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Tamil civilians as recently as this year, four years after the end of | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
the civil war. The programme contains very graphic images and | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
language which some viewers may find distressing. | :00:00. | :00:10. | |
Four years after the end of the bloody war in shrank, we have | :00:11. | :00:13. | |
uncovered new evidence of human rights abuses against minority | :00:14. | :00:24. | |
Tamils. I have been speaking to Sri Lankans who fled the country after | :00:25. | :00:28. | |
being raped and tortured by the security forces. These are not the | :00:29. | :00:32. | |
sort of stories that you can report inside the country. Even abroad, | :00:33. | :00:36. | |
those who speak out still fear for the safety of their families back | :00:37. | :00:37. | |
home. We have talked to women raped as | :00:38. | :00:55. | |
recently as this year. The Sri Lankan government dismisses this as | :00:56. | :00:59. | |
propaganda. Human rights experts say our evidence needs international | :01:00. | :01:05. | |
investigation. Is it systematic, is that widespread? There is plenty of | :01:06. | :01:10. | |
evidence to tick both those boxes? What does it means? It equates to a | :01:11. | :01:12. | |
crime against humanity. This is what the Sri Lankan | :01:13. | :01:41. | |
government wants you to see. And Indian Ocean paradise. The economy | :01:42. | :01:46. | |
is booming after the war, and for many on this island, life is much | :01:47. | :01:54. | |
better. Hosting more than 50 world leaders for the Commonwealth heads | :01:55. | :01:57. | |
of government meeting, this is shrill and car's big moment on the | :01:58. | :02:08. | |
world stage. `` Sri Lanka's. I was the BBC's correspondent in Sri Lanka | :02:09. | :02:14. | |
from 2000, to 2004. In recent months I collected evidence of torture and | :02:15. | :02:18. | |
rape taking place after the war. 12 men and women say they were raped in | :02:19. | :02:23. | |
detention by members of the Sri Lankan security forces as recently | :02:24. | :02:27. | |
as this year. It is impossible to corroborate every detail of each | :02:28. | :02:32. | |
person's story, but we have seen medical reports, spoken to doctors, | :02:33. | :02:37. | |
and in some cases a silent in Europe has been granted on the basis of | :02:38. | :02:43. | |
their stories. `` asylum. This young woman says she was kidnapped early | :02:44. | :02:49. | |
this year in Sri Lanka. Bundled into a white man, blindfolded and | :02:50. | :02:52. | |
handcuffed, she never saw the outside of the building where she | :02:53. | :02:58. | |
was held. But she did hear other Tamil women screaming. After being | :02:59. | :03:01. | |
beaten into signing a confession in a language she could not understand, | :03:02. | :03:03. | |
the rates began. `` the rape. You have come here today to talk to | :03:04. | :03:40. | |
us and give us an interview. How difficult was that as a decision to | :03:41. | :03:42. | |
do that? In 2009, the Sri Lankan army crashed | :03:43. | :03:57. | |
the Tamil Tiger rebels who have been fighting for a separate state. `` | :03:58. | :04:04. | |
rushed. Over the decades, they have used a suicide bombers and child | :04:05. | :04:08. | |
soldiers, assassinated President and Prime Minister 's, but by the end, | :04:09. | :04:12. | |
they were described as terrorists around the world. But the | :04:13. | :04:15. | |
government's victory was overshadowed by allegations of war | :04:16. | :04:20. | |
crimes and crimes against humanity. Charges also levelled at the Tigers. | :04:21. | :04:32. | |
The United Nations now estimates that up to 40, possibly even to `` | :04:33. | :04:38. | |
70,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the final months. A majority by | :04:39. | :04:42. | |
the Sri Lankan government. The suffering of those trapped in the | :04:43. | :04:46. | |
war zone was indescribable. At a makeshift hospitals, they were | :04:47. | :04:51. | |
systematically attacked. The UN says it was by the government. The Tamil | :04:52. | :05:00. | |
military `` the Sri Lankan military denies all of these and opposes any | :05:01. | :05:04. | |
international investigation. A victory rally, the president boasted | :05:05. | :05:10. | |
that his soldiers went into war with the human rights charter in one hand | :05:11. | :05:21. | |
and a gun in the other. This was a conflict where thousands of rebel | :05:22. | :05:28. | |
women fought alongside men. It made all Tamil women potential terror | :05:29. | :05:33. | |
suspects. Allegations of sexual abuse by the security forces were | :05:34. | :05:46. | |
common through the wall. She is a former rebel granted a silent in | :05:47. | :05:51. | |
Europe. In early 2009, she was detained on suspicion of being a | :05:52. | :05:55. | |
