The familiar pre-broadcast warning, “contains scenes of violence that some viewers may find disturbing”, was clearly insufficient for Tuesday\u2019s UK TV documentary about war crimes committed in the final months of Sri Lanka\u2019s civil war.<\/p>\n
Mobile phones documented the birth, death and rebirth of the habit of atrocity and murder of civilians in Sri Lanka. Compiled for the film Sri Lanka\u2019s Killing Fields<\/a>, it made for grim viewing. Channel 4 TV warned that it contained “probably the most horrific” footage it has ever shown, scheduling it for just before midnight.<\/p>\n Yet Channel 4 did not shirk its significance, unlocking access to the film on its website<\/a> so it could be seen worldwide for a further seven days.<\/p>\n Normally access is limited to UK and Irish viewers, but putting the film out in full and contextualised sounded like a good idea, given the likelihood of the most horrible clips being lifted from the TV and circulated via e-mail and mobile phone.<\/p>\n Much of the worst clips had their origin in the same way, what the media calls “user generated content<\/a>” or “UGC” — footage shot on handheld video cameras or in some cases, by the killers\u2019 associates on their own mobile phones.<\/p>\n Director Callum Macrae<\/a>, whose team spent months tracking down the films, says the increasing availability of such footage should make it easier to build a war crimes prosecution case, not just in Sri Lanka, but in any conflict.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom now on, the victims –\u2013 and all too often the perpetrators as well — will keep a record,\u201d he wrote<\/a> for the Guardian\u2019s website. \u201cModern technology means you will never again get away with committing these kind of war crimes and crimes against humanity in secret.\u201d<\/p>\n The evidence, added to the documentary, was given a special showing in Geneva<\/a> before the UN Human Rights Council last month. A UN “panel of experts” has found that allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity<\/a> by both the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers are “credible”.<\/p>\n In the face of the advance buzz surrounding the documentary, government supporters packing the internet\u2019s chat boards and messaging the Sinhalese diaspora shifted their normal\u00a0line\u00a0of accusing C4 of broadcasting fake footage<\/a> to a different, but discernibly consistent plea.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, it was horrible, but let’s put it all behind us,\u201d said one of many, quoting Sri Lankan President\u00a0Mahinda\u00a0Rajapaksa<\/a>‘s regular line:\u00a0\u201cSri Lanka, one nation, one people<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n The trouble is that Sri Lanka has been here before. Several times. In 1971 a youth rebellion<\/a> led by the Sinhalese Sri Lankan People’s Liberation Front (JVP) claimed 15,000 lives amidst widespread reports of extra-judicial killings.<\/p>\n In 1987\/89 the JVP came back<\/a>, reborn as an ultra-nationalist terrorist group, murdering hundreds and virtually collapsing the country with a series of general strikes enforced by violence. Again thousands more died in the military clampdown on the country\u2019s south, amidst the by now familiar “credible reports of state-instigated atrocities”.<\/p>\n In 1983 the government called on thugs in its party organisation to send a message to the country\u2019s Tamil minority. The resulting riots saw at least 600 Tamils massacred<\/a> and their homes destroyed, and the rise of the Tamil Tigers<\/a>, arguably modern history\u2019s most fearsome and fearless insurgent force.<\/p>\n Tens of thousands more died in the 26 year long civil war that followed, barely slowed by Norwegian and Indian interventions, ending with the crushing of the Tiger rebels in a series of military offensives in 2009<\/a> that culminated in the events documented by Sri Lanka\u2019s Killing Fields<\/em>.<\/p>\n