Friday, 28 August 2009

Tamils for Obama: Keep the Sri Lankan War Criminals Out of the U.S.

Download this press release as an Adobe PDF document.

A video recently emerged showing Sri Lankan soldiers executing bound and naked Tamil civilian prisoners. The video was broadcast by the U.K.'s Channel 4 news. Tamils for Obama wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder, and U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka Patricia Butenis requesting them to block the entry of Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa's delegation to the U.N. General Assembly session this fall where he plans to present SL military men to the assembly for the world's approval. Tamils for Obama suggests that these soldiers will be revealed as war criminals and will eventually embarrass the U.N. and the U.S.

New York (PRWEB) August 28, 2009 -- Britain's Channel 4 news aired a video showing Sri Lankan soldiers executing bound and naked Tamil civilian prisoners.

(To see the Channel 4 news report go to: http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1184614595?bctid=35256686001)

Tamils for Obama, citing the Channel 4 video as further evidence of war crimes by the Sri Lankan military, requested that the U.S. refuse to allow President Rajapaksa's delegation to enter the U.S. for the U.N. General Assembly session this fall. President Rajapaksa plans to include a number of Sri Lankan soldiers in this diplomatic delegation. Tamils for Obama maintains that most of them are guilty of war crimes like those shown in the video.

The video was made by a Sri Lankan soldier on his mobile phone and then passed along to an independent journalists' group, which supplied it to Channel 4. The video seems to give clear evidence of this Sri Lankan war crime.

"We are pleased that this video emerged," said a spokesman for Tamils for Obama. "It came from independent sources--a Sri Lankan soldier and a European journalists' group--who cannot be called propagandists for Tamils. This is plainly genuine."

Tamils for Obama also mentioned in a letter the Tamil group sent to Secretary of State Clinton, Attorney General Holder and Ambassador Butenis that "according to the U.N., the number of Tamil civilians killed by the Sri Lankan government is over 30,000 between January and May of this year."

The same Tamils for Obama spokesman said that "Stories of Sri Lankan atrocities still horrify us, but they are no surprise. As we wrote to Secretary Clinton and Attorney General Holder 'We have heard stories like this for years. We have heard that thousands of crippled Tamil civilians were buried alive by the Sri Lankan armed forces on May 18, 2009, a story which we expect will eventually be proven and become part of the world's consciousness.'"

The Tamils for Obama spokesman said that independent proof of the mass burials has not yet emerged, but that they are confident that the truth of the matter would eventually be proven.

The Tamils for Obama letter concludes "We consider that these bloody-handed killers are appropriately regarded as war criminals and should be barred from entering the U.S. We urge the U.S. state and justice departments to prevent them from entering the U.S. and exploiting American credulity."

To read the letter, go to: www.Tamilsforobama.com/Letters/SL_UN_Delegation.html

Tamils are an ethnic group living mainly in the northeast of Sri Lanka and southern India. During the final weeks of the recent civil war, the Sri Lankan government killed about 1,000 Tamil civilians per day, according to the United Nations, and about 30,000 in 2009. Tamils are a minority population in Sri Lanka, and have borne the brunt of a civil war they regard as genocide. One-third of the Tamil population has fled the island and formed a substantial diaspora overseas. Tamils for Obama is comprised of Tamils who have settled in the U.S. or who were born in the U.S.

To contact the group, call at (617) 765- 4394 and speak to, or leave a message for, the Communication Director, Tamils for Obama.
www.TamilsForObama.com

News Source: emediawire

"We Don't Want Development, We Want Our Rights!"

Nimmi Gowrinathan
Posted: August 27, 2009 04:09 PM
huffingtonpost

The message shouted from an elder woman inside Zone 2's internment camps in Sri Lanka was clear as she angrily harassed a humanitarian worker attempting to install latrines that would signal a longer, more permanent, residence in unlivable internment camps . It's a message that is perhaps best directed at the United Nations and donor countries who, in the case of Sri Lanka, have chosen "access" to hundreds of internally displaced civilians over "advocacy" in their best interests.

With small pockets of civilians uprooted by a bloody end to Sri Lanka's protracted civil war resettled in their home districts, the majority of the 300,000 Internally Displaced People (IDPs) from the minority Tamil population remain in sprawling internment camps with dwindling supplies of fresh water, quickly spreading communicable diseases, and up to three families in one tent . The camps are, however, equipped with ATM machines -- reinforcing within the camps what has become obvious outside of the camps. Those with money have power.

