MPs stunned after seeing “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields”

With some trepidation I helped organise a showing of “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields” in the Beehive Theatrette last Tuesday.  It is a shocking film, mainly using cell-phone footage to show what it was like for the 300,000 civilians repeatedly bombed and shelled by the Sri Lankan military in the final weeks of the civil war. An estimated 40,000 were killed.

This BBC film,

wherever it is shown

, prompts calls for an independent international inquiry into what are clearly war crimes – which is why the Sri Lankan government hates it. Pro-government Sri Lankans, in tandem with their High Commission, did everything they could to stop the film being shown in the New Zealand Parliament. But they were not successful.

The screening was hosted by three Members of Parliament, Maryan Street from Labour, Jackie Blue from National and myself from the Green Party and attended by other MPs, including Hone Harawira, leader of the Mana Party.

The film is now being shown around the country by community groups. See it if it comes your way. It’s

a film you need to see

, even if you don’t “enjoy” it.