Amnesty International: Channel 4's Sri Lanka's Killing Fields

2066 Kings Grove Crescent . Gloucester. Ontario . K1J 6G111  August 2011

Mr. Alex Neve, Secretary General, Amnesty International, Laurier Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario.Dear Alex Neve:I appreciate it very much for you to find time out of your extremely busy work in office to respond to my letter.  And I am sincere when I say that and I thank you.But all what I can tell you is, No…no…no…I don’t agree with the majority of what you said.  There have been moments when I was even resentful and I don’t want you to second guess me as you will hear my voice loud and clearly while you read more of this letter.  But before I spray you with my bile, I want you to know who I am, in case you think that I am just another   hot-headed ‘Johnny-come-lately’ on this Sri Lankan issue to make an effort to change your perceptions of me, if you have any,  and also to know that I am having a love-affair with Sri Lanka, my Mother-country,  and that no one hurts her unfairly, and that includes Amnesty International, or the NDP crowd like Wayne Marston, Paul Dewar, Rathika Sitsabaiesan and Peter Julian.  The operative word is “unfairly”, as I like to believe that I am a reasonable man with a humanitarian heart.  I will claim my bragging rights just to introduce myself to you.In the 80s, I happen to be one of you guys, an ardent Human Rights activist and a member of Amnesty International, who stood on the pulpit for AI at St. Joseph’s Church on Laurier Avenue East, opposite Ottawa U,  to lead the Buddhists  in prayer in the Multi-Religious Service, doing  my  Buddhist thing in solidarity with AI in their support for the  Lech Walesa’s  Gdansk Polish Solidarity Movement.  I don’t recall the exact date.  Leading this event for AI was one Patrick whose surname has escaped my mind. This all changed when I understood AI’s  unfair attitude towards the Sri Lankan government who was fighting the foreign trained and funded Tamil Tiger terrorists who wanted to divide that island into two and create their Eelam, and  AI’s soft peddling on these rascals who were killing my Sinhalese people in droves, and  indirectly supporting their separatist movement.  I smell pretty well a nasty rat when there is one, and I recognize one when I see one.Six years into the barrage of lies by the Tamil refugees in Ontario, who were spitting  venom at Sri Lanka with lies from morning until night every day of the week, President Ranasinghe  Premadasa asked me to give him a hand to try and put a cap on this Tamil Tiger negative propaganda on Sri Lanka.  I had never worked in Sri Lanka as I left home for Britain as a youngster for my studies and  by now was gainfully employed in Canada in the Federal Government and was an IS6 by June 1989. I was thankful to him for giving me this opportunity to help my Motherland which was in crisis and blunt the Tamil Tiger lies in Canada and gave up a good secure job and took a cut in my salary by $20,000 a year, thus losing $100,000 in wages in five years.   Why?  This sacrifice was because I had a passion and a mission to help my Motherland with a conviction that no one, absolutely no one in Canada, and that included AI and the separatist Canadian-Tamils would hurt her unfairly.The question is was it worth it?  I’d say yes, and my efforts since July 1983 got under the skins of these separatist Tamils who threatened to blow me up several times for speaking out the Tamil Facts and also threatened to blow up the 15 storey Centennial Building at 200 Kent Street in June 1987 where I used to work for the Federal Government.  It was a major security crisis down town.  And there have been two litigations from Tamil organizations in Toronto so far.  All this intimidation hoop la was to shut me up.  Did I hide behind a door or under a table because of such intimidation of the cowardly Tamil separatists?  And here I am still fighting for the truth taking on Amnesty International for being unfair and ridiculous on Sri Lanka and her Sinhalese people and I happen to be a true full-blooded Sinhalese.   As I told you earlier, no one, absolutely no one is going to hurt Sri Lanka, my Motherland unfairly.Between June 1989 and June 1994 I was also responsible for the Human Rights file at the Sri Lanka High Commission in Ottawa.  I made a genuine effort to respond to all the complaints that the Mission received from members of Amnesty International and the community-at-large whose majority were Tamils.  