Published On: Sat, Nov 12th, 2011

By eelamaran

Referring to the Channel-4 documentary Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, journalists, Dirk Maxeiner and Michael Miersch, in an opinion column that appeared in German newspaper Die Welt said that the massacre of Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka by the State military is five times the killings from Srebrenica genocide, and 80 times the numbers killed in the Mai Lai massacre. “Colombo successfully covered up the killings by sending away the UN observers on the grounds that the State will not be able to ensure their safety, and then began the mass murder,” Die Welt said on 03 November.

Sri Lanka Killing fields (Courtesy: Die Zeit)

Sri Lanka Killing fields (Courtesy: Die Zeit)

Noting that Internet technology has given the world audience unprecedented access to information occurring anywhere in the world, the article said, “this week our daily mood was affected as we watched in horror the British documentary uncovering the brutal mass murder in Sri Lanka where 40,000 civilians died in 2009, 80 times more than those killed in Vietnam’s My Lai.”

Information reaching us in the early months of 2009, said thousands of civilians were fleeing from the combat zone between the army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), but “now it has been established that 40,000 of them fell victim to a massacre.”

The “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields” documented by a British Television crew has created a storm of indignation on the massacre, the paper said. “The documentary shows how the Sri Lanka Army in the final battle against the “terrorist” organization Tamil Tigers in the north of the island, lured hundreds of thousands of people using the insidious strategy of leadership to safe protection zones, and relentlessly shelled the area. This was deliberately planned, and about 40,000 civilians lost their lives by the shelling,” the paper said.

For two years, covering up the war crimes

The mass murder in My Lai Vietnam where American soldiers killed 503 villagers, women, children, and old people, created a storm of protest in Germany. The announcement of the crime led to a turnaround in public opinion for war. After all, the officer in charge was later tried and punished, the article said.

“In Sri Lanka, 40 000 unarmed civilians were killed, which is 80 times My Lai, and five times Srebrenica. We read in 2009 that there was a terrible final battle against the “terrorists” and talk of civilian casualties from cross-fire. Only now the real truth is being revealed by the documentary by Channel-4. The documentary shows mainly mobile phone recordings of eye witnesses, combined with so-called trophy pictures that were taken from offenders. The Government of Sri Lanka was able, for two years to hide their war crimes before the world.

Thousands of German have made the palm-fringed beaches to the south of the island as their holiday destinations since 2009. .The successful cover-up was possible because the military sent away the last UN observers, on the grounds that they could no longer guarantee their safety. As they left, there were no more foreign witnesses and the mass murder began, the paper said.

TamilNet

External Links:

Wiki:

Srebrenica massacre

Die Welt:

Ein Gemetzel, so groß wie 80 My-Lai-Massaker

TA:

Sri Lanka faces its ‘Srebrenica moment’

YouTube:

Srebrenica massacre of 8000 Muslims, 1975

Wiki:

My lai masscare