TamilNet has commented on the British Television Channel 4 programme on Monday which revealed a new film that showed Tamil ‘victims of Sri Lanka’s war suffering poor conditions in UN-funded camps’.
The new footage, allegedly taken on a mobile phone, was sent to Channel 4 from the group War Without Witness.
It was reportedly shot two weeks ago in Vavuniyaa, in northern Sri Lanka, where more than 300,000 Tamils are being interned in Sri Lanka military supervised camps.
Sri Lanka’s spokesperson, while insisting that the United Nations is active inside the camps, responded that the malnutrition statistics reflect ‘Western standards’, indeed malnutrition is present in other parts of Sri Lanka, and also that the situation was worse under the Liberation Tigers.
‘Patients on intravenous drips lying on mud floors, a man so weak he is unable to brush the flies from his face,’ Channel 4 says in its broadcast, and adds, ‘the concern now is that when the monsoon rain season begins, the camp will be flooded.’
‘The plight of Tamil children was raised by Unicef spokesman James Elder, who has just been expelled from the country after being accused by the government of spreading Tamil Tiger propaganda,’ the broadcast said.
Prof Rajiva Wijesinghe, secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights accuses Channel 4 of ‘ridiculous behaviour’ and says that Colombo would not invite Channel 4 to Sri Lanka to tour the camps.
Sri Lanka is also taking hurried measures to contain the negative publicity and allegations of war crimes generated by the summary-execution video which was taken by a Sri Lankan soldier.
Summary executions violate Common Article 3 to the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, to which Sri Lanka is a contracting Party, prohibiting in subsection I(d) ‘… the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court …’
Violations of the Geneva Conventions are war crimes, said Professor Francis Boyle, after watching the video on the cold-blooded extra-judicial killings carried out by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers, published by a German-based group ‘Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS)’ on Tuesday, August 25th.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan E Rice, during a press briefing late last week, when asked if she ‘expects the Council to take that issue (soldiers shooting naked prisoners) up in any way,’ responded: ‘With respect to Sri Lanka, again speaking in a national capacity, these reports are very disturbing.
‘They’re of grave concern. We’d like more information as we formulate our own national response.’
Channel 4 reporter Jonathan Miller, who aired the execution video, responded to the Sri Lanka President’s media unit’s characterisation of the footage as ‘false and doctored,’ saying that ‘Steven Spielberg would have had a hard job staging this grim scene.’
Meanwhile, The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), one-time ally of the government, has decided to vote against the Emergency Regulations (ER) in parliament as the government has used it to suppress the media, the trade unions and oppress opponents, said Colombo media reports quoting parliamentarian K D Lal Kantha, trade union leader of the party on Wednesday.
‘Now that terrorism is wiped out, there is no necessity to continue the State of Emergency in the country,’ Mr. Lal Kantha said.
‘Besides the government has been implementing the Emergency Regulations and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) to suppress the media and harass people from expressing their dissenting views.’
The country had witnessed the killing of more than a dozen media personnel in the last three years and arrest and imprisonment of media personnel under the ER and the PTA, he said.
Three journalists working on the JVP-run ‘Lanka’ news paper were released on cash and surety bail on Tuesday by Morawaka Magistrate when they were produced in court.
The police did not object to the release of journalists Ravindra Pushpakumara, Shalika Wimalasena and Daya Neththasinghe who were arrested on August 1 in Deniyaya and later transferred to Colombo and held in the custody of the Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) under the ER and PTA.
The JVP leadership during the weekend had announced that it would have to take a decision whether to continue its support to extend the State of Emergency by the parliament in view of the arrest of its journalists for allegedly trespassing into private property belonging to a prominent politician in Deniyaya.
JVP has been supporting the extension of the State of Emergency every month in parliament after it withdrew its support to the government.
The Prime Minister was to table a motion in parliament yesterday, Thursday, seeking the approval to extend the State of Emergency by another month.
The State of Emergency has been in force since August 12 2005.
l Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has ruled that certain sections of the Amended Parliamentary Elections Bill are inconsistent with the Constitution, Speaker W.J.M Lokkubandara informed Parliament on Tuesday.
A section in the Bill banning political parties signifying a race or a religion is a violation of fundamental rights of the citizens.
Hence, the Bill is inconsistent with the Constitution and will require two-third majority to be approved by Parliament, he said.
The Supreme Court conveyed its ruling to the Speaker after inquiring into several petitions filed against the Amended Bill, parliamentary sources said.
The Speaker tabled the ruling of the Supreme Court on five FR petitions filed separately by the main opposition United National Party (UNP), Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and Peoples Wing of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP-M) in parliament Tuesday when it resumed sitting for the month of September.
Three petitions were filed on August 11 and two on August 12. All were inquired by the Supreme Court on August 31.
Counsel Jayampathy Wickremaratne with Nizam Kaariappar appeared for the SLMC. Counsel J Niles appeared for the UNP.
Minister Dinesh Gunawardene, Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Election Reforms who presented the Bill in parliament on August 6, was also present in court at that time of inquiry.