My responses were not form letters but personal letters in trying to help them with answers about their kith and kin who they said had disappeared, after establishing some facts of the cases. During these years I had responded to 235 (1989); 649 (1990); 1223 (1991); 872 (1992); 426 (1993) and 257 (1994) letters.  I often received letters from the correspondents thanking me for taking a personal interest on their complains and often was told that this was the first letter ever they had received from any country Mission in Canada to their inquires of concerns and complains.  I felt good about it as it showed that the Sri Lankan Mission in Ottawa was honest in trying to understand the pain of these letter writers and dealing with their issues honestly with bare facts.What was interesting about my responses was that I was able to let some know that the person who they thought had disappeared may be alive somewhere outside Sri Lanka since they had left the shores of Sri Lanka in a plane with a valid passport.  In one incident, one Tamil who was suspect to be in the gang who killed Jaffna’s Mayor Alfred Duraiappah was reported by the Toronto Star to have been caught of forging passports in Toronto.  I provided them with the Sri Lankan police mug shots.  When asked by the reporters, now that we got him does Sri Lanka want him back?  I told the reporters on behalf of the Sri Lankan Government that Canada can have him since you all had accepted him as a convention refugee and deal with the infractions of the law he had committed in Canada.  He was put behind bars for 18 months, and that’s all, and I was surprised.  So we now have a Tamil Tiger killer walking freely among us, perhaps in Toronto.  I will show that information to John Argue when we meet sometime in October.Did my activities at the Sri Lanka Mission get under the skins of the separatists-Tamils purely because I was letting Canadians know the Tamil Facts to blunt their lies?  Obviously I did.  During the five years that I worked at the Mission there was just one demonstration in front of the Mission on 26 Range Road.  It was not to denounce the Sri Lankan Government or the Sri Lankan Mission, but it was against Asoka Weerasinghe, their employee.   This was after Tom Godfrey of the Toronto Sun had mentioned my name in his article  ‘Refugee scam ripped’ on January7, 1993 and again in his article ‘Criminals conning Canada: Sri Lanka’ on January 8 1993.  These Tamils drove in busloads from Toronto and Montreal to join the Ottawa-Tamils the following Monday to intimidate me.  And you AI keeps providing enough oxygen to keep these rascals alive.  This I resent very much. This war affected me directly, and so did on several Sinhalese that I know, as you all only have the perception of “poor Tamils” and the Sinhalese are not on your radar screen at all.  On 31 January 1996 when the Tamil Tigers used a truck bomb to bring down the Central Bank Building killing 114 and maiming 1,338 others for life, a shrapnel shot across to the opposite side of the road and got a cousin of mine who was walking in front of the Central Bank Building with a cup of tea to his office at the Ceylinco Building.    Unlucky him, he was killed. My nephew and his wife who were employees of the Bank had managed to extricate themselves from the rubble and lucky enough to survive walked four hours to reach home in a suburb of Colombo in blood splattered clothes only to be met by a chest thumping crying Mother, my sister, who was cursing the Tamil Tigers, INGOs and the western countries who were helping these terrorists.  A friend of mine, who earned his Ph.D  in Statistics at Ottawa U, and a Director at the Bank was unfortunate to be between stacks at the Bank’s Library, and was pinned by the falling stacks and had his legs  amputated.  He, I am told, later died as a result of these severe injuries.  And there you are Alex.  Pox on these bloody Tamil separatist bastards, I say.  And by the way, the explosives for this truck bomb were bought in 1994 from a Chemical Factory in the Ukraine with a cheque cut from a Tamil person’s account at a Bank in Vancouver. And you guys at AI keeps cloaking these rascals with respectability and bleeding hearts. Let me repeat Alex, no one absolutely no one hurts my Motherland, Sri Lanka, unfairly and that includes Amnesty International.Now to deal with your response of August 4 to my letter.You said “…your concern about the ways that we have highlighted the recent Channel 4 documentary Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields”.  The words from Asoka Weerasinghe, the soothsayer is that, Amnesty International was too quick on the draw, and they will fall flat on their faces pretty soon with embarrassment for their dishonesty.  