By José Luis Díaz | Amnesty International
As we prepared for the screening today of the Channel 4 film, “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields” at Amnesty International’s United Nations office in New York, our main worry was the size of the turnout.
We had already seen the cancellation of a separate screening for the media at UN headquarters because it would have clashed with the UN General Assembly vote – decided only a few days ago – giving Ban Ki-moon a second term as Secretary-General.
The fairly sizeable audience that eventually made it to the screening was surely not expecting to learn much that was new: the events at the end of the war in Sri Lanka in 2009 have been well documented, and the documentary was broadcast in the UK last week before being put on the web.
Still, no one is really prepared for the gruesome, heartrending and nearly unbearable images, captured by victims and sometimes by perpetrators, of civilians under deliberate attack and summary executions.
The film shocks you into silence. And so it was today: during the screening there was hardly a sound from the audience of diplomats, journalists and human rights workers, not even the otherwise ubiquitous pecking on smart phone keys.
The only noise came from the scribbling of the Sri Lankan ambassador to the UN and his deputy, who took notes in order to respond to the film.
Dr Palitha Kohona and Major General Shavendra Silva headed a 15-member Sri Lankan delegation to the screening. Silva is featured in the film, because in 2009 he headed the Sri Lankan army’s 58th Division, accused, among other things, of executing LTTE leaders attempting to surrender.
Their defence of the government was curious. In essence, they maintained that if the international community has done almost nothing to establish accountability in Sri Lanka – unlike the case of Sudan or Libya – it is because nothing untoward has happened there. But, as the saying goes, facts are stubborn things, including those recorded by mobile phone video cameras and detailed in reports by the United Nations, Amnesty International and others.
Even Kohona was forced to admit that in part, saying, during the discussion after the screening, that the film seemed to show some violations that would be looked at. A small concession, perhaps, but one that needs to be seen in the context of decades of basically sham national commissions of inquiry and “lessons learned” panels.
Meanwhile, as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon begins his second term our hope is that he stops sitting on a report drafted by experts he appointed and governments strongly back their call for an international investigation into the outrages perpetrated two years ago in Sri Lanka.
© Amnesty International
Sri Lanka's civil war killed up to 100,000 people and displaced thousands©Amnesty International
By Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International Asia-Pacific Director
Far from the lenses of television cameras and the print of news headlines that typify war reporting today, tens of thousands of civilians – perhaps as many as 40,000 – were killed in the last terrible phase of fighting of Sri Lanka’s civil war between the brutal Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sri Lankan government.
No reporters were allowed near the war zone, blocked by the Sri Lankan Government in an attempt to hide the death and destruction from the world.
But in this era of mobile phones and digital technology, hiding the truth is difficult.
This week the UK’s Channel 4 Television exclusively aired a series of shocking insights into the events of those final bloody weeks of conflict in 2009.
In a rare move, Channel 4 has made ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’, an hour-long documentary, available internationally online.
A global audience will be able to see devastating scenes that seem to show Sri Lankan government troops executing prisoners. They can see dead female Tamil Tigers who appear to have been raped and murdered. And they can see the cynical use by Tamil Tigers of civilians as a buffer against the Sri Lankan military.
They can even see the shelling by Sri Lankan forces of crowded hospitals and civilian encampments in areas that the authorities ironically dubbed “no-fire zones”. The images reveal hidden truths about crimes against humanity committed by both sides -both committed to victory at any cost and seemingly uncaring about the suffering of those whose fates they were fighting over.
The images also highlight the need for those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity to be held to account, to secure the stability that post conflict Sri Lanka so badly needs. It has been proven that acknowledging the truth is a first step towards reconciliation, so why should this be denied to the people of Sri Lanka?
A panel of three eminent international legal experts appointed by the UN Secretary General independently found credible allegations that war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed by both parties to the conflict from May to June 2009.
These findings corroborate Amnesty International’s own conclusions. But in the two years since fighting ended, no justice has been delivered. That may be about to change, and the international awareness generated by the ‘Killing Fields’ documentary could prove the tipping point.
The UN Panel of Experts suggested that only an international accountability mechanism could investigate the serious allegations properly. Such a mechanism is crucial to avoid a horrifically negative precedent for lawless behaviour worldwide, and to act as a neutral and independent body to bring out the truth that must be at the heart of genuine reconciliation.
The Sri Lankan government’s apologists have argued that civilian deaths in Sri Lanka were a necessary price to pay for the defeat of the Tamil Tigers – a group listed by many governments as a terrorist organization – allowing for evidence implicating the Sri Lankan government in war crimes to be overlooked.
But the report of the UN Panel of Experts is public, as is the ‘Killing Fields’ documentary.
While China, Russia, Cuba, and Pakistan continue to support Sri Lanka’s demands for impunity, other influential governments are less inclined.
Neighbouring India, has demanded real moves toward reconciliation in Sri Lanka and notably, has not been swayed by the Sri Lankan global charm offensive. Similarly, the US has suggested it will not rule out international accountability. Many governments from the global South have also voiced disquiet about the emerging evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Ban Ki-Moon has suggested that he can only establish an international investigation if the Sri Lankan government consents, or through “a decision from Member States” through a forum such as the Human Rights Council or UN Security Council.
It would be a sad day for the authority of the Secretary General—and the implicit moral stature of his position if he could only authorize investigations approved by the government under scrutiny.
The UN and its member states need to act now to ensure that what happened in Sri Lanka is not overlooked and forgotten.
At Amnesty International we hope that ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ awakens the public’s outrage and puts pressure on governments to support a genuine reconciliation in Sri Lanka.
Justice can only be served and healing delivered if the international community launches an international, independent investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Sri Lanka. This historic opportunity must be seized, or the price for us all will be intolerably high.
Watch the Channel 4 Documentary ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ online until Tuesday 21 June:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/sri-lankas-killing-fields