Sri Lanka's Killing Fields
One of the most graphic television documentaries ever shown in the United Kingdom, this documentary outlines some of the atrocities that were committed during the final months of the Sri Lankan civil war and features amateur video footage from the conflict zone filmed by civilians and Sri Lankan soldiers.
Jon Snow presents a forensic investigation into the final weeks of the quarter-century-long civil war between the government of Sri Lanka and the secessionist rebels, the Tamil Tigers.
The video filmed by civilians included harrowing scenes during and after intense shelling of civilian targets, including hospitals, by the Sri Lankan military. The trophy video filmed by Sri Lankan soldiers showed disturbing scenes of blindfolded victims being executed and dead bodies of naked women being dragged onto trucks by soldiers as they made lewd remarks about the victims.
The documentary also included interviews with civilians who managed to survive the conflict, United Nations staff based in Sri Lanka during the conflict, human rights organizations and and international law expert. The documentary was made by ITN Productions and presented by Jon Snow, the main anchor on Channel 4 News. The Sri Lankan government has denounced the documentary as a fake.
you could ask the same questions about the SL govt - where is the justice for civilians? ppl still support the ltte bc the govt keeps denying that they ALSO did wrong. in the mean time, the sheep in the rest of the country blindly follow a murderous govt filled with money-chasing rapists, bigots and liars. we're all slaves till we wake the f up - we've all been used.
Muslims must speak out against the use of Mohammed on the ISIS flag with the same intensity as opposition to Danish Cartoons. The name of the Holy Prophet is more insulted by ISIS than the cartoonist. Why are Muslims quiet ? Their silence is baffling and leads even the moderate Buddhist or Hindu to believe that they are hypocrites and one day, when their patience runs out, another Myanmar - Rohingya crises will happen in Sri Lanka and India. At that time, there will be no respite even for peace loving Muslims.
this is nothing more than the entire frailer of political leadership over 70 years.this is the country was not in position to have still proper constitution to rule the small island and still unable to established independence judiciary system. every dollar borrowed over the years more than 60% cheated by politicians and over 20% people were send to middle east for modern day selves job. killing of people from 1971 until today keep doing. even after this war was over 9 years had gone but no any solution to main problems,by way of political or economically.
What a load of fabricated crap. B bloody BC should be ashamed of putting up donkey dung like this in the public domain. Please PLEASE go to Sri Lanka and ascertain for yourself without believing what these dung beetles in BBC have crapped on to your screens.
Its a genoside country my parents n grandparents family well established business was burned to ashes by Sinhalese budhist thugs with full government support. Lost of 1 million in stock merchandise alone plus the government took the large land area.its a land of hell.
To all who defend the tigers.
How many innocent lives did they take? How many children were sent to battle? why did they shoot any one who retreated? How many people did they torcher? How many innocent Tamils, Sinhalese, ..etc were killed by the ltte? . how many human rights were violated by them. And how many human rights were violated by the countries who force us? Think about it
This is not a true report. I have been to Sri Lanka several time and no one talk about this much mass killing during war time. With in a week 40000?
Wrong information. Please don't shear this type of wrong info.
I am a tamil and I can say without a shadow of doubt that the LTTE was the horrendous organisation that brought Sri Lanka to shame. I have no problems with my Sinhalese friends and I urge you to go to SL and see for yourself instead of coming to false conclusions after watching this biased documentary by BBC. The British colonised SL and ruled by dividing the races which they are still trying to do in a more subtle way here. Shame on them.
after seeing this me and my friends are disturbed.UN failed
This is the 2nd time I've seen this doco and it is as profoundly disturbing as the first. How can the Sri Lankan government ever expect lasting peace with the Tamils if they do not acknowledge war crimes? Both sides have have to answer for their crimes but refusing to acknowledge that atrocities occurred only invites their return.
Watched it/ browsed through comments. I don't know about you, but I barely remember the narrative about the sides fighting.
People dying, bodies bleeding, children in pain..... it will be hard to sleep in the coming days.. to think this goes on in other parts of the world and most likely in all types of wars... my heart sinks.
