Why Did Sri Lanka Kill So Many Children?
Tim King Salem-News.com
(EXTREMELY GRAPHIC) Previously unseen photos tell of a painful, grisly and deadly time in Tamil history. American journalists need to pay attention.
Not Gaza... this is Sri Lanka three years ago.
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(SACRAMENTO, CA) - As the Israelis lay siege to Gaza, killing children by the score, our newsroom received a whole new batch of images from the Genocide in Sri Lanka that ended just a little over three years ago. The subject, as you will see at the bottom of this report, is one I have covered for years in great detail.
In fact, past articles exposing these horrific slaughter photos of dead and twisted human bodies, are some of Salem-News.com's most viewed pages right now, even though they were written months ago. The writings and multi-media reports are a sad and terrible tribute for tens of thousands of ethnically cleansed Tamils- the minority group in Sri Lanka forever under the grinding thumb of the Sinhala Buddhist Sri Lankan government led by President Majinda Rajapaksa and his brothers.
Oh it is a family affair from the breeding grounds of nepotism, and anyone who steps out of line in this island nation finds their life in jeopardy very quickly. When they aren't being killed in government attacks, Sri Lanka uses their fleet of 'white vans' to abduct, torture and murder their political enemies, particularly media, who dare challenge the status quo.
Silent Witnesses
These photos tell so many stories. The picture of children being hanged in their own home; this is an image we have seen before but only the children, not the man who we assume to be their father.
Dead kids tell no tales they assume...
Or do they?
Thanks to these gruesome images, their deaths will never be completely unknown. Only monsters could be responsible for this.
They were murdered it appears, based on the calendar on the wall, in 2006. This is a year after the plans to terminate the Tamil people in the north of Sri Lanka were put into place. They were killed in an area called 'The Vanni'.
It is former U.S. President George W. Bush who greased the wheels for the Tamil Genocide. The event left up to 160k Sri Lankan Tamils dead.
Bush helped Rajapakse and his henchmen designate these desperate people as 'terrorists' - that is an American word that means 'strip people of humanity'. The civilians were mass murdered under the 'exterminate the terrorist' banner.
They scared the GoSL so much. State terror governments don't expect their victims to fight back. LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) were resourceful and dedicated like few groups that came before them.
They had already lost so much by the time they were formed that dedication to the cause of freedom was central for the Liberation Tigers.
The LTTE was faulted by its critics for having used child soldiers when their situation became desperate, but it is clear from these pictures that the plans the government had for these people was much worse, particularly for the innocent children and for the record all children in this world are innocent and anyone who thinks otherwise needs to be slapped or worse, possibly much worse.
Here, civilians were told to enter no-fire zones and then attacked and killed once in place. Sri Lanka would later claim that they were used by the Tamil Tigers as 'human shields' and that is the biggest line of horsecrap ever spoken or written. No resilient resistance organizations use civilians or kids as human shields. That is pure bull and a simple excuse for war criminal governments like Sri Lanka and Israel.
Tricking non-combatants; women and children, into entering areas to be killed, even the devil might not have done that! Perhaps the government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) is worse than the devil. I can't help but entertain the possibility.
As a father, I can not begin to comprehend the thinking behind this operation that did so much more than murder with bombs and rockets as the photos of the hanged children and their dad show.
It is true the LTTE or Tamil Tigers as they are more widely known, were some of the best military minority resistance fighters and tacticians who ever lived and fought, and they had many successful attacks against and engagements with the Sri Lanka Army (SLA). But what matters, is that the Tamils spent 30 years; from the year England ended their colonization in '48, trying to hold onto their language and culture and human rights peacefully and non-violently before they ever went militant.
Sadly, as a journalist I feel it is necessary to acknowledge that non-violent protests all too often, are truly weak and limited and that while many want that to be the only approach, non-violent resistance runs the risk of becoming cowardice.
This point was made by the great Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi and also by our writer, the outspoken former U.S. Marine Ken O'Keefe who battled the Israelis during the siege of the ocean liner Mavi Marmara in 2010. Ken took a ton of grief from the pro-Palestine non-violence folks, all of whom slept comfortably the night Ken fought for his life disarming two Israeli 'commandos' who killed nine of his friends and shot and injured dozens.
