Sri Lanka's Unfinished War Our World

Tamil civilians as recently as this year, four years after the end of

the civil war. The programme contains very graphic images and

language which some viewers may find distressing.

Four years after the end of the bloody war in shrank, we have

uncovered new evidence of human rights abuses against minority

Tamils. I have been speaking to Sri Lankans who fled the country after

being raped and tortured by the security forces. These are not the

sort of stories that you can report inside the country. Even abroad,

those who speak out still fear for the safety of their families back

home. We have talked to women raped as

recently as this year. The Sri Lankan government dismisses this as

propaganda. Human rights experts say our evidence needs international

investigation. Is it systematic, is that widespread? There is plenty of

evidence to tick both those boxes? What does it means? It equates to a

crime against humanity. This is what the Sri Lankan

government wants you to see. And Indian Ocean paradise. The economy

is booming after the war, and for many on this island, life is much

better. Hosting more than 50 world leaders for the Commonwealth heads

of government meeting, this is shrill and car's big moment on the

world stage. `` Sri Lanka's. I was the BBC's correspondent in Sri Lanka

from 2000, to 2004. In recent months I collected evidence of torture and

rape taking place after the war. 12 men and women say they were raped in

detention by members of the Sri Lankan security forces as recently

as this year. It is impossible to corroborate every detail of each

person's story, but we have seen medical reports, spoken to doctors,

and in some cases a silent in Europe has been granted on the basis of

their stories. `` asylum. This young woman says she was kidnapped early

this year in Sri Lanka. Bundled into a white man, blindfolded and

handcuffed, she never saw the outside of the building where she

was held. But she did hear other Tamil women screaming. After being

beaten into signing a confession in a language she could not understand,

the rates began. `` the rape. You have come here today to talk to

us and give us an interview. How difficult was that as a decision to

do that? In 2009, the Sri Lankan army crashed

the Tamil Tiger rebels who have been fighting for a separate state. ``

rushed. Over the decades, they have used a suicide bombers and child

soldiers, assassinated President and Prime Minister 's, but by the end,

they were described as terrorists around the world. But the

government's victory was overshadowed by allegations of war

crimes and crimes against humanity. Charges also levelled at the Tigers.

The United Nations now estimates that up to 40, possibly even to ``

70,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the final months. A majority by

the Sri Lankan government. The suffering of those trapped in the

war zone was indescribable. At a makeshift hospitals, they were

systematically attacked. The UN says it was by the government. The Tamil

military `` the Sri Lankan military denies all of these and opposes any

international investigation. A victory rally, the president boasted

that his soldiers went into war with the human rights charter in one hand

and a gun in the other. This was a conflict where thousands of rebel

women fought alongside men. It made all Tamil women potential terror

suspects. Allegations of sexual abuse by the security forces were

common through the wall. She is a former rebel granted a silent in

Europe. In early 2009, she was detained on suspicion of being a

terrorist and badly tortured. He says he witnessed the horrific

sexual abuse of a captured woman fighter in a Colombo police station.

The final days of the war were the most brutal. This previously a

broadcast photographs, believed to have them taken by government

soldiers, appeared to show dead Tamil women. This woman that I

filmed a decade ago worked in the Tamil media unit. Newly released

footage shows that she surrendered to the army at the end of the war,

but the government says that she died in battle. The horrific images

of her dead body were accepted as authentic by the United Nations.

They say that this footage raised a strong influence of rape or sexual

violence may have occurred prior to or after execution. In all, some

2000 suspect did women Tigers said `` were captured by the army also

surrendered and sent to special camps. The outsiders were allowed

access. `` no. This woman, who now has a silent in the UK, was a

humanitarian worker who says that she was forced to join the rebels

during the war. `` asylum. She hid among civilians when the war ended.

Six months later, she thought it safe to venture out, only to be

spotted by an informer at a military jet point and detained. `` point.

The normal torture was rape. Is that what happened to you? Yes. Once or

many times? So many times. From different, different men. Did they

also had to physically in other ways? Beating and burning, cigarette

burning. It is rare four one women to talk about sexual abuse, but with

no hope of justice, some women are now starting to speak out in the

hope of stopping this happening to others. The social stigma in Tamil

society is so powerful surrounding rape, that even if she met her

parents again, she would not tell them what happened to her.

In our culture, people look at you in a different way if you have been

raped. They do not talk to her. The stigma makes it all the more

stored in a read that she has decided to speak in public about her

ordeal. In our knowledge, she is the first Tamil great survivor to do so.

She says that she was raped by the military as recently as this year.

An independent expert witness who has investigated more than 200

alleged torture cases from Tamil in the past five years also examined

her. She counted more than 30 cigarette burns on her body,

including on her genitals. She corroborated her story of recent

rape and torture. The doctor dismisses any suggestion that Tamil

women are inventing stories of rape in order to get a sale abroad, or as

propaganda against the Sri Lankan government. `` asylum. They are not

functioning at all, they are lying on their bed all day, they are not

sleeping, not eating. They want to avoid people. They have constant

memories of what have had `` what has happened to them and they are

highly distressed. And it is fairly difficult to fake? I think it is

very difficult to fake. Yes. I would say it is very difficult to fake. It

is also very difficult to describe, for a person who has not experienced

the trauma of being severely tortured and badly raped, to

actually describe the day to day if that. The Sri Lankan military says

between 2007 and 2012, there were only five incidents of sexual

violence reported in the north of the island involving soldiers. But

the campaign group, Human Rights Watch, has documented 62 cases of

sexual abuse by the Sri Lankan military after the end of the war.

The alter of their report says they found a similarity in the accounts

they collected that strongly suggested that sexual abuse by the

Sri Lankan military was both widespread and systematic.

