In answer to documentaries made by UK’s Channel 4 citing evidence of major crimes of war in Sri Lanka during the conflict’s final phase, the Government of Sri Lanka has unveiled a documentary of its own that counters the narrative.
The Last Phase, which tells the story of one woman’s journey in the No Fire Zone, was screened at the British Parliament and the EU parliament.
The two part documentary seeks to spotlight the exemplary conduct of the security forces of Sri Lanka in the last phase of the war.
Robert.R / March 4, 2014
Great to see that CT is sticking to its neutral position and giving both sides of the story-three cheers for such an outstanding media organization !
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Peter Casie Chetty / March 4, 2014
You must be joking!
This is like a lame excuse after all the false propaganda CT and their “journalists” have “revealed”. Any man with an ounce of intelligence saw the crowds of refugees walking towards the State Forces lines and the cameras that were not manned by LTTE “journalists”. That was C4 version tainted to incite the idiots to believe what they said.
In the case of the murdered son if you look carefully you will see trellis and rubber slippers wearing LTTE men near the body. Conclusion if the army had been anywhere there then there would have been no LTTE men. The operations are called “clearing”.
Frances Harrison in her book admits that the area where the LTTE was meant to be was untouched by the forces fire. Thank you Frances. That is because the LTTE were among the civilians and firing their weapons from the camps in the “No Fire” Zones. This is the CT doing damage control.
Weiss the UN man has claimed in his book to be a know all of the situation yet his reports are written on hearsay because he never was anywhere near a battlefield. What a bunch of phonies.
So have you heard from Fredrika Jansz? The last we know is that she is looking for domestic employment and Gnanakoon could help her. I mean he has the money from all the scams the LTTE was up doing.
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Balasuriya / March 4, 2014
Damage control? for what? CT also published the Ministry of Defence’s “Lies Agreed Upon” check the dates- September 17, 2011
https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/ministry-of-defence-propaganda-film-lies-agreed-upon-misses-the-point/
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Palmsquirrell / March 4, 2014
So now even foreign journalists are “ltte journalists”. You Sinhala Nationalists just won’t stop without your dismisal and tarring of those who expose the army’s barbarism.
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Katmai / March 4, 2014
After a while this BS of accusing anyone who doesn’t sing praises with them as LTTE whatever starts to get old. After paying all that money can’t these guys get those “public relations” firms to come up with something new to at least keep the rest of us entertained?
Peter Casie Chetty claims false propaganda by CT without a single example. Seemingly sites information from two books but is unable to say from where in the book it was gleaned. These are clear tactics of a conman trying to deceive others. Just dream up accusations for its opponents with no way of proving them.
Interestingly, nobody ever asks “where is your proof”? And ironically, that is exactly what Rajapaksas are asking their accusers to do but the twist is they are not allowed to gather that proof from the “Killing Fields”.
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Robert.R / March 4, 2014
You don’t have to read CT, no one is forcing you to Petere
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Amarasiri / March 4, 2014
Robert,
Yes, need to hear from both sides.
Otherwise, it is he-said, she-said issue.
There is only one truth, but there are multiple non-truths.
Earth spinning and going round the Sun , is the Truth, but it took Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler to pull out the truth.
In Sri Lanka, 90% or even larger percent of the truth is known. Only the loose ends of the truth needs to be tied.
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Point Man / March 4, 2014
Finally we get to hear from real people, not the phantoms speaking behind veils in the diaspora through HR mercenaries. These are the Tamils of Sri Lanka who were mercilessly exploited by the LTTE fascists to achieve an impossible Eelam with help from the parasitic Tamil diaspora looking for glory. These are the Tamils whose children were forced to fight and die as cannon fodder. The diaspora Tamils sent money to Prabakaran to carry out such war crimes while they provided their own children the good life of the west and educated them at top western universities. These people were subjected to the most inhuman treatment by the LTTE for over 30 years before they were rounded up as human shield for the final war. The coward Prabakaran and his top lieutenants used them as cover to launch attacks on the enemy to provoke reprisal attacks on the civilians. Finally the Tigers began killing these helpless people as they tried to escape with the end fast approaching. The clarity and conviction with which they speak attests to the truth that the Sri Lankan security forces were their liberators.
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Ajith / March 4, 2014
The real people told the story in all elections held in the North. The eyes of the man tell the real story. It reminds me the doctors telling the truth in a press conference after six months intensive torture.
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eusense / March 4, 2014
The real story is the Tamils were threatened by the TNA.
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Ajith / March 4, 2014
It is great finding of Sri lanka. No one in this world born with such level of IQ.
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Palmsquirrell / March 4, 2014
Real story is that despite GOSL intimidation and violence the TNA still won because international monitors were on hand to make sure Sinhala thugs in uniform and their Tamil stooges could not terrorise the populace into voting for GOSL stooge EPDP.
