Mahinda Gunasekera

Main segment showing extra-judicial killings is a digitally altered video per experts with 17 frames and apparently dubbed Sinhala words not in sync with the rest. Inscribed date on the video is UTC 2009-07-15 13:17:23, which is after the war ended. The perpetrators, victims or place of the incident are not known, but John Snow asserts the victims are Tamils and the perpetrators are Sri Lankan Army soldiers.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ A 2nd video of the same event with Tamil words spoken can be accessed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohI3CSD4neM . It is well known that Tamil Tigers have carried out similar atrocities dressed in Sri Lankan Army uniforms that came into their possession when they overran army camps in past years. Asylum seeker to Canada admitted to his having been asked to shoot Sri Lankan soldiers held prisoner, vide Global News of 4/19/11 by Doug Quan in the Postmedia News, i.e. http://www.globalnews.ca/world/Tamil+migrant+have+taken+part+shooting+soldiers+hearing+told4643627/story.html. It could well be Tamil Tigers in Lankan Army uniforms killing soldiers to frame Sri Lanka.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Snow’s figures of population stats and civilian deaths are baseless guesstimates and only tallies with numbers given in the Tamilnet which is a propaganda arm of the Tamil Tigers. Gordon Weiss’ estimate of 7000 civilian deaths was rejected by UN’s Sir John Holmes as unverified and unreliable, as he pointed out that the UN did not have a presence on the ground.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Rest of the video has an assortment of unattributed and uncorroborated pictures with comments from unknown sources incl. Vany Kumar a LTTE activist from UK with 3 aliases being used as a narrator. Assertion of rape of female Tiger cadres, targeting of hospitals and civilian food lines not established. Injured at makeshift hospitals could be Tiger cadres and combatant civilians injured at the front and not victims of shelling, as Tigers mainly wore civilian attire in battle. Some footage from Airforce bombing a jungle target was misrepresented as an attack on civilians. It is a malicious attempt to tarnish Sri Lanka’s image.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ The UNSGƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s Panel report which is a mere collection of allegations based on hearsay evidence that did not adhere to the UN standards of openness and scrutiny, and even locked up the material reviewed by them for a period of 20 years is quoted as a supporting document.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ A.A. Gill writing in the Sunday Times of the UK about the same video commented as follows:

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-The channel has accumulated a large collection of samizdat amateur footage from mobile phones and video cameras – mostly un-attributed and uncorroborated. It mixes this footage with comment from unnamed sources with distorted voices and shadowed faces and human rights lawyers. It was brutal, it was shocking, but it wasn’t journalism. Not a second of this has been shot by Channel 4; none of the eyewitness accounts comes from journalists.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Re-broadcast of this highly questionable video where baseless assertions and innuendo is used by John Snow and the other narrators to falsely accuse the Sri Lankan authorities could open your company to a legal action for damages caused to a sovereign nation.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Sri Lanka’s 20 million people from the different ethnic groups are co-existing in peace and harmony after the 3 decade long violence including suicide terrorism on the part of the Tamil Tigers was completely neutralized on May 18, 2009. “