They ought to watch the Sri Lankan Government’s response, the investigative documentary Lies Agreed Upon, which rubbishes Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, as a response to the heinous propaganda campaign orchestrated by Channel 4 TV to vilify Sri Lanka. This video documentary addresses all allegations and arguments presented in the Channel 4’s doctored Sri Lanka’s  Killing Fields and deride them with factual evidence.  And Asoka Weerasinghe will be the first guy to wiggle his fingers at you Amnesty International with the thumb on his nose saying, “Boo-hoo-Amnesty International, I told you so!”Alex, you guys who believe and preach fairness, I challenge AI to show Lies Agreed Upon after your showing Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields at every venue when you all bicycle it around the world.  My hunch is that you guys at AI have no gumption to do it.  Let’s put “fairness” at work if that is indeed part of your mission statement.You know what Alex, I give credit to Lies Agreed Upon, as all their witnesses, displaced Tamil refugees who were still in welfare camps, rehabilitated ex-combatant Tamil Tigers who surrendered to the military or captured by them, Tamil Doctors who worked in makeshift hospitals in the Tamil Tiger controlled areas, and government officials face the camera full-front to tell their stories and rubbish Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields. They tell us that they are no shadow puppets because they have nothing to hide, and I recognized that these faces having two eyes, a nose and lips around their mouths, and more over they identified themselves with their names as sub-texts.  And what did the Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields do! They got this Phantom Fernando as an Indonesian shadow puppet to tell us that he had seen with his own eyes Tamil women being raped by Sri Lankan soldiers.  Here is my problem with that Alex!  Who the hell is this senior Army Officer Fernando?  Was he worried to show his face in case Brigadier Shavendra Silva tells us that he had never set eyes on this phantom and  being confirmed by Brigadier’s senior Field Army officers.  Is this why? What is Channel 4’s problem? Worried about their lies, which you seem to accept as gospel? Come on, Alex, give me a break!I want AI to apply my litmus test on this Phantom ‘shadow’ Fernando.  Dress him up in a Sri Lankan military battle field uniform with all its paraphernalia with a tactical field helmet and tactical  field boots, et cetera.   If this Phantom cannot get out of his field uniform to be comfortable enough to rape a woman within two minutes, then I would say this Phantom is a fraud and is telling lies.Why two minutes, you may ask?  The reason is because this woman happens to be one among the 300,000 Tamils who were being herded by the Tamil Tigers as a human shield and the soldier would be bludgeoned and lynched by a Tamil mob that may include this woman’s father, brother, uncle, nephew and perhaps the husband or boyfriend.  That is why as these Tamil men will uphold the dignity of their women at any cost as that is how they have been brought up by their parents in their culture.  You tell me Alex, how else could a soldier in the battle field rape a Tamil woman.   That story is a lot of  Channel 4’s brand of cods-wallop!  Moreover, this Phantom Fernando is one son-of-a-bitch allowing one of his soldiers rape a Tamil woman without stopping that dastardly act even at gun point.  This fellow is a damn liar, don’t you see it Alex?  Find out how much he was paid  to do this shadow stint, before you go around the world again bicycling the video with the intention to insult and tear down the humanitarian  image of Sri Lanka, and the brilliant victory over the most ruthless terrorist group in the world, the Tamil Tigers.  They were given cover by Human Rights groups like yours disregarding that this Government  having militarily wiped out the Tamil Tigers gave back the ‘right-to-life’ to 22 million of its peoples which had been hijacked by the Tamil Tigers for 30 long years.? Surely, Alex, you are no Mr. Alex Naive, but you are Mr. Alex Neve, and keep reminding yourself just that when you try to pin Sri Lanka onto the wall because of other’s lies with an axe to grind.Let me point out one more fraudulent effort by Channel 4’s Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields to tarnish the Sri Lankan Government and its courageous soldiers and exposed by Lies Agreed Upon.   