terrorist and badly tortured. He says he witnessed the horrific | :05:56. | :05:59. | |
sexual abuse of a captured woman fighter in a Colombo police station. | :06:00. | :06:34. | |
The final days of the war were the most brutal. This previously a | :06:35. | :06:41. | |
broadcast photographs, believed to have them taken by government | :06:42. | :06:44. | |
soldiers, appeared to show dead Tamil women. This woman that I | :06:45. | :06:53. | |
filmed a decade ago worked in the Tamil media unit. Newly released | :06:54. | :07:00. | |
footage shows that she surrendered to the army at the end of the war, | :07:01. | :07:04. | |
but the government says that she died in battle. The horrific images | :07:05. | :07:09. | |
of her dead body were accepted as authentic by the United Nations. | :07:10. | :07:14. | |
They say that this footage raised a strong influence of rape or sexual | :07:15. | :07:18. | |
violence may have occurred prior to or after execution. In all, some | :07:19. | :07:32. | |
2000 suspect did women Tigers said `` were captured by the army also | :07:33. | :07:36. | |
surrendered and sent to special camps. The outsiders were allowed | :07:37. | :07:44. | |
access. `` no. This woman, who now has a silent in the UK, was a | :07:45. | :07:48. | |
humanitarian worker who says that she was forced to join the rebels | :07:49. | :07:53. | |
during the war. `` asylum. She hid among civilians when the war ended. | :07:54. | :07:59. | |
Six months later, she thought it safe to venture out, only to be | :08:00. | :08:02. | |
spotted by an informer at a military jet point and detained. `` point. | :08:03. | :08:13. | |
The normal torture was rape. Is that what happened to you? Yes. Once or | :08:14. | :08:20. | |
many times? So many times. From different, different men. Did they | :08:21. | :08:26. | |
also had to physically in other ways? Beating and burning, cigarette | :08:27. | :08:38. | |
burning. It is rare four one women to talk about sexual abuse, but with | :08:39. | :08:42. | |
no hope of justice, some women are now starting to speak out in the | :08:43. | :08:47. | |
hope of stopping this happening to others. The social stigma in Tamil | :08:48. | :08:50. | |
society is so powerful surrounding rape, that even if she met her | :08:51. | :08:55. | |
parents again, she would not tell them what happened to her. | :08:56. | :09:10. | |
In our culture, people look at you in a different way if you have been | :09:11. | :09:12. | |
raped. They do not talk to her. The stigma makes it all the more | :09:13. | :09:44. | |
stored in a read that she has decided to speak in public about her | :09:45. | :09:50. | |
ordeal. In our knowledge, she is the first Tamil great survivor to do so. | :09:51. | :09:54. | |
She says that she was raped by the military as recently as this year. | :09:55. | :11:21. | |
An independent expert witness who has investigated more than 200 | :11:22. | :11:25. | |
alleged torture cases from Tamil in the past five years also examined | :11:26. | :11:29. | |
her. She counted more than 30 cigarette burns on her body, | :11:30. | :11:34. | |
including on her genitals. She corroborated her story of recent | :11:35. | :11:39. | |
rape and torture. The doctor dismisses any suggestion that Tamil | :11:40. | :11:43. | |
women are inventing stories of rape in order to get a sale abroad, or as | :11:44. | :11:47. | |
propaganda against the Sri Lankan government. `` asylum. They are not | :11:48. | :11:53. | |
functioning at all, they are lying on their bed all day, they are not | :11:54. | :11:59. | |
sleeping, not eating. They want to avoid people. They have constant | :12:00. | :12:03. | |
memories of what have had `` what has happened to them and they are | :12:04. | :12:07. | |
highly distressed. And it is fairly difficult to fake? I think it is | :12:08. | :12:15. | |
very difficult to fake. Yes. I would say it is very difficult to fake. It | :12:16. | :12:21. | |
is also very difficult to describe, for a person who has not experienced | :12:22. | :12:27. | |
the trauma of being severely tortured and badly raped, to | :12:28. | :12:31. | |
actually describe the day to day if that. The Sri Lankan military says | :12:32. | :12:39. | |
between 2007 and 2012, there were only five incidents of sexual | :12:40. | :12:43. | |
violence reported in the north of the island involving soldiers. But | :12:44. | :12:47. | |
the campaign group, Human Rights Watch, has documented 62 cases of | :12:48. | :12:52. | |
sexual abuse by the Sri Lankan military after the end of the war. | :12:53. | :12:56. | |
The alter of their report says they found a similarity in the accounts | :12:57. | :13:00. | |
they collected that strongly suggested that sexual abuse by the | :13:01. | :13:03. | |
Sri Lankan military was both widespread and systematic. | :13:04. | :13:09. | |