People, especially those from western countries, who watch documentaries like this and think they know all that is going on here in Sri Lanka.. This is my country, I lived here since the day I was born, I have seen everything there is to see about the civil war, and i know exactly what happened from the very beginning. It is true that there was a time that tamils were not given a chance to enjoy their full rights. It is not very much different from the situation in america regarding blacks. But then tamils made demands that simply cannot be done in a country where there is a sinhala majority is living. When their demands were neglected they turned into violence. Interestingly the first ever person the LTTE leader himself killed, was also a tamil, the mayor of Jaffna. the war started by spilling tamil blood by the tamils themselves. Then they committed a number of atrocities against Sinhalese and muslims. The sinhala civilians did not tolerate this violent behavior from a minor race..this is where things went wrong. They started mob violence against tamil civilians as revenge..the government at the time didnt try to stop this. As a result many able tamils went abroad, many others joined the extremist groups. Then India interviened and tried to negotiate peace deals between sinhala government and tamil extremists. Many tamil groups laid down arms as a gesture of agreement. The problem could have been solved there. But one group, LTTE, lead by the ruthless leader Prabakaran refused to lay arms and continued fighting. The government responded as any other government would have. LTTE proved itself to be a greedy organization that cannot be trusted from the very beginning. The killing of Rajeev Gandhi, killing of rivalry potential leaders withing the group to secure the leadership, the use of female suicide bombers and child soldiers are some of the examples. Mahinda Rajapaksa is the only leader to emerge with a spine to stop all this. When he came to power the country was in ruins. there was fear everywhere. you couldnt travel in a train or a bus without the fear of not knowing when or where a suicide attack might strike. In time, the popularity that tamils had for LTTE dropped because of its endless violence. The tamils living abroad were unaware of this, because the LTTE propaganda very tactfully maintained the idea that the situation is still the same in Sri Lanka. So we cannot blame tamils living in western countries and south India fro their opinions. Mahinda Rajapaksa government defeated the LTTE terrorism. In the later stages of the war the desperate LTTE extremists even used their own kind, the innocent civilians as a shield against the advancing Sri Lankan army. That was the reason why what could have been done in hours took months to complete. As you may have seen in the video the Sri Lankan army is equipped with advanced weaponry that a any modern army would have..it could have finished the job very easily by carpet bombing the area where the LTTE is trapped with their prisoners. But as a disciplined army, Sri Lankan army did their best to save thousands of innocent civilians in the grip of LTTE. Now, for those who say that Sri Lanka is a very unsafe place now, and we are practicing barbarism here, there is only one way to make sure what is true and what is false. LTTE sympathizers and those comapnies who make a profit by making documentaries like this can corrupt any person's mind. One might even argue that I myself is babling a whole bunch of lies. So.. if you are really interested to know what is going on, please, please, I tell without fear, come and visit our country.. go to jaffna and see for yourselves what is happening there. We have nothing to hide..we are not like north koreans.. we dont stop you from coming here... come and see, and then comment.
the inaction of the indian government in the entire episode is shameful. was sonia gandhi extracting revenge from the entire sri-lankan tamils for the assassination of her husband? the indian government is dominated by north indians who do not give a damn about the southerners. in the recent years, people from the northern india are exploiting the resources and local people of the southern states. their ias and ips officers are ruling the roost and looting the local populace. the political situation is also defined on similar lines. there is no adequate representation of the south in the indian parliament, in the ministries or the cabinet. it is high time that we stand up against the indian government and demand our political, economic and social rights.
the actions of sri lankan soldiers confirms the descent of the sri lankan sinhalese from the rakshasas (the demons) as described in the ramayana. they have surpassed the ltte cadres in their cruelty and sadism. the president rajapaksa and his military hordes are representative of ravana and the demons. their actions will lead to the resurgence of ltte like organizations in the near future and this time the war will be more bloody. i warn the sinhalese that they have to bear the brunt of the actions of their killer soldiers and their sadistic president in the near future. the reprisal will be bloody and on the same terms as shown in the video.
the kid was cute eating his last snack,
if he was a war leader in kid look at his face there is no sleep in his eyes before killing i think they first captured him showing footage to his dad to surrender and then caught him alive killed him and then killed the kid too.
Isn't that what the UN always does, gets the heck out of dodge as soon as people start dying; Rwanda, Srebrenica, etc.... And who are the puppet masters for the UN that makes these decisions.
AMERICA ready to distroy the peace of world.SRILANKAN army is the world best army in world.we are the winners but who are you .what do you wont
your dream is dream only man.we are peaceful country .some who ready to distroy it.BE CAREFUL
America ready to distroy the peoples and there peace and religion in one minutes.they help to tigers for distroy the world best army in world.are you ready to fight with us .be careful man becouse we know about your disipleans and army............................
It is not war. It is a systematic murder of innocent Tamil Civilians. Uncivilized Sinhalese continue to lie. State terrorism must be eradicated.
Civilized world now knows Sinhalese are the proven number one liars in the world.
Uncivilized people still support barbaric terrorist activities of Sinhala state terrorists, now led by Rajapakse terrorists.
A bloody nightmare, just some of the graffic scenes you see pretty much all over the globe these days. A tradegy. Are we living in a civilized world these days? I think not.
who cares who is right and wrong in the aftermath of a brutal civil war? if one side kills 28k and their enemy kills 32k does it really matter who shot the first bullet? im sure there were atrocities on both sides, but the point should be honoring the memories of the 60k dead men, women and children by making sure the rest of the world can learn from their mistakes, whether those were government mistakes or rebel mistakes.
some times i start to feel down about the rising cost of living in L.A., the lack of jobs and failing economy, problems with my wife or at work, little stuff, you know? then i watch something like this and realize that my problems arent really problems at all, just mild challenges, and in the global lottery of who ends up where i came out pretty good. then i feel stupid for complaining at all, for it was never my right to cry because i know very little of true loss and pain. i think more people should try to remember this, because those challenges seem a whole lot smaller afterwards.
The UN is a house full of ****, to tell you from personal experience from Bosnia
TLDR your bitchy little comments back and forth arguing with each other. You wanna have an online bitch fest, go to some forum. THIS is to post a review about the documentary. Is it worth watching? Are the sources reliable? Do you feel it was bias? This page is not for your @#% )@*%)*@% )@*(%@)*%# BITCH FEST.
All we need to know is if war crimes took place. Yes! it did..end of story. Sri Lankan Government should be punished.