Major General Shavendra Silva identified the two eyewitnesses that Channel 4 had used to denounce Sri Lanka.  One happened to be a woman Vany Kumar who was exposed to have had three different aliases to suit her strategy.  She was also called Damilvany Kumar, Vany Kumar and Damilvany Gnanakumar.   She was exposed as a military trained Tamil Tigress  who operated from  the UK where she lived under the LTTE front Tamil Youth Organization (TYO) and had entered Sri Lanka in 2008 on orders from terrorist Castro and wore the terrorist graduation loyalty symbol of a cyanide capsule around her neck.  She was no witness of Sri Lankan Govenment atrocities in the Wanni more than my dog Mookey who lives with us in Ottawa.This woman was exposed as a blatant liar by the Tamil Doctor who she had accused on camera that he did amputations on Tamils with a kitchen knife without any anesthetics. The Doctor exposed this Vany Kumar as a liar as there was no such butchery done by him and he couldn’t keep his smirk off his face talking about her lie.  And mind you this Doctor spoke on camera for the video Lies Agreed Upon and not as a shadow puppet as Channel 4’s senior military officer Fernando did.  And there lies the rub Alex. Vany Kumar’s sister who lives in Essex , England, admitted to The Guardian (UK) that she disappeared after her divorce and subsequently appeared in the Wanni among the Tamil Tiger cadres. Surely, Alex, you are not going to take chances of such revelations by bicycling and selling Channel 4’s video Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields as gospel without showing Lies Agreed Upon immediately after.   Are you?  Come on Amnesty International, show us that you have some gumption and that you really mean when you tell us that you are a squeaky clean independent group trying to police Human Rights around the world.    My hunch is that you won’t piggy back these two videos for obvious reasons that you AI will be judged by the John-Q-Public as an irresponsible and a vindictive NGO, and not wanting to kill the Goose that lays the Golden eggs for you all, the billion dollar worth LTTE rump.  Isn’t that right Alex?  And stop challenging my intelligence by trying to tell me that AI considers Channel 4’s Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields as reliable.  What a bunch of hoaxy guys you people are!You said: “Drawing primarily on our own extensive research, but also upon the findings of the UN Panel of Experts on Accountability in Sri Lanka and many other sources, including Channel 4 documentary – we have underscored that war crimes and crimes against humanity appear to have been committed by both military and the LTTE during those final weeks of fighting with civilians paying a heavy price.”Alex, that statement failed not only the Government of Sri Lanka and the soldiers who did a damn good job in eliminating the most ruthless terrorist outfit in the world, the Tamil Tigers, who perfected the art of suicide bombing with body bomb packs which are now used as copy-cat attacks all around the world, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and you name it, but  AI also failed every person in Sri Lanka’s 22 million population.You quoted the UN Panel of Experts.  You failed us Sinhalese again, Big Time.   That was no UN Panel of Experts, they were Ban ki-Moon's Panel of experts who did a cut and paste job from Tamil Net  the mouth piece of the LTTE.  This was a report that Ban ki-Moon got done without being sanctioned by the UN Security Council.  This is a report compiled on a private initiative by Ban ki-Moon and had no nexus with the UN.  The Secretary General Ban ki-Moon clearly violated his functions under Article 100, Clause 1 of the UN Charter which provides guidance for him as the Secretary General to maintain his strict neutrality.  And so you go on still calling it the UN Panel of Experts.  How come Alex?Furthermore, this man Ban ki-Moon was absolutely stupid to go ahead and appoint three panelists who should have never been appointed.  Here are my reasons and you better follow my thread.The panel was headed by Marzuki Darusman, a former Attorney General of Indonesia who was also a member of the International Group of Eminent Persons (IIEGP).  This Group was invited in March 2008 to observe Sri Lanka’s Presidential Commission looking into alleged serious violations of Human Rights.  Darusman left the IIEGP in a huff disagreeing with the Sri Lankan Government and yet signed the IIEGP Report without paying a single visit to Sri Lanka to ascertain himself the actual ground situation.  