2ND LEAD

Video shows style of extra-judicial killings in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 August 2009, 20:34 GMT]
A video clip received from Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) evidences the way extra-judicial killings are executed in the island. The video captured in January show the behaviour of Sri Lanka’s soldiers during the war that is claimed ‘humanitarian operation’ to rescue the Tamils, JDS reported Tuesday. The conversations of the killers are in Sinhala. “From the casual nature of the conversations and from the fact that it is taking place in an open area in broad daylight – it can be surmised that these are not ordinary acts by rogue elements carried out without the permission from the top leadership. The soldiers egging each other on, the insulting jokes and the laughter show that there is a consensus that these cold blooded killings should take place,” JDS further reported.

As there is no reason to believe there is a change in the behaviour of the armed forces, the treatment of the 280,000 people in the internment camps kept for ‘screening’ and another more than 10,000 alleged to be LTTE cadres, kept in undisclosed locations, is widely feared.

The way the men are treated even in execution, shown in the video clip, is a repeatedly demonstrated feature of the chauvinism in the island. One can imagine the treatment of women, was the observation of Tamil circles.

BBC Sinhala Service Monday reported the trauma of the internment camp inmates about 'Dolphin vans' whisking away people, who then disappear.

While some governments are sitting on indicting Colombo’s war crimes and while some other governments don’t want to recognise the genocidal perspectives or the need to call for the closure of internment camps, Colombo enjoys absolute impunity, Tamil circles said.

Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) was founded on 18th of July in Berlin, with the participation of Tamil and Sinhala journalists coming from six european countries, who were forced into exile. JDS aims to raise the concerns about the deteriorating conditions of democratic rights in Sri Lanka, with a special emphasis on issues related to media freedom.

External Links:

Humanrights.de:		Act against the torture and executions in Sri Lanka
Independent:		Video that reveals truth of Sri Lankan 'war crimes'
UNDispatch:		New allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka
TorontoStar:		Execution video sparks Tamil outrage
CNN:		Video shows purported atrocities in Sri Lanka conflict
NYT:		Video Sparks Calls for Sri Lankan War-Crimes Inquiry
HRW:		Sri Lanka: Execution Video Shows Need for International Inquiry
BBC:		S Lanka video prompts probe calls

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