Dr Kohona reiterates to AI chief: C 4 contains doctored footage

‘Sri Lanka prides itself on being governed by the rule of law and by a long established legal tradition, Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to the UN Dr Palitha Kohona told Head of Amnesty International Jose Luis Diaz at a meeting on Wednesday.

This was after the AI chief asked Dr Kohona about the Sri Lankan government’s response to those who feel that the events close to the end of the conflict must be thoroughly investigated to prevent Sri Lanka becoming a model in similar conflict situations.

Dr Kohona responded by saying that Sri Lanka has no intention of being a model to anyone else.

“For example, following complaints about a breach of the UN rules of conduct by some of its troops in Haiti, 110 were recalled immediately and investigated and many were punished,” he said.

“For any matter to be taken before the juridical system, like in other countries, credible evidence was required. The Channel-4 video, and the Darusman Report, were flawed due to serious inaccuracies, unsubstantiated allegations, suspect (doctored) footage, and simple interpretations, some of it clearly taken from the Tamil Net, the propaganda arm of the LTTE.

‘It was doubtful that the Channel - 4 footage offered the kind of credible evidence that would stand scrutiny before the courts.

‘Equally importantly, given the country’s limited resources (it was after all, a poor developing country) and the urgency of other pressing issues, it was simply wrong and unethical to pile up pressure only in one area,’ Dr Kohona said.

The meeting followed the comments made by Ambassador Palitha Kohona and Deputy Permanent Representative, Ambassador Shavendra Silva, at the screening of the Channel-4 video at the UN Church Centre last month, the Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in New York said in a statement.

It added: “In order to underline the questionable nature of the Channel-4 footage, the Permanent Representative and the Deputy Permanent Representative highlighted a series of instances (posted below) revealing what were clearly enacted scenes filmed for propaganda purposes. For example, the images of the crowd at the gate of the UN Office in Killinochchi, described with gut wrenching words, by John Snow, appeared to be from two different films; the blade used in the alleged killing of the Tamil combatant did not have any blood on it; the title of the video “Killing Fields”, was plagiarized from John Pilger’s 1970’s documentary on the Khemer Rouge and used for its heart wrenching effect; the scenes of terrified civilians fleeing an aerial bombardment, in the original LTTE footage contained the camera persons and on-lookers; the shells that landed among the IDP tents somehow left the flimsy tents unscathed; the original of the execution video had people speaking in Tamil.

“When asked by General Silva whether AI would be as diligent in promoting a documentary portraying LTTE atrocities, the Head of the Office of Amnesty International remained silent.”