II Wednesday 11th January, 2012

BY MICHAEL ROBERTS

n the course of my researches into the emergence of Ceylonese nationalism in the British period, I Idelved in considerable detail into an event that was referred to then as "the 1915 riots" - the term "riots" in South Asia being a mechanical reproduc- tion of the terminology of the British legal lexicon to describe affrays of all sorts. In 1915 this short- hand phrase referred to the assaults on the Mohammedan Moors (as they were called then) in work- the south-western quadrant by elements of the ing Sinhalese population (Roberts 1981). Amidst the secretly complex processes that promoted this outbreak let in LTTE me isolate a particular factor: a critical force inspir- territory ing the attacks was the incitement by those whom I from 2007 or have referred to as "stirrers" (Kannangara 1984; 2008 and that Roberts 1981; 1994a). Nick Paton The outbreak of the July 1983 pogrom against Walsh entered living in the south-western and central to regions of Sri Lanka encouraged scholars to rede- complete the fine such events as "pogroms." On this occasion too, final phase of this anecdotal testimony from friends and the article by cooperation; but Valli Kanapathypillai (1990) indicate that incitement was deemed suspect by a diverse body of chauvinist stirrers was one fac- and unceremoniously tor behind a campaign that legitimised the terror turned out by the Sri wrought by depicting these activities as acts that Lankan government in would "teach Tamils a lesson." May 2009 - a humiliating Dwelling on some anecdotal tales I was motivated outcome which added in the 1990s to pen a literary essay of protest against revenge to the other motiva- the horrendous acts of July 1983: The Agony and tions promoting Channel 4s Ecstasy of a Pogrom: Southern Lanka, July 1983, commitment to the Tiger cause This article was written during a lonely sojourn in and its targeting of the Sri Charlottesville, Virginia where my isolation promot- Lankan government for a public ed reflexivity. Central to this intervention was the hanging. deployment of two horrifying photographs extracted In early 2009, as we know, the Sri from the Tamil Times. In subsequent years I discov- Lankan government was subject to pressure ered that these images had been captured by a brave from some Western governments, UN agencies cameraman, Chandragupta Amarasinghe, who sup- and INGOs demanding that they resort to a uni- plied me with better copies and clarified details lateral ceasefire in order to reduce the s civilian about the mayhem around Borella Junction that death toll. As Simon Jenkins indicated in his stric- 24th/25th night in July (Roberts 1994b, 2003). tures on David Miliband's grandstanding on several These engagements with ethnic extremism and fronts in that period: "in Sri Lanka a rudimentary ating zealotry encouraged me to seek comparative materi- study of the past three months of fighting would composite picture of a al on race riots in USA and pogroms in eastern have told Miliband that a ceasefire would be pro- typical riot-pattern, a con- com- Europe; while a Research Fellowship at Teen Murthi Tamil, not just "pro-humanitarian" (2009). This was stellation which I would set out mand of enabled me to spend four months in Delhi in 1995 precisely the position I pressed then in criticising in order to provoke readers and the situation and had delving into "communal violence" in - mostly Hilary Clinton and other world leaders for their sim- governments into reflective counter- taken control of many attacks on the Muslims by Hindus, but also the pleton approach, one that encouraged the LTTE to action. Central to such a purpose was the buildings in the attacks on Sikhs in 1984 after Indira Gandhi was use the impending general elections in mid-May in deployment of photographic imagery of the northern , espe- assassinated (Roberts 2010a). India as well as human rights vocabulary as a foun- type Amarasinghe, namely, pictures that horri- cially in the town of dation for their Machiavellian policy of using the fy and reveal man's inhumanity towards man. Kilinochchi, which Tamil population of Thamililam as a buffer and bar- My reasoning was that it is far more difficult for had been abandoned by gaining chip to gain some bolt-hole (also see people to transfer horrendous images into the the LTTE once Tekwani 2011). nether regions of the mind in contrast with prose fell in late Since then, after the demise of the LTTE military reports on violence. December 2008. SL army torturing would, in my regime, the campaign to crucify the Sri Lankan state The shortcomings of a great deal of the Channel speculative reasoning, have occurred within closed has been promoted by processes that I do not have 4 film footage have now been outlined in several pro- doors. On this ground I thought then that this set of the expertise to decipher, but which can be treated as ductions. The most revealing is the visual power- images indicated a killing of a dissident or deserter an alliance of sorts between five categories of point documentary assembled by a Canadian collec- by the LTTE, acts which were frequent in actors. These are tive associated with the Sri Lankan government who Thamililam from 1990 through to 2009 and which 1. The LTTE's various international arms - incorporated Siri Hewavitharana's visual decoding have been documented over the years by the UTHR bolstered now by new recruits among Tamil analysis (2011a, 2011b) within their product. The collective; and which are even stressed by Gordon migrants stirred by the emotional heat of 2009. most thorough textual criticism is that presented by Weiss himself in The Cage (2011: 69, 141-42). 