The pictures fill in chilling details on the circumstances of his murder — and leave the Sri Lankan government with yet more questions to answer about just how systematic the executions at the end of the war appear to have been. Last year, we first revealed video footage and stills which showed Balachandran’s body shortly after his execution. These were analysed for us by a respected forensic pathologist, Professor Derrick Pounder, to assess the cause of death.
Murder of Tamils, Sri Lanka
The professor identified what he thinks is the first of the shots to be fired at the boy: “There is a speckling (on the skin) from propellant tattooing, indicating that the distance of the muzzle of the weapon to this boy’s chest was two to three feet or less. He could have reached out with his hand and touched the gun that killed him.”
The professor said the angle of the shots suggested that after that bullet was fired, the boy fell backwards and was then shot four more times. Unlike the men around him, there was no indication that the boy had been blindfolded or bound, so it was possible that the boy may have been made to watch the execution of his guards before the gun was turned on him.
The new photographs released today give us a chilling insight into what happened before that. They appear to demonstrate that the situation was calm and orderly. Balachandran was given a snack and some water. There was time to take photographs while he was held in the bunker and again afterwards. The forensic analysis report on the photographs concludes that there is “no evidence to indicate fabrication, manipulation or the use of effects to create the images” and concludes that the photographs “appear to be an accurate representation of the events depicted.”
From the separate video sequence recorded later (which has also been authenticated by both digital video analysis), it is clear that there were several military personnel in the area.
Investigation on war crimes and crimes against humanity,” said director Callum Macrae in a recorded message from London, adding that he hoped the film would lead to informed debate about the issue in the United Nations.
The so called allegations in their footage of the entire Channel Four episode on the last stages of war in Sri Lanka, is fabricated and the government completely denies and rejects the, Mass Media and Information Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said.
The ‘Daily News’ reported that the minister was addressing the Cabinet press briefing yesterday at the Ministry Auditorium.
This is an organised agenda of pro-LTTE diaspora to tarnish the image of the country by releasing of this kind of sensational footages on the verge of the UNHRC sessions in Geneva, the minister said.
He questioned that without releasing it soon after the war, why the Channel Four to 3 to 4 years to come up with this documentary.
The minister said, observing the pattern, that the next doctored documentary of the Channel Four on the war in Sri Lanka to be released just before the next UNHRC sessions next year could be easily predicted.
He requested that the content of the footage should be critically analyzed as the government on earlier occasions had challenged them.
He stressed that the former army commander and security forces had plainly rejected these claims which had been directed at the entire security establishments, adding that, a technical analysis on Channel Four’s latest documentary on Sri Lanka is now in progress.
In a technical analysis of the mobile phone footage on behalf of Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, E. A. Yfantis, a professor of computer science at University of Nevada-Las Vegas specialising in computer graphics and image processing, stated that “based on mathematical analysis, blood in the 3GP videos is not real blood. It is not clear if the blood in the 3GP scenes is water with red dye or digitally constructed or edited video blood” and that “videographic and mathematical analysis of the two 3GP videos show that the videos either were edited, or staged, or both”. He concluded that “Careful analysis of the two 3GP videos which included both frame by frame visual inspection as well as the robust mathematical attributes of the video frames, has led us to the conclusion that this is a very deliberate and orchestrated video”.(Wiki)
I post here the full video of the Killing Files by Channel 4
This is in addition to the excerpts I posted in 2011, where the full Video was not available then
Initially there were restrictions.
This is necessitated by the new evidence showing that LTTE Chief Prabhakaran‘s son Balachandran Prabhakaran was killed in cold blood after being offered snacks.
Video analysis has proved the authenticity of this and Sri Lanka can not escape under the ruse that it is doctored.
Curiously till the writing of this post here are no comment from the Government of Sri Lanka.
The Posts of mine on Sri LankanTamils is to present and document the atrocities in one place as I have not been able to find a source that contains all the information relating to Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Here is the Full Video of the Killing of the Tamils by Channel 4.
