{"id":98167,"date":"2013-08-01T02:22:06","date_gmt":"2013-07-31T20:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=98167"},"modified":"2013-08-07T21:17:52","modified_gmt":"2013-08-07T15:47:52","slug":"facing-death-threats-ahead-of-visit-to-commonwealth-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/facing-death-threats-ahead-of-visit-to-commonwealth-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Facing Death Threats Ahead Of Visit To Commonwealth Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Callum Macrae<\/a><\/span> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Callum Macrae<\/p><\/div>\n

When you announce that you are going to apply for media accreditation for a routine international political event like the bi-annual Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM<\/a><\/span>) you don\u2019t normally expect a rash of death threats \u2013 or to find a senior diplomat from the host country threatening on twitter that he will \u201cmake sure you don\u2019t get a visa\u201d.<\/p>\n

But this year\u2019s CHOGM is no ordinary event.\u00a0 It is being held in Sri Lanka<\/a><\/span> – whose government is accused of some of the worst war crimes of this century.\u00a0 A country marked today by increasing repression of its Tamil minority and a brutal clamp-down on any government critics, particularly among the press and the judiciary.<\/p>\n

When David Cameron<\/a><\/span> controversially announced that he would be attending CHOGM despite calls for a boycott, Alistair Burt, the foreign minister with responsibility for Sri Lanka, went on record to say:\u00a0 “We will make it clear to the Sri Lanka Government that we expect them to guarantee full and unrestricted access for international press covering CHOGM\u201d<\/p>\n

The omens for that \u201cguarantee\u201d do not look good.<\/p>\n

I have now directed three films looking at the events of the last few months of the civil war.\u00a0 The first two were commissioned and broadcast by Channel 4<\/a><\/span>, building on the work of Channel 4 News.\u00a0 The latest, effectively the culmination of three years of investigation, is No Fire Zone: the Killing Fields of Sri Lanka<\/a><\/span>, a 93 minute feature documentary, supported by C4, BRITDOC and others. The films have had a huge impact, winning a number of awards, being cited by the UN and even seeing the team nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.<\/p>\n

In No Fire Zone<\/a><\/span> we use some of the most disturbing video evidence ever recorded, to chronicle how, just four years ago, the Sri Lankan government announced a series of grotesquely misnamed No Fire Zones, encouraged hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians to gather there for safety \u2013 and then systematically shelled them, also denying them adequate food and medicines.\u00a0 Perhaps 40,000, perhaps \u2013 as one UN report suggested – 70,000 or even more civilians died, most killed by government shelling.\u00a0 The predicament of the civilians was made worse by the Tamil Tigers<\/a><\/span> who also stand accused of\u00a0 committing war crimes and of preventing civilians from escaping the No Fire Zones.<\/p>\n

It is fair to say the government of Sri Lanka does not like me \u2013 or others who have reported the truth from Sri Lanka, including C4 News foreign correspondent Jonathan Miller or former BBC Sri Lanka correspondent Frances Harrison<\/a><\/span>, author of a book of Tamil survivors stories.<\/p>\n

But when I revealed that I intended to apply for accreditation to CHOGM (as I did when it was last held in Australia in 2011), it provoked an astonishing series of attacks. \u00a0Comments published online included a series of clear death threats. One of the mildest, in response to my remark: “I trust the Sri Lankan Government will welcome me” read: “Absolutely white van is waiting at the airport.” \u00a0White vans<\/a><\/span> are notoriously used in the abduction of government critics and are seen as a weapon of terror associated with extra-judicial killings and disappearances.<\/p>\n

Another comment said I\u00a0was welcome in Sri Lanka “only to go back in a coffin”.\u00a0 And another said: “Callum Macrae \u2013 do not come to Sri Lanka. You will be abducted in a white van, and sent to meet Lasantha Wikremasinghe (sic).” \u00a0Lasantha Wickrematunge<\/a><\/span> was the editor and founder of the Sunday Leader \u2013 a respected newspaper critical of the Rajapaksa regime.\u00a0 He was shot and killed by unknown assassins in January 2009.<\/p>\n

Then \u2013 a week ago, as I was touring with the film in Australia \u2013 Ambassador Bandula Jayasekara<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0a senior Sri Lankan\u00a0diplomat in Sydney and\u00a0former Chief media advisor to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0issued a series of threatening tweets in which he said he would \u201cmake sure you don\u2019t get a visa\u201d and accused me of being \u201chired by (Tiger) terrorists as a full time propagandist for the blood thirsty terror group overseas\u201d.<\/p>\n

Indeed, far from condemning the death threats against me, he seems almost to be encouraging the\u00a0climate\u00a0of hostility and suspicion which lies behind them.\u00a0\u00a0 Then last week the Sri Lankan government\u2019s own media minister echoed his words saying: \u201cpress freedom\u2026 cannot be something that can be framed inside aiding terrorism or being a propagandist for terrorism. So, we will be 100 per cent cautious about who comes to Sri Lanka for CHOGM.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I write this the Sri Lankan government has issued a rather more conciliatory statement, suggesting that they will issue visas to those given accreditation by the Commonwealth Secretariat.<\/p>\n

We shall see \u2013 and the world\u2019s press will now, I hope, be watching very carefully.<\/p>\n

*Callum Macrae – Director –\u00a0No Fire Zone: the\u00a0Killing Fields of Sri Lanka,\u00a0www.nofirezone.org<\/a>\u00a0Twitter: @nofirezonemovie<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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