The actors with money: The Government of Sri Lanka (2.5 billion US$ wealthier after the approval of a recent International Monetary Fund loan), the UN, and donor countries (primarily China). Since they have neither the money nor the representation to influence their own destiny, Tamil civilians must rely on the UN as their voice. It is an option many in the camps trust less than the promises of a militaristic regime responsible for their captivity. Most of the animosity is directed at Secretary General Ban Ki Moon- who was notably silent as their loved ones perished in the final days of fighting. In a leaked memo, Norwegian Deputy Ambassador Mona Juul says of Sri Lanka, "the Secretary-General's moral voice and authority have been absent."

Why the silence? Perhaps because discussions in the Security Council of Tamil civilian lives were relegated to the basement of the UN, as opposed to Darfurian lives which are allowed consideration on higher floors. Perhaps because Sri Lanka was never an item on the Security Council Agenda, despite having the votes necessary. Some speculate it is the hardline position of the Secretary General's advisors, bolstered by a Human Rights Council debate deeming the Sri Lankan war an "internal matter". Officially, the UN laments that its lack of leverage on behalf of the affected civilians is derived from the growing influence of China and India on the island. In broad macroeconomic terms the Asian powers, capitalizing on the ill-gotten gains of peace, are certainly engaged in a fiscal duel for dominance in Sri Lanka. However, in development aid, most of their funds are dispersed through the UN - and a quick survey of any of the camps will reveal that UN tents far outnumber those provided by the Chinese government. The omnipresence of UN staff on the ground should imply a natural mandate in the debates around resettlement, but it is a power the organization has been hesitant to embrace.

It must be noted that in these internment camps there are sympathetic government soldiers (one lieutenant reportedly consistently siphons off food from rations to ensure children in his care are well-fed), and committed local UN staff -but all are beholden to a leadership which seems deaf to their concerns. While outside humanitarian groups are not (are never) entirely innocent, in Sri Lanka they too have been subsumed under the dominance of the UN (recently accused of not sharing crucial information). What is the message being conveyed by the actions of power players at the UN? That in a "post-conflict" environment, only a victor's justice is available to a marginalized constituency.

Talking heads and a growing number of colored rubber bracelets have tried to convince us that "development" will solve all problems, ethnic or otherwise. But what happens when in order to maintain a presence in a country, and access to displaced civilians, the largest outside "development" actor forgoes its responsibility to advocate for rights guaranteed in the Geneva Convention? While the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are no longer the focal point for Tamil nationalism, separatist sentiments remain high among a population who will no longer accept the exchange of humanitarian aid for political rights.

The assassinated Sinhalese journalist Lasantha Wickrematunga predicted in January of this year, "A military occupation of the country's north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect. Do not imagine that you can placate them by showering "development" and "reconstruction" on them in the post-war era." As Tamils around the world are now being recruited into "power-sharing" discussions and "trust-building" exercises, it is important to recognize that a significant amount of power remains in the hands of the UN, an institution that the minority Tamils once trusted with their lives.

The monsoon rains this fall are predicted to trigger a humanitarian crisis as every existing concern outlined by human rights groups (poor sanitation, collapsing tents, lack of medical care) will be exacerbated by massive flooding. Local and international NGOs have warned that no amount of money poured into the overcrowded camps will prevent the loss of thousands of civilian lives. Logistically, at least 100,000 (approximately 1/3) of the displaced civilians must be evacuated to their original homes in the Northern and Eastern districts before the onset of the rains. It seems that only when the international community recognizes the limits of "development" will Tamil civilians, inadvertently, be granted the most basic of rights- the right of return.

Video that reveals truth of Sri Lankan 'war crimes'

Phone video smuggled to Europe bolsters claims that Sri Lankan soldiers murdered Tamil prisoners

By Andrew Buncombe

The Independent, Thursday, 27 August 2009NORMAL

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Sri Lankan Army commandoes

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The naked man, his hands bound behind his back, is pushed to the ground. Then a man in military uniform delivers a forceful kick to the back of the prisoner's head with the heel of his boot. As the prisoner slumps forward, another soldier points his automatic weapon and fires a single shot. The man's body jolts. "It's like he jumped," laughs one of the giggling soldiers.

