The Hindu‘s coverage of the news relating to Tamil Genocide warrants this conclusion.
The Hindu which was known for integrity and unbiased reporting is no more.
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‘Activists of Delhi Tamil Students’ Union, Democratic Students Union, Students for Resistance and other common students raised slogans against N. Ram accusing him of being a ‘media fascist’ and ‘a stooge of Rajapaksa’ at a public meeting in JNU after his reply to a question on The Hindu’s role in whitewashing the Sri Lankan state genocide of the Eezham Tamils, wherein he had extensively blamed the LTTE. The meeting on ‘Paid news and media ethics’ was organized at JNU on Wednesday by the Student’s Federation of India, which is the students wing of the CPI(M). The fact that N.Ram and The Hindu have unethically manipulated news to cover up the war crimes of Colombo makes them complicit in the genocide committed on the Eezham Tamils, a Tamil Nadu research scholar in JNU told TamilNet.
Mr. Ram was talking about journalist coverage in India elections and during the US’ wars and on the theme of media ethics, referring greatly to Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, a classic on understanding how news is manipulated and on editorial bias.
An activist of the DTSU raised a question on why Ram, who had talked about journalists being attacked in Palestine and Iraq, had nothing to say about media freedom and assault on journalists in Sri Lanka, including murder of Sinhala journalist Lasantha Wikramatunga.
When he has been silent about this, used his newspaper to support the genocidal war on the Eezham Tamils, called a visit to the IDP camps in Vavuniya an uplifting experience when they were reality in concentration camps, how could he talk about the ethics of journalism, the activist further asked.
As a reply, N. Ram had said that those who criticize the GoSL do not criticize the LTTE [an argument highlighted by Mahinda Rajapaksa too nowadays]. After criticizing the ‘ruthlessness’ of the LTTE in his reply, he added a line that had the GoSL committed excesses, he would criticize that too…..
When an activist of the DSU observed that his bias was obvious in his reply itself, where he had criticized the LTTE for ten minutes, but had only one line to say about the GoSL, and whether this was his idea of media ethics, Ram fumbled for a response. At this, students in the audience remarked loudly that ‘this is why they gave you Sri Lanka Ratna’ and shouted ‘shame’.
Parental Control must be enabled tp prevent children from watching this Video.
Considering the sensitivity of the Video and the efforts of Rajapakshe of Sri Lanka to wiggle out of War Criminal‘s charge, I understand that moves are afoot to censor this clip or ban it altogether as this gives concrete proof with Forensic evidence of Genocide.
I suggest this may be downloaded by those interested.
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Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields: smoke billows from a civilian no-fire zone shelled in 2009. Photo: EPA
Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished (Channel 4) was a follow-up to last year’s harrowing film about the end of the war against the Tamil Tigers — a film that came complete with footage of shelled hospitals and summary executions. Faced with the resulting global outrage, the Sri Lankan government promised a full inquiry. So, has it now admitted the truth?
The answer, you might not be startled to hear, is no. An official report has acknowledged for the first time that civilians died — but not that this was in any way the government’s fault. Last night, Jon Snow promised evidence both of more war crimes and of President Rajapaksa’s responsibility for them. In neither case did he break his word.
For a while, it felt as if the programme was proceeding almost too carefully. (At one point, a forensic pathologist was asked to study photographs of mutilated citizens so as to confirm that their injuries were “consistent with shelling”.) But the reason for such caution was soon clear. The original film had been denounced in Sri Lanka as a sloppy piece of reporting. Here, so little was left to chance that any similar objections will surely be impossible to sustain, although, as we saw when the Sri Lankan government was given the right to reply, that didn’t stop them trying.
Certainly by the end, there seemed no doubt that the government had indeed set up special no-fire zones for Tamil civilians — and then fired on them with heavy weaponry. According to a secret UN report, the “probability” that the government had done the shelling was “100 per cent”.
Even so, anybody hoping for the triumph of natural justice was in for a disappointment. When we last saw President Rajapaksa, he was cheerfully greeting the Queen at last year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia.”
A series of photographs taken a few hours apart and on the same camera, show Balachandran Prabhakaran, son of Villupillai Prabhakaran, head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). One of them shows the boy sitting in a bunker, alive and unharmed, apparently in the custody of Sri Lankan troops. Another, a few hours later, shows the boy’s body lying on the ground, his chest pierced by bullets.
The images were taken in May 2009 at the very end of the Sri Lankan government’s operation to crush the LTTE, which had launched a bloody, decades-long insurgency against the state that led to the deaths of perhaps 70,000 people. The authorities always said Prabhakaran’s son was killed in cross-fire, as troops moved in to take the LTTE’s last stronghold, located on a scrap of coastline near Mullaitivu in the north-east of the country.
