Sri Lankan Army Massacred 20,000 Civilians

The death toll among refugees trapped in the last Tiger redoubt in north eastern Sri Lanka is three times higher than that acknowledged by the government.

Sri Lankan authorities say their military observed a "no-fire-zone" and stopped using heavy weapons on April 27 when 100,000 Tamil civilians were trapped

However aerial pictures and witness testimony suggest the army in fact launched a three week artillery barrage from the end of April.

Confidential United Nations documents say 7,000 civilians had died in the zone by the end of April and sources told The Times newspaper the toll then grew to around 1,000 a day.

The figures would put the final death toll, before the zone was finally overrun and Velupillai Prabhakaran, leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), was killed, at more than 20,000.

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And the UN blocked any inquiry into this devastation

UN Rejects Calls for Sri Lanka War Crimes Inquiry

Sri Lanka last night scored a major propaganda coup when the UN human rights council praised its victory over the Tamil Tigers and refused calls to investigate allegations of war crimes by both sides in the final chapter of a bloody 25-year conflict.

In a shock move, which dismayed western nations critical of Sri Lanka's approach, the island's diplomats succeeded in lobbying enough of its south Asian allies to pass a resolution describing the conflict as a "domestic matter that doesn't warrant outside interference".

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Why Don't We Care about Sri Lanka

Do we have favourites when it comes to civilian casualties? Do we care about some peoples’ suffering more than others?

The contrasting levels of public concern and protest over the killing of innocent civilians in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Gaza since the beginning of this year make the answer an emphatic ‘yes.’

When Israeli forces killed women and children in their assault on Gaza in January, there were was a public outcry in Britain, the liberal left and anti-Zionist movements staged protests, and Israeli writers too registered their public disgust.

But when allegations of civilians being killed in a so-called ‘no fire zone’ by the Sri Lankan army surfaced last month, the response of the world’s public was considerably more muted.

There were angry protests by Tamils in Paris and London, and government ministers voiced their shared concerns, but the terrible suffering of thousands of Tamil civilians trapped in the ‘no-fire zone’ has somehow failed to pluck the nation’s heart strings.

Is it heartlessness? The Tamils caught in this ‘safe zone’ must be the most wretched people on Earth right now. An estimated 50,000 are trapped inside a tiny strip of Sri Lanka’s north-east coast by rebel fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who will shoot them if they try to escape, and the army, which may shell them if they don’t.

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Sri Lanka Accused of 'War Crime' Over Shelled Hospital

The attack, inside an official "no-fire zone", was among the bloodiest incidents since the army began its offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels.

About 50,000 civilians are now trapped inside a tiny strip of coastline, covering an area less than twice the size of London's Hyde Park. President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government has repeatedly promised not to use heavy artillery in this zone.

But repeated and deadly bombardments have taken place – although possibly with mortar bombs rather than artillery. The rudimentary hospital in Mullivaikal, consisting of little more than blue tarpaulins draped beneath a tin roof, was hit by one bomb, with the crowded admissions area taking the worst of the blast.

Photographs taken after the explosion showed bodies strewn in the dirt and medical personnel struggling to help the wounded. Dr Thurairaja Varatharajah, the senior government health official in the war zone, said that about 50 people were wounded in the attack and the death toll could rise.

The government initially denied any knowledge of the incident and then said the army had not been responsible. The "no-fire zone" is still under rebel control and the authorities have accused the Tamil Tigers of holding human shields, inventing attacks or even staging their own atrocities in order to blame the government.'

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GAZA REVISITED BUT THEN IT WOULD BE WITH ALL THE ISRAELI HELP AND MILITARY ASSISTANCE THE SRI LANKAN GOVERNMENT IS GETTING!

Israeli Military Deeply Acive in Tamil Tigers Massacre

The current offensive by the Sri Lankan government against thr Tamil Tiger or Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebel movement has trapped tens of thousands of refugees in a coastal strip still held by the rebels.

Sri Lanka’s military has been accused by human rights organizations of using massive firepower against the guerrillas that is resulting in civilian casualties. The comparison between Israel’s brutal attack on the Gaza Strip and its killing of over 1,000 civilians and the wounding of many thousands of others and the Sri Lankan assault on a three-mile long coastal strip controlled by the Tamil Tigers have been made by a number of observers, including Australia’s Green-Left Online in a May 2 article by Sean O Floinn & Emma Clancy: “A largely defenseless people struggling to survive and hemmed in on a narrow strip of land, facing indiscriminate air strikes, assault from gun boats and cluster bombs by a well-equipped army, conjures up the image of the recent Israeli invasion of Palestine’s Gaza Strip.”

However, there is more to the comparisons between Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip and Sri Lanka’s attack on the narrow strip of the Jaffna peninsula. In May 2000, a day after India refused to give Sri Lanka any military assistance in its war against the Tamil Tigers, Sri Lanka and Israel resumed diplomatic relations. Although the corporate media are focusing on Sri Lanka’s military assistance from China, little mention is being made of the island nation’s military links with Israel.

After the establishment of diplomatic ties between Jerusalem and Colombo, Israeli military technicians arrived to maintain Sri Lanka’s Israeli-made Kfir fighter-bombers and Russian MiG-27 aircraft and provided Sri Lanka with Dvora fast naval attack craft. Israeli arms and ammunition also began flooding into Sri Lanka.

Soon, Israeli military advisers and “consultants” were regular visitors to Colombo’s new Access Lanka Building, owned by relatives of Sri Lanka’s top military officers. Among Israel’s security exports to Sri Lanka was state-of-the-art electronic and imagery surveillance equipment. Israeli Air Force pilots reportedly flew Sri Lankan attack aircraft against Tamil Tiger targets on the Jaffna peninsula. Israeli military personnel were also reported to have taken part in Sri Lankan military attacks on Tamil units.

Due to Israel’s military assistance to Sri Lanka, Palestinians reportedly began aiding the Tamils in the 1980s. It is also believed that Israel’s Mossad recruited agents among Sri Lanka’s large contingent of foreign workers in the Persian Gulf Arab states. There were also reports that Israelis were also providing weapons and training to Tamil guerrillas in order to maintain a “market” for Israeli arms suppliers in the civil war-wracked island nation.

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