வவுனியா மருத்துவமனையில் அவயவங்களை இழந்த 20 ஆயிரம் மக்கள் உள்ளனர்; அவர்களில் பெரும்பாலானவர்கள் எறிகணைத் தாக்குதல்களில் அவயவங்களை இழந்தவர்கள் என மருத்துவர் தெரிவித்துள்ளதாக பிரித்தானியாவில் இருந்து ஒளிபரப்பாகும் 'சனல் - 4' செய்தி நிறுவனம் தெரிவித்துள்ளது.

இது தொடர்பாக அதில் மேலும் தெரிவிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளதாவது:

இலங்கையில் இறுதியாக நடைபெற்ற சமரில் 20 ஆயிரம் மக்கள் அவயவங்களை இழந்துள்ளதாக காயமடைந்த மக்களுக்கு மருத்துவ சேவைகளை வழங்கிவரும் மருத்துவர் ஒருவர் தெரிவித்துள்ளார்.

அரச படையினரின் எறிகணை வீச்சுக்களினாலேயே பெருமளவான மக்கள் உயிரிழந்துள்ளதாக கண்ணால் கண்ட சாட்சிகள் எமது ஊடகவியலாளர்களிடம் இரகசியமாக தெரிவித்துள்ளனர். நாம் இந்த ஆய்வுகளை ஒரு வாரமாக மேற்கொண்டிருந்தோம்.

ஆனால் சிறிலங்கா அரச தலைவர்கள் அதனை தொடர்ச்சியாக மறுத்து வந்துள்ளனர். ஒரு லட்சம் மக்கள் தங்கியிருந்த பகுதி மீது சிறிலங்கா அரசு மேற்கொண்ட தாக்குதல்களில் நாளாந்தம் ஆயிரம் பேர் கொல்லப்பட்டதாக அங்கிருந்து இறுதியாக தப்பிவந்த ஒருவர் தெரிவித்துள்ளார்.

ஏறிகணைத் தாக்குதல்களை தாம் நிகழ்த்தவில்லை என சிறிலங்கா அரசு தெரிவித்த போதும் அங்கு தொடர்ச்சியாக எறிகணைத் தாக்குதல்கள் இடம்பெற்றதாக கண்ணால் பார்த்த சாட்சிகள் தெரிவித்துள்ளனர்.

சிறிலங்கா அரசு மேற்கொண்ட வெற்றி கொண்டாட்டங்கள் மிகவும் வேதனைக்குரியது என முகாமில் பணியாற்றும் கிறிஸ்தவ மதகுரு ஒருவர் தெரிவித்துள்ளார்.

தமிழ் மக்களின் வேட்கைகளை பிரதிநிதித்துவப்படுத்த தற்போது எவரும் இல்லை, தமிழ் மக்களுக்கு ஒரு உறுதியற்ற எதிர்காலமே எஞ்சியுள்ளது. அவர்கள் அந்நியர்களின் ஆட்சியில் வாழ்வது போல வாழ்ந்து வருகின்றனர் என அவர் மேலும் தெரிவித்தார்.

தமிழ் மக்களின் தனிநாட்டு கோரிக்கைக்கான போராட்டம் வெளியில் இருந்து தொடர்ந்து நடத்தப்படும் என விடுதலைப் புலிகளின் அனைத்துலக உறவுகளுக்கான பொறுப்பாளர் செல்வராஜா பத்மநாதன் தெரிவித்துள்ளார்.

தமிழ் மக்களின் உரிமைக்கான போர் இராணுவ நடவடிக்கை மூலம் மிகவும் கொடூரமாக நசுக்கப்பட்டுள்ளதாக அவர் மேலும் தெரிவித்தார்.

அரச ஊடகங்கள் தம்மை நாளாந்தம் துரோகிகளாக சித்தரித்து வருவதாகவும், அதன் மூலம் மக்களை தமக்கு எதிராக அணிதிரள வைப்பதாகவும் இடதுசாரி முன்னனி அரசியல்வாதி கலாநிதி விக்கிரமபாகு கருணாரட்ன தெரிவித்துள்ளார்.