Tiger leader Prabhakaran (pictured) plays with his son Balachandran and LTTE comrades on a beach
A BRUTAL END
Balachandran was the youngest son of slain LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran
Bala was 12 years old when he was shot dead allegedly by Lankan army officials
A documentary by the UK’s Channel 4 reveals as many as five bullet holes in the child’s body
He is said to have been grilled regarding the whereabouts of his father and then brutally executed
The film shows Bala’s body with five bullet holes on it
But the images, contained in a new documentary, No Fire Zone, which will be screened at the Geneva Human Rights Film Festival during the UN Human Rights Council meeting in March, suggest the boy was captured alive and killed at a later stage.
“Next on Channel 4: Wednesday 14 Mar 2012 at 10.55pm
In 2011 Channel 4 exposed damning evidence of atrocities committed in the war in Sri Lanka. Jon Snow presents this powerful follow-up film, revealing new video evidence as well as contemporaneous documents, eye-witness accounts, photographic stills and videos relating to how exactly events unfolded during the final days of the civil war.
“In 2011 Channel 4 exposed damning evidence of atrocities committed in the war in Sri Lanka. Jon Snow presents this powerful follow-up film, revealing new video evidence as well as contemporaneous documents, eye-witness accounts, photographic stills and videos relating to how exactly events unfolded during the final days of the civil war.
The film forensically examines four specific cases and investigates who was responsible.
LTTE Prabhakaran’s Son Shot
The four cases include: the deliberate heavy shelling of civilians and a hospital in the ‘No Fire Zone’; the strategic denial of food and medicine to hundreds and thousands of trapped civilians – defying the legal obligation to allow humanitarian aid into a war zone; the killing of civilians during the ‘rescue mission’; and the systematic execution of naked and bound LTTE prisoners – featuring new chilling video footage of a 12-year-old boy who has been brutally executed.
This painstaking investigation traces ultimate responsibility up to the highest echelons of the chain of command, asking questions of both President Rajapaska and his brother, the Defence Secretary.
What is more appalling is the information that the fresh Forensic evidence is available in the Documentary that Prabhakaran’s son Balachandran Prabhakaran was shot point-blank with telltale wounds in his chest at not less than five places.
To kill a child ..even if it were to be a terrorist’s is deplorable.
Even if it is war, what about Vienna Conventions? You can be tried like Milisovich of Bosnia or Nazis for The Final Solution.
On this Single count SriLanka’s war crime is proven.
Do watch Channel 4 programme today.
In a link quoted above you shall see how Sinhalese chauvinist defend their Government.
He said: ‘There is a speckling 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.
‘So he could have reached out with his hand and touched the gun that killed him. After receiving this wound he would have fallen backwards and it’s then that he is likely to have received these two wounds.
‘It’s likely that the shooter was standing over him while he was lying flat on the ground after the first shot. So this is a murder. There’s no doubt about it.’
The programme has also obtained unofficial footage, which suggests that his father Velupillai sustained a massive head wound – when his body was shown on television his head was covered by a rag. Separate stills see him first in uniform, then stripped naked and finally smeared in mud.
Again Professor Pounder believes he was executed. ‘This would be very typical of a high velocity gun shot wound to the head,’ he said.
‘The short clip dates from the final hours of the bloody 26-year civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the secessionist rebels of the Tamil Tigers, the LTTE.
A 12-year-old boy lies on the ground. He is stripped to the waist and has five neat bullet holes in his chest. His name is Balachandran Prabakaran and he is the son of the LTTE leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran. He has been executed in cold blood. Beside him lie the bodies of five men, believed to be his bodyguards. There are strips of cloth on the ground indicating that they were tied and blindfolded before they were shot – further evidence suggesting that the Sri Lankan government forces had a systematic policy of executing many surrendering or captured LTTE fighters and leading figures, even if they were children.
The footage – dating from 18 May 2009 and which seems to have been shot as a grotesque “trophy video” by Sri Lankan forces – will be broadcast for the first time on Wednesday night in a Channel 4 film, Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished – a sequel to the controversial investigation broadcast last year which accused both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Spokesperson for Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist group said, “this precedent setting decision by the United Nation’s sponsored war-crimes tribunal will likely guide similar evidence admissibility determinations in ICC and ICJ proceedings. When geopolitical conditions converge and UN members haul Sri Lanka to the ICC, the alleged war-criminals then have to confront Ambassadors Butenis and Robert O’Blake’s statements in a legal setting.”