When faced with an oppressive nation bent on murdering its own citizens who happen to be from the 'wrong' religion, fighting back is one of the only possibilities. Those who wish to remain non-violent as their families are slaughtered are not heroic people.
Sex Abuse and Rape
When examining the various parts of the Sri Lanka Tamil Genocide, one is inevitably faced with the brutal nature of the Buddhist state terrorism program that Tamils had to confront - sadly similar to the plight the Burmese Rohingya people are dealing with today where Buddhist mobs have been burning villages and murdering people left and right. That's right, as I write this, once again... Buddhist killers are attacking religious minorities with torches to burn and machetes to slice the humanity out of vulnerable civilians of the 'wrong' religion. Soldier and police sex abuse of Rohingya Muslims is another constant problem.
As we have significantly documented, there were mass rapes of women and girls conducted by troops of the Sri Lanka Army. They actually recorded the aftermath of one of these escapades on their own video cameras, and those images... loading nude female rape / murder victims into the back of a truck, include statements from the soldiers who joke in extremely callous, insensitive ways about the dead, mostly dead... or soon to be dead, female victims.
A soldier shockingly proclaims of one victim, that he "would like to cut her tits off". What kind of people does Sri Lanka allow into its military? In twenty years of news, covering the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and dozens of deaths, murders, and other terrible crimes; after all of that, I have never heard such foul words uttered in such a casual tone.
This goes right to the very soul of humanity as far as I am concerned, creatures like this existing as armed soldiers... the mere notion of it is beyond comprehension.
- The nude bodies are kicked and treated like inanimate objects, while at least one of the women is clearly still alive.
The video from Channel 4 in London as you can see by looking below, has been removed by YouTube. This is no mystery, it is another example of how Google is a paid element of the Sri Lanka Genocide.
I wrote before about how Google doctored the Google Earth images on Sri Lanka (as they were shot during the Genocide) and sewed in a frame from some time after the killing, to make the area look peaceful, to ensure that the bodies are removed or rotted away. War criminals like YouTube, and Google is on their side. At any rate, I am glad we recorded below the words so YouTube can't help the GoSL as much as they would like, the pricks.
The revelation as shown in the lower right photo, is that the SLA did cut the breasts off of women and I have not seen this before, to me it looks like another clear case for the International Criminal Courts (ICC) and I suspect they will find it very interesting as it corroborates our worst fears.
Translated dialog from Ch-4 Video
Statements of Sri Lanka soldiers
"Motherfuckin Tiger wankers!"
(inaudible) "Load the ammo" "Show your face" "Hey... pose with the bodies"
--then while showing bodies of what appear to be dead Tamil Tiger child soldiers---
"Hey look up" (Soldier looks at camera and makes grunting sound)
---then during the loading of female bodies--
"Bring that body... Another one"
"eh?" "She is moaning now" "Moaning in your head?" "Still moaning?" "Bring that one" "This one has the best figure" "Eh?" "This one has the best figure".
---We have more footage, taken elsewhere, which suggests systematic murder, abuse and sexual violence---
"She seems like someone who's newly joined"
"She looks like someone's clerk" "Look how many pencils and pens she's got" "I really want to cut her tits off" "...if no one was around"
Learn more, visit: Two of Sri Lanka's Foulest War Crimes
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Images of Utter Horror
The above translations from Sinhala to written English were performed by Channel-4 in London and they are indisputable. As Presenter Jon Snow said, "These disturbing scenes raise extremely serious questions for the government of Sri Lanka."
This is the same military organization connected to terrible sex crimes in Haiti, where members of the SLA were deployed as part of UN peacekeeping forces, there to assist earthquake victims.
Sri Lanka has a running history of severe corruption and the war crime allegations are enough to put it over the edge.
The only thing they are really even facing, is the implementation of their own measures as proposed by the Lessons Learnt & Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), it's own government investigation, and it barely attributes any wrongdoing to Sri Lanka, it blames the LTTE for everything, it scarcely scratches the surface of what took place, and this they vehemently resist?
The obvious problem is that this needs to be addressed in a serious way, like the Nuremberg Trials, not just to have a hand slap be the total extent of their punishment.
Even though it is terribly biased toward the SL govt, the LLRC report does contain sound recommendations and at a minimum, this will be a start of something that can grow.