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Katmai / March 4, 2014
“The real story is the Tamils were threatened by the TNA.”
Typical Rajapaksa propaganda minions ain’t they? Just blurt out some accusation and don’t even care if it makes any sense.
Apparently, they don’t realize that for your accusation to hold water at least you have to mention “threatened” with what and where. No wonder futile Rajapaksa propaganda is not working; even though a lot of money is being spent on it.
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Anpu / March 4, 2014
Real story is mass murderer Rajapkse , like the past PM and presidents, is using Buddhism to get votes.
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rewa / March 4, 2014
Cosmo Kramer at his best!
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Palmsquirrell / March 4, 2014
Real people voted for TNA, a clear refudiation of the GOSL and its thugs in and out of uniform.
Real people’s representative the TNA has asked the international community to investigate the war crimes.
Real people gave evidence to international bodies.
Real people (the Catholic priests) have called for an international inquiry.
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Piranha / March 4, 2014
Mmmm… For some reason no one seems to believe the government’s versions of the events. Is it because the channel four version shows it in black and white whereas the government’s version is not believable? Cold blooded murder caught on camera by government soldiers is difficult to dispute whereas a tale told by one or two people for the camera smacks of fabrication. The Last Phase is such an attempt at deception that has miserably failed to achieve its intent for the makers of it.
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Katmai / March 4, 2014
“Mmmm… For some reason no one seems to believe the government’s versions of the events.”
Remember the boy who cried wolf? Well, in this case these idiots are crying “dinosaurs, dinosaurs”. What do you expect?
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Richard / March 4, 2014
Now with the truth coming out in this video let us challenge all the false media news and video from ch4. Sri Lanka is no more afraid of an independent International inquiry!
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Katmai / March 4, 2014
Oh, this is going to be interesting… Richard is going to “challenge all the false media news and videos from ch4”.
I was hoping he’d challenge at least a few points on his first post; but may be in the next post hah?
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BBS Rep / March 4, 2014
Bell Pottinger Private is delivering some results.
However, for those on the know this well crafted video is not going to hold much sway.
We all know how bad the LTTE was. We also know that the Government had an extremely tough job in defeating the LTTE.
However we also know there was indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas and hospitals by the Sri Lankan armed forces. We also know that many LTTE cadres who surrendered to the Army simply disappeared. There is also overwhelming evidence of rape, torture and extrajudicial killings that took place at the latter stages of the war. We also know about the white van disappearances. This is what still remains unresolved. True reconciliation cannot occur if the truth is denied or suppressed.
And what about governance since the end of the war? Well best not to talk about it – the white van may be around the corner.
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Dorothilatha / March 4, 2014
We also know that Rajapakshe oligarchy is not making genuine efforts in the line of achieving sustainable peace safeguarding the rights of tamils.
Redherrings have become him to excuse that it will take years to see recocilartory actions are successful but having nothing much done in the areas of improving human rights issues such as paying wholeheartedness towards crimes invesitiations on an independent manner.
Instead, he always shoot the messengers sofar. Latter is seen as victorious folks but not seeing the impact of it on long term. So long the leaders would not turn to be honest to them – nothing would work for the peace in the country. We need leaders with broader vision. As some writers pointed out, external affairs of the country have become caricatures of defence units to this day giving no freedom them the FM to react autonomously. How come this to be the case for lanken external affairs ?
Once Gota grabbed the credit of the war. Today, his stupid actions have worked on all defeats against diplomatic relations. Even if UN resolutions were passed against, they the poweful intelligent men in the country would have worked on these areas, if Gota ´s interference was away. Now the wound is festered so that nothing will help to heal it.
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Sirimal / March 4, 2014
I truly believe – IF THE SLGO FAILED IN GETTING VOTES FROM THE 3 CONTINENTS (LATI A, AFRICA, ASIAN PACIFIC) WHOSE CANDDIATES MAKE UP OVER 70% OF THE VOTERS, THERE SHOULD BE SOME VERY FUNDERMENTAL HAS GONE BEYOND ALL MARGINS. THIS IS A GOOD MESSAGE TO THE STUPID ADMINISTRATION OF RAJAPAKSHE:
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Katmai / March 4, 2014
You must be one of those BBS Representatives who cannot go anywhere near the Boudhaloka Mawatha.
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Spring Koha / March 5, 2014
It will take more than the devious brains at Bell Potty to retrieve our lost cause. Truth to tell, our diplomatic downward slide started when our Colonel Gotchya lost his rag with Milliband and Kouchner . Both our veerayas, General Sarath and Colonel Gotchya should have been kept behind locked doors when the diplomats came calling.
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Anton / March 4, 2014
Seems like we have got The CT tamed alt last ,of-cause ,as usual the credit goes to MOD .
CT is wise to understand this .