As gunfire rattles, the camera pans left to reveal a further seven bloodstained bodies, all handcuffed and bound, and – with one exception – similarly naked, strewn on the ground. The camera then pans right again, as another naked man is forced to the ground and shot in the back of the head. This time the body falls backwards.

These scenes, captured on video, allegedly show extra-judicial killings of Tamils by Sri Lankan troops earlier this year in the bitter and bloody endgame of the country's civil war. As government forces made a decisive thrust into the stronghold of rebel forces to end the decades-long conflict, a Sri Lankan soldier apparently took this footage, which was then smuggled out of the country by activists. It may constitute the first hard evidence for those who believe war crimes were committed in the effort to crush the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The significance of this footage – particularly shocking for the seemingly casual way in which the killings were carried out – is even greater given the way that journalists and independent observers were prevented by the government from reaching the war zone. The UN has estimated that 10,000 civilians were killed in what was, in effect, a war with no outside witnesses.

Last night the Sri Lankan army dismissed the footage as the latest in a series of fabrications designed to damage the country's image. But campaigners and Tamil politicians said it was vital that a full inquiry be carried out into the alleged killings. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has voiced his support for an investigation into possible war crimes if convincing evidence emerged.

So too has Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific director, Sam Zarifi, who said: "We have received consistent reports that violations of the laws of war, as well as international human rights law, were committed by both sides in the conflict and we call once again for an international, independent and credible investigation into what took place during the final days of the conflict."

The footage was obtained by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), an organisation made up of several dozen Sri Lankan journalists who have fled into exile in recent years as the intimidation and killing of media professionals has soared. The group, whose members now live mostly in Europe, said the film was taken by a Sri Lankan soldier in January using his mobile phone as the army was battling to take the LTTE's de facto capital, Kilinochchi.

A spokesman for the group, who asked not be identified, said: "It was as if someone was filming it for fun. This was being circulated by the soldiers. It has been going round for a while. It was taken as if it was a souvenir." He said rumours of such footage had existed for a long time but that this was the first time such film had entered "the mainstream".

There is no way to confirm the authenticity of the footage, first broadcast by Channel 4 News. Likewise, there is no way of proving that the people apparently shot dead are Tamils, as the JDS has claimed. But this is not the first time that images from the war zone, captured on mobile phones, have been circulated within Sri Lanka.

Earlier this year a man in the eastern city of Trincomalee showed The Independent pictures of a naked, dead woman. He said the woman was apparently an LTTE fighter, killed as government troops advanced on rebel positions to the north.

Nor is it the first time that the army has been accused of carrying out summary justice. In May, when the rebels' final position in the north-east was overrun by government soldiers and the LTTE's leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was killed, it emerged that two other leading rebels had been shot dead while trying to surrender. Tamils living outside Sri Lanka said the two men were carrying a white flag when they were shot by troops. A senior government official admitted that the two men had been trying to give themselves up for several days. At the time, the EU called for an inquiry into possible human rights abuses committed during the final months of the war.

A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights (UNHCR) said: "If it can be verified, this footage could be evidence of the sort of war crimes we fear were committed by both sides. We have repeatedly said there should be an investigations into the closing stages of the conflict. There needs to be some sort of accountability."

The final assault on the LTTE ended a war that had raged for almost three decades and cost at least 70,000 lives. The LTTE, fighting for a Tamil homeland, had long waged a brutal insurgency and used suicide bombers to attack both civilian and military targets. Since the war ended, the popularity of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose brother heads the powerful defence ministry, has soared among the country's Sinhala majority.

The resulting peace has also seen a 25 per cent increase in the number of visitors to Sri Lanka, lured by its beaches, tropical forests and gently paced culture. Already about 100,000 visitors from the UK travel to the island each year, according to the Sri Lankan tourist board, and officials are hopeful that the tourist numbers will increase further.

When he announced an end to the war, the president said that Sinhala, Tamils and Muslims must live as "equals". Yet some Tamils say the government has done little to placate its population or to offer them a political "settlement". This summer, in local elections held in the north, the government's party won in the city of Jaffna, but in Vavuniya victory went to the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which has previously voiced some support for the LTTE.