2. UN, INGO and NGO agencies directed for a media outfit marshalled by the Ministry of The doubts were subsequently supported by the the most part by human rights discourse and the Defence: Appaling Journalism. Jon Snow and insights offered by the Tamil dissident, Noel either/or epistemology that governs the currents of Channel 4 News on Sri Lanka. Nadesan: "I was told by sources in the Vanni that secular fundamentalism that are so vibrant now in Both sources above may immediately be viewed this was an LTTE operation and [that these] pictures Western countries. as tainted by those hostile to the Sri Lankan state. were taken for propaganda purposes by LTTE. Have 3. The hidden agendas (and double standards) However, Godfrey Gunatilleka's recent summary of a close look and you will find among the so-called Weiss has a reputation of being an idealist and of several Western states as well as the UN agencies the findings of a Marga team supports their thrusts soldiers a man in slippers. Sri Lankan soldiers never his moral passion may suggest that he is not the type in their pockets. in providing a measured, yet severe, set of strictures go about in slippers when they go out on operations." of person who would crop a photograph. However, 4. The sensationalist tendencies of several on the yardsticks directing both Ban Ki-Moon's Nadesan is referring to operations in the late 2000s his campaign against human rights abuses directed media outlets in the West who thrive on "churnal- Darusman Panel and the Channel 4 documentary. and told me that his sources are former LTTE func- at both parties in the conflict has not been even- ism," encouraged as they are by a principled hostili- There are also useful insights in the remarks of tionaries associated with its propaganda wings. He handed. There are several moments where his repre- ty to the intimidation of their colleagues in Sri such independent analysts as ShyamTekwani (2011) is not free to name them, so this evidence is open to sentations let the LTTE off the hook. A separate Lanka during the period 2006-09. and KalanaSenaratne (2011). sceptical responses from those who believe the essay is called for if one is to evaluate the degree of 5. The activities of several Sri Lankan jour- Because I was familiar with the LTTE's capaci- Channel 4 version of this visual story. partiality and integrity displayed in recent years by nalists and cameramen who were forced to flee their ties in using pictorial and video material, I surveyed Nevertheless, I insist that there is reasonable Gordon Weiss. land in 2007-09 as a result of the assassinations and the first airing of the open-air execution scenes by ground to conjecture that this segment of Killing During this work I dwelt on the possibility of cre- threats that surrounded those with liberal or Left Channel 4 in August 2009 with suspicion. These Fields is an LTTE production developed as part of ating composite picture of a typical riot-pattern, a inclinations. On a priori grounds one can say that doubts became conviction when I read Siri its propaganda operations in late 2008. The three rea- constellation which I would set out in order to pro- ideology, motives of vengeance and occasionally that Hewavitharana's forensic analysis in article form in sons for this verdict are (a) the resort to open-air tor- voke readers and governments into reflective count- of profit combined to encourage such individuals to the Asian Tribune and local newspapers immediate- ture and execution with the use of a tree as a stan- er-action. Central to such a purpose was the deploy- supply Channel 4 and other Western media outlets ly afterwards (see Rajasingham 2010 for a subse- chion; (b) the presence of a soldier wearing slippers; ment of photographic imagery that horrifies and with some of the wherewithal to cane the govern- quent overview). I reached this conclusion because and (c) information garnered by Nadesan from well- reveals man's inhumanity towards man. My reason- ment. In some ways this could be seen as poetic jus- Hewavitharana's decoding report seemed to be the placed sources within the LTTE camp. Such threads ing was that it is far more difficult for people to tice; but the issue remains whether some of the work of a technologist rather than a literary giant - do not, of course, enable a definitive verdict; but transfer horrendous images into the nether regions lynching evidence is fabricated and thus contrary to a technologist who knew his onions. The time dis- they are strongly indicative. At the very least they of the mind in contrast with prose reports on vio- the moral norms of others in the alliance as well as crepancy between the audio and visual moments in indicate that the jury should remain out on any con- lence. the concept of justice via truth. one execution scene highlighted by Hewavitharana, clusion about the perpetrators of this atrocity. Thus motivated, I even approached a German and his insistence that this was video footage rather It is therefore of some significance that one pho- NGO in with this idea. I got nowhere and II than the work of a mobile phone (as a claimed by tograph from this set of concoctions by the LTTE confess that my efforts in this direction were not When Channel Four chose the title of Killing Channel 4), seemed clinching arguments. This inci- should turn up in the marquee images fronting - yes sustained. However weak my endeavours, it would Fields for its documentary of 2011, it cleverly sive work has now, in 2011, been incorporated in fronting - the web site maintained by Gordon Weiss seem that the NGO world of the 1990s did