Lies Agreed Upon

Lies Agreed Upon is a documentary produced by Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence in response to a documentary aired by Channel 4, named Sri Lanka's Killing Fields, about the final weeks of the Sri Lankan Civil War. The documentary gives the Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence response to war crimes accusations and rebuts points made by the producers of the Channel 4 documentary, who presented it as "a forensic investigation into the final weeks of the quarter-century-long civil war between the government of Sri Lanka and the secessionist rebels, the Tamil Tigers." Lies Agreed Upon was first aired at an official function held at Hilton Colombo on 1 August 2011, one and half months after the broadcasting of "Sri Lanka's Killing Fields". Ministry of Defence released another report named Humanitarian Operation – Factual Analysis : July 2006 – May 2009 on the same day. The documentary shows a number of interviews given by ex-LTTE cadres, ex-IDPs, residents of Vanni area, government doctors who worked inside the LTTE held territory during the period etc. It also includes criticism of the eyewitnesses produced by the Channel 4 video and the alleged "trophy videos" by Sri Lankan soldiers. International Crisis Group reacted to the documentary stating, government’s challenge to Channel 4′s reporting is far from the successful refutation, and raises more questions than it answers. In November 2013 Channel 4 showed No Fire Zone, a further documentary examining the last 138 days of the war which challenged the government narrative and which included further evidence of the Sri Lankan government's brutality. Though the government barred independent journalists from the No Fire Zones during the endgame of the conflict, mobile phones, used by both victims and perpetrators, captured the story. Background In June 2011, Channel 4 broadcast the documentary named Sri Lanka's Killing Fields, produced and directed by Callum Macrae which made a number of allegations about the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War. It had a negative impact on the reputation of the Sri Lankan government and the Sri Lanka Armed Forces. The documentary Channel 4 claimed that the government was responsible for targeted shelling of civilians, extrajudicial executions of prisoners and rape, sexual assault and murder of female LTTE fighters. The presenter Jon Snow claimed that the government was responsible for the deaths of as many as 40,000 civilians towards the end of the war.