There were enough pointers that showed quite clearly that this was | :13:10. | :13:17. | |
not perpetrated by officers or were random acts of violence, there was a | :13:18. | :13:21. | |
level of co`ordination and a pattern of abuse which was systematic across | :13:22. | :13:23. | |
all of the cases. We have been hearing similar stories | :13:24. | :13:33. | |
from women's' groups based in northern Sri Lanka. They say they | :13:34. | :13:37. | |
now have to deal with increasing numbers of unwanted pregnancies, | :13:38. | :13:42. | |
after soldiers have raped Tamil women or coerced them into sexual | :13:43. | :13:50. | |
relationships. This charity worker, who is not a camel, is hiding her | :13:51. | :13:57. | |
identity because abortion is illegal entry mankind that the woman's light | :13:58. | :14:03. | |
is in danger. `` Tamil. Sometimes we have to take these women to perform | :14:04. | :14:08. | |
underground abortions. More often these women come and we have noticed | :14:09. | :14:17. | |
marks, earn marks, `` burn marks, particularly with cigarettes, and | :14:18. | :14:20. | |
bite marks on their body, scars and wounds. Some of them have been kept | :14:21. | :14:25. | |
in custody for weeks or months and raped because they have demanded | :14:26. | :14:31. | |
justice from the Sri Lankan system. Most of the cases happen to be | :14:32. | :14:36. | |
abduction of their spouses. So, when they start talking about it, the | :14:37. | :14:44. | |
women undergo torture and rape. Despite the account of what some | :14:45. | :14:48. | |
women are still suffering in shrill anchor, there's only ever been one | :14:49. | :14:51. | |
reported case where Mac or one soldiers have been convicted for the | :14:52. | :14:58. | |
rape and murder of a woman. `` Sri Lankan soldiers. That was in 1996. | :14:59. | :15:05. | |
Few are willing to take on the military. Impunity is what | :15:06. | :15:08. | |
happening. Perpetrators of crimes should be held to account and | :15:09. | :15:13. | |
brought to justice. That is international or international | :15:14. | :15:15. | |
humanitarian law. It is not happening. Those people are not | :15:16. | :15:22. | |
being investigated. They are not being tried before a court and are | :15:23. | :15:25. | |
not being punished. That is impunity. | :15:26. | :15:34. | |
Macro `` should I do has made progress on reconstruction of the | :15:35. | :15:40. | |
war zone but building trust has been less successful. `` Sri Lanka has | :15:41. | :15:47. | |
made. At the end of the war, the government detained a number of | :15:48. | :15:49. | |
rebels in special rehabilitation centres. These were some of the | :15:50. | :15:53. | |
first men and women to be handed out to their families. The government's | :15:54. | :15:59. | |
release certificate claimed the individual had been socialised in | :16:00. | :16:00. | |
detention. This man arrived in Britain this | :16:01. | :16:09. | |
year. He says he was forced to join the Tamil Tiger rebels but only | :16:10. | :16:13. | |
spent six months with them before the war ended. Then, he says, he was | :16:14. | :16:19. | |
detained for nearly four years in the government's official | :16:20. | :16:21. | |
rehabilitation programme. This will government says it has a | :16:22. | :16:51. | |
zero tolerance policy torture. `` the Sri Lankan torture. It also says | :16:52. | :16:54. | |
it created a world`class rehabilitation programme that | :16:55. | :16:59. | |
fostered in peace and love. The inmates are said to have been | :17:00. | :17:03. | |
offered education, training, healthcare and facilities for sport | :17:04. | :17:05. | |
and entertainment. This was soldiers? Police? People in | :17:06. | :17:51. | |
civilian dress? Who did this to you? His medical report says his scars | :17:52. | :18:19. | |
are consistent with being beaten and burned and it concludes the most | :18:20. | :18:22. | |
likely explanation is that he was, indeed, severely tortured. Stories | :18:23. | :18:28. | |
like these are only emerging now because it has taken years for | :18:29. | :18:34. | |
former Tamil Tigers to escape abroad and be able to speak out. We found | :18:35. | :18:39. | |
six in the UK who also alleged torture into rehabilitation | :18:40. | :18:44. | |
programme. Four of them have government documentation to prove | :18:45. | :18:48. | |
they were in the camps and independent medical reports | :18:49. | :18:54. | |
establishing torture. This is the first evidence to demonstrate what | :18:55. | :18:56. | |
many human rights groups long suspected, that in some of the camps | :18:57. | :19:01. | |
at least torture took place not rehabilitation. They have the | :19:02. | :19:10. | |
characteristics I would expect of thermal contact burns. This British | :19:11. | :19:15. | |
doctor is an expert on torture, who has examined more than 1000 | :19:16. | :19:22. | |