Yesterday Sri Lankan opposition MPs urged the government to release nearly 300,000 war refugees held in state-run camps, saying the detentions brought discredit to the country.

"These camps stand as a symbol of shame and disgrace to our proud Sri Lankan history," said Mano Ganesan, an opposition MP and leader of a group calling itself Parliamentarians for Human Rights. "They are like prisons. People are kept against their will and that's illegal."

James Ross: Abuses on both sides must be investigated

The Independent

Thursday, 27 August 2009,

This ghastly video clip is short but very hard to watch. While there is no way to prove the authenticity of the scene, I and individual experts on the recent fighting, found nothing that would suggest otherwise.

The government rejects the video, calling it a "fabrication." Throughout the fighting against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who were defeated in May, the Sri Lankan government has insisted that its soldiers have not been involved in war crimes.

But Human Rights Watch and other human rights organisations have reported widespread violations of the laws of war by both Sri Lankan government forces and the Tamil Tigers. The Tigers persistently used civilians as human shields, deployed child soldiers, and shot anyone who tried to escape their control. Sri Lankan government forces routinely fired heavy artillery indiscriminately into densely populated areas killing several thousand civilians.

There is an obvious need for serious investigations into possible war crimes during the fighting. It is now up to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to hold President Rajapaksa to the promise he made in May to take measures "to address" the need for an accountability process for violations of international law.

An international commission of inquiry into the war is needed which would investigate alleged war crimes by both sides.

Government denials will not make this gruesome video go away. The truth in Sri Lanka's long war, now over, will out. To build a Sri Lanka in which the rights of all of the country's citizens are respected, real justice is needed.

James Ross, Legal and Policy Director at Human Rights Watch, has written on human rights in Sri Lanka since 1994

Investigating claims of Sri Lankan ‘war crimes’

source: Channel4 World News Blog

Author: Jonathan Miller|Posted: 8:36 pm on 26/08/09

Category: World News Blog | Tags: Sri Lanka/ Tamil Tigers/ war crimes

On 3 June 2005 I sat in the Channel 4 newsroom watching a video of six young Bosnian Muslim men being taunted and then murdered in cold blood by members of a Serb militia called the Scorpions in a village near Srebrenica ten years earlier.

Their paramilitary tormentors sneered at their captives; they smoked cigarettes and cracked jokes; the cameraman complaining that his handycam battery was dying, urging the others to “get on with it.”

The men and boys were forced to lie down with their hands tied before they were shot in the back. After watching the video, I put together this report:

This video contains images that some may find distressing.

Last night I watched another video in our newsroom, this time from Sri Lanka.

It was sent to us by a group of exiled journalists. It was chillingly reminiscent of the Bosnia video.

The casual banter and laughter of the uniformed killers was what I immediately found so callous and shocking, as they kicked in the head and then shot – point-blank – their bound, blindfolded, naked victims.

The raw footage – one continuous shot lasting one minute and eight seconds – is sickening.

The group Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka – comprised of Tamils and Sinhalese – claim the footage they’d obtained was filmed in January this year and depicts the extra-judicial execution of Tamils by Sri Lankan government soldiers.

This video contains images that some may find distressing.

Today, the Sri Lankan Army spokesman, Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, dismissed the footage as a fabrication “made to discredit the armed forces.” He told AFP news agency that the Tamil Tigers also operated wearing the uniforms of government soldiers.

Channel 4 News was sent a second “categorical denial” from the Sri Lankan High Commissioner in London, who branded it “a deliberate and sinister attempt to prevent the reconciliation process that is now taking place…”

In Colombo, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs weighed in, calling our report a “concocted story” intended to “cause embarrassment and bring disrepute to the government of Sri Lanka.”

The Sri Lankan president’s media unit then released a statement saying the government “will make a strong protest to Channel 4 with regard to the contents of this video and also bring the matter to the notice of the relevant authorities…”

It described the footage as “false and doctored.” It promised to “pursue remedies available with regard to the distortion of truth.”

Personally, I think Steven Spielberg would have had a hard job staging this grim scene.

We were unable to verify the authenticity of the footage, but we did our level best to do so and we would not have broadcast our report had we not been confident with the expert analysis we received.

