Afghan Massacre - The Convoy of Death

The Dasht-i-Leili massacre occurred in December 2001 during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan where between 250 and 3,000 (depending on sources) Taliban prisoners were shot and/or suffocated to death in metal truck containers, while being transferred by U.S. and Northern Alliance soldiers from Kunduz to Sheberghan prison through the Dasht-i-Leili desert in Afghanistan. [Wikipedia]

(Warning: May contain disturbing material)

Watch the complete video of Afgan Massacre here. (http://vodpod.com/watch/995267-afghan-massacre-the-convoy-of-death)

A part of the video in Youtube.

Wimal at Sirasa SATANA

Wimal Weerawansha making very good points in the debates. Have a look.

JVP advertisement....

This is a cartoon which came as email attachment. I publish this because it has a very good humor.

The SundayLeader

I looked at the SudayLeader online edition early this morning to see the status of the story they carried out last week. They say that clarification is made on the first page but I could not find it. But found this paragraph in their political column. It is very interesting. Not sure what their intensions are. 


"Well, most everybody had forgotten that the General had said as much last July – in a speech made in Ambalangoda when he was being feted by his old school. At that speech he did not make the allegation that his orders emanated from the Defence Secretary – but he certainly made the statement that LTTE cadres were killed in the process of surrendering. His claims made in July found its way into the report commissioned by the US Congress and it was one of the points highlighted by the US in their quest to have an investigation into war crimes.
What needs to be said at this juncture however is that the General to his credit refused to refute the lead story in The Sunday Leader last week, despite intense pressures from his alliance partners to do  so.  At a hurriedly summoned meeting one hour before he was to meet the press he insisted “I cannot and will not deny the story,” he told The Sunday Leader. At this meeting were  Mangala Samaraweera, Tiran Alles, Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Vijitha Herath.

However, the General’s team of alliance partners was strongly of the view that the story would entail a serious political fall-out for him when the campaign proper kicked off. After much arguing and debate, the General in consultation with his political alliance agreed that he would issue a ‘clarification’ of what exactly happened on the ground. “It will not be a denial but a clarification,” he said.

This clarification he requested we carry in our newspaper this week.  Which we have done on page one as agreed."

They also have carried out an article saying Ranil Wickramasingha want be executive prime minister. My opinion is that Ranil is better choice than Fonseka. But Ranil is hated by many of the people in this country. I don't think the SundayLeader is unaware of this. Wonder whether what JVP is saying now(if they have a say!).  So now I think what SB is saying true.

You can read these articles in 

http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2009/12/20/the-fonseka-revelations-and-presidential-palpitations/

and

http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2009/12/20/%E2%80%9Ci-hope-to-be-executive-prime-minister%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%93-ranil/

Dhoni's post match interview.

Ravi S: Well done. It was a tough game.

Dhoni: Well not really. We lost some wickets initially. We wanted give some batting practice to our middle and tail. So they did exceptionally well.

Ravi S: But last time Sri Lanka came close chasing 413 and today they chase down 301 easily.

Dhoni:  Actually we don't think of these one day matches against Sri Lanka as international matches. I am not sure about this but the statistics shows that. In the last match we scored 413. It is only batting practice. We are preparing for the next series against Australia.

Ravi S: What do you think about India's bowling?

Dhoni:- Well they are quite good. Last time we gave runs initially and gave our bowlers a challenge. They manage to do that. Today we thought of giving tougher challenge. They came really close.

Ravi S:  You scored a century today. Your average is over 50 in these one day matches. What is the secrete?

Dhoni:  If openers scored well and put runs on the board and destroy the confidence of bowlers I come top in the order. If the ball is doing a bit and wicket are falling I come down the order. That way I can keep my average up.

Sanath for Premiership?

I got to know that Sanath Jayasuriya has been sidelined from our cricket team. I think captain Sangakkara wants him out of the playing eleven. But he does not have the courage to remove him because Sanath is one of the heros in Sri Lanka.

Santath Jayasuriya sould write a letter of retirement to the selection committee that he feels bad because he was sidelined from the team. He can not be mere passenger wasting public money. He should say that he was one of the pioneers of world cup win in 96.  He should retire from all forms of cricket to serve the country to free people from this corrupt captaincy.

