Jim Lehrer

52 Years in Journalism

ANALYSIS    AIR DATE: June 15, 2011

International Groups Examine Allegations of ‘Summary Executions’ in Sri Lanka

SUMMARY

Ray Suarez discusses allegations that Sri Lankan forces killed thousands of civilians toward the end of the country’s civil war with Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to the U.S. Jaliya Wickramasuriya and Mark Schneider of The International Crisis Group.

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PART 1: Sri Lanka Accused of Human Rights Abuses »

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Transcript

RAY SUAREZ: Late today, we heard the response of Sri Lanka’s government from the island nation’s ambassador to the U.S., Jaliya Wickramasuriya.

We spoke with him here at the embassy in Washington.

ARTICLE TOOLS

ALIYA WICKRAMASURIYA, Sri Lankan ambassador to the United States: We believe that this video not authentic. This is produced as a piece of propaganda.

RAY SUAREZ: The documentary goes much further than the video and says that the government created a no-fire zone, asked Tamil civilians to enter it, and then made artillery strikes on these places, involving widespread killing of civilians.

JALIYA WICKRAMASURIYA: All this is propaganda.

A lot of people can say a lot of things. We like to see credible evidence for anything. For any war, anybody can say, you know, this person was killed by an army artillery or the LTTE artillery.



International Groups Examine Sri Lanka Allegations

So, we need to see the evidence to believe that. So, in fact, as you know, what we did was, as a government, we rescued nearly 300,000 innocent civilians who were just taken by the LTTE, by this terrorist group, as human shields.

As a government, we started safe passages. And, also, we had to open up enough roads and take out these innocent civilians. In fact, we lost more than 6,000 soldiers by trying to do that. Our president has created a commission called Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission. We do not want this bloody war come again. But we have suffered enough.

And we are Sri Lankans. As Sri Lankan people, we do not want these terrorists to come back. That is the very reason president of Sri Lanka appointed this very, very, very prestigious commission.

RAY SUAREZ: You can watch all the documentary "Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields: on Channel 4′s Web site.

And for more on the international response to the allegations of mass killing, we go to Mark Schneider, senior vice president of the International Crisis Group. He is in charge of advocacy with the U.S. government and international organizations.

And, Mark Schneider, does the information that the ICG has support Channel 4′s documentary?

MARK SCHNEIDER, International Crisis Group: It does, indeed.

And we issued a report a year ago that, in fact, found the tens of thousands of civilians that had been killed in the final months of the war, and specifically, as the documentary indicated, most of them had come into these areas that the government promised were going to be safe, so-called no-fire zones.

In fact, the government really turned them into free-fire zones, in which they shelled hospitals, food centers. And, in the end, actually, as people were leaving the area, after the war essentially was over, as you have seen from the documentary, there were summary executions of individuals. Some of those leaders who allegedly were seeking to surrender apparently also were killed.

And this comes to us now also from a special panel of experts that the United Nations secretary-general appointed to look into these questions.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, you say you issued this report a year ago. Why do you think there was so little international interest in killing on this scale?

MARK SCHNEIDER: I think the reality is that all of us recognize that the Tamil Tigers, the LTTE, were a terrorist organization that had carried out horrendous acts themselves, suicide bombings, et cetera.

And what we basically said, though, is that this cannot justify a government and its armed forces carrying out essentially the same kinds of acts of war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law. Unfortunately, there was no immediate venue for someone to carry out the investigation because the government refused to permit international human rights or other kinds of inquiries.

RAY SUAREZ: As you heard, the ambassador talked about the Lessons Learned Reconciliation Commission, a Sri Lankan investigation into the events in the final months of the war, and said, because of the existence of that commission, Sri Lanka will not cooperate with any further U.N. investigation.

MARK SCHNEIDER: Well, we hope that the United States government, that the United Kingdom and others will press the secretary-general, in fact, to form his own international commission of inquiry. That’s really the only hope we have.

The fact is, is that that Lessons Learned Commission is totally biased. The U.N. panel of experts said it fails to meet international standards. It’s chaired by the former — the former attorney general of this government. It has in that commission several members who are government representatives as well.

And so it fails basically in terms of finding the truth, and it fails also in the ability to actually bring charges against those it finds to be responsible. One other point I would make is that going up to the — those who are responsible at the top levels of the government, one has to ask the United States, the U.K. and others to investigate who among their citizens, dual citizens, had responsibilities for carrying out the war policy.

