Alston sings on lying channel
Among the types who are known to rush in where even angels fear to
tread is Prof. Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur of the UN on
extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions. He made great haste to
issue his original statement demanding action against Sri Lanka on the
basis of the Channel 4 video of alleged “summary executions” of Tamil
civilians by Sri Lankan “Security Forces”, concerning the contents of
the video, almost before the Channel 4 presenter could say the material
was unverifiable.
The truth about this video is now out. It has been made by the LTTE,
or those who are left of it, originally done in Tamil, and later dubbed
with Sinhala words and sounds, and doctored overall.
Prof. Philip Alston |
That it was a fake was well established, before it was known to be an
LTTE job, with the original in Tamil. It has boomeranged on the LTTE
propagandists who used the so-called Journalists for Democracy in Sri
Lanka to get it to Channel 4; as if Channel 4 needed such devious
channels for its contemptible, unverified lies about Sri Lanka.
To give those who rush in with such haste their due for bowing before
incontrovertible fact, Prof. Alston has now eaten most of his harsh,
ill-thought out and damaging comments about Sri Lanka. He states that
the expert report on the Channel 4 video shared with him by the Sri
Lanka Government, leads him to the conclusion that “the views expressed
do indeed raise several issues which warrant further investigation
before it could reasonably be concluded that the video is authentic”.
The Government did reject the video as false at first sight, knowing the
tactics of the LTTE and its fellow travellers and sympathizers, but it
did better by issuing an official rejection after careful scientific
study.
Yet, even when fallen and compelled to eat one’s words Prof. Alston
is not defeated, or so he believes. He says the professional
investigation carried out by the Government, which has led to his
doubts, is not independent because, guess why....the experts concerned
were Sri Lankans. It is possible he would have given much more
credibility to experts from the LTTE’s dream state of Eelam, and the
nightmare of the Tamils, if it was ever established. Or should they have
come from the little Eelam in Toronto Canada, or some other such area
dominant by those who still wave the Eelam Flag.
If we go by this logic, the world must not believe what the Gordon
Brown’s inquiry into the role of the UK in the launch and conduct of the
invasion and war in Iraq would find, because those carrying out the
inquiry are citizens of the UK. Or one should always dismiss as being
suspicious, whatever the US and NATO says about the allegedly accidental
killing of civilians in Afghanistan, because the probes were conducted
by Americans or citizens of other NATO countries. If one follows this
ill logic any further, one should totally disbelieve India’s claim that
Mumbai was attacked by terrorists last November, whether they came from
Pakistan or not, merely because the charge of having come under attack
is made by India.
Crooked job
In his moment of despair, at even having to admit that the Channel 4
report could possibly be a crooked job, talking of “several issues which
warrant further investigation before it could reasonably be concluded
that the video is authentic”, Prof. Alston has another matter of
contention, too. He characterizes Dr. Chathura Ranjan de Silva’s
analysis of the video, which proved it was not made on a mobile phone as
claimed but on a camcorder or video camera, and other relevant facts, as
partial.... because.... “He appears to have been consulted by the
Government on previous occasions.” For the record Dr Chathura Ranjan de
Silva, is the Senior Lecturer of the Computer Science and Engineering
Department and the Director for the Centre of Instructional Technology
for the Moratuwa University. I do not know the discipline of Prof.
Alston’s professorial appointment, but I would hesitate to state that he
should not be consulted on a matter relating to that discipline by the
same person or body, because he has been so consulted by the same person
or body earlier.
This will leave the entire body of forensic law in a strange
situation, because an expert who has testified for the State in one
case, will not be able to do so again, and will be suspected because he
has been called by the State once before. The Government’s position on
this absurd position of Prof. Alston is very clear. It holds the view
that it is quite legitimate to consult acknowledged experts from
autonomous academic institutions and this in no way makes the expert
part of the Government nor does it render the view tainted by bias.
One wonders whether Prof. Alston would make such statements about any
experts that are consulted by the US Department for Homeland Security,
the FBI and CID, or MI5 in the UK, if they had been consulted on matters
that required such expertise on previous occasions.
To take his line of thinking, which defies all logic, the Crown
Prosecutor’s Office in the UK would not have got the convictions of
those three British Muslims last week for plotting a terrorist attack on
aircraft in midair, if the court took up the position that any of the
experts consulted for that trial, had been consulted on matters
regarding explosives or similar devices before that by the Metropolitan
Police of London or any other Police authority in the UK.
In contrast to the UN Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or
arbitrary executions, it was interesting to read the observations of the
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay, no particular
friend of Sri Lanka from recent experience, welcome Sri Lanka’s
communication of the Channel 4 video, for having carried out a prompt
investigation into the matter. She also mentioned that, “being a lawyer
herself, she had thought it fit not to make a pronouncement on this
issue until the authenticity of the contents of the video in question
was established.” At least she was moving away from the tribe that
rushes into where angels fear to tread.
It is evident that this will not be the end of the Channel 4 issue,
and one can be sure of seeing more of such damning new items about Sri
Lanka being highlighted in sections of the media that think they are
both the proprietors and defenders of democracy in the Third World. It
was only this week that the Guardian UK ran the story of a British Tamil
citizen, who was working with the LTTE, after having come to Sri Lanka
on a tourist visa, overstayed her period of holiday, moved into LTTE
territory, and admittedly worked as a nurse’s help in to the LTTE in the
last days of the final attack on the LTTE.
She was arrested as an IDP, and held for visa violation, but was
finally allowed to leave for her home in the UK. And from there she is
now singing to the Guardian and anyone else who will listen to her,
about how the mortars were raining on the hospitals in the battle
scarred North; that she says had no blood or water. The Guardian did not
think it proper to ask her what in the world she was doing in LTTE
territory, and also helping a terrorist organization banned by the UK
Government, too; so much, for credibility and ethics in journalism.
What all this tells us is that there is a powerful lobby of people
and institutions ranged against Sri Lanka, from those who have the ear
of the UN Secretary General such as a Special Rapporteur, and what is
known as a respectable mainstream newspaper in the UK. We will be better
armed in the battle for international opinion, when we know better the
nature of the enemy we face. |