”
One of the most graphic television documentaries ever shown in the United Kingdom, this documentary outlines some of the atrocities that were committed during the final months of the Sri Lankan civil war and features amateur video footage from the conflict zone filmed by civilians and Sri Lankan soldiers.
Jon Snow presents a forensic investigation into the final weeks of the quarter-century-long civil war between the government of Sri Lanka and the secessionist rebels, the Tamil Tigers.
The video filmed by civilians included harrowing scenes during and after intense shelling of civilian targets, including hospitals, by the Sri Lankan military. The trophy video filmed by Sri Lankan soldiers showed disturbing scenes of blindfolded victims being executed and dead bodies of naked women being dragged onto trucks by soldiers as they made lewd remarks about the victims.
The documentary also included interviews with civilians who managed to survive the conflict, United Nations staff based in Sri Lanka during the conflict, human rights organizations and and international law expert. The documentary was made by ITN Productions and presented by Jon Snow, the main anchor on Channel 4 News. The Sri Lankan government has denounced the documentary as a fake.”
Through twists and turns right from Bandaranaike to Jayawardene ,Chandrika Kumaratunga, Premadasa to Rakapakshe the ethnic cleansing remain unabated,
History of Ethnic cleansing.
Jayaprakash Sittampalam Tissainayagam during his arrest in 2008. Tissainayagam was a Tamil journalist and writer specialising in the longstanding conflict between the Sinhala and Tamils in Sri Lanka and was a vocal exponent against the Sri Lankan government. On March 7th 2008, he was arrested by the Terrorism Investigation Division of the Sri Lanka Police, held for 6 months without charge and finally sentenced to 20 years hard labor. Due to the international outcry over the ethnic cleansing undertaken on the island by the Rajapaksa regime, and his sentence being overturned at the court of appeal, he was released on 11th January 2010. In a move typical of the public relations element of the Rajapaksa government, the journalist was then pardoned by Rajapaksa on May 3rd 2010.In this typical scene witnessed regularly throughout history, large migrations of civilians are seen fleeing nationalist violence in a desperate attempt to escape death. This type of migration had been a pre-planned element in the Rajapaksa nationalist doctrine and came about as a direct result of an upswing in military weapons supply and financial funding from China and the United States.
Since Sri Lanka gained independence from Britain in 1948, relations between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil communities have been strained. Rising ethnic and political tensions, along with ethnic riots and pogroms in 1956, 1958, 1977, 1981 and 1983, led to the formation and strengthening of militant groups advocating independence for Tamils. The ensuing Sri Lankan Civil War has resulted in the deaths of more than 70,000 people and the forced disappearance of thousands of others.
One-third of Sri Lankan Tamils now live outside Sri Lanka. While there was significant migration during the British colonial period, the civil war that began in 1983 led to more than 800,000 Tamils being forced from their homes within Sri Lanka, and many have left the country for destinations such as Canada, India and Europe.
Genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka
Estimates varying from less than 10000,[16] to 40,000 Sri Lankan Tamils were reportedly killed in the final weeks of the military victory over Tamil rebels in 2009 as the Tamil Tigers took Tamil civilians as human shields, according to the UN,[17] but the end of the civil war has not improved conditions in Sri Lanka,[18] with press freedom not being restored[19] and judiciary coming under political control.[20] Sri Lankan Tamils continue to seek refuge in countries like Canada and Australia.[21][22] The International Organisation for Migration and the Australian government have declared Tamil refugees as economic migrants.[23] Canada has tightened controls on their refugee program due to various abuses within the Canadian refugee system..[24] A Canadian government survey found that over 70% of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees have gone back to Sri Lanka for holidays raising concerns over the legitimacy of their refugee claims.[25](Wiki)
Despite denials the evidence is there for every one to see from Politicians , Bureaucrats and people on the ground.
The Rhetoric of Ethnic cleansing.
