‘Sri Lanka's Killing Fields’ in US Congress: Sponsor Congressman McGovern, Supporter of Colombian terrorist FARC
Daya Gamage – Asian Tribune Foreign News Desk
Washington, DC. 15 July (Asiantribune.com):
Co-sponsor of the controversial documentary ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Field’ produced by Channel 4 scheduled to be screened at Capitol Visitor Center of the United States Congress on Friday, 15 July and the keynote speaker at the screening Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Jim McGovern has a dubious record of maintaining a rapport and supporting the Colombian rebel organization Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) whose main aim is to overthrow the democratic government of Colombia.
Now, Mr. McGovern is in league with organizations that are aiming to destabilize the democratic government of Sri Lanka, halt that government’s initiation toward reconciliation and disrupt the consolidation of peace this South Asian nation gained with the defeat of terrorist/separatist Tamil Tigers or the LTTE in May 2009.
The mechanism of a section of Sri Lanka Tamil Diaspora in the United States by strategically influencing the international rights groups and the U.S. lawmakers, in the name of human rights for the Sri Lanka Tamil ethnic group, is to haul the leaders of the Sri Lanka government to international criminal court and destabilize the nation in return for the total annihilation of the Tamil Tigers. The result expected is the creation of an international awareness that the creation of an ethnic state in the north and east of that country inevitable.
It is to this scenario that Congressman Jim McGovern, the co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission previously known as the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, has emerged in support of the international machination to create a ‘Kosovo-type’ situation in Sri Lanka.
Mr. McGovern is the ideal candidate to spearhead this “Kosovo-type’ agenda that the Sri Lanka terrorist leader V. Prabhakaran could not achieve during his 26-year blatant terror unleashed against his own Tamil people and others in Sri Lanka.
Here’s how Congressman Jim McGovern fits into the ‘agenda’ of creating a mindset among some nations in the West and international rights groups that Sri Lankan minority Tamil ethnic group need to have a separate/independent state.
US Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass) was offering the Marxist FARC terrorists assistance in undermining the democratic Colombian government discovered on the computer of FARC rebel leader Raul Reyes after his death in March 2008 at an Ecuadorean FARC camp.
A military strike killed Raúl Reyes, No. 2 in command of the FARC, Colombia's most notorious terrorist group. The Reyes hard drive reveals an ardent effort to do business directly with the FARC by Congressman James McGovern (D., Mass). Mr. McGovern has been working with an American go-between, who has been offering the rebels help in undermining Colombia's elected and popular government.
The Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces in Colombia (FARC) is designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in the United States.
Interpol at that time confirmed that documents on the captured computer of FARC leader had not been manufactured by the Colombian government.
One of the documents shows that US Congressman McGovern offering the FARC terrorists help in undermining Colombia’s elected and popular government. Colombia is America’s closest ally in South America.
The Wall Street Journal reported on the information discovered on the FARC computers:
The Reyes hard drive reveals an ardent effort to do business directly with the FARC by Congressman James McGovern (D., Mass.), a leading opponent of the free-trade deal. Mr. McGovern has been working with an American go-between, who has been offering the rebels help in undermining Colombia’s elected and popular government.
Mr. McGovern’s press office says the Congressman is merely working at the behest of families whose relatives are held as FARC kidnap hostages. However, his go-between’s letters reveal more than routine intervention.
The US Media at that time completely ignored this story! The question posed at that time: You would think that the fact that a Democratic Leader was found doing business with a terror group and was undermining a staunch US ally at the same time might garner some media attention. You’d think?
Democracy sometimes is defined as being a work in progress and under that standard Colombia is recording measurable improvement, an expert on Colombia at that time told the US Government web site America.gov.
Gerard Martin, director of the Colombia program at Georgetown University in Washington, said that despite rampant drug trafficking and civil unrest that has continued for more than 40 years, Colombia is becoming a Latin American success story and much of its democratic system of government resembles that of the United States.
Martin said that over the last 50 years, every Colombian president peacefully has handed the reins of power to his successor in the same manner that outgoing U.S. presidents, starting with George Washington in 1797, have been followed by their elected successors.
The media release of the screening and subsequent discussion of ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Field said:
(Begin Text): Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International-USA, the International Crisis Group, and the Open Society Foundations host a screening and discussion the harrowing documentary Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields.
First aired on British television in June, the film captures, through live footage and extensive interviews with witnesses, the atrocities committed against civilians during the Sri Lankan Armed Forces' final campaign to defeat the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in early 2009. The film was recently screened to wide acclaim at the United Nations in New York and Geneva, and has fueled renewed calls for an international response to these crimes.
U.S. Congressman Jim McGovern, co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, will give introductory remarks before the screening. After the film, panelists will discuss ongoing efforts to further accountability in Sri Lanka, including the findings of the recent UN Panel of Experts report on war crimes in Sri Lanka, and the U.S. response to these developments.
Refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the public. (End Text)
The McGovern-sponsored resolution to the House on March 29 this year stated:
“Commends United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for creating the three-person panel to advise the Secretary-General on the implementation of the government of Sri Lanka's commitment to human rights accountability.
Urges the government of Sri Lanka, the international community, and the United Nations (U.N.) to establish an independent international accountability mechanism to look into reports of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other human rights violations committed by both sides during and after the war in Sri Lanka. Urges the government of Sri Lanka to allow humanitarian organizations, aid agencies, journalists, and international human rights groups greater freedom of movement, including in internally-displaced persons camps; Insists that the President develop a policy towards Sri Lanka that reflects U.S. interests.”
