http://www.dailynews.lk/2011/07/18/fea15.asp


Reconciliation in the context of Channel 4 allegations
Text of a presentation London, July 5th 2011 :

Prof Rajiva Wijesinha MP

The last few months have seen an astonishing spate of attacks on the Sri Lankan government. These began with the publication of the Darusman report, by three individuals who were tasked to appoint the Un Secretary General on accountability issues but instead sat in judgment on the Sri Lankan state and its armed forces. Immediately those who had in any case been attacking the government previously now used this as a tool.
Prof Rajiva Wijesinha MP
That episode was followed by a book by a man called Gordon Weiss, and then a film aired on Channel 4. All this added to the impression that there was a mass of evidence against the Sri Lankan government. However the exercise was similar to that of Wittgenstein’s gentleman who bought a second copy of the morning paper to establish that what the first said was true. I noticed for instance that many elements in the Report were repeated in Gordon Weiss’s book, and the only detailed allegations in the Report were based on the pictures shown on Channel 4.
The real story
I have responded in detail to these allegations in some detail in various documents, and in one sense we should be grateful to these characters since they have made clear the necessity to tell the real story, as it happened. But we must also bear in mind that people believe what they want to believe. The attacks will continue from people who refuse to look at evidence. If a report commissioned by the Secretary General ignored the evidence of the senior UN personnel on the ground, and instead relied on a few who had been repudiated previously by their seniors, one must recognize that rationality has nothing to do with it, and that political and emotional considerations will trump evidence.
Still, we should point out forcefully the major errors and improprieties in the campaign being conducted. With regard to Channel 4 for instance, it should be noted that they, like many other media outfits, were permitted into Sri Lanka early in 2009. Most outfits were quite fair, and these continue to operate in Sri Lanka, the BBC for instance and in particular several Indian agencies. Our view that having the media around was a positive factor proved correct in that it was the reporting from the ground that assuaged feelings in India when extremists were anxious to mislead the people of Tamilnadu, before the election there, and create problems.
British outfits
However several British outfits were determined to falsify. The Times engaged in a particularly vicious campaign, which another British journalist explained as arising from its association with New Labour - and we now know for a fact, courtesy of the Americans, what we long suspected, that David Miliband’s approach was for electoral advantage. The Guardian did produce several erroneous reports, but only when a stringer called Gethin Chamberlain wrote. His stories had often to be corrected, though he flatly refused to correct the most outrageous of them, when he claimed that 11 women had been found with their throats cut. He confessed that there was no basis for this, and that his source could not be trusted. I had the impression that this was a junior UN person, and having studied the rest of his reports, I believe it was Gordon Weiss - he quoted the man early on, but then after that he did not mention names but kept talking about an anonymous UN source.
Channel 4 however, given the medium, was even more dramatic. From the start it seemed there was a conspiratorial element to it, and their team was soon asked to leave. So it was not surprising that later that year they produced the first aggressive attack on Sri Lanka, in the form of a brief clip shown in August 2009. They refused to allow the High Commission to see this in advance, and indeed did not show anyone the video they had received. They even refused to give it to the UN Special Rapporteur, who was instead another version, different in some particulars, supplied by an outfit called Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka.
The only member of this outfit I know is a man called Sunanda Deshapriya, who would turn up at Geneva in attempts to discredit the Sri Lankan government. The last time I saw him there - when he confirmed that he was involved with this Journalists for Democracy outfit - he kept quiet because I had taken photocopies of the article in the ‘Sunday Leader’, no friend of the Sri Lankan government, which detailed his financial irregularities. In fact the Centre for Policy Alternatives, another seminal critic of government, had to publicly disown him. The fact then that he was involved in the group that was supplying different copies of this video to different people suggests something suspicious.
The video itself had flaws we pointed out, some of which had been removed in the second version sent to the UN. Its experts did confess nevertheless that there were some problems, but they thought by and large that the video was authentic. One of the problems was a moving leg, which was supposed to belong to a dead body - one of the experts claimed that we could not be sure the person was dead, he might have been just drunk or asleep.
Performance of experts
The performance of these experts left so much to be desired, that it seemed almost a godsend that for over a year this was the only claim that there was evidence to suggest some people in the Sri Lankan forces had committed crimes. But of course, a year later, to coincide with the visit of the President to England, Channel 4 came out with another video.
This was also quite strange, in that the same UN experts, while claiming that the longer video explained some discrepancies, now confessed that the video had clearly been edited. The editing included transposing segments, so that what was filmed first appeared third. This explained the strange phenomenon of the number of dead bodies on display reducing as time passed.