As the policy of ethnic cleansing came to its logical military conclusion, Tamils found themselves locked into concentration camps on the island and subject to sexual violence and organised abuse by prison guards. Only through the international public community were some of these people eventually allowed to leave, many having gone into crippling poverty.Mass Killing of Tamils in Sri Lanka
The rhetoric of extremism in the globalised security environment that now exists is surprisingly malformed, and equally surprisingly influential. In Sri Lanka, the operation to bring about the ethnic cleansing of the Tamils was initially formed around a humanitarian interventionist pole8 alongside a domestic security intention. This initial rhetoric was criticised at the time as being ‘unlikely’ but due to the globalised posture of governments and media around the world in the post 9/11 event phase, the narrative unusually succeeded in its efforts.
In the 2008 video below, this rhetoric can be seen with a BBC interview carried out with a Sri Lankan government employee, Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha [Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP)]. In this interview, the scope of the nationalist policy against the Tamils can be seen in its formation alongside the belligerence of the British Broadcasting Corporation as it existed at the time.
Proof.
In this second interview again for the BBC conducted in 2011 after the full weight of the ethnic cleansing had become known across the world, Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha in his capacity as government coordinator of the peace process, routinely defaults to defending the nationalist regime of Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka and further continues to disrupt and retard the interviewers questioning about the massacre in Sri Lanka. He calls into question the motives of the ‘human rights industry’, disambiguates unambiguous questioning given by the interviewer, persistently derails and deviates away from line of enquiry and promotes and demotes salient information in order to evade complicity. This approach is almost identical to his motif in the first interview and reveals persuasive evidence of government rhetoric taking on academic form.
Evasion
For many around the world, the efficacy of international law is far from straightforward and given to inherent subjectivity. In an age in which human rights abuses abound throughout all the political environments of the world, justice for those who have been subject to ethnic violence is a long and arduous process with varying chance of realistic success. No matter what weight of evidence exists, no matter how clean the case for prosecution, no matter how ‘persuasive’ the charge given that evidence, international law for many abruptly halts when in collision with the largest of its sponsors. This is undoubtedly true.
For those in Rajapaksa’s regime, international law is a relative device that can be evaded, but only with considerable prior planning and foresight. For the most part, the personal ideology of Rajapaksa in the form of his own strident nationalism has simply arrived at an end point having reached its logical conclusion. There is evidence that Rajapaksa has been a long-time advocate10of nationalist ideology and his appearance at this point in time simply denotes a man who has seen his time come. It is here, that the fundamental nature of the war against the non-state actor, also known as the so called ‘War on Terror’ is revealed for what it is, a liberation for the tyrant…and a prison for his fool.
The rhetoric now engaged in by the Rajapaksa nationalists is one in which considerable faith has been placed in the United States, China and India. These three actors constitute the vast bulk of delegates to the United Nations and hold most influence at the International Criminal Court [ICC]. Rajapaksa and his brother Lieutenant Colonel Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa, have clearly made a calculated appraisal about their fortunes in relation to these three nations and have clearly concluded that Sri Lanka’s geo-strategic political position will successfully renovate international public opinion leading to a general failure of accountability at the UN.
2. Global Terrorism: 35,000 Worldwide Convicted For Terror Offenses Since September 11 Attacks by MARTHA MENDOZA [AP] 09/03/11 Huffingdon Post
3. Sri Lanka’s Eastern Provincial Council Convenes; Muslim-tamil Tensions High. US Embassy Colombo – 5th June 2008. Classified By: Charge d’Affaires James R. Moore for reasons: 1.4(b,d). Wikileaks
4. Sri Lanka War Crimes Evidence. WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT. YouTube
Human Right watch which will be submitting its Report to UN on Monday,disclosed that The Tamil Women were raped by The Sri Lanka Security forces,’to teach them a lesson”
There seems to be no end to the atrocities being perpetrated by The Sri Lanka Government.