The United States Congressman James McGovern has now become the ideal candidate to create a ‘Kosovo-type’ atmosphere in the international arena for those who are bent on destabilizing the democratically-elected government of Sri Lanka in the name of ‘justice to Sri Lanka Tamils’.
- Asian Tribune -
Comments
A Tamil Patriots opinion
Dr. Noel Nadesan, a Tamil domiciled in Australia who edited the Tamil community newspaper ‘Uthayam’ for 14 years has responded to the recently released Channel 4 film on Sri Lanka. He says, based on long experience with the Tamil community both in Australia and Sri Lanka, he’s sad ‘about the callous way in which the media is exploiting the suffering of (his) Tamil people for self-serving ends’. He argues, cogently, that the Channel 4 film does not help the long suffering Tamil people but indeed only makes things worse. Dr. Nadesan lists a number of documentaries that Channel 4 could have commissioned but did not and probably never will. Here is a selection from that list:
• LTTE decimating the entire Tamil leadership in the democratic stream
• LTTE going round Tamil houses, knocking on doors at midnight, to grab under-aged children hidden by Tamils parents
• LTTE massacring Muslim worshippers at prayer in mosques in the East
• LTTE ethnic cleansing of Muslims and the Sinhalese communities in the North and the East
• The slaughter of 600 policemen who surrendered to the LTTE in the hope of promoting peace talks
• The massacres of young Buddhist monks and pregnant Sinhala mothers in border (sic) village in remote Sri Lanka, and killing of Buddhist Monks in the hallowed precincts of the Sri Maha Bodiya
We could add many more atrocities committed by the LTTE. The problem is that we will not have space in this Journal to so
As Malinda Seneviratne has said in his column in the Nation to day " Channel 4, given the obviously enormous resources it has access to, can do a comprehensive documentary on the LTTE’s vast international racketeering including credit card fraud, arms and human smuggling, drug trafficking and extortion. It would be an eye-opener to all governments dealing with terrorist threats. Channel 4 can do a documentary on Channel 4 itself; about selective emphasis, footage-doctoring and suppression of relevant information. In fact Channel 4 can do a documentary on the making of ‘Killing Fields in Sri Lanka’, giving information to the world at large about why Ramesh’s story was half-narrated, why the complicity of an LTTE ‘TV presenter’ was not mentioned (they have the footage where she glorifies suicide terrorism, thereby actively engaging in mobilizing cadres for suicide missions which, Channel 4 knows, have taken the lives of thousands of civilians, including Tamils) and how it came to pass that it missed the obvious fact that much of footage shown was staged by the LTTE (as Dr. Nadesan damningly shows).
Channel 4 can also document why it did not include in its narrative the statements of UN and INGO officials who made observations about how the security forces treated the IDPs, the conditions in these facilities and how they treated detainees and those who surrendered in rehabilitation facilities. Channel 4 can also make a film comparing how the security forces acted during and after the military operation with how other countries (especially the USA and UK) behave during military operations and subsequent to claimed war-end, especially the treatment of IDPs.
Would Channel 4 offer as ‘moving’ a film on US and UK atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya, one wonders. Would Channel 4 interview Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka who were held hostage by the LTTE and saved by the Sri Lankan security forces at great cost? Would they ask the following questions and faithfully report the answers?
• ‘What did you eat in the last days in Vellimullivaikkal?’
• ‘Did the LTTE ever take food, medicine and other supplies sent by the Government, I/NGOs and UN agencies?’
• ‘Did the LTTE set up artillery positions among civilian populations?’
• ‘Did you lose any child to the LTTE’s aggressive recruitment and were you happy then or thereafter that your child was made to join the LTTE?’
• ‘Were the conditions you lived in from January to May 2009 better than those in the IDP camps?’
• ‘Have you heard of the security forces having ill-treated any of the LTTE cadres who were captured or had surrendered and thereafter rehabilitated and released?’
• ‘Would you rather go back to the situation that prevailed before May 19, 2009?’"
Over to you Channel 4. If you abide by journalistic ethics, given an answer in these columns.
PRESENT EVIDENCE TO THE SPEAKER OF THE US CONGRESS ON THE CHANNE
PRESENT EVIDENCE TO THE SPEAKER OF THE US CONGRESS ON THE CHANNEL 4 LIES
This well presented video with the title ‘Channel 4 Lie’ provides credible evidence to show that the Channel 4 video with Sinhala speaking voices is a fake.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUBdGRk1_iE
According to this report dated 4 July in the Sri Lanka Army website “The Defence Ministry and a panel of experts have launched a fresh analysis to review the unaltered video used to create the fake Channel 4 documentary during the last stages of the conflict in Sri Lanka, Military spokesman Major General Ubaya Madewela told the 'Daily News' yesterday.”
http://www.army.lk/detailed.php?NewsId=3465
There does not appear to be any progress. In any case, such a report will not convince the US Congress that the video with Tamil voices is the authentic video. A credible report from an internationally accepted source is required to convince the US and Australian legislators to change their perceptions of Sri Lanka.
If the analysis of the committee appointed by the Army indicates that the Tamil version is the authentic version and we do not have a report from a credible impartial source confirming it, a group of patriotic US Citizens of Sri Lankan origin should present copies of the two videos to the Speaker of the US Congress. They can request the Speaker to defer the screening until the speaker receives a report from an official source on the authenticity of the two videos.