UK doctor condemns doctored Channel - 4 film

Dr Stuart Reiss, a doctor in the Department of Surgery of the William Harvey Hospital, UK has condemned the doctored Channel 4 film.

Excerpts of Dr Reiss' article:

"It is clear that Channel Four has an agenda of discrediting the Sri Lankan government and this is accomplished at the expense of truth and good journalism.

"The documentary insisted that the Sri Lankan government carried out deliberate and systematic attacks on Tamil civilians. This is wholly untrue and is a reprehensible suggestion.

"It is as ridiculous to suggest that the British Army deliberately targeted all Republican Irish citizenry during the height of the Northern Ireland conflict.

"A sovereign democratic government will not mete out mob justice using its armed forces on its own citizens, and Tamils are as much Sri Lankans as are Sinhalese and other ethnic minorities in the country.

"It was particularly evident during the end stage of the Sri Lankan conflict that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) held Tamil civilians hostage, denying them the very freedom that the LTTE allegedly sought for them.

"Contrary to what the documentary suggested, every effort was made by the Sri Lankan government to extract civilians from the combat zone, and local journalists were given unprecedented access to the front lines.

"Perhaps the government didn't allow some Western journalists - such as Chanel Four - with a liberal bias towards the LTTE terrorists, into the frontline to prevent truth being a casualty and to avoid military attack plans being divulged to the enemy.

"It was no secret that the United States armed forces disliked Al Jazeera correspondents in the front lines during the last Iraq war, and directly attacked the Al Jazeera building on the outskirts of Baghdad.

"This was not the case in Sri Lanka, where Channel Four correspondents were only escorted out.

"The UN chose to leave the combat zones in North Eastern Sri Lanka, as they abandoned Rwanda, Kosovo, and many other places.

"The Sri Lankan government merely highlighted the fact that it couldn't guarantee the safety of UN officials.

"There was a very plausible danger of the LTTE killing UN employees and blaming it on the government.

"Clips chosen for the Channel Four documentary were emotive, screaming people and the crowd outside the UN offices showed the real horrors of any war.

"They didn't show direct evidence.

Perhaps the Tamil civilians begging the UN to stay, were afraid of exactly what followed, that the LTTE taking them hostage and used as a human shield, or the forcible conscription of their children."