An open letter to Dr Ferruccio de Bortoli
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Dr. Ferruccio De Bortoli Director
‘Corriere della Sera’ Milan
Fax: 02.29009705
Dear Dr. De Bortoli,
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This refers to the article which appeared in your esteemed newspaper,
on May 30, 2009, titled: ‘Sri Lanka: twenty thousand civilians massacred
in order to defeat the Tamil Tigers’, by your correspondent Cecilia
Zecchinelli.
It behoves me to note that your paper, being the largest newspaper
distributed in Italy, was dependent upon an article appearing in the
London ‘Times’, and did not emanate from any respected news agency such
as Reuters. Your correspondent refers to certain passages which are not
even found in the original version of the article published by the
London ‘Times’.
I specially take exception to the line: ‘the rectangles are all
tombs, the ones of the Tigers neat and disciplined just as their army
was; the untidy ones are those of the ordinary people’.
There is an innuendo in this phrase, I believe written by your
correspondent, which attributes orderliness to the army of the Tamil
Tigers.
As you know, the Tigers are a terrorist organisation proscribed by
the EU, including Italy.
It has been accused of keeping thousands of civilians as human
shields and firing heavy artillery from its positions. They are also
accused of shooting any Tamil who tried to escape from the no-fire-zone
into the Government controlled areas.
This is not propaganda coming from our Government or media, these are
the allegations brought against the Tamil Tigers by the Human Rights
Watch and by other so called independent organisations. The Tigers, who
killed civilians trying to move into a safe area, cutting off their
limbs if they attempted to do so, are, in your own terminology, a
‘disciplined army’.
If one examines the photos and videos displayed by the London
‘Times’, one could perceive the cemeteries containing the tombs of the
Tigers. There is no indication to state whether these tombs had been
made a few days prior to their death, or much earlier to the final
battle. The Tamil Tigers had their land demarcated for their war
cemetery, which could be seen in the areas controlled by them.
Even a foreign expert analysing these images will not be able to come
to the conclusion that these were the graves of the Tamil Tigers who
died during the 30-year war and that the other sand mounds are those of
the ordinary people: only an omniscient person or someone with super
x-ray vision could see whether the earth mounds are those of the corpses
of civilians or of the Tamil Tigers.
The LTTE, which began as a small ragtag band, later developed into a
terror machine, invincible in the eyes of the Western powers, due to the
propaganda unleashed by them. They were considered as the truth by
certain sections of the Western media, which swallowed their claims
hook, line and sinker.
It is regrettable, that an esteemed newpaper of the calibre of ‘Il
Corriere della Sera’ could publish such a prevaricated news item as it
if were the truth. The ‘Times’ said that 20,000 civilians died in the
last days of the battle, attributing this figure to unconfirmed reports
obtained by UN officials.
Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General was, as your correspondent commented,
‘not very welcome’ in Sri Lanka. This is a figment of your imagination:
Mr. Moon was invited by Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa, to visit
the country. Mr. Moon had for several reasons postponed his visit, but
later visited the IDP camps in a helicopter provided by the Government
of Sri Lanka.
He categorically stated that he could not accept the statements
attributed to some UN officials and that published in the ‘Times’, which
said that 20,000 civilians were killed. This position has been
substantiated by John Holmes, UN Humanitarian Chief.
This clearly demonstrates the misinformation carried out by certain
newspapers which had been grieved, not so much by the deaths of
civilians, but by the fact that the resolution commending Sri Lanka for
eliminating terrorism, adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva,
rejected the resolution that was to be tabled by the EU to inquire into
the allegations of war crimes.
Otherwise, there could be no reason why a prestigious newspaper like
the London ‘Times’ and various Italian newspapers should publish stories
that were not verified by any source, and categorically denied by the UN
Secretary General himself.
In the article, your correspondent states that the Manik Farm in
Vavuniya has become ‘the largest open air prison in the world’.
This is another invention of those NGOs who have, for three decades,
made inroads in Sri Lanka and destabilised its security, by helping the
terrorist and by publishing deliberate prevaricated lies emanating from
the LTTE propaganda machine, to give the impression that the Tigers are
not terrorists but liberators.
Having visited these camps and spoken to the IDPs independently, Ban
Ki Moon, the UN Secretary General, John Holmes, UN Humanitarian Chief,
David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner, the British and French Foreign
Ministers, never commented or disapproved the conditions they were in.
They were rather concerned about the lack of basic facilities in the
IDP camps, due to the enormity of problems which the Government had to
tackle during the influx of the Tamil refugees from the clutches of the
LTTE terrorists.
The allegations of the kidnapping of children and the disappearances,
and that the ‘schools of Vavuniya had been transformed into little
Guantanamos’, carried and expanded by your newspaper, should be treated
in the same manner as the allegations in the ‘Times’, as baseless,
unfounded and designed to tarnish the image of Sri Lanka.
For your information, the Caritas, the Catholic social service entity
of the Vatican, is working with the Government of Sri Lanka and has free
access to all of these camps. On the basis of the reports of the
Caritas, the Catholic Bishops decided to donate ? 1 million for the
welfare of the IDPs.
It is our belief that what is necessary is to urgently help the IDPs
and to obtain the support of the entire Italian public, in the manner in
which it supported Sri Lanla during the tsunami and to start
contributing to the welfare of the IDPs, rather than spreading baseless,
ill-founded allegations like the ones found in your newspaper.
Thanking you,
Yours sincerely, Hemantha Warnakulasuriya Ambassador |