What We Can Do
Hundreds of people have written to me over our ongoing coverage of these matters involving Sri Lanka, and I want to make a point; and that is the main reason I have gotten into this so deeply, is because I am a father, and a son, and a brother, husband and uncle. Now I learn that my heart is also the same as my Tamil friends I have gained over these reports, and there are many.
I mention this because I want other US reporters to pay attention to these stories and follow them also if they have the guts.
As I said, Burma or Myanmar as it is now called under its Rakhine Buddhist government, is burning bright at the present time and I have the exact same relationship with the Rohingya Muslims over their Diaspora and suffering. They did absolutely nothing to earn the wrath of the Buddhist mobs and government troops and police. Hindus and Christians in Sri Lanka, Muslims and Christians in Myanmar...
I can not put into words how important these experiences have been and continue to be, yet I need others here in the US to jump in the game because the potential impact covering the stories the mainstream news media ignores, like this, is vast and sometimes even very direct; hauntingly direct. (See: Did a Ghost Crawl Inside My Laptop? )
The shadow of emotion looms. Even after reporting news in Iraq and Afghanistan, nothing is more intense than spending hundreds and hundreds of hours editing these images of death, it is hard... really hard, but I spent no more than a total of thirty minutes today balling uncontrollably over the death photos from Gaza and these in Sri Lanka, not too bad right? That left practically the whole day for writing and editing all of these tragic accounts and images and it isn't even 3:00 a.m. yet, score! I was really impacted and it just keeps coming back. I'm not sure if I lost it this badly when my parents died on the same day five years ago. I need help from other media to fight these bastards. Did I say that already?
How can this level of inhumanity exist? What happens to people? What gets into their hearts? Other reporters, are you listening?
This is serious. We have to raise the flag and do what we know to be right and go full tilt in our reporting, hardcore... take no prisoners when you write and edit because there are not two sides in a Genocide. I would give none of them a chance to respond or be represented.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4VyeVavb1g |
I can summarize the contact I have personally had with high ranking Sri Lankan government officials... "We didn't do it". They deny every detail vehemently and say we reporters just have a beef with them and that we have no business suggesting that matters in Sri Lanka should all be handled strictly internally with no outside involvement, of course.
If given a chance, the people we are writing about would handcuff you then rape you and then blow a big hole through your head. They do not deserveanything.
My best advice is to ignore your pre-programming and follow your heart as a human being and journalist, it is very simple. As Americans our impact is larger than I could explain and I need to not be the only one following these stories.
I write about Palestine, I love everyone there, but this can not be the only battle we are collectively fighting. I have noted so many Tamils supporting the people of Gaza in recent days too, and our friends in Balochistan where equal amounts of state terror drive what is known to we journos as 'Pakistan's Dirty War'. They are suffering without a voice... thank God we have been able to build Salem-News.com up to a point where at least none of these flagrant government characters (players) from California to Colombo enjoy it when we write badly (honestly) about them.
Regarding the camaraderie with the Tamil people, anyone can read the comments on these stories, hundreds and hundreds, all listed below... just follow the links, comments are at the bottom of each story. From my own Sri Lanka reports on the war crimes against the Tamils, I feel as though I wasadopted by this culture because I spent the time researching and writing and confronting this unforgivable Genocide.
In fact, as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. I was asked to give the key note address at the FeTNA (Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America) conference in Baltimore, Md. on 6th and 7th July 2012. (www.fetna.org). I spoke to 3,000 Tamil people mostly of Indian descent, about this unimaginable tragedy.
USTPAC (US Tamil Political Action Council), invited both Bonnie King and I to Baltimore to speak about our coverage of war crimes in Sri Lanka. Elias Jeyarajah, PhD, President of USTPAC, which holds a parallel session during FeTNA. (www.ustpac.org) made the arrangements and we hopped a flight to the eastern seaboard for an enlightening weekend. I have written approximately 50 articles that explore and reveal the events that culminated in the ethnic cleansing of Tamils in the north, in May 2009. I will admit that I am also driven specifically by the large number of missing and murdered journalists who were eliminated for writing about the war crimes against Tamils.
