A 2012 United Nations review concluded as many as 40,000 civilians were killed in the final months of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2009, Ron Sutton reports.
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This aerial photo shows part of the former conflict zone on the north east coast on the Jaffna peninsula of Sri Lanka in 2009. (AAP)
GIORA / February 25, 2013
RAJAPASSA FAMILY, COUNSINS ARE RELATIONS ARE NOT SINHALESE./ THEY ARE THE DEVILS OF SRI LANKA. THEY ARE THE EVEIL DEVILS BEFORE INDIANS CAME TO THIS ISLAND. YAKKU PEROTHAYO. RANIL WIMAL ARE AND REST OF THE UPFA MEMBER ARE SAME.
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justice / February 25, 2013
The world will realise the truth only if it listens to the independent media in sri lanka who are under threats and constraints.
Recently a journalist of the Sunday Leader and BBC was attacked in his home by intruders.
Journalists and distributers of newspapers in the north are regularly attacked as they write the truth of the Army Rule and annexation of civilians’ property,intrusion into family life and religious practices of citizens,their livelihoods and movements.Paramilitaries of the puppet minister in the north commit human rights violations with impunity.Even the minor judiciary are under threat.
Scores of journalists have fled sri lanka,and about 17 have been killed during past two decades.
Free and Fair elections have never been held since independence – every election was flawed.
Citizens are under threat of punitive measures if they meet with international state officials and journalists.
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Bedrock Barney / February 25, 2013
Sri Lanka took an authoritarian turn in 1972 with the republican constitution. This call is about 40 years too late. Yet for the Masses independence never came, all that happened is a group of local exploiters took over from some foreign ones.
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Ambettaya / February 26, 2013
Hunger for power has made MR like all other Presidents (with the exception of D. B. Wijetunge) think that he will remain eternal. All other similar leaders in the world have had to pay for this foolish thought process, with humiliating crash landings in the not so far gone past history. It is but a matter of time, until life gets leveled here in SL. There is time even now to redeem himself and become a good and loved leader of the Nation. Some of us will live to see the day, while others will not.
Anichchawatha Sankhara – Gauthama Buddha.
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rajesh / February 26, 2013
This could be the bus LTTE blew up. The LTTE packed this bus with their own 40 disabled women carders and blew it up. They were given a cup of tea before blown up.
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Candidly / February 27, 2013
The problem with this article is that the very first sentence is blatantly untrue, and afer that it’s downhill all the way.
The UN Internal Review Panel was appointed to review the UN’s actions or lack of actions and did not come to any hard and fast conclusions about the number of civilian casualties. That’s not surprising as it wasn’t appointed to do that. Instead, the review panel’s author Charlies Petrie (in para 34)quoted a report by a previous UN advisory panel:
“The Panel of Experts stated that ‘[a] number of credible sources have estimated that there could have been as many as 40,000 civilian deaths'”. There’s a world of difference between that and the statement that “A 2012 United Nations review concluded as many as 40,000 civilians were killed in the final months of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2009.”
Why did neither the Darusman nor the Petrie report tell the UN member states who these “credible sources” were? And how can an estimate from a source be credible, if it is anonymous?
A famous UK newspaper editor once wrote “comment is free, but facts are sacred.” Obviously Ron Sutton of Australian World News disagrees. In his book “the story can be as prejudiced as you like, so long as the facts are distorted.”
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