Sri Lanka slams channel 4 for airing war crimes documentary

Colombo: Sri Lanka today slammed what it termed as an attempt by a British channel to denigrate Colombo ahead of the voting on a US-sponsored resolution in UNHRC over alleged rights abuses during the war with LTTE.

“Channel 4 has done it again, they have aired another documentary to accuse Sri Lanka with baseless allegations over incidents which never took place. Their motive is clear. They want to influence nations in the Human Rights Council,” military spokesman Brigadier Ruwan Wanigasooriya said today.

The Channel 4 has aired its latest documentary on the conduct of government troops during the last phase of the military campaign against the LTTE which ended in May 2009.

It carries footage of sexual abuse of LTTE women cadres - one of them a TV presenter - allegedly by Lankan soldiers.

The Sri Lanka High Commission in London has dismissed the video as Channel 4’s latest attempt to denigrate the island.

“It is a pity that your continuing propagandist vandetta against Sri Lanka only continues to undermine the process of reconciliation,” the government has said.

Channel 4 had previously aired similar documentaries highlighting large scale abuses by government troops. However, Sri Lanka had dismissed them as fabrications.

The draft resolution, tabled at the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva on March 3, has called for an international probe into the alleged war crimes.

The resolution, which is to be voted at the end of this month, will be the third in as many years on Sri Lanka’s accountability and reconciliation with the Tamil minority.

Sri Lanka laments that human rights defenders were silent when the LTTE carried out its campaign of terror over three decades killing their own community, civilians of all races, political leaders and security forces personnel.

The government has urged the international community to allow it more time and space to achieve reconciliation with the minority Tamil community.

PTI