Witnesses to “the War without Witnesses” … Voiceless? Buried Foreign Reporters?

Michael Roberts, courtesy of Colombo Telegraph, where there will be interesting blog-commentary

I commence here with the whole lot of close-up images snapped by Kanchan Prasad of Prasar Bharati at the Last Redoubt in mid-May and passed on to me at some point in 2010 or so.  

   

Survivors: There may be others but these are the close-ups in my stock – where they are part of other photographs with more sweeping views of the flotsam and jetsam of the Last Redoubt between Nandikadal Lagoon and the sea. As far as I can work out the women and children photographed above were still in the territory between Nandikadal Lagoon and the sea; but it is possible they had crossed over. As most people know, there was a vast exodus of Tamil people in mid-May, with several succumbing to crossfire or being shot down by those Tigers who remained hardline. The three images that follow, taken by the Ministry of Defence, are deployed here to indicate the intricate warring context:

 

A selection from Kanchan’s other images can be found within these two items

Indian Reporter Pics at NFZ-14-to-18 May 2009 = http://www.flickr.com/photos/thuppahi/sets/72157626797805167/

Mullivaikkal Hospital in NFZ Last Redoubt http://www.flickr.com/photos/thuppahi/sets/72157626797848747/

Muralidhar Reddy and Kanchan Prasad were taken to the “Last Redoubt” every day on the 14^th-18^th May, returning to the SL Army HQ area by evening-night so that they could file their reports to their respective Indian offices. I had got to know Reddy (of The Hindu newspaper) well in April-May 2009 when I was visiting Colombo and he asked me to write articles for Frontline. He told me that he had been periodically embedded in the rear battlefront since late 2008; and that he recorded tales from some of the Tamil people who successfully fled from their corralled hostage situation from late 2008 onwards – with the aid of a translator [because his mother tongue is Telugu].

I was not introduced to Kanchan till a year later when I visited Lanka in May-June 2010 … and discovered that Reddy used no camera and that it is Kanchan to whom we are indebted for a number of revealing still images during those visits where she was present.

  Reddy with Major-General Shavindra Silva of the 58th Brigade at the SL Army base camp at Kilinochchi on 13th May when Reddy and Prasad were given a briefing and where the General “asked us what we needed for reporting purposes” (email from Reddy to Roberts, 28 Dec. 2013)

Note that Reddy has told the world that “[t]here were no conditions spelled out on the coverage from the war zone.  We were allowed unfettered and unhindered movement up to 400 meters from the zone, where pitched battles were fought between the military and the remaining cadre and leaders of the LTTE….Most important was the fact that we had interference-free access to the internet, including Tamilnet, the website perceived to be pro-LTTE and based somewhere in Europe.  Within the constraints of internet time available, and not-unexpected problems of connectivity and speed in a war zone, there was just enough time to read and absorb the reports on the websites before sending news dispatches to our headquarters.  No questions were asked” (Reddy, “An eye-witness account of the last 70 hours of Eelam War IV,” Frontline, Volume 26-Issue 12:  June 6-19, 2009).

Unfortunately Kanchan and Reddy had decided to fly back to Colombo on the 19 May morning and missed the final skirmish on the 18.19^th night when a band of hidden Tamil Tigers were flushed out in swampy mangrove terrain on the edge of Nandikadal Lagoon and Prabhākaran’s corpse was discovered among the dead.

While Prasad and Reddy may have been given a privileged place among reporters in mid-May, they were among a number of other foreign journalists airlifted to the front on other occasions in the months January-April 2009. See the list in http://www.scribd.com/doc/185693507/SL-ARMY-Media-Accreditation-to-War-Zone-2007-2009…. REPEAT  http://www.scribd.com/doc/185693507/SL-ARMY-Media-Accreditation-to-War-Zone-2007-2009

Therein lies a remarkable tale does it not. The accounts sent by these intrepid personnel were so noticeable – that is so buried or glossed over – that the general opinion in Colombo as well as the wide-wide-and-wild world is that no reporters were permitted even a sniff of the frontline arena.

What does this gross error say to us now, today? It demonstrates the power wielded by the Tamil psy-ops circuit working in association with their aides in powerful media outlets in the West. A LIE has been written down in stone and has lit the sky. This lie is now inscribed within several brains and repeated ad nauseam. Amen it is in THEIR SKY. As this metaphor indicates, they ‘own’ the media sky.

REPORTERS’ VISIT TO THE BATTLEFRONT, 26-27 January 2009: IMAGES from KANCHAN PRASAD of Prasar Bharati

 

 

FOREIGN MEDIA AT PUTHUKKUDIYIRUPPU & PUTTUMATTALAAN – 24 April 2009: PICs by Kanchan Prasad of Prasar Bharati

  

 

                                   SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Gray, David 2009 “A Day at the Front Line in Sri Lanka (Photographer’s Blog),” 27 April 2009, http://blogs.reuters.com/photographers-blog/2009/04/27/a-day-at-the-front-line-in-sri-lanka/

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Prasad, Kanchan 2011a “Indian Reporter Pics at NFZ-14-to-18 May 2009,”  http://www.flickr.com/photos/thuppahi/sets/72157626797805167/

Prasad, Kanchan 2011b “Mullivaikkal Hospital in NFZ Last Redoubt,” in http://www.flickr.com/photos/thuppahi/sets/72157626797848747/

Prasad, Kanchan 2011c “Two Indian Reporters’ Post-War Pictures at the LTTE’s Last Redoubt, May 14-19, 2009,” ed. by Roberts, June 2011, http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/blogs/southasiamasala/2011/06/10/two-indian-reporters%E2%80%99-post-war-pictures-at-the-ltte%E2%80%99s-last-redoubt-may-14-19-2009

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Reddy, Muralidhar 2009g “Final hours,” Frontline, 26/12, 6-19 June 2009,  http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl2612/stories/20090619261200900.htm

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Reddy, Muralidhar 2009i “Multiple Displacements, Total Loss of Identity.” The Hindu, 27 May 2009, http://www.hindu.com/2009/05/27/stories/2009052755811500.htm OR http://tinyurl.com/Multiple-displacements

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Roberts, Michael  2011f “The Tamil Death Toll in early 2009: Challenging Rohan Gunaratna,” 1 December 2011, http://thuppahis.com/2011/12/01/the -tamil-death-toll-in-early-2009-challenging-rohan-gunaratna/ and http://transcurrents.com/news-views/archives/6285

Roberts, Michael  2013a “Pragmatic Action and Enchanted Worlds: A Black Tiger Rite of Commemoration,” http://thuppahis.com/2013/05/18/pragmatic-action-enchanted-worlds-a-black-tiger-rite-of-commemoration/…a reprint of an article in Social Analysis, 2006, 73–102.

Roberts, Michael  2013b “Introducing “Numbers Game” – A Detailed Study of the Last Stages of Eelam War IV,” http://thuppahis.com/2013/04/30/introducing-numbers-game-a-detailed-study-of-the-last-stages-of-eelam-war-iv/

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