Video showing war crimes surfaces brewing more trouble for visiting Sri Lankan President

A new video showing alleged summarily executions of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres by the Sri Lankan military has been released online and aired on Channel4, amidst a rough welcome to the Sri Lankan President during his state visit to the United Kingdom.

The Sri Lankan Government issued a statement from the High Commission in the United Kingdom drawing parallels to a short version of the same video which was released last year, categorically denying its authenticity.

The statement referred to a video which was released last year by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS), later aired by Channel4, which the Sri Lankan Government claimed was fabricated.

“Last year when Channel 4 News telecast a similar video the Government of Sri Lanka clearly established, by reference to technical considerations, that it was not genuine but fake,” the High Commission said in it’s statement. “The present video is nothing more than an elongated version of the same video”.

The claims that the first video was fabricated were refuted by United Nations’s Special Rapporteur Prof. Philip Alston, who after investigations which included a panel consisting of a forensic pathologist, a forensic video analyst and a firearms expert concluded the video to be genuine.

The new video, running for nearly six minutes, shows the execution of two blindfolded naked men by persons dressed in Sri Lankan Army uniforms, speaking in Sinhala.

At the beginning of the video a voice of someone appearing to be a commanding officer tells “Everybody else leave. Now enough”, immediately prior to one execution.

A second execution follows a few seconds later, and “He’s the one that I asked for” can be heard in Sinhala in the background, before the execution takes place.

The videographer shows stripped bodies, and pauses over a dead body of a female which is covered by a cloth before asking a colleague to remove the cloth, and then proceeds to comment on the body using sexual innuendo.

Over twenty bodies can be seen lying in mud in the video, which JDS claimed was recorded in January 2009 when fighting escalated between Government forces and the LTTE.

One of the female bodies was identified by LTTE’s media wing TamilNet as 27-year old Isaippiriya, a media specialist who was working with the LTTE.

TamilNet quoted their former correspondent in Vanni, in the North of Sri Lanka, as saying “I am able to learn through those who have been at Mu’l'livaaykkaal in the final days of war, that Shoba (nom de guerre, Isaippiriya) remained unarmed and did not take part in combat”.

Faces of persons dressed in Sri Lanka Army uniforms can be seen in the video, along with another individual who records the action using his mobile phone.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa arrived at Heathrow Airport in London Novermber 30, in a trip that was delayed by over a month which was cited as owing to protests by Tamil advocacy groups.

Rajapaksa had to be whisked away through an alternate exit as a large number of Tamils gathered to protest outside Heathrow Airport, reported Channel4.

Rajapaksa who was scheduled to deliver a lecture at the Oxford Union later pulled out, owing to continued protests on the issue of war crimes related to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, and his personal security.

Tamil advocacy groups earlier attempted to secure an arrest warrant for Rajapaksa, alleging war crimes committed during the Eelam War IV.

In a statement issued through a PR-Agency, Rajapaksa said “I am very sorry this has had to be cancelled but I will continue to seek venues in the UK and elsewhere where I can talk about my future vision for Sri Lanka,” citing security as the reason for the cancellation of the lecture at the Oxford Union.

Meanwhile a cable to the State Department of the United States dated January 15, 2010 that originated from Colombo held Rajapaksa accountable for the civilian deaths and criticised the lack of transparency and investigations into war crimes by the regime.

The cable, authored by the US Ambassador for Sri Lanka Patricia A. Butenis and marked as Secret states “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”.

“In Sri Lanka this is further complicated by the fact that responsibility for many of the alleged crimes rests with the country’s senior civilian and military leadership, including President Rajapaksa and his brothers and opposition candidate General Fonseka,” stated the cable which was leaked by whistleblower organization Wikileaks.

United Nations says that over 100,000 people including civilians, rebels and military died in the ethnic conflict of Sri Lanka that was fought between primarily the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Government for the establishment of an independent Tamil homeland.

The violent conflict which was fought over the space of four wars over three decades, ended in May 19, 2009 with the death of the LTTE supremo Vellipillai Prabhakaran.

The Sri Lankan Government including President Rajapaksa, his brother and Secretary of Defence Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, and former Commander of the Army and later political rival Sarath Fonseka, have been accused by human rights groups and watchdog organisations of war crimes during the last phases of the war.

Copies of the video can be found online. Due to it’s extremely graphic nature, I will not be linking to the video. This post is an edited copy for an article that I wrote for the College Magazine.

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