Unfortunately he is little late. Because the nomination date was over.  But he has all the qualifications. He is clean. No allegations of match fixing like Arjuna at anytime. He is a all rounder. Has destroyed all oppositions into pieces. Has a good cricketing brain. Has commanded the team to many victories.  He is also from south.

The general election is coming. The JVPers are saying there is another Sarath for premiership in caretaker government.  JVP has to change one letter. (They should be able to do this very easily looking at their history.)

Lets start the Facebook group Sanath for premiership 2010.......

Operation SCF

Sarath Chandralal Fonseka commanded the Army in the victory of war. He recently told the SundayLeader that Gotabharya ordered to kill surrendering leaders of LTTE. The SundayLeader is notorious for  publishing articles which are harmful to the country. Everybody know the paper is pro-Ranil. Surath Fonseka was thinking he belongs to UNP and made those comments. The SundayLeader and Sarath Fonseka wanted to attack Gota because both of them are angry with him. The SundayLeader  does not care about Sarath Fonseka since their main enemy is Gatabhaya.  On Sunday Sarth Fonseka, in his news conference, said the claim in the SundayLeader was not a war secret and mentioned the same thing without naming anyone. Everything backfired and on Monday Sarath held hurried organized news conference on the advice of JVP and Mangala. At that meeting he did not refuse it but said he was misquoted. He said anyone in the army did not violate any human right law. He said nobody came to surrender waving flags. He said the SundayLeader will publish correcting note.

But today Frederica Janszof of the SundayLeader said that they have not misquoted General Fonseka at any stage.  As far as I know there is a court order to the SundayLeader not to publish abusive news articles regarding Gatabhaya. So I don't think they will publish something what Sarath Fonseka has not told.  He knowingly or unknowingly fell into the trap. But damage has been done.

It is bad if Army killed the surrendering LTTE leaders. The government has rejected these claims from the beginning. They accepted that there had been attempts to surrender and during the incident they were gunned down by the LTTE. But now Sarath Fonseka saying there were no attempts to surrender.  As far as I know he has told different story in Ambalangoda. There are lot of contradictions.  Now the government will be getting more pressure from the West and NOGs for war crime investigation. The government should decide on that. It is totally wrong Sarath Fonseka mention third party information (he now say he got information from a journalist who was with Shavendra Silva.) on the incident to anti-government newspaper. The SundaLeader did their job to get international funding.

I will quote guardian.co.uk article named "Sri Lankan government killed surrendering Tamil Tigers, says general".  It start by saying "Sacked commander running for president says three rebel leaders were machine-gunned on minister's orders". The SundayLeader said they were shot now it has become machine-gunned, which may be true under the circumstance. The article then describe what Sarath Fonseka told the SundayLeader. Then they add supporting information. I will enumerate those supporting informations in the article.

1. A Tamil eyewitness account said Nadesan's wife, a Sinhalese, called in Sinhali (Sinhala) to the soldiers: "He is trying to surrender and you are shooting him." She also died in the hail of bullets.

2. Despite disavowing his earlier remarks, Fonseka's claims about the circumstances surrounding the three men's deaths resemble contemporaneous reports in regional and western media, including the Guardian, that were denied by the Sri Lankan government.

3. Fonseka's whereabouts during the incident was also a matter of confusion. He told a press conference in Colombo on Sunday that he was in China. It was unclear how this statement could be reconciled with his appearance on Sri Lankan state television on 18 May to proclaim victory over the Tigers and confirm that their leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, had been killed. "We can announce very responsibly that we have liberated the whole country from terrorism," Fonseka told Rupavahini television.

4. His claims about what happened last May, and subsequent backtracking, will be viewed in the context of his presidential campaign.

5. Fonseka's allegations echo a report published in June by a Sri Lankan human rights group, University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), that cited army sources in stating that a "politically ordered massacre of people who wanted to surrender or surrendered" had taken place.

The most important point for me is forth one. There they have said that they would view subsequent backtracking in the context of his presidential campaign. So I believe the pressure on the government will be drastically increase due to the remarks of Fonseka.