The reason for this decision to edit backward remains obscure, as also the reason for including a segment that the experts declared had happened at a different time or even, as one of them asserted, in a different place. They continued to claim that the shooting was all done on mobile phones, even though one of them pointed out that an optical zoom had been used at one point, a device it seems you do not find in mobile phones. Incidentally, Channel 4 refused to give even the UN any more information about the video, though this time it did provide them with the video that was shown.
And now, again with brilliant timing, to coincide with the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, Channel 4 produces another film. Again they absolutely refuse to share the material with us, which makes a mockery of their claim that they want us to investigate and bring to justice those responsible for any crimes. Their refusal to provide the evidence for us to proceed suggests that their agenda is very different, as is indeed obvious from other problems that have been pointed out, namely that the film mixes up a range of shots, some of them obviously authentic, and uses these to make sweeping allegations which are not substantiated. I believe a sharp analysis of what was going on was provided in the Sunday Times a couple of weeks back, and there is perhaps little more to say, except to note that we will have to live with this type of sensationalism for a while yet.
Keen on reconciliation
But, for those of us who are keen on reconciliation, we need to understand what Channel 4 is up to, and why. Given the vicious nature of the attack, it is clear that it is serving a particular agenda, which obviously has nothing to do with morality, given its own record over the years, the support it has given for militarism when it benefits Britain, and its refusal to allow us a fair chance to discuss issues raised - as when they refused to see me after the first film shown, until shamed to do so by a comment I made on the BBC early morning programme.
That agenda can be understood in terms of what has already happened, in terms of providing an excuse for even more emotional attacks on us by the remnants of the LTTE propaganda outfits. Even before the programme was shown, letters were sent to many politicians, including even local Councillors, and we can see the results of this in the reactions of a few - though others, having seen the programme, have noted that it was quite one-sided. More insidiously, the programme was designed to stop active involvement in Sri Lanka of those members of the Tamil community who, free from LTTE pressure, were wondering what they could do to improve the situation of their brethren at home.
It is this polarizing that we must combat, because that would be the most helpful way of reviving the old LTTE agenda. It is even more important than before then, while roundly condemning the tactics of this divisive group, to be even more conciliatory with regard to the vast majority of the Tamil people, and make it clear that we will go on with rebuilding the country.
Practical action
In this regard I will mention some of the positive things that have been achieved recently, and urge your support for taking things further. First and foremost we have begun taking practical action to overcome the divisiveness caused by insensitive language policies. Tamil was made an official language in 1987, but the introduction of compulsory bilingualism in the school system took place only in the nineties, with now regulations that make knowledge of the other official language mandatory for new recruits to the public sector.
Much more however needs to be done, and that is why we are also reforming our education system, encouraging private institutions and input into tertiary education and skills training, strengthening the English medium option that was introduced in 2001, promoting opportunities for youngsters to meet and realize that they have much more in common than they had hitherto thought. But much more still requires to be done, and I hope that the diaspora will contribute to educational exchanges, to endowing scholarships at your old schools, to supporting training for youngsters who were deprived, in particular the former combatants who had to abandon schooling early when they were conscripted.
Another area in which reform has begun, but needs to be fast forwarded, is that of recruitment to the public sector, and in particular to the security forces. It is often ignored that minorities continue to occupy high positions in the armed forces, and in particular in training establishments where they were relatively safe from the particular animosity against them evinced by the LTTE, but certainly in the last few years recruitment has been less. With regard to the military, security considerations were involved, including the targeting by the LTTE of Tamil speaking officers, even during the so-called Ceasefire Agreement period, but there was still continuing recruitment in some areas, including to the Cadet Corps, for education as well as cadet training. Sadly the Ministry of Education seems to have prevented the Ministry of Defence from continuing with this programme, which had facilitated the commissioning of Tamil officers even while fighting was going on.
This is particularly important since we need the involvement of all our citizens in security activity. For we have to remember that, while the discrimination of the sixties and seventies led to the initial desire to leave Sri Lanka, this process was exacerbated by what I believe was state sponsored violence against Tamils on three distinct occasions following the election of the 1977 government of President Jayewardene.