So this arrogant fool, Ban ki-Moon goes and appoints Darusman to the panel who is suspect to be anti- Sri Lanka.The second panelist appointed by Ban ki-Moon was Steven Ratner an adviser to Human Rights Watch (HRW) that has been very critical of Sri Lanka and not the Tamil Tiger terrorists from the very inception of the Tamil separatist Eelam War.  Ratner also co-authored a book with Jason Adams titled Accountability for Human Rights: Atrocities in International Law beyond Nuremberg legacy.  On page 123 of this book Ratner has stated that the “convention of banning apartheid should be invoked in relations to countries such as Sri Lanka.”  With this background Steven Ratner should have been dismissed instantly as a panelist to undertake this assignment.  And yet, this arrogant fool Ban ki-Moon, appoints him to the panel.  And you at AI have accepted this Report by the Expert anti-Sri Lanka panel as gospel.  How come Alex?  Didn’t you recognize that you had hiccups when you made that decision?The third panelist was the South African Yasmin Sooka who is a close associate of South African Tamil Navi Pillai who is the patron of the Sooka Foundation, and also responsible for the failed resolution that was brought against Sri Lanka before UNHRC in May 2009.  This clearly shows her bias by association and should not have been a panelist.  Yet this arrogant fool, Ban ki-Moon goes ahead and appoints her.  And you at AI have accepted this Report by the Expert anti-Sri Lanka panel as gospel as part of your research. How come Alex? You said: “I realize that you consider the Channel 4 documentary to be unreliable.  We do not share that view…”  Really….!  Tell me, do you or do you not consider the documentary Lies Agreed Upon reliable which does not use puppet shadow props to demolish  Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields point by point, video clip by video clip with substantial evidence?  You guys at AI amaze me, and that includes you Alex.  You guys spew a load of piffle.  Chanel 4 video and the Darusman Report were flawed due to serious inaccuracies, unsubstantiated allegations, suspect doctored  film-footage, and simple interpretations, and some of it clearly taken from LTTE’s propaganda arm, the Tamil Net.You also said: “We do believe, that at this critical juncture, with the end of the armed conflict and significant challenges of reconciliation facing the country, it is essential that justice and accountability be taken seriously.  With that in mind we have called on United Nations to launch an impartial, independent investigation.”My God, Alex, you must be joking!  You are asking that bunch of rogues at the UN to launch an impartial, independent investigation?  I just told you how this bunch of no good rogues headed by Ban ki-Moon appointed Darusman, Ratner and Sooker who had anti-Sri Lanka running through their veins to write a report.  And what did they do?  They went ahead and did a cut and paste job, the majority items being from the Tamil propaganda fields.  For Pete’s sake Alex, don’t tell me that you didn’t know this.And you say “…and significant challenges of reconciliation facing the country.”  Correct.  These challenges include groups like Amnesty International who would do anything to add road blocks to stall that the reconciliation process will fail miserably. There is a reason for this Alex.  If Sri Lanka succeeds in the reconciliation process between the two aggrieved communities, there cracks another golden egg spilling its lucrative yolk which pumps funds into AI and other Human Rights NGOs.   One less issue to present to your funders, that you need funds to monitor Sri Lanka’s human rights violations.   Like the Canadian Tamil Congress's (CTC) coordinated Walk-a-Thon funds.   CTC is a group that was involved in several TV panel discussions in early 2009 defending the Tamil Tigers to its core. That is Grade 10 common sense.  That is Grade 10 logic.  Don’t challenge our intelligence and nor should you pull wool over my eyes.

But I can assure you of one thing Alex, no one, absolutely no one as an individual or an organization is going to hurt my Mother-country, Sri Lanka 'unfairly', and that includes Amnesty International without a challenge from me. And true to my name Weera-Sinha (courageous-lion) I shall sing my personal Anthem : 'O! Sri Lanka, I shall stand on guard for thee in Canada'.  Likewise I sincerely hope that you will keep the honour of your name Alex Neve glued to your heart and not let it slip into Alex Naive, for whatever reason, as it wouldn't suit you.

Sincerely,

Asoka Weerasinghe