Before we went to air, I watched the video with a leading Sri Lankan human rights investigator – a Sinhalese himself – who provided forensic insights into its authenticity.

This investigator has many years of experience looking into abuses and impunity in his homeland, but he’d never seen anything like this.

Many detractors have made their points of view clear in emails to Channel 4 News or on the websites of newspapers like Sri Lanka’s Daily Mirror.

While it’s true that Tamil Tiger insurgents were known to masquerade in government uniforms, what makes the video credible is that telltale casual dialogue between the killers as they dispatch their helpless captives.

In rough provincial Sinhala accents, they jokingly argue over who gets to shoot whom.

They take turns, mockingly play-acting the popular folk game ‘kurupiti gahanawa wage’ – ‘Your Turn, My Turn.’

When the Bosnian Scorpion video emerged in Belgrade in 2005, the then UN War Crimes Prosecutor was in Belgrade and commented: “I have seen the video and there is no doubt about the perpetration of crimes.”

Two years later, a Serbian war crimes court sentenced four members of the group to a total of 58 years in prison for the extrajudicial executions.

Will this happen in Sri Lanka, if this video is indeed authenticated and these killings deemed prima facie evidence of war crimes?

The answer is a resounding “No.”

The Sri Lankan government has summarily rejected all calls for an independent investigation into alleged war crimes.

It is not within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court to investigate alleged war crimes in a state which is not party to the Rome statute (Sri Lanka isn’t) or in the absence of a UN Security Council Resolution, which instructs the ICC to investigate. This extremely unlikely to happen.

On 27 May, the UN Human Rights Council passed a flawed resolution, drafted by the Sri Lankan government, which actually commended the Sri Lankan government for its policies and celebrating its victory over the Tamil Tigers.

The resolution ignored calls for an investigation into alleged war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law.

Because of the clunky mechanics of the UN Security Council and the difficulty of passing unanimous resolutions on countries’ internal problems when many of those voting have awkward internal problems of their own, no resolution censuring Sri Lanka has been passed.

With the UNHRC resolution, the government of Sri Lanka probably thinks it’s off the hook which is perhaps why video footage of the sort that emerged yesterday has so alarmed Colombo.

Sinhalese and Tamil Sri Lankans who want to see impartial investigations into alleged human rights abuse have either had to flee into exile (like the group of journalists who obtained the video), have been arrested, beaten or killed – or remain there, ducking for cover.

Yesterday, an eminent Sri Lankan academic, Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, director of the Colombo-based think tank, the Center for Policy Alternatives, said he’d received an anonymous death threat.

His crime, it appears, was to lambast the UN for its failure to hold the government of Sri Lanka accountable.

“In Sri Lanka,” he’s quoted as saying, “there were a lot of us who had a palpable sense of disappointment with regard to the UN. Perhaps our expectations were too high.”

Sri Lanka’s long and horrible civil war killed as many as 80,000 people.

The Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam pioneered the use of suicide bombers and paid scant heed to the lives of civilians. They trained and used thousands of child-soldiers to fight the Sri Lankan Army.

If we’d obtained a video tape of these atrocities and abuses, we would have certainly sought to authenticate and then aired them too.

Sri Lanka: Execution Video Shows Need for International Inquiry

AUGUST 26, 2009 Human Rights watch

(New York) - A disturbing video recently provided to the media showing the apparent summary execution of prisoners by Sri Lankan soldiers underscores the need for an international commission of inquiry into possible war crimes committed by both sides during the armed conflict in Sri Lanka, Human Rights Watch said today.

The video shows men in Sri Lankan army uniforms firing assault rifles point-blank at two naked, blindfolded, and bound men sitting on the ground. Eight other bodies are visible on the ground nearby, all but one unclothed. According to Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, a multiethnic exile organization, the video was taken by a soldier with a cell phone in January 2009. While Human Rights Watch could not confirm the video's authenticity, an independent expert consulted found nothing in the video that would dispute its authenticity. The summary execution of prisoners is a violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and a war crime.

"The blood, blindfolds, and mud of this apparent atrocity makes nonsense of President Rajapaksa's claims of a clean war against the Tamil Tigers," said Steve Crawshaw, UN director at Human Rights Watch. "An international inquiry needs to get to the bottom of this and other war crimes committed during the past year's fighting."

