No fire zone : the killing fields of Sri Lanka

Anil Narendra

The Sri Lankan Army committed numerous war crimes during the last months of twenty six years of the civil war against Tamil Elam or the Tamil Tigers. These war crimes were finding mention in the media, but no reliable testimony was available of these crimes. Last week, a documentary film on the last days of the war was released. The film documents deeply disturbing pictures of last 138 days of the war that ended in May 2009. The film titled ‘No Fire zone: the Killing Fields of Sri Lanka’ has been produced by Callum Macrae. Before its launch at United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Macrae said that the film should be viewed as a proof of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He said that real truth is surfacing. Sri Lankan Ambassador in Geneva, Ravinath Arya Sinha, strongly opposed the exhibition of this film. The screening of this documentary film was organized by the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and they called for an international probe by the UN Human Rights Council. They blamed that the internal Sri Lankan body, the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Council of hiding the role of Army. The documentary tells that the Sri Lankan Government had created ‘No Fire Zone’ in January 2009, but this ‘No Fire Zone’ proved a trap for thousands of citizens who had reached there in the hope of their safety. There was heavy firing in this area and the film has captured the scenes of bodies of children, men and women drenched in blood and severed human limbs all over. According to the UN estimates, about 40,000 people were killed during the last months of the war. Most of these casualties were the result of indiscriminate firing by the Sri Lankan forces. A UN staffer trapped in this No Fire Zone for about two weeks asked in the film as to why the Government created a no fire zone within the range of its arms and ammunition? He said, ‘There is only one intent and that is because you don’t really care you are going to kill the people that are located in that safer zone or more importantly you are actively targeting them’ He said that he considered latter to be more true. In another report, last week, two photographs of younger son of V Prabhakaran have been shown. In the first photograph, the boy is alive, he is arrested but not dead, but in other, he is shown dead. The Sri Lankan Government has, however, claimed that he had not been killed by it, but it was a hollow claim. Along with Tamil Tigers, its supporters, the Sri Lankans of Tamil origin were also being killed. Now, this fact has been laid bare. Mahinda Rajpaksa, the President of Sri Lanka, is now in the dock and entire world is looking forward for clarification from him.