Sri Lankan Government May Have Killed Twenty Thousand Civilians
May 29th, 2009Via: Times Online:
Sri Lanka’s Government has consistently denied killing civilians in the battle to wipe out the Tamil Tigers and blamed the rebels for any deaths. It hailed the vote by the council as a vindication of its action.
An investigation by The Times into Sri Lanka’s civilian casualties, however — which was conducted in a week-long visit to Sri Lanka — has found evidence of a civilian death toll of 20,000, almost three times that cited previously. The majority perished under government guns.
Confidential UN documents, the testimony of witnesses who lived through the bombardment and expert analysis of photographs that were taken on a helicopter flight over the no-fire zone attest to the deaths of thousands of Tamils, killed while acting as unwilling human shields by the Tamil Tigers, who claimed to be their liberators.
Intended as a haven for civilians, the no-fire zone became a killing field instead for the thousands trapped between the rebels and the army.
As the nonprofit Gun Owners of America emphasizes: “Since World War II, far more people have been killed in state-sponsored genocide than have been killed by war or by criminals. Estimates of the number of victims this century range from 56 million to almost 170 million.”