இரண்டு வாரங்களுக்கு முன்னரும் ஊடக சுதந்திரம் வேண்டும் என போராடிய போத்தல ஜெயந்த என்ற ஊடகவியலாளர் கடத்தப்பட்டு தாக்கப்பட்டிருந்தார்.

2006 ஆம் ஆண்டில் இருந்து 16 ஊடகவியலாளர்கள் கொல்லப்பட்டுள்ளதாகவும், 26 பேர் தாக்கப்பட்டுள்ளதாகவும், பலர் தடுத்துவைக்கப்பட்டுள்ளதாகவ

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player...tid=26637880001

Fresh claims over Tamil casualties

By Jonathan Miller

A doctor working with injured and displaced Tamils in northern Sri Lanka tells Channel 4 News that there may be as many as 20,000 amputees among those who fled last month's routing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Eyewitnesses interviewed during a week-long undercover investigation for Channel 4 News, told of thousands of civilian deaths as government forces advanced on the Tigers' final stronghold.

The deaths, they said, were the result of government shelling.

The Sri Lankan president and senior government ministers have repeatedly denied causing a single civilian death in what the government had desginated a "no-fire zone."

International aid agencies believe as many as 100,000 civilians may have been trapped inside, under a fierce bombardment.

"I think every day a thousand people were killed," one of the very last to escape the tiny enclave told us. He was referring to the final two weeks of the conflict, during which the Sri Lankan government claimed not to have used heavy artillery.

"There were continuous shelling attacks," said the eyewitness. We have verified his identity as a man in a position of authority, but we are unable to reveal it.

Members of Sri Lanka's ethnic Sinhalese majority also expressed deep misgivings about the fate of the island's Tamil minority now that the Tamil Tigers have been so decisively defeated. Despite severe restrictions on access to camps for displaced civilians, evidence is emerging of maltreatment, despite a promise made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his "victory speech" to Sri Lanka's parliament.

Speaking in the Tamil language, the president promised equal rights for Tamils and took "personal responsibility" for protecting them.

"Our heroic forces," he said, "have sacrificed their lives to protect Tamil civilians." A senior Roman Catholic priest, who has worked with the displaced in the heavily militarised northern town of Vavuniya, said the triumphalism of Sinhalese was "very sad" to witness.

"There is no one to represent the aspirations of the Tamil community," he said. "They have a very uncertain future. It means they will live as a subjugated community, like under a foreign ruler."

One of the few senior members of the Tamil Tigers to have survived, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, its head of international relations, said yesterday that the rebels' struggle for a separate Tamil homeland would now continue from exile.

"The legitimate campaign of the Tamils to realise their right to self-determination has been brutally crushed through military aggression," said a statement, released from an unspecified location. Sri Lankans expressing concerns about the welfare and treatment of Tamil civilians -- or questioning the army's version of its final assault on the Tamil Tigers -- are branded unpatriotic, even traitorous.

Dr Wickramabahu Karunarathne, a left-wing politician and one of the few dissident voices in the Sinhalese community said: "The state media, every day, radio, papers, they classify us as traitors and they are rousing people against us."

Dr Karunaratne was the only interviewee prepared to talk openly on camera without having his face obscured and voice changed. One prominent Sinhalese journalist, Podala Jayantha, who had campaigned for greater media freedom, was abducted and severely beaten by unknown assailants, two weeks ago.

Amnesty International says that since 2006, 16 Sri Lankan journalists have been murdered, 26 assaulted, and many more detained. Foreign journalists have had their movements severely restricted and last month, our own accredited Asia Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh was deported.

Journalists and all independent observers were banned from the no-fire zone, during and after the fighting, so no independent assessments have been made of government claims not to have killed civilians. It has blamed any deaths on the rebels.

Journalists have also been unable to enter the hospital in Vavuniya, where thousands of wounded civilians are being treated. Channel 4 News successfully smuggled a small camera into Vavuniya and interviewed a Tamil doctor there.

