In just four months in 2009, Sri Lanka's 26 year-old desperate civil war came to a brutal and bloody end on a desolate stretch of beach in the island's north east.

Tens of thousands of civilians were killed when the government decimated the guerilla organisation, the Tamil Tigers.

Gordon Weiss witnessed the conflict at first hand as a UN spokesman in Colombo. His devastating account unravels the compelling history that led up to that final horrific episode, peeling back the Sri Lankan government's cloak of silence to reveal the truth of those tragic events.