Facing Death Threats Ahead Of Visit To Commonwealth Meeting

By Callum Macrae -August 1, 2013 

Callum Macrae

When you announce that you are going to apply for media accreditation for a routine international political event like the bi-annual Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) you don’t normally expect a rash of death threats – or to find a senior diplomat from the host country threatening on twitter that he will “make sure you don’t get a visa”.

But this year’s CHOGM is no ordinary event.  It is being held in Sri Lanka – whose government is accused of some of the worst war crimes of this century.  A country marked today by increasing repression of its Tamil minority and a brutal clamp-down on any government critics, particularly among the press and the judiciary.

When David Cameron controversially announced that he would be attending CHOGM despite calls for a boycott, Alistair Burt, the foreign minister with responsibility for Sri Lanka, went on record to say:  “We will make it clear to the Sri Lanka Government that we expect them to guarantee full and unrestricted access for international press covering CHOGM”

The omens for that “guarantee” do not look good.

I have now directed three films looking at the events of the last few months of the civil war.  The first two were commissioned and broadcast by Channel 4, building on the work of Channel 4 News.  The latest, effectively the culmination of three years of investigation, is No Fire Zone: the Killing Fields of Sri Lanka, a 93 minute feature documentary, supported by C4, BRITDOC and others. The films have had a huge impact, winning a number of awards, being cited by the UN and even seeing the team nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

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We shall see – and the world’s press will now, I hope, be watching very carefully.

*Callum Macrae – Director - No Fire Zone: the Killing Fields of Sri Lanka, www.nofirezone.org Twitter: @nofirezonemovie