or Linux, and is rather poor in terms of quality) with key presentations archived on YouTube here. We were sent today the brief submission of the US Defence Attache’s observations on the end of war in Sri Lanka, recorded from what must have been one of the Q&A or discussion sessions today. What he says is, “Hello, may I say something to a couple of the questions raised. I’ve been the defence attache here at the US Embassy since June of 2008. Regarding the various versions of events that came out…

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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