Jan 30th 2009, 1.25pm
Went again to the hunger strike event in Sydney. The youth are weak after nearly 2 days but still determined…They are moving to Canberra tomorrow.
***
Ok, I have postponed all my other personal priorities, and have begin to work more on writing to media, local and international contacts…I have been doing that for the last 1.5 years or so – on a weekly basis. But what’s happening now is unbelievable; it calls for more effort from each and every one of us – on a daily basis.
From the information I gather, daily at least 50 people are getting killed or critically wounded. People are fleeing to jungles. The pictures on TamilNet are very disturbing:
Armless or legless children lying on the mats on the floor or the grass, in make shift “hospitals”
Can’t call these places hospitals – no shelter from bombing, no medicine, no sheets , no doctors etc.
One report said that there were 9 MBBS doctors for the entire 250,000 – 400,000 (?) civilians in the Vanni region. Can’t believe that this is happening in this day and age!
***
After prior several mails, I contacted the SBS, ABC offices again…
I asked them,
Not to just go by the “sri lankan defense ministry” videos but also get the news from alternative sources. Journalists need to gather information from all sources and then come up with informed decisions. Not being able to corroborate information is a weak excuse in this Information age.
I told them,
The Sri Lankan Army is not Australian Army
The Sri Lankan Army is not US Army
The Sri Lankan Army is an Army of a South Asian country which has called NGOs, visiting UN commissioners “terrorists”
The Sri Lankan forces have a track record of countless atrocities
***
The western Media talks outrageously about water boarding used in Guantanamo Bay – a torture technique that involves pouring water on a strapped/gagged victim.
Well, that is a piece of cake compared with the torture techniques practiced in Sri Lanka. I am not going to go into the unspeakable details here, but it makes one think that 30 years of conflict breeds demons (I was going to use a cliche and say animals – but that’s not at all fair to the animals!). The torture methods are recorded by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch etc..as early as 1980s