not pos- deployed a metaphor from the Pol Pot era as a sensa- power-point documents. with the caption: "Torturing a Victim, Northern Sri sess the type of interest we have seen in recent tional sales pitch to support its highly weighted and When this execution scene was subsequently Lanka, 2009." times. partisan reading of the last stages of War IV, incorporated within Killing Fields in mid-2011, my From this experience I find it ironic that visual when the LTTE and its Tamil hostages and support- suspicions increased - the more so because Killing This same image, cropped even tighter, is repro- imagery, whether You Tube videos, still photographs ers were caged into what can be called the "Vanni Fields moved on in rapid blitzkrieg fashion to depict duced in his The Cage with the following descrip- or documentaries, have been so powerful in the Pocket." It used the visual power of film juxtaposed other gory scenes including one series where the tion: "One of a series of photos, video, and testimo- moral storm about "war crimes" (a controversial with interviews in a blitzkrieg compilation that video-documentary depicted a terrified man tied to a ny from Sinhalese soldiers that gradually emerged concept as it is) in both Sri Lanka and elsewhere. reverberated throughout the Western world and per- tree and subject to torture, with the coup de grace after the war. This one shows a man thought to be a The controversial apotheosis of this power of suaded many non-partisan viewers - from Michael for the message being an image of his bloodied captured Tamil Tiger fighter being tortured. Other imagery has been the Channel 4 video presented by Atherton to Peter Roebuck - that something awful corpse at the conclusion of this segment. photos in the sequence show him being bludgeoned Jon Snow which bears the title Killing Fields. happened in the north eastern corners of the Vanni. This latter series of images aroused my scepti- to death." In the credits for his illustrations inserted Killing Fields cannot, however, be comprehended That such individuals were persuaded is proof of cism immediately. The doubts did not arise from any at the head of the book we are told that this image is without attentiveness to one of the principal forces visual power when it is cleverly compiled - though in faith in the goodness of the SL Army. Anyone with from the "author's own collection." behind some of the terrifying footage deployed with- my view it is also indicative of some measure of experience of war, whether vic- in it, namely, the LTTE and its many arms abroad. credulity and some unfamiliarity with the details of ariously or in real time, knows Such investigative work must begin with awareness the context among those so swayed. that frontline soldiers some- of the degree to which the Tiger leadership invested times execute captured adver- in pictorial modalities in their propaganda and saries. It is well-known that training programmes from very early on. during the last months of The LTTE set up two-person video teams within World War Two Allied troops a department that has been called "The Truth killed soldiers of the Tigers" to film specific operations (Journeyman Wehrmacht (German army) Pictures 2002). Their video work supplemented the who had killed some of their LTTE investments in street theatre, radio, newspa- comrades in the course of con- pers et cetera. The innovative character of the tinued resistance that everyone LTTE's diverse means of presenting their liberation knew to be futile. The Sri struggle has to be grasped by anyone reviewing the Lankan wars of the last 30 present propaganda war. In their heyday the LTTE's years have been littered with use of pandals, buntings, poster art, billboards et atrocities from both sides. The cetera was quite phenomenal. The most pronounced atrocities in the Eastern moment in such endeavours occurred in the week Province in 1990 were particu- leading up to at 6.05 pm on 27th larly extensive. After the LTTE November every year (Roberts 2005) - a process of executed over 600 policemen grieving, celebration and dedication that occurred Sinhalese and Muslim who had in all the major cities in the West beside the terrain surrendered in June 1990 embraced by the de facto state of Thamileelam from [Tamil policemen being 1990 to 2007. spared], the SL army indulged Pictorial imagery was a major dimension of the in massacres at reportage and propaganda in such LTTE web sites Kokkadichcholai and other as Tamilnet.com and TamilCanadian.com.I was places in 1990-91. If one wanted taken in once by a Tamil supporter who sent me a "Srebenica" moments, it is here photograph of the corpses produced by the suicide that the best examples can be bomb attack that killed Janaka Perera in located. as proof of killings caused by However, the Channel 4 One of the series of photos, video, and testimony from Sinhalese soldiers that shelling in the Vanni pocket in 2009 (see my illustra- footage simply smelled "fake" gradually emerged after the war. This one shows a man thought to be captured tive entry in Senaratne 2011). One must therefore because it purported to convey attend to the possibility that some video footage of events occurring in the last Tamil Tiger fighter being tortured. Other photos in the sequence show him alleged government atrocities was manufactured in stages of Eelam War IV in 2008- being bludgeoned to death. 2008 as the LTTE realised that it was on the backfoot. 09. During that phase the SL armed forces were not only well kitted, but were in Grapevine information indicates that Channel 4 was During this work I dwelt on the possibility of cre- Continued on page IV