Nomination of Channel 4 UK Video for 2012 Nobel Peace Prize

By E-mail                                                                                             84 Tambrook Drive

                                                                                                               Toronto, Ontario

                                                                                                               Canada M1W 3L9

                                                                                                               February 26, 2012

  Mr. Lars Heikensten 

Executive Director ran

The Nobel Foundation

Sturegatan 14

Box 5232

SE-102 45 Stockholm

Sweden

 Dear Mr. Lars Heikenstein,

 Nomination of UK's Channel 4 Video for 2012 Nobel Peace Prize

 I was shocked to learn that Britain's Channel 4 video titled 'Sri Lanka's Killing Fields' had been nominated for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize by none other than AI,ICG and HRW,which are three of the better known well funded lobby groups active in the human rights field. This video has been compiled with borrowed footage obtained from the Tamilnet, the propaganda arm of the internationally designated terrorist group called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). It is a one sided portrayal of the conflict in Sri Lanka, where 33 years of Tamil Tiger terrorism including over 386 suicide bomb attacks have been overlooked, only to focus on the last 3-4 months of the 35 month military operation launched by the Sri Lankan authorities to neutralize and eliminate the terrorist forces.

Channel 4 was not present on the ground, nor were the rights groups any where near the battle field in Sri Lanka. However, these very same rights groups have written reports running into hundreds of pages based on hearsay coming from prejudiced sources, which needed to be translated from Tamil to English leaving room for the added spin of the translator. Channel 4 and the rights groups came up with baseless guesstimates of civilian casualties and a string of unsubstantiated allegations. The much hyped extra-judicial killings shown in the Channel 4 video has been shown to be a doctored one of LTTE men dressed in Sri Lankan Army uniforms killing captured Sri Lankan security forces personnel or Tamil dissidents, or a staged video done with the intention of framing the Sri Lankan authorities.  Furthermore, one of the narrators of a segment of the video was one Vany Kumar who was an LTTE activist from the UK, whilst yet another woman who was described as a Tamil journalist working for the LTTE was in fact a trained military cadre holding the rank of Lt. Colonel.

The descrepancies in the main segment relating to the extra-judicial killings has been questioned by video technology experts. It has been filmed with a video camera and not a mobile phone as claimed by Channel 4, and subsequently digitally altered with more than one video layer being present. The Sinhala sounds have been later dubbed, whilst 17 frames are not synchronized with the rest, and the date inscribed on the video is 2009-07-15 which is after the conclusion of the military operation.  In fact a second video has been found where the gunmen speak clear Tamil words which are directly related to the action taking place, making it more than likely that the perpetrators are Tamil Tiger cadres masquerading as Sri Lanka Army soldiers. 

A.A. Gill writing in the Sunday Times of UK has stated that: " The channel has accumulated a large collection of samizdat amateur footage from mobile phones and video cameras - mostly un-attributed and uncorroborated. It mixes this footage with comment from unnamed sources with distorted voices and shadowed faces and human rights lawyers. It was brutal, it was shocking, but it wasn't journalism. Not a second of this has been shot by Channel 4; none of the eyewitness accounts comes from journalists.”

If you are to even consider this Channel 4 video, it is likely to damage the reputation of the Nobel Foundation.  I trust you would give this highly questionable and one sided video the 'rejection notice' which it richly deserves.

Yours sincerely,

Mahinda Gunasekera