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Balasuriya / March 4, 2014
Tamed? Who the [Edited out] is this Anton? New comer to CT? CT also published the Ministry of Defence’s “Lies Agreed Upon”
https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/ministry-of-defence-propaganda-film-lies-agreed-upon-misses-the-point/
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Bruz / March 4, 2014
Nize try with a paid couple. What a pathetic and poorly constructed documentary is this ? Get Karuna, Pillayan and Douglas to act in another documentary, it may become world famous.
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Peter Casie Chetty / March 4, 2014
The West is not interested in the plight of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. They are worried about the Chinese and Russian influences so that the Global Tamil Forum and the renegade Catholic Priest are only pawns in their game. They want a regime change and probably a Pakiyasothy or Jehan Perera or even a Mangala Samaraweera in charge so that they can sit on their faces! Jokers. Sarath Fonseka and Ranil are not good enough.
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Katmai / March 4, 2014
Peter Casie Chetty, you better provide some proof (or citations) to support your claims.
Otherwise, they are just a bunch of cockamamie theories from a crazy dude, that’s all.
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Spring Koha / March 4, 2014
All the wistful scenery, soporific background music and anglicised presenters cannot erase the bitter memories of the failure of the majority to act in the many years since independence when our Tamil brethren were goaded into going down the road they did. After the fierce infighting amongst the Tamils, when the smart and the cowardly together took flight to seek refuge in safe havens, it was the innocent and helpless who fell prey to the desperate machinations of the increasingly ruthless LTTE. As convenient as it was to have embedded cameramen to record the pictures of bravery and kindness on the one side, we have to balance it by looking at the other evidence, other stories, and the trophy photographs of the soldiers themselves. We had in the final phases, a war of a dispossessed rabble against an increasingly feral army who finally jettisoned all inhibitions in their will to finish the job. War – violence – is a miserable bloody business and, there is no sugar-coated way of putting it – it brings out the worst in man. The sadness is that we fought amongst ourselves – all of us children of the same Mother Lanka – drenching the land of our birth with indelible red stains that will never wash away. We have left enough bones of the victims for our children’s children to excavate and ponder over in the centuries ahead. Richard Mundy speaks naively, and with the sincerity of a hired hand, about the present freedom of the Tamils today. The truth remains that to be a Tamil in Sri Lanka today is to continue holding the short straw. If we do not do enough today to reverse this, it will be the same putrid mess for the next generation to revisit – long after Richard, Anjani, you and I have shuffled off this mortal coil.
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BBS Rep / March 5, 2014
Nicely put Spring Koha,
The very same horror is bound to revisit again and again given the mephistophilic personalities who will continue to rule Sri Lanka, beneath the thinnest of veneers of kindness and compassion.
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Dr.Rajasingham Narendran / March 4, 2014
The story of Jayawadani is one side of the narrative pertaining to the LTTE that has to be heard. The other side of the narrative pertaining to the government , its armed forces and its paramilitary auxiliaries has to be also heard. The full and real story was a mix of both. The trick is to differentiate facts from fiction and exaggerations cum trivialisation brought into the story by vested interests, The innocent civilians who were in the vortex of the last war and survived it, know the truth and will be the only witnesses who can make this distinction. Unfortunately, their story will never heard, because any mechanism set up to investigate the story will not have the capacity or capability to hear the narratives of these poor and marginalised people who are not equipped to tell it as it was and confront aggressive cross examination.
Dr.Rajasingham Narendran
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Katmai / March 4, 2014
In fact it was the Sri Lankan government that was in the best position to get the true story about both sides right after the war, when the memories were fresh in their minds. With the passage of time the memories must surely have become distorted dues to external factors and most probably to the disadvantage to the government.
If the GOSL thought it was a good idea to drag its feet in ascertaining the “real truth”, it has not worked in their favor. If anything it has damaged their credibility irrepressibly and the testimony will be a lot more damaging.
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Don Quixote / March 4, 2014
Ajith
And woman has only one eye and it doesn’t tell the truth ?
Please don’t pretend to be a Sinhalese by using our names. At least think of a proper pseudonym !
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Palmsquirrell / March 4, 2014
There are a lot of Sinhalese here pretending to be Tamil or Indian or Western . Just so you know Ajith & Ajita are Hindu names.
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Ajith / March 4, 2014
Don,
Where in the world you live? Ajith is not a Sinhalese name. It is a Tamil name. You Sinhalese are a mix of various genes and there is no originality in your names. Your religion is borrowed from Hinduism. your language is borrowed from Indian languages. Your names are a mixture of many languages including Europeans.
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Dawn Dale / March 4, 2014
what a difference from hate spewing propaganda of channel 4 – can’t believe our insensitive SL gov could make such a sensitive documentary…. who could not be moved by this story
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Katmai / March 4, 2014
Do you have any idea why Lady of Justice has her eyes blindfolded?