There were enough pointers that showed quite clearly that this was

not perpetrated by officers or were random acts of violence, there was a

level of co`ordination and a pattern of abuse which was systematic across

all of the cases. We have been hearing similar stories

from women's' groups based in northern Sri Lanka. They say they

now have to deal with increasing numbers of unwanted pregnancies,

after soldiers have raped Tamil women or coerced them into sexual

relationships. This charity worker, who is not a camel, is hiding her

identity because abortion is illegal entry mankind that the woman's light

is in danger. `` Tamil. Sometimes we have to take these women to perform

underground abortions. More often these women come and we have noticed

marks, earn marks, `` burn marks, particularly with cigarettes, and

bite marks on their body, scars and wounds. Some of them have been kept

in custody for weeks or months and raped because they have demanded

justice from the Sri Lankan system. Most of the cases happen to be

abduction of their spouses. So, when they start talking about it, the

women undergo torture and rape. Despite the account of what some

women are still suffering in shrill anchor, there's only ever been one

reported case where Mac or one soldiers have been convicted for the

rape and murder of a woman. `` Sri Lankan soldiers. That was in 1996.

Few are willing to take on the military. Impunity is what

happening. Perpetrators of crimes should be held to account and

brought to justice. That is international or international

humanitarian law. It is not happening. Those people are not

being investigated. They are not being tried before a court and are

not being punished. That is impunity.

Macro `` should I do has made progress on reconstruction of the

war zone but building trust has been less successful. `` Sri Lanka has

made. At the end of the war, the government detained a number of

rebels in special rehabilitation centres. These were some of the

first men and women to be handed out to their families. The government's

release certificate claimed the individual had been socialised in

detention. This man arrived in Britain this

year. He says he was forced to join the Tamil Tiger rebels but only

spent six months with them before the war ended. Then, he says, he was

detained for nearly four years in the government's official

rehabilitation programme. This will government says it has a

zero tolerance policy torture. `` the Sri Lankan torture. It also says

it created a world`class rehabilitation programme that

fostered in peace and love. The inmates are said to have been

offered education, training, healthcare and facilities for sport

and entertainment. This was soldiers? Police? People in

civilian dress? Who did this to you? His medical report says his scars

are consistent with being beaten and burned and it concludes the most

likely explanation is that he was, indeed, severely tortured. Stories

like these are only emerging now because it has taken years for

former Tamil Tigers to escape abroad and be able to speak out. We found

six in the UK who also alleged torture into rehabilitation

programme. Four of them have government documentation to prove

they were in the camps and independent medical reports

establishing torture. This is the first evidence to demonstrate what

many human rights groups long suspected, that in some of the camps

at least torture took place not rehabilitation. They have the

characteristics I would expect of thermal contact burns. This British

doctor is an expert on torture, who has examined more than 1000

survivors from different countries. Sri Lankan citizens make of a large

part of his workload. My fear is this is an organised activity and I

find it hard to believe, if it is true, that this could be done

without connivance of state authorities. Doctor Arnold and

colleagues have examined 100 cases of Sri Lankans in the UK, who have

been branded with hot metal rods in detention since the war. He says

there is absolutely no way these would could be self`inflicted, as

some Sri Lankan supporters have suggested. I have heard that rule on

many occasions. Obviously, it would be a convenient thing for the Sri

Lankan government for that to be believed. It would be physically

impossible for someone to sit still for this, unless they were tied down

or any that `` or given an anaesthetic. The long`term impact is

devastating. This former rebel described horrific torture, right in

heart of the capital. He has documents to prove when and where he

was held. Four years later, he can't carry

anything heavy, has trouble walking long distances and is still on

sleeping pills. He can't even talk to his wife about what happens to

him. His doctor has no doubt he was tortured. I don't think personally

that he will recover from all of his symptoms and diseases he has. I

think the rest will stay until the rest of his life. He has to try to

arrange his life to live with the pain, to live with the anxiety. But

I think and hope that, with the help of medication and therapy and

multiple specialists, he will be `` that it will be more bearable. He

knows exactly who was responsible for his torture and despairs of

getting `` ever getting justice. But what will happen now that the Tamil

Tigers have been defeated? They wanted to ensure the word went out

that if they ever thought of going against the state or doing something

which was perceived as antinational, then this would be their fate. We

presented our new evidence of ongoing rape and torture, along with

existing documentation from the UN and human rights group, to a leading

British lawyer. The cases you have gathered are striking in that they

have common features. In relation to how the victims are picked up, what

happens to them, particularly there is evidence of cigarettes being used

to burn the victims in order to get compliance. And basically to carry

out torture. The use of cigarettes has long been held to be within the

definition of torture and there's no dispute upon that. Is it systematic

and widespread? Is plenty of evidence to keep both of those

boxes. What does that mean? It all equates to a crime against inanity.

Therefore, in cases like this, normally you would be looking at

them being referred to the International criminal Court for

further investigation. We put this to the Sri Lankan government. High

Commissioner in London said it was unfair to expect them to respond

fully to allegations contained in an ominous testimony. Their written

statement suggested our interviewees could have been paid to discredit

Sri Lanka or even tortured by the Tamil Tigers themselves. Allegations

of systematic abuse are a travesty: In the Commonwealth, the lone voice

of dissent is Canada. Its prime minister boycotting next week's

summit in Colombo. Canadian officials speak of soft ethnic

cleansing and say Canada is not in the business of accommodating evil.

In a statement to the BBC, Britain's Foreign Minister said he

was very concerned about reports of a culture with impunity for rape and

promised to raise the issue vigourously while in shrill anger.

For Ravi, the Commonwealth meeting is just another reminder of how much

he has lost. He is waiting for the day he can go home.