The UK's Channel Four broadcast a chilling video that purportedly showed Sri Lankan government soldiers executing Tamil rebels apparently in the final days earlier this year of the four decades-old civil war between Tamil separatists and the majority Sinhalese government. The clip was provided by a newly formed organization called Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, an organization that includes both Sinhalese and Tamil journalists and claims no ethnic bias, only the goal of freedom of the press in Sri Lanka. The government, which has faced allegations of direct and indirect atrocities against journalists, including the broad-daylight shooting of the editor of a Colombo newspaper that criticized the government's conduct during the civil war, poohed-poohed the idea that the video clip was authentic, pointing to reports that Tamil rebels were seen to be wearing government uniforms in the waning days of their rebellion. Government spokesmen are saying that the video was made to embarrass the government. No one ever played nice in the conflict's 40 years. The Tamil Tigers are said to have pioneered the use of the suicide bomber vest and the responsibility for numerous atrocities has been laid at the door of government forces and operatives. When the war finally came to a close earlier this year amidst more allegations against the government, international bodies generally decided not to bring war crimes charges against either side because so many atrocities had been committed by both sides. The release of the video has prompted calls to initiate an investigation of war crimes, a reasonable reaction. It is easy to wonder how quickly investigations into war crimes might have been undertaken if the site of the civil war had been a western country or one with more international significance than the beautiful island of Sri Lanka. As most of the fighting was confined to the north of the island, especially in recent years, the country's largest export, tea, was unaffected and the rest of the world barely heard of news from the front. And as the government launched its final assault on the rebels, many international journalists were either deported or not allowed entry into the country. It's an easy question to ask but one certainly much harder to answer: What was the government doing that it did not want the press to see? __
