US Media's Role in the Silent Death of Sri Lanka's TamilsJul-12-2012

Warning: article contains Extremely Graphic images!

(SALEM) - War crimes ravaged the Tamil population of Sri Lanka only three years ago as the world looked away in a grotesque type of silence.

The genocidal path of this government toward its minority culture is an extension of the crimes against Tamils that have been underway since the island nation gained independence from Great Britain in 1948.

Pre-meditated murder is among the darkest of crimes, multiply it by at least 40,000, and you begin to see that the violent acts of this government are of a particularly unthinkable nature. Look more closely and you see that 160,000 Tamil people failed to exist at the end of the war. Many are held in camps, but sources in the north say most of the missing are dead.

The tools to avoid this extraordinary loss of human life were available, but most of the American press was asleep at the wheel when it comes to this story and they have still to awaken to the reality of what happened, or their role in this unprecedented human disaster.

In an article titled Sri Lanka: Genocide of the Tamil minority in January 2009, Dr. Brian Senewiratne wrote:

"There is a humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka, where the Tamil minority in the island's north and east are facing annihilation at the hands of the Sinhalese-dominated government."^[1]

Never were so few words so true, yet a crystal ball was not required; those paying attention could see that death was calling out to the Tamils in a mocking voice. They would die in some of the most horrible ways as these photos attest.

Warning: Very disturbing images from April 2009

Dr Brian Senewiratne

Brian Senewiratne's prophetic words came before the genocide's ugliest and deadliest, final four months.

Today he lives in Australia, but this noted writer hails from Sri Lanka's Sinhalese Buddhist majority population. He is unique for his journalistic accomplishments and for being such a tireless humanitarian activist, yet his position typifies that of many Sinhala Buddhists who decry and deplore what took place in the north under Rajapakse's orders. This is important.

Years after it was published, Brian Senewiratne's article is still easy to locate on Google. In fact it is the first search result under 'Sri Lanka genocide'.

The simple point is that there were no secrets; the Sri Lankan government went to great lengths to silence its critics, but the UN was in place until the very end and their observations were public for anyone who cared to look or listen.

If we were able to cover this event as a small Internet news agency, why were those with real resources not able to do the same? There were people in the UN willing to release information; content was available then and in the ensuing time it has only grown in both volume and intensity and all of the major human rights organizations have paid attention, yet the media fails to follow their lead also.

The warnings were dire and clear; they just have not been viewed with concern from those who produce the news and make no mistake about the power of the media; these are the people who could have collectively brought the Tamils relief simply by doing their jobs.