The UN must ensure that this report is not also NFAd(No Further Action)
In one of the most repugnant images yet seen during the so-called War on Terror, A Tamil woman between 20 and 30 years of age lies dead in the mud after being raped and shot to death by nationalist Rajapaksa military forces during the ethnic cleansing of 2009. As an increasing body of evidence now illustrates, scenes like this were common throughout the north of Sri Lanka despite initial claims by government sources that incidents of this type were exceptional. In an attempt to explain this behaviour, the Sri Lankan military have claimed that disrobing and open handed detailing of bodies is required to search for weapons, explosives or documents as standard operating procedure. In many of these incidents, females have been found naked, blindfolded with clothing removed just enough to expose sexual organs with hands tied behind the back and gunshot wounds to the head. In almost all cases, females are found in face up positions with their legs splayed. It should be noted that the operation conducted by nationalist forces in Sri Lanka has not been made possible by competent anti-terrorist training for the role, or a degree of professionalism, but by a sudden influx of finance and military weapons and ordnance from the United States and China. This influx simply brought the Sri Lankan military into a position in which it had the military capability to overshoot its natural lack of competence.
Story.
Amidst reports of widespread sexual violence by the Sri Lankan army on suspected LTTE rebels, the Human Right Watch (HRW) has sought an international investigation.
The investigation demands came after a report, ” ‘We will teach you a lesson’: Sexual violence against Tamils by Sri Lankan Security Forces“.
The report is said to have contained a list of 75 cases of rape and sexual assault. These incidents happened all across Sri Lanka, from 2006 to 2012.
The majority of the cases are said to have happened during the armed conflict (with LTTE) that ended in may 2009.
The conflict ended almost three years ago, but the incidents of sexual violence continues till this day, the report quoted.
The revelations were confirmed by HRW Asia Director Brad Adams.
“The Sri Lankan security forces have committed untold numbers of rapes of Tamil men and women in custody. These are not just wartime atrocities but continue to the present, putting every Tamil man/woman arrested for suspected LTTE involvement at serious risk”, he was quoted in a news report published in national daily the Hindu.
Adams further reiterated the necessity of an international investigation into the alleged crimes.
Innumerable accounts of gross atrocities have emerged since the conflict ended.
Sri Lankan security forces are accused of blackmailing and sexually harassing Tamil men and women to extract information from them related to LTTE.
One account of 31-year-old women describes how she was blackmailed by the forces in revealing her husband’s details.
She was mercilessly beaten by a sand-filled-pipe and raped.
Another account of 23-year-old women was abducted and questioned for her alleged links with LTTE.
She was raped for three consecutive days and forced to perform sexual acts with number of men. In the end, she was asked to sign a piece of paper where she confessed her link with the LTTE.
Even men were not spared from the sexual violence.
Graphic accounts of extreme sexual violence gave a glimpse of the atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan security forces to crush the rebellion against its government.
The cold blooded killing of Prabhakaran’s 12-year-old son published in Britain daily – The Independent – has raised questions over Sri Lanka’s armed forces conduct during the final stages of the operation against Tamil Tiger rebels.
According to the report in the daily, the series of photographs taken a few hours apart and on the same camera, show Balachandran Prabhakaran, son of Villupillai Prabhakaran, sitting in a bunker, alive and unharmed, apparently in the custody of Sri Lankan troops. Villupillai Prabhakarn led the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Another photo shows the boy’s body lying on the ground, his chest pierced by bullets.
The other new witness, who was also operating with Brigadier Shavendra Silva’s 58 Division on the front line during the final assault, claims the Brigadier was ordered by the defence secretary “to finish the job by whatever means necessary.”
‘Licence to kill’
He said this was interpreted by the soldiers as a licence to kill. He described how he had watched as Sri Lankan forces shot dead unarmed Tamil women and children. It is the first time this allegation has been made.
The war was won by Sri Lankan government soldiers two years ago. The rebel leadership was virtually wiped out.
‘They shot people at random. Stabbed people. Raped them. Cut out their tongues, cut women’s breasts off. I saw people soaked in blood.’
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