I do maintain the greatest hope that future generations can heal this planet, end the suffering; straighten out the crooked thinking and religion-dominated governments that lead to so much dramatic tragedy.
When I see the murdered Tamil children, it sends a chill down my spine and it is hard to look at the results of such cruel, calculated killing, just like in Gaza, without really wanting to do something about it.
I refuse and will always refuse to endorse any government that subjects people to such horrible oppression; so fierce and unyielding that that the only answer is armed retaliation and resistance, and this is the story of the Tamil Tigers and other resistance organizations that are exactly the opposite of 'terrorists' to the people they support and protect who ALWAYS have less.
It is also extremely important to note the context of the more than three-year long government attack; that the Rajapaksa government directly violated a standing peace treaty with the LTTE. It is reminiscent of what the US Army did over and over to the Native Americans here. No attacks from the Tigers were taking place when the treaty was violated and the Tamils were laid to waste.
Below is the full set of new photos, you might need to hit the play button or refresh to see it:
- Sep-29-2012: Tamil Militants in Prison in Sri Lanka - Are They Still Alive?
- Aug-26-2012: Shining Light on Sri Lanka's Dirty Secret: the Disappearance of Prageeth Eknaligoda
- Jul-30-2012 Blindness Sweeps Large Parts of Sri Lanka
- Jul-20-2012: Why Are Buddhists Committing Genocide Again?
- Jul-17-2012: Tamil Voices Growing Louder Over Sri Lanka War Crimes and Nepotism
- Jul-11-2012: US Media's Role in the Silent Death of Sri Lanka's Tamils - Political Perspective by Tim King Salem-News.com
- Jul-09-2012: Significant Honor With Tamils from Around the Globe for Sri Lanka War Crime Reports
- Jul-01-2012: Did a Ghost Crawl Inside My Laptop?
- Jun-24-2012: Sri Lanka Can't Deny This... Disturbing Video Proves Sri Lanka Army Committed War Crimes - Tim King Salem-News.com
- Jun-21-2012: New War Crime Videos Surface from Sri Lanka Tamil Genocide
- Jun-10-2012: UN Targets Reporter Who Criticized Sri Lanka War Crime Suspect
- Jun-08-2012: Captive, Handcuffed and Dying... 'Brutal' and 'Shocking' Describe Newly Released Sri Lanka War Crime Images
- May-07-2012: Sri Lankan Buddhist Mobs Call for Mosque Demolition
- Apr-27-2012: Big Trouble for Sri Lanka: UN Has Cluster Bomb Evidence from Northern Province
- Apr-12-2012: Carpetbaggers in Sri Lanka: Traitors Terrorize Northern Tamils
- Apr-10-2012: Sri Lanka: Genocide and Poor Toilet Training
- Mar-23-2012 UN Warns Sri Lanka Against Retaliating Toward Humanitarian Activists
- Mar-22-2012: White Flags, White Vans and White Lies? A Closer Look at the Death of Colonel Ramesh
- Mar-18-2012: Is Google Earth Hiding Sri Lanka's Ghosts?
- Mar-15-2012: Channel-4 Documentary Proves Sri Lanka Committed War Crimes
- Mar-11-2012: War Crime Court and its Conflicting Interests
- Mar-08-2012: Sex Abuse and Murder in Sri Lanka- New Photos Emerge
- Mar-02-2012: A Very Uncivil War - Ghastly Images- Gross Detail and Denial of Sri Lanka's Genocide
- Feb-28-2012: Americans Praise Sri Lankan Politicians who Orchestrated Genocide
- Feb-28-2012: Tweets from Tamil Eelam
- Feb-24-2012: Two of Sri Lanka's Foulest War Crimes
- Feb-19-2012: Will Another Documentary on Sri Lanka's Genocide Impact the Geneva Human Rights Session?
- Feb-08-2012: The Questionable Effectiveness of Lighting Yourself on Fire
- Feb-03-2012: Sri Lanka's Independence Day- a Black Day for Tamil Eelam
- Jan-11-2012: While UN Claims Zero Tolerance, No Discipline of Sri Lankan Abusers in Haiti
- Dec-28-2011: Why Was a Red Cross Manager on Vacation from Gaza Murdered in Sri Lanka?