Human Rights Watch reported numerous violations of the laws of war by both the Sri Lankan armed forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during the 25-year-long armed conflict, which ended with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in May. Because independent observers, including the media and human rights organizations, were prevented from operating near the war zone, the information available on the fighting and potential laws of war violations by both sides has been limited.

Before the government could launch an investigation, a Sri Lankan army spokesman already labeled the video a "fabrication."

Human Rights Watch has long criticized the government's failure to carry out impartial investigations and prosecutions of those responsible for the numerous human rights abuses committed by both sides during the conflict. There have been serious ongoing violations of human rights, and the backlog of cases of enforced disappearances and unlawful killings runs to the tens of thousands. Only a small number of cases have ended in prosecutions. Past efforts to address violations through the establishment of ad hoc mechanisms in Sri Lanka, such as presidential commissions of inquiry, have produced little information and few prosecutions.

Human Rights Watch called for the United Nations secretary-general or other UN body to create an independent international commission of inquiry to investigate violations of the laws of war by all parties to the armed conflict in Sri Lanka, and to make recommendations for the prosecution of those responsible. On May 23, President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, issued a joint statement from Sri Lanka in which the government said it "will take measures to address" the need for an accountability process for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

In a July interview with Time magazine, Rajapaksa said that during the war, "[t]here was no violation of human rights. There were no civilian casualties."

"Since telling the UN secretary-general three months ago that he'd conduct investigations, Rajapaksa has sat on his hands," said Crawshaw. "Ban should stop relying on the president's promises of domestic action and make it clear that an international commission is needed if the victims of Sri Lanka's bloody war are to find justice."

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Wednesday, 26 August 2009

Video shows purported atrocities in Sri Lanka conflict

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Video obtained by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka shows apparent atrocity
Video shows men being shot by men wearing what appear to be military fatigues
Sri Lankan official says gunmen in video not Sri Lankan army soldiers, video staged
Reports from survivors of Sri Lanka conflict suggest war crimes were committed

updated 11:36 p.m. EDT, Wed August 26, 2009

From Sara Sidner, CNN

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Naked, bound and blindfolded, a crudely shot video shows a man being pushed to the ground by men wearing what appear to be military, camouflage fatigues.

Sri Lanka's military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara claims the video was staged.

One of the men kicks the blindfolded man in the back. Another man raises a gun, points it at the back of the man's head and pulls the trigger.

A loud crack is heard; the man slumps to the ground.

Off-camera, someone can be heard saying in Sinhala, the majority language of Sri Lanka, "I think he looked back."

The execution-style shooting is repeated with a second man, also bound and naked. Off-camera, a voice can be heard saying, "This is like hitting midgets."

All the while someone is recording the scene, apparently with a cellphone camera. Panning across the open field, the camera reveals nine bodies, some lying in pools of blood. From the video alone, it's impossible to tell who they were or who killed them.

The video was obtained by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, an advocacy group based in Berlin, Germany, that accuses the Sri Lankan government of harassing and intimidating journalists.

CNN could not independently verify the authenticity of the video nor could it determine when or where it was shot, but sources in Sri Lanka told CNN they believe it was shot in January as the army closed in on the remnants of the Tigers.

Journalists for Democracy says it is evidence of atrocities committed during the final months of the 26-year conflict that became infamous for its merciless killing: the jungle warfare between the Sri Lankan army and the Tamil Tiger rebels.

Each side has accused the other of atrocities, though evidence surfaced to support the claims has surfaced only rarely.

A Sri Lankan official said the video proves nothing. Watch footage from the video »

"Sri Lankan soldiers never get involved in this kind of a situation," Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara told CNN. "We are 100 percent sure it has nothing to do with Sri Lankan soldiers; it is all created and staged."

Asked if he was saying the video was faked, he answered, "This is all fake ... I feel it's not an actual situation, it's a created one."

The Sri Lankan High Commission (Embassy) in London issued a statement to CNN affiliate Channel 4 News, which first aired the video, saying that, "in many instances in the past, various media institutions used doctored videos, photographs and documents to defame the Sri Lankan government and armed forces."

But Journalists for Democracy -- which would divulge neither how it obtained the video nor from where -- said the the men carrying out the executions are wearing Sri Lankan military uniforms.