"It is most sure that the numbers without limbs are over 20,000. Most of the injuries causing loss of limbs were from shelling," he said. The doctor alleged that conditions in the camps for displaced people around Vavuniya, are poor and that malnutrition and disease are rife.

"We were all gathered together recently by the government and we were told that if we told the figures of the sick and why people are dying to the foreign NGOs that we will be killed for doing this."

Response from the Sri Lanka government

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/worl...advance/3217257

The price of Sri Lanka’s victory

Author: Jonathan Miller|Posted: 7:19 pm on 17/06/09

Sinhalese Sri Lankans are so relieved their war is over that most appear blinded by patriotism, drunk on victory and deaf to the clamour from outside their island for investigations into possible war crimes.

The country’s pliant media speak with one voice, exhorting their loyal compatriots to celebrate this great triumph over terror.

But the only terror I saw there was in the eyes of vanquished Tamils. Those I met were terrified in case they were caught talking to us, constantly looking over their shoulders. A Tamil journalist pulled out of a meeting claiming he’d be killed were he caught.

And there was fear in the eyes of the handful of ethnic Sinhalese “traitorous” enough to question what they describe as an orgy of militant Sinhalese chauvinism. “Traitors” are what dissenters are branded in President Mahinda Rajapakse’s triumphalist brave new world, in which the press are compliant and the Buddhist monkhood complicit.

Working covertly in Sri Lanka, I saw first hand what military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam means to ordinary Tamil civilians, of whom there are more than two million on the island. A ruthless rebel movement - that never shrank from murdering civilians itself - has been defeated, but the Tamil people of Sri Lanka have also been crushed.

They are rudderless, paranoid, beaten and broken - and Sinhalese people and Tamils I interviewed confirmed this impression. Hopes of self-determination dashed, the Tamil minority have been left in no doubt about who’s in charge on the island.

And this, despite President Rajapakse’s assurances that they’d have equal rights. In his “victory speech” in parliament, he even spoke in the Tamil language and promised to take personal responsibility for protecting them. “Our heroic forces,” he said, “have sacrificed their lives to protect Tamil civilians.”

There’s no room for misty-eyed liberation mythology here: the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were a vicious organisation, whose suicide bombs, assassinations and training of child soldiers were funded by extortion rackets among the Tamil diasporas worldwide. Listed as a terrorist group in 32 countries, they never hesitated to blow up or gun down civilians themselves. Even Buddhist monks and young novices.

There’s euphoria among the Sinhalese majority - it’s as though the pressure cooker lid’s been blown off. But Tamil civilians have been forced to pay a terrible price for Rajapakse’s great victory.

Now the civil war is over, Sri Lanka is busy touting itself as an international tourist nirvana again, with its “white sandy beaches, lush greenery, amazing wildlife and rich heritage. “The warm and friendly smiles of the people await you in the Isle of Sri Lanka.”

But tourists see a veneer of beauty and bravado. A capital city buzzing on the adrenaline of victory. There’s the normal stuff: the traffic jams, shopping malls, markets and streets festooned with banners and bunting. And then there are the billboards - everywhere glorifying the heroes who sacrificed their blood for the motherland and the sixty-foot high cardboard cut-out of the triumphant president. There are soldiers at checkpoints with fingers on triggers and a lurking fear that revenge could yet come.

A businessman on the plane back to Europe tried to persuade me that everything’s normal and that foreign journalists had got it all wrong. But it is not normal in Sri Lanka. Especially if you are a Tamil. And there are many things that the government does not want the tourists - or journalists - to see.

There’s a beautiful old name for this island: Serendip, from which the English word “serendipity” derives. Its meaning: “the lucky tendency to happen across desirable discoveries by chance.”

My dictionary lists no antonym for serendipity. But as the fog of war slowly lifts, the rulers of modern day Serendip might be advised to brace themselves. Slowly but surely, a suspicious world is developing what, for them, is the unlucky tendency of making undesirable discoveries.

http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/2009/06...lankas-victory/

அலைவரிசை 4 தொலைக்காட்சியில் வந்த வலைப்பதிவு

http://blogs.channel4.com/snowblog/2009/06...-lankas-tamils/