Some local Sri Lankan communities are claiming last night’s airing of Channel 4’s highly graphic documentary “Sri Lankas Killing Fields” on 4 Corners provides an opportunity for a renewed conversation despite a highly varied response.
The documentary, originally aired on Britain’s Channel 4 Network, has been slammed on the program’s website by supporters of the Sinhala-majority government for unashamed bias and supposed usage of doctored footage. During the program, viewers were exposed to reel after reel of mobile phone footage providing what has been independently verified as evidence of war crimes perpetrated by Sri Lankan army troops.
For many local Tamils, however, the reaction was more muted — on one hand, a sense of gratitude to the ABC for committing to the documentary and exposing the plight of those who were unable to flee the violence, and on the other, a reinvigorated call for action.
In the days leading up to last night’s airing, Sri Lanka’s High Commission in Australia urged the ABC not to air the documentary.
This is despite the fact that the documentary had already aired in the UK, was screened at a UNHRC meeting last month in Geneva and has been widely available on the web.
ABC’s decision to air was also controversial given its primetime screening of the highly graphic content.
Sydney-based Kartheepan Arul, from the Tamil Youth Organisation told Crikey: “For the mainstream media to take this on, it’s a big bold move. Channel 4 showed it at a later time, 11.30pm, so for ABC to show that at 8.30pm, that’s very big and something we’re very happy about.”
Community dynamics are slowly starting to shift in a post-war context, according to local leaders.
One Tamil activist, Sujen, told Crikey that the Tamil community in Australia are keen to keep pushing this to continue in light of the documentary. “This is a good moment to pause and ask what the Sinhalese community stand for and how they might engage in an ongoing political process of reconciliation” he said.
“It’s very clear that the Chanel 4 documentary isn’t just propaganda by the LTTE. Now that there is no ‘enemy’ how can liberal Sinhalese people turn a blind eye to these crimes?”
Crikey put the following questions to 4 Corners but they declined to comment:
What drove 4 Corners to air the Killing Fields documentary?
How did 4 Corners respond to concerns from a) the Sri Lankan High Commission and b) the local sinhalese community?
How does 4 Corners respond to claims by the SL Government that one of the videos was doctored, and that the original voices in the video were speaking Tamil?
Since the airing of Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, Foreign Minister Rudd has urged the UNHCR to investigate war crimes for the first time since the cessation of violence.
This documentary was absolutely heartbreaking. The footage of the massacres still leaves me feeling sick in the stomach. The horrific scene of the bodies of young women who had been stripped naked, raped and then executed is etched in my mind. What horrible crimes we humans are capable of.
Thank you to the ABC for showing this. Having seen the horrors from which Tamil refugees are fleeing, I (vainly) hope community discussion will shift to what more we can do to help Tamil refugees (instead of xenophobic fear-mongering about boat people.)
Lest we forget the hundreds of Tamil Refugees in Australian detention centres.
There are women who lost their babies through the bombing in May 2009. More women who were raped and can not speak of it. A father whose 3 year old was shot in his arms. A man who was tortured by having hessian sacks soaked in petrol tied over his head then hot chili rubbed into his excoriated skin. Unspeakable things done to real people sitting in our detention centres.
Each family in LTTE controlled areas was forced to hand over a son or daughter. To refuse was to condemn the whole family to death.
As a young man in Scherger said- I have four sisters- our family could not send the girls so I had to go.
ASIO put the mark of Cain on these people and condemn them to ever after indefinite detention. There 17 people in this situation right now.
Why did we, and why do we, have a government that refused to allow us to see what actually happened there. Why do we still have diplomatic relations with these unconstrained apartheid murderers. Could it be for the sake of our “strategic alliances”?
The Green Left Weekly did an excellent job over many years of keeping us informed about the realities of the situation in Sri Lanka, but how come the ABC didn’t?
Pamela – and they’re not Muslims either, so what excuse do the bogan racists who our pollies worship have?
I too was horrified by the violence in this programme, but how do we know what is truth and what is propaganda in this situation? Even if we accept that 90+% of it is true, what do people like Pamela want us to do about it? When are the refugee/asylum seeker advocates going to understand that as a nation of 23 million people, we cannot hope to assist all of these people – nor can we save the world single handedly? Of course we should support an international inquiry, and if war crimes have been committed, then the perpetrators should be punished. Far, far better that we then assist the Tamils in Sri Lanka to stay there and rebuild their lives. I don’t care how much money it costs us and other nations.
The other problem I see is how do we know who these Tamils are who come here seeking asylum? By the look of those terrible camps, and the description of the peoples’ lives given in the programme, there is no way any of those people would have the money to go anywhere – let alone get on a boat or plane and come to Australia. Which leads me to suspect that many of the Tamils who can afford to come here are far more likely to be from, or attached in someway to, the Tamil Tigers. Many members of the Nazi Party, and their fellow travellers, escaped to Australia and other countries after WW2, and were not discovered for decades. The spectre of another such scenario fills me with dread, whether it be Tamil Tigers, Taliban or anyone else of that ilk.
While humanitarian principles must be upheld, I just think we should be far more cautious. Perhaps find out where all these asylum seekers get the money to come here, and why many of them destroy their documents before arrival. That documents are indeed destroyed by these people was proven at the Coroner’s Inquest in WA into the 50+ people who lost their lives off Christman Island last December. And there are many other unanswered questions on these matters.