- Nov-24-2011: Fear, Genocide and Torture in Sri Lanka
- Nov-21-2011: London Calling: Time for Sri Lanka's Release of Post-Conflict Report
- Nov-11-2011: Ode to a Humble Hero of Sri Lanka: Dr Brian Senewiratne
- Oct-15-2011: Genocide 101: World and Media Apathy
- Oct-08-2011: Sri Lanka Joins Israel in Naval Attacks on Unarmed Fishermen
- Oct-05-2011: War and its Aftermath... a Real Killer for Tourism
- Oct-01-2011: Sri Lanka in the Crosshairs of Canadian Parliament
- Sep-13-2011: Sri Lanka Recalls Diplomat Accused of War Crimes
- Aug-31-2011: 'No Song and Dance' Over Sri Lanka War Crime Admissions
- Jul-25-2011: Former Sri Lanka President's Children 'Reacted With Anguish' to Tamil Genocide Program
- Jul-22-2011: M.I.A. - A Beautiful Reflection of the Besieged Tamils of Sri Lanka
- Jul-17-2011: 44 Prisoners Join Hunger Strike at Vavuniya Prison in Sri Lanka
- Jul-14-2011: The Bush Administration's Role in Sri Lanka's Tamil Genocide
- Jul-13-2011: Fields Should be for Sports, not Genocide... Sri Lanka
- Jun-29-2011: Sri Lanka Continues Genocide, Thumbing Nose at UN and World
- Jun-20-2011: Sri Lanka's Violence Toward Tamil Minority Continues
- Jun-18-2011: 'International Day in Support of Victims of Torture'Remember the Tamil Genocide
- Jun-17-2011: European Tourists Waylaid in Sri Lanka, Resurgence of 'White Van' Crime
- Jun-15-2011: Tamil Genocide Explored in Sri Lanka's Killing Fields
- Jun-02-2011: UN Experts: Sri Lanka Tamil Genocide Video is Real
- May-31-2011: New Song 'Depression' - Graphic Truth of Sri Lanka Tamil Genocide
- May-31-2011: Sri Lanka Tamil Genocide: Killing the Messenger
- May-03-2011: Confronting the Tamil Genocide in Sri Lanka
- Apr-27-2011: Tamil Genocide in Sri Lanka Emerges Into Public View
- Apr-22-2011: World Ignores Genocide of Sri Lanka's Tamil Population
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Tim King: Salem-News.com Editor and Writer
You can write to Tim at this address: tim@salem-news.com.
Visit Tim's Facebook page (facebook.com/TimKing.Reporter)
With almost 25 years of experience on the west coast and worldwide as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor, Tim King is Salem-News.com'sExecutive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine who follows stories of Marines and Marine Veterans; he's covered British Royal Marines and in Iraq, Tim embedded with the same unit he served with in the 1980's.
Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from traditional mainstream news agencies like The Associated Press and Electronic Media Association; he also holds awards from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs; and was presented with a 'Good Neighbor Award' for his reporting, by theThe Red Cross.
Tim's years as a Human Rights reporter have taken on many dimensions; he has rallied for a long list of cultures and populations and continues to every day, with a strong and direct concentration on the 2009 Genocide of Tamil Hindus and Christians in Sri Lanka. As a result of his long list of reports exposing war crimes against Tamil people, Tim was invited to be the keynote speaker at the FeTNA (Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America) Conference in Baltimore, in July 2012. This is the largest annual gathering of North American Tamils; Tim addressed more than 3000 people and was presented with a traditional Sri Lanka ‘blessed garland’ and a shawl as per the tradition and custom of Tamil Nadu
In a personal capacity, Tim has written 2,026 articles as of March 2012 for Salem-News.comsince the new format designed by Matt Lintz was launched in December, 2005. Serving readers with news from all over the globe, Tim's life is literally encircled by the endless news flow published by Salem-News.com, where more than 100 writers contribute stories from 23+ countries and regions.
Tim specializes in writing about political and military developments worldwide; and maintains that the label 'terrorist' is ill placed in many cases; specifically with the LTTE Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, where it was used as an excuse to slaughter people by the tens of thousands; and in Gaza, where a trapped population lives at the mercy of Israel's destructive military war crime grinder. At the center of all of this, Tim pays extremely close attention to the safety and welfare of journalists worldwide.
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