THE PICTURE THAT TELLS NO STORY!

So they say out of sheer humanitarian concern for Balachandran the twelve-year-old son of the abominable Prabhakaran, or rather concern for his departed spirit, Channel 4 revived the issue of his death. They chose to do it with weeks to go for the UN Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva, so wait -- it means that Balachandran's spirit can wait, can withstand the excruciating limbo of a purgatory before rescue by earthlings, until Geneva finally comes along?!

Enough said then about the gauchely transparent political motive behind revisiting the issue of Balachandran's death weeks before Geneva 2013. This is so ham-handed, this obviously diaspora driven attempt to exploit the imagery of a twelve-year-old in a bunker, and then connect that photo to the existence of a bullet-riddled body of a twelve-year-old, to say that Balachandran perished when he was in the custody of Sri Lankan Forces, in a job done execution style.

Cheers to Prasad Kariyawasam, Sri Lanka's High Commissioner in India, who gave the Balachandran blooper the treatment beneath contempt that was deserved, by summarily dismissing the picture as a hoax for the simple reason that this boy was never in the custody of the Sri Lankan Forces in the first place.

The Sri Lanka army has refuted the story as well. There is a snide remark in that rebuttal about these types of allegations being timed for the Geneva sessions each year, and it is good that our officers and gentlemen mince no words about these things.

But, apart from what the army states, the utter cynical nature of the campaign to exploit the photograph for political gain should be met head on. Prabhakaran's son was lost in the fog of war. This is the scion of a ghoul, a man under whose instructions babies just born, and children under ages of four were disemboweled and cut up with machetes, in gruesome attacks that were carried out in what were wrongly referred to during wartime as 'border villages.'

Balachandran's death in this context, in the fog of war, in the last phase of hostilities, is not something that at this stage should be made an international incident of, to malign the image of the Sri Lankan government or forces. It is a tactic that is cynical as it is totally silly and misconceived in the context that there are hundreds of children literally, who were killed in US drone attacks for instance in the pursuit of Barack Obama's war against terror.

While all these children go unhonoured and unsung into their graves, and mothers are left bereft and grieving, Channel 4 has trained its eyes on the son of a monster who was killed, in whatever circumstances, in the fog of war! Need anything more be said about the absurdity of the pre-Geneva hue and cry being made in an attempt, particularly to sensitize Tamil Nadu, and make life difficult for the Sri Lankan diplomatic establishment before the vote is taken?

The brighter side of it is that it's these ham handed attempts at trying to force investigations and coerce the international community into upping the ante against Sri Lanka that eventually is the undoing of the conspirators -- the organ grinders behind figures such as Callum Mc Rae.

People are more adept at seeing through the humbug of persons such as McRae and his backers than the McRaes think they are. Ordinary folks are able to put two and two together and conclude that a picture of a boy in front of sandbags, possibly doctored as well, released in the nick of time to make a case in Geneva, does not a war crimes prosecution make!

These Channel 4 people couldn't have shot themselves in the foot worse than this, because starting from the Indian political establishment, everybody has been quick to dissociate themselves from photos that are supposed to tell a tale when nobody can 'vouch for their authenticity'. (Words of the Indian External Affairs Minister.) If McRae keeps up the good work, he might soon, all by himself, bury this 'war crimes' story against Sri Lanka for good!