survivors from different countries. Sri Lankan citizens make of a large | :19:23. | :19:27. | |
part of his workload. My fear is this is an organised activity and I | :19:28. | :19:30. | |
find it hard to believe, if it is true, that this could be done | :19:31. | :19:34. | |
without connivance of state authorities. Doctor Arnold and | :19:35. | :19:40. | |
colleagues have examined 100 cases of Sri Lankans in the UK, who have | :19:41. | :19:45. | |
been branded with hot metal rods in detention since the war. He says | :19:46. | :19:48. | |
there is absolutely no way these would could be self`inflicted, as | :19:49. | :19:53. | |
some Sri Lankan supporters have suggested. I have heard that rule on | :19:54. | :20:00. | |
many occasions. Obviously, it would be a convenient thing for the Sri | :20:01. | :20:04. | |
Lankan government for that to be believed. It would be physically | :20:05. | :20:09. | |
impossible for someone to sit still for this, unless they were tied down | :20:10. | :20:16. | |
or any that `` or given an anaesthetic. The long`term impact is | :20:17. | :20:22. | |
devastating. This former rebel described horrific torture, right in | :20:23. | :20:27. | |
heart of the capital. He has documents to prove when and where he | :20:28. | :20:28. | |
was held. Four years later, he can't carry | :20:29. | :21:41. | |
anything heavy, has trouble walking long distances and is still on | :21:42. | :21:45. | |
sleeping pills. He can't even talk to his wife about what happens to | :21:46. | :21:49. | |
him. His doctor has no doubt he was tortured. I don't think personally | :21:50. | :21:56. | |
that he will recover from all of his symptoms and diseases he has. I | :21:57. | :22:00. | |
think the rest will stay until the rest of his life. He has to try to | :22:01. | :22:05. | |
arrange his life to live with the pain, to live with the anxiety. But | :22:06. | :22:12. | |
I think and hope that, with the help of medication and therapy and | :22:13. | :22:19. | |
multiple specialists, he will be `` that it will be more bearable. He | :22:20. | :22:25. | |
knows exactly who was responsible for his torture and despairs of | :22:26. | :22:33. | |
getting `` ever getting justice. But what will happen now that the Tamil | :22:34. | :22:38. | |
Tigers have been defeated? They wanted to ensure the word went out | :22:39. | :22:44. | |
that if they ever thought of going against the state or doing something | :22:45. | :22:48. | |
which was perceived as antinational, then this would be their fate. We | :22:49. | :22:54. | |
presented our new evidence of ongoing rape and torture, along with | :22:55. | :22:58. | |
existing documentation from the UN and human rights group, to a leading | :22:59. | :23:05. | |
British lawyer. The cases you have gathered are striking in that they | :23:06. | :23:09. | |
have common features. In relation to how the victims are picked up, what | :23:10. | :23:16. | |
happens to them, particularly there is evidence of cigarettes being used | :23:17. | :23:21. | |
to burn the victims in order to get compliance. And basically to carry | :23:22. | :23:26. | |
out torture. The use of cigarettes has long been held to be within the | :23:27. | :23:31. | |
definition of torture and there's no dispute upon that. Is it systematic | :23:32. | :23:36. | |
and widespread? Is plenty of evidence to keep both of those | :23:37. | :23:41. | |
boxes. What does that mean? It all equates to a crime against inanity. | :23:42. | :23:47. | |
Therefore, in cases like this, normally you would be looking at | :23:48. | :23:50. | |
them being referred to the International criminal Court for | :23:51. | :23:55. | |
further investigation. We put this to the Sri Lankan government. High | :23:56. | :23:59. | |
Commissioner in London said it was unfair to expect them to respond | :24:00. | :24:03. | |
fully to allegations contained in an ominous testimony. Their written | :24:04. | :24:08. | |
statement suggested our interviewees could have been paid to discredit | :24:09. | :24:12. | |
Sri Lanka or even tortured by the Tamil Tigers themselves. Allegations | :24:13. | :24:15. | |
of systematic abuse are a travesty: In the Commonwealth, the lone voice | :24:16. | :24:32. | |
of dissent is Canada. Its prime minister boycotting next week's | :24:33. | :24:36. | |
summit in Colombo. Canadian officials speak of soft ethnic | :24:37. | :24:41. | |
cleansing and say Canada is not in the business of accommodating evil. | :24:42. | :24:52. | |
In a statement to the BBC, Britain's Foreign Minister said he | :24:53. | :25:00. | |
was very concerned about reports of a culture with impunity for rape and | :25:01. | :25:04. | |
promised to raise the issue vigourously while in shrill anger. | :25:05. | :25:12. | |
For Ravi, the Commonwealth meeting is just another reminder of how much | :25:13. | :25:17. | |
he has lost. He is waiting for the day he can go home. | :25:18. | :25:20. |