Independent observers were largely excluded from the conflict zone during the war in Sri Lanka. Even today access remains tightly restricted.

Not everyone is buying the government's assertion that it was not involved in the killings.

"The Sri Lankan government has had a pattern of lying during this conflict," said Yolanda Foster, Amnesty International's Sri Lankan expert.

While the video's authenticity cannot be independently verified, the organization has received reports from survivors of the conflict that suggest war crimes were committed, she said.

"Given the restrictions given on the media, the fact that the government is not allowing people to freely interview the displaced who may be able to share accounts of what happened in the final months of the war, it is urgent that there is an independent investigation," Foster said.

That appears unlikely to occur any time soon. The government routinely rejects calls by human rights groups for independent investigations into its campaign against the Tigers.

But Nanayakkara told CNN the government will try to find out who is trying to discredit the Sri Lankan government by releasing what it called a faked video.

"This is to tarnish the image of Sri Lanka," he said.

Sri Lanka video prompts probe calls

Footage allegedly showing the killing of prisoners. Its authenticity cannot be verified. It has been edited here to remove the most disturbing images

Sri Lanka is facing fresh calls for an international human rights inquiry after video emerged apparently showing extra-judicial killings by troops.

The footage was allegedly filmed in January during the final stages of the bloody conflict with the Tamil Tigers.

It shows a man dressed as a soldier shooting a naked man in the head. Eight other bodies are seen on the ground.

It is impossible to verify the video's authenticity. Sri Lanka's government says the footage was fabricated.

Call for access

It is not clear where the film was shot or when.

The government of Sri Lanka must allow immediate access to the conflict area

Shaista Aziz
Amnesty International

The footage was provided to the BBC and other media organisations by a group called Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, which said it showed "the reality of the behaviour of the government forces during the war".

Government troops finally declared victory over the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) in May after months of fierce fighting.

Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka said the video had been taken in January 2009.

The group is based in Europe and was recently formed by Sri Lankan journalists, both Sinhalese and Tamil, who have fled the country.

Heavy fighting between troops and rebels went on for months

Nearly 50 journalists have done so in recent months because of fears of persecution by the government.

Independent media were banned by the government from travelling to the conflict zone in northern Sri Lanka.

Human rights group Amnesty International responded to the release of the video by repeating its call for "an international, independent and credible investigation into what took place during the final days of the conflict".

"Amnesty International has received consistent reports that violations of the laws of war, as well as international human rights law, were committed by both sides in the conflict," a statement said.

"The government of Sri Lanka must allow immediate access to the conflict area so that evidence and documents, as well as testimony from survivors, can be gathered."

'Terrorists'

Sri Lanka's military said the video was aimed at discrediting the armed forces and said the rebels were known to dress in military uniforms.

Sri Lanka denies the execution claim

The government categorically denied that troops had carried out atrocities and suggested the footage had been fabricated by pro-rebel groups.

"The Sri Lankan army never engaged with Tamil civilians. Our fight was with the LTTE terrorists," High Commissioner to Britain Nihal Jayasinghe told the BBC.

He said "well-documented evidence" of human rights violations was needed before there could be any United Nations inquiry.

Both sides in Sri Lanka's conflict have been accused of numerous atrocities and human rights violations over the years.

Many killings have also been blamed on proxy militias said to be working for one side or the other.

The UN estimates that more than 80,000 people were killed in the decades-long ethnic conflict.

The rebels were fighting for a separate state for Tamils in Sri Lanka's north and east.

They argued that Tamils had been discriminated against by successive majority Sinhalese governments.

News Source: BBC

Sri Lanka denies execution claim
The Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Britain, Nihal Jayasinghe, has strongly denied allegations by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, who have released footage they claim shows the execution of Tamil Tiger prisoners by the Sri Lankan military.
Speaking to BBC News, Mr Jayasinghe said that it was "common knowledge" that the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) "masqueraded" in Sri Lankan uniforms as a form of "disinformation".
READ MORE: S Lanka video prompts probe calls

Sri Lanka's Genocide on Tamils

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Friday, 28 August 2009

Tamils for Obama: Keep the Sri Lankan War Criminals Out of the U.S.

"We Don't Want Development, We Want Our Rights!"

Nimmi Gowrinathan
Posted: August 27, 2009 04:09 PM
huffingtonpost