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Anpu / March 4, 2014
What happened to native Vedda?
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Spring Koha / March 5, 2014
Yes, I do miss his candid comments and his sincere defence of our noble first citizens. NV, if you are reading this, I wish you well and look forward to a speedy return with your well crafted comments.
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Ajith / March 4, 2014
I don’t know how many of you understand Tamil. If any one understands Tamil should listen to her story and analyse the time frame and events. There are number of places where she contradicts herself about her education starting from Sencholai, Sandilipay.
None of the producers or narrators of this film do not understand Tamil. they have to depend on a Muslim translator. They made this film hurriedly to show that LTTE is a terrorist organization and Sri Lanka did this war to free all the Tamils from LTTE terror. They didn’t bother about accuracy or consistency of the story.
Further, they did not think why Jeyawadanee has to go to Sencholai and how she got into Uduvil Girls School and Vembadi Girls School. Uduvil Girls School is a private highly recognized school and Vembadi Girls School is one of the top schools in Jaffna. Sencholai was started by LTTE to accommodate those children who lost their parents due to indiscriminate bombing and Shelling of Sinhala armed forces. It clearly shows that LTTE is an organization that is interested in the welfare of the children and fought against a genocidal state that made number of parent less children.
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James / March 4, 2014
Ajith – LTTE is a terrorist group. Since they have killed many innocent people, many respected Tamil individuals & leaders, child soldier issues, human shield et
However the Sri Lankan govt has not taken any meaningful action after the end of the to help bring the different communities together and also in addressing war crime issue inearnest
LTTE was a terrorist group
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Ajith / March 4, 2014
LTTE is a liberation organization. It is accepted by majority of Tamil People. It is Sri Lanka state that killed many Tamils, Tamil Leaders and individuals in a peaceful situation where there was no armed conflict. It is Sri Lanka Government murdered innocent Tamil civilians in 1958, 1962, 1972, 1977, 1981, 1983 at their home, in the streets, when they travel by train, boats and buses. It is Sri Lanka government burnt Jaffna library. It is Sri lanka government killed number of journalists. It is Sri Lanka government that uses white vans to abduct and killed number of innocent civilians businessmen, politicians like Raviraj, Joseph Pararajasingham, NGOs and many others. It is Sri Lanka government that bombed schools, hospitals, churches and children homes including Sencholai. It is Srilanka government that killed surrendered children,women and elderly. If your government is clean why you can’t accept an international investigation. It is terrorist state, supported by terrorists states and terrorist people.
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Park / March 4, 2014
Are we missing the bus? We know how cruel LTTE was, there was no doubt about it in the minds of the Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims in Sri Lanka. But we did not expect the armed forces of Sri Lanka to be cruel as well. If the armed forces feel that they have not done anything wrong then they should agree for a free and independent credible inquiry. If the armed forces have not done anything wrong they should take this opportunity. This movie has no impact on me as I already knew how cruel LTTE was.
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gamini / March 5, 2014
What a contrast with the Channel 4 films, filmed by the Forces themselves as mementos where Tamils were shown arrested by the Forces in their custody later shown brutally massacred, in the last stages of the War. Here in the MOD films are clearly for Propaganda getting some Tamils to denounce the LTTE and project the MR govt as the Saviours. It is no secret how the MOD would have forced these Tamils to act. Wonder why the MOD did not engage KP, Daya/George Masters et al also to act in this clip?
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Paul / April 29, 2014
Can you believe anything they say?
http://www.slnewsonline.net/news_2011_june_16_to_30.asp
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Jayantha / March 9, 2014
There were inhuman atrocities were carried out by both parties ie….LTTE as well as Govt. forces during the final phase of the war.
Many eye witnesses have given evidence on these atrocities.
Also what happened to the TIGERS who surrendered with white flags……what happened to issapriya and other junior and senior tiger carders who surrendered with white flags…….
What happened to 40,000 innocent refugees with a total of 150,000 missing during the final operation.
There are more questions than answers.
Jokers, cheaters and liars should stay away from the investigation, and proper investigations including forensic evidence should be carried out to find out the truth.
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Maveeran / March 13, 2014
What a cheap documentary made by GOSL. Even if the LTTE were holding civilians as human shields why didn’t the brave Army use a different tactic to save the civilians? It doesn’t give Sinhala government any rights to kill 50 Tamil civilians to get one Tiger rebel? Doesn’t make sense. Jayamalini got hurt when they were at the SL Army’s cut off line, due to a shell which was aimed at Srilankan Army by the tigers. Tamil tigers weren’t aiming at the Civilians at all. If the Srilankan Army cared for the Tamil civilians they would have backed off without bombing and shelling 400,000 tamil civilians just to kill 1,000 Tamil rebels.
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