In this case, the former — the minister of defense and the adviser to the president, both brothers of the president, we have heard are dual citizens of the United States. One would hope that that would be investigated here.

RAY SUAREZ: Mark Schneider of the International Crisis Group, thanks for joining us.

MARK SCHNEIDER: Thank you.



PART 1: Sri Lanka Accused of Human Rights Abuses »

PART 2

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• 

  Johna1965 1 hour ago in reply to MAH

  MAH !

  
  

  Please view the video again!!!!

  They speak in sinhala, so you don’t need translation…

  
  

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  Johna1965 2 hours ago in reply to MAH

  You must be joking… Chanel 4 is a reputable new agency unlike Rubavahini… so just accept the facts and find a way to deal with it.

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  Kumar999 2 hours ago

  I sympathize with the Sri Lankans living abroad who have to defend this undefendable mess to your neighbors and friends.

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  Rehan Mohd 3 hours ago

  The goverment is always in a denial mode and anyone who speaks the facts are  labelled  LTTE supporters. Not a single independent or international reporter was allowed to cover the war zone during war or after the war. Even the UN appointed officials were denied visas when the report was prepared. All these facts clearly support the criminal behaviour of the regime ,targetting of ethnic minority Tamils in conducting a genocidal war. Even now they are hastily engaged in covering up the mass graves ( called demining operations – for which the West contributes financially).   The situation is 10 times more demanding than Libya – so how come the civilised international community is so silent ?

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  Raja 4 hours ago in reply to Jv_416

  First of all it has been reported by the Red Cross that less than 1500 civiliance had died during the last stages and that too by trying to escape from the LTTE. Secondly the 40,000 was worked out by London Times, assuming 2000 a day would have died and therefore, in 20 days, 40000. Thirdly, the videos shown must be the killings of prisoners by the LTTE terrorists themselves and many of them are now residing in Western countries and have these videos as trophies.

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  MAH 6 hours ago

  Is the International Crisis Group set up to solve crises or create them.  There is not yet one shred of evidence about who was involved in the murders depicted in the Channel 4 aired program.  That all these videos have earlier appeared in LTTE propaganda web sites should start many governments to think before they open their Tamil diaspora driven constituency mouths.    This has been biased from the beginning and is obviously driven by something other than finding out the truth.   Outsiders have no voice in determining the destiny and future of Sri Lanka.  It was outsiders who instigated this entire mess to begin with.

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  Scrivanam Muttu 7 hours ago

  Further, why is there so little interest is also a good question. There are two possible answers: 1. The so-called International Community under cover of the 2002 Peace Process with a loan/aid of 5.4 B $ supposedly meant for reconstruction and rehabilitation of the north and east of the island supplied that government with arms and armaments after which the President in 2004 sacked the more mild elected Prime Minister by a gazette notification and paved the way for her political party (SLFP) to contest the general elections in 2005. But the present President under his own variant of the SLFP won the election on the promsie to re-wage war and he won by a slender majority. He annulled unilaterally the 2002 Peace Process, embraced the ‘war on terror’  policy and now we have the results of a genocidal war! 2. The India factor. India wanted the SL problem on  low key because of its own failure with its mission in 1987  which ended in withdrawl of the Indian Peace Keeping Force which was forced to withdraw due to failures and killings. It even voted with Sri Lanka in the UNHRC vote on the the issue in 2008. But it is back on the agenda in the UNHRC due to the unresolved human rights issue backed by the Channel 4 video. Internal politics in Tamil naadu has forced the Center to re-think its position!

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  tomas 7 hours ago

  Not only SL military , people like  Nowegian minister Solheim who funded – money, knowhow,eqpt,  and millbands from UK who supported tthem and abondebed LTTE group when they lost the war. and inocents died thousands of people..

  
  

  also must be punished same as military. They didnt even request LTTE to release civilians. and only gave them self confidence to fight a losing battle. which they knew losing.

  
  

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  Claire 12 hours ago

  My logical conclusion as an ordinary citizen is: If the sri lankan government has a clear conscience, they should invite independant international observers to their country, let them talk freely to the people in the north and east and let them see for themselves what is going on in this former war zone right now. I have been deeply disturbed by this film….

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  Thiru 15 hours ago

  Thank you PBS for airing this Genocide of Tamils in Ceylon(SriLanka).

  
  

  It’s action of the few that will bring end to ongoing carnage against Tamils in this almost(morally) sinking island if Indian ocean.

  
  

  rica

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