Ambassador Butenis
A January 2010 cable from US Embassy in Sri Lanka, made public by Wikileaks acknowledges that U.S. is cognizant of the fact that “responsibility for many alleged crimes rests with the country’s senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa and his brothers and opposition candidate General Fonseka.” Ambassador Butenis further reasons the lack of progress in internal investigations: “There are no examples we know of a regime undertaking wholesale investigations of its own troops or senior officials for war crimes while that regime or government remained in power.”
The Debate is on in UNHRC to censure SriLanka for the genocide of Tamils in SriLanka.
The Resolution was moved by the US and 47 countries are to vote.
China and Pakistan have decided to support SriLanka and Saudi Arabia has already spoken in favour of SriLanka.
Resettled Tamils from SriLanka are taking regular processions in Geneva to awaken the conscience of the Countries that are to vote.
India, though the Tamils killed in SriLanka belong to the ethnic group of Tamils in India,India is callously indifferent to the extent that the Foreign Minister S.M.Krishna stated that India will decide on this issue taking into consideration the relationship of India with other Countries,meaning China.
He had also said that he is yet to know full details!
Full Details of what?
It is a fact that India contributed to the war on terrorism by SriLanka and was actively involved in the final show down between SriLankan Forces and LTTE.
Paradoxically, it was India which armed the LTTE, provided sanctuary to LTTE Supremo Prabhakaran in India.
Tamil Nadu CM Late.MGR openly donated money to LTTE.
Now the equations seem to have changed.
The same India is reluctant to censure SriLanka war crimes, which is therre for every one to see.
What is Morally Right can never be sacrificed for National Interest(I doubt whether there is any Indian interest will be served by supporting SriLanka.
India must unequivocally condemn SriLanka, censure it and impose sanctions on SriLanka.
Unfortunately those killed in SriLanka are Tamils, not Bengalis or Biharis or Sikhs.
However Channel 4 is mounting pressure on UNHRC by planning to release a documentary covering the genocide.
The Genocide was telecast on 14 June 2011 and Independent carried exclusive coverage.
The new Documentary is expected to contain additional footage to prove SriLanka’s crime.
“Fernando” was operating with Sri Lanka’s 58 Division during the final assault. He has risked his life as well as the lives of his family to speak out about the horrors he witnessed. He told Channel 4 News that men, women, and children were actively targeted with small arms by government forces.
A documentary showing graphic new footage of executed civilians in Sri Lanka, including the son of the leader of the Tamil Tigers, hopes to provide conclusive evidence of war crimes by its government.
A year after screening Jon Snow’s award-winning documentary Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields about the dying days of the civil war – Channel 4 has returned to the island to uncover more evidence of alleged abuse.
The 60-minute documentary, Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished, will be screened days before the England cricket team flies out to the country….
It comes in the wake of this week’s United States resolution to the UN Human Rights Council censuring Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa and his brother, Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaska, for ‘not adequately addressing serious allegations of violations of international law during the war in Sri Lanka’.
‘This forensic investigation reveals damning new evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Sri Lankan government forces,’ said Mr Snow.
‘But it also points directly to those who may bear culpability and command responsibility for this savagery – from the military leaders who led the bloody assaults that killed civilians – to the President and his brother, the Defence Secretary, who have yet to be properly investigated and held to account.
‘It is our duty as journalists to report this evidence; it is up to the UN and the international community to initiate effective investigations and deliver justice for the thousands who lost their lives.
‘At a time when we are seeing similar carnage in Syria – this is vital work..
In the documentary, Mr Snow examines four instances of alleged war crimes using contemporaneous documents, eye witness accounts, photographic stills and trophy footage to determine how events unfolded in the final days of the war and investigate who was responsible for the carnage.
According to UN estimates, up to 40,000 civilians were killed during the conflict between the Government and rebel forces.
One of the most horrific scenes shows the bullet-riddled body of 12-year-old Balachandran Prabhakaran, son of the Tiger leader Velupillai.
Professor Derrick Pounder, a forensic pathologist at Dundee University, confirmed the boy was shot five times rather than killed in combat duty.
He said: ‘There is a speckling 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.
‘So he could have reached out with his hand and touched the gun that killed him. After receiving this wound he would have fallen backwards and it’s then that he is likely to have received these two wounds.
‘It’s likely that the shooter was standing over him while he was lying flat on the ground after the first shot. So this is a murder. There’s no doubt about it.’
The programme has also obtained unofficial footage, which suggests that his father Velupillai sustained a massive head wound – when his body was shown on television his head was covered by a rag. Separate stills see him first in uniform, then stripped naked and finally smeared in mud.
The French Postal Department has approved these four stamps, said the newspaper.The stamps also show the Eelammap as well as the flag and the flower of the LTTE.Since December 28, these stamps have been used to exchange letters among the LTTE networks in other countries, ‘Divaina’ added.
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