Leaked UN satellite images show "haven for Sri Lanka refugees" was bombed by the Srilankan Military
From The Times
May 1, 2009
Confidential UN satellite images leaked yesterday appear to show that the Sri Lankan Air Force bombed a safe haven for up to 150,000 civilians fleeing fighting against the Tamil Tigers.
The images contained in an internal UN report may constitute the strongest evidence yet of violations of international humanitarian law or war crimes, according to human rights activists. The report by Unosat, dated April 26, provides detailed images of the tiny strip of beach and coconut grove — now covering only 3.8sq miles (10sq km) — where the army has pinned down the Tigers along with thousands of civilians.
The Government declared the area a safe haven or “no-fire zone” on February 12, urging civilians to seek shelter there, and has repeatedly denied using heavy artillery or aerial bombs to attack it.
The Unosat report, based on images between February 5 and April 19, appears to back up the persistent verbal testimony to the contrary from doctors, aid workers and civilians fleeing the area. “Within the northern and southern sections of the civilian safe zone, there are new indications of building destruction and damages resulting from shelling and possible airstrikes,” the report said.
Francesco Pisano, manager of the Unosat programme, told The Times that the report was compiled to assist UN agencies and aid organisations in Sri Lanka and was placed accidentally on one of their websites. He said that his analysts had concluded that some of the damage in the images could have been caused only by aerial bombing. “This kind of accuracy you acquire only with air power,” he said. “The craters beyond a certain size also make our analysts almost certain that these were air-dropped bombs.”
He declined to say which side was responsible. The army says that it destroyed the last of the Tigers’ small air wing when it shot down two of its planes over Colombo in February. Human rights activists said that the images required detailed analysis and further inquiries but could provide the hardest evidence yet that the army had shelled and bombed civilians.
“This is incontrovertible evidence that the Government has been lying for months,” Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director for Human Rights Watch, said. A Sri Lankan military spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
Meenakshi Ganguly, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW), told Al Jazeera that the pictures did give evidence that civilians were at risk, saying the government may have "deliberately deceived the international community when they expressed concern about the situation".
"The pictures do prove that heavy weapons were used and indeed civilian casualties did occur, as shown by UN figures of the death toll since January," she said.
"In fact, HRW once recorded the sound of shelling which was dropping near a hospital."
Source: The Times
: BBC
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
The Srilankan president is facing genocide charges in the American and British courts, and these would go a long way in prosecuting him and his cohorts for their human rights abuses
Furthermore these images prove that the reason no foreighn journalists/officials were not allowed to monitor the humanitarian situation in Lanka by the government was its desire to hide this ongoing massacre of civilians from the rest of the world.
on related news
Sweden recalls its ambassador from SriLanka in Protest
in other words; He is saying that Srilanka does not want foreighn observers or journalists there because it wants to hide the genocide thats going on
Sri Lanka has refused to allow the Swedish Foreign Minister to enter the country today on a joint mission with his British and French counterparts
Carl Bildt was due to join David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner in Colombo this morning to urge the Government to grant aid agencies access to tens of thousands of civilians still trapped on the front line.
Colombo refused to grant Mr Bildt a visa yesterday, setting off a diplomatic row with the EU as the Sri Lankan Army said that it was poised to defeat the Tigers after 26 years of civil war.
“This is remarkable,” Mr Bildt said on the sidelines of an EU Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg. “You just don’t act this way.”
Mr Bildt said he had recalled the Swedish Ambassador from Colombo in protest, adding that Sri Lankan authorities had not given any reason for their decision. “They’re trying to say that the British and French visit was planned in advance but it wasn’t,” he said. “It’s very strange behaviour . . . exceedingly strange behaviour.”
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Xen
