Editorial

The message in Killing the messenger

It is three months since Lasantha Wickrematunge, the Founder Editor of this newspaper was killed. It is a time for reflection. For us all. As a nation. The murder of Lasantha rang warning bells around the world. But the silence surrounding such incidents of horror was an indication of the apathy amongst our people. It is this silence that fosters a culture of impunity, and a reign of terror to continue unabated in this country.

With the government unable and unwilling to bring to justice those responsible for corruption, and with journalists under fire for their courageous reporting, the culture of impunity and vicious anti-media rhetoric by public officials and government MPs fuel this situation by severely undermining the safety and security of journalists who highlight gross abuses of power. We are angered and frustrated by the miserable failure of government and police to investigate large-scale corruption and misuse of power.

Editors, publishers, human rights activists, politicians and members of the diplomatic community, have all concluded that safety of the media has swiftly deteriorated in the last two years with a concentrated culture of impunity firmly in place. As far as safety for media practitioners is concerned the rule of law is almost non-existent. Advocacy, nil.

Over the last two years, a shadowy network of armed gangs have been involved in abductions, threats and murder of media personnel. In all these attacks, the perpetrators have yet to be apprehended with police investigations either lacking conclusion or not pursued at all.

Independent defence reporting is virtually non-existent following the assault and attacks on two defence correspondents. All war related news have been restricted to information disseminated by the military via different arms of the Ministry of Defence. Access to covering the war is almost entirely confined to "armchair reporting" as journalists are barred from war zones. The media is fettered. They have no way of independently confirming or verifying information on the war. Reports on the war could be misleading, grossly exaggerated or downright untruthful and there is no verification. The government doesn't really care as long as the majority believes them.

On June 4, last year, the Defence Ministry launched scathing attacks against journalists critical of its war against the Tigers, labelling them "cowboy defence analysts" and "enemies of the state." In two commentaries published on its website, the Ministry also railed against what it said was "crap" being written about its escalating effort to eject the Tigers from the island's north. The Ministry presents reporters with a stark choice of being either pro-government or pro-terrorist.

The Defence Ministry, headed by the brother of President Mahinda Rajapakse, said some writers were lowering the moral of the fighting soldiers, and warned that the Ministry "does not wish to entertain mere doomsayers who always try to undermine the soldiers' commitment." Warning it would take "all necessary measures to stop this journalistic treachery against the country," but did not elaborate.

Two weeks prior to this warning, Keith Noyahr, Deputy Editor of The Nation went missing on the evening of May 22. He had left his office around 10.30 pm but did not reach home. His vehicle was found close to his house, with head lights burning and the engine running. Noyahr was released by his abductors in the early hours of the morning of May 23. The world saw his swollen, bruised face having suffered a severe beating.

Noyahr wrote a weekly defence column in The Nation under the pseudonym Senpathi. He was released as a result of immediate and intense pressure from The Nation administration. Noyahr said he had been blindfolded and severely assaulted. He left the country refusing to make a police complaint or to identify his abductors insisting his young family would be killed if he did.

On June 30, Namal Perera, former Telshan Networks (TNL) news director and at the time a Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI) employee, was the victim of a vicious assault, narrowly escaping death while traveling on a busy highway in Colombo. The attackers had tailed Perera and his friend Mahendra Ratnaweera, a political officer at the British High Commission in Colombo now awarded an MBE, and attacked them near an army camp. The attackers fled after beating them with sticks and clubs only because the duo had locked themselves inside a car and screamed for help until a large number of bystanders gathered.

Perera's troubles started after Keith Noyahr was abducted and assaulted. He had received telephone calls from strangers asking for directions to his house. He was obviously under surveillance. The unidentified assailants grabbed Noyahr's wallet, which among other things had Perera's business card.

Six days before the attack on Namal and Mahendra, the government appointed a high-powered ministerial committee to look into reporters facing death threats. This committee has thus far been a non-starter. A farce. Mere eyewash. Two members appointed to this committee Sarath Amunugama and Faizer Musthapha insist there has never been an effort on the part of the government or its security forces to intimidate, threaten, harass, assault or kill journalists. The Ministers refused to accept that a culture of impunity prevails seriously hindering the work and safety of journalists.

Defence Correspondent for The Sunday Times, Iqbal Athas has told confidants that in all his 43 years of work as a journalist he has never felt so seriously under threat as he does now.

Eleven journalists who have been killed in the last 18 months, were murdered in government-controlled areas and no one has yet been brought to justice in connection with these deaths.

Tamil journalists over the years have been the target of state sponsored and guerilla attacks. However it was only after and since journalists attached to the English press fell victim to such attacks (e.g. Keith Noyahr) that the media as a whole 'sat up and took notice,' and began to condemn and seek to bring pressure on state and other forces.

Since the murder of Dharmaretnam Sivaram better known as Taraki in April 2005, there has been at least 14 other cases of journalists and media workers reported murdered. None of these have been brought to the stage of prosecution. The authorities are also yet to identify, let alone apprehend or bring to trial, the perpetrators of recent abduction attempts and armed attacks on journalists, in particular in the cases of Namal Perera in the heart of Colombo and Radhika Devakumar in Batticaloa.

Little progress had been made in the investigations into the "disappearances" of two journalists in the Jaffna peninsula. Hopes are now receding that they will ever be found alive.

Apart from these specific cases, a signal seems to have been sent from the highest political level that verbal abuse of media workers as well as physical intimidation and attacks are fair tactics. Labour Minister Mervyn Silva, a close political ally of President Mahindra Rajapakse, has been a singularly conspicuous figure in this respect. Following a December 2007 incident when he stormed into the premises of the state-owned broadcaster, the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC), and roughing up the director of news supposedly for his failure to cover an event he had addressed, Silva has had several bruising encounters with the media community. He has in particular targeted personnel of the Maharajah TV group, including the top-rated Sinhala channel, Sirasa.

Top officials of Sirasa TV channel have repeatedly been called in for questioning by the CID of the Sri Lanka police in recent months. All of this culminated in a dastardly attack on the TV station in January this year. Days before Wickrematunge was brutally murdered.

And in similar vein, the UN Human Rights Council concluded another disappointing session last week by failing to fulfill its mandate to promptly respond to human rights emergencies, Human Rights Watch said on April 1. Although the Council took needed action on Burma and North Korea, it was unable to create a strong monitoring mechanism to address human rights crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Sri Lanka.

"It is inexplicable why the Council failed to take any action on Sri Lanka," said Julie de Rivero, Geneva advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "Amidst abuses by both government forces and the Tamil Tigers, more than 3000 civilians have died since January, yet the Council stood by and did nothing."The human rights situation in Sri Lanka continues to deteriorate. More than 150,000 civilians remain trapped in a small area of the northern Wanni region wherefighting between government forces and the LTTE continues. Trapped by the LTTE and fired upon indiscriminately by government forces, more than 3000 civilians have been killed in the past two months alone.

Despite the urgency of the situation in the Wanni, the continuing abuses, and the very limited humanitarian assistance reaching the beleaguered population, no initiative was taken to mobilise the Council to take action on Sri Lanka. Most basically, the Council failed in its duty to remind all parties to the conflict to respect their obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law and to prevent further violations. "While the UN, humanitarian agencies and human rights defenders have tried to do what they can to prevent further suffering in Sri Lanka, the Council has decided to stand by and watch," de Rivero said. "The Council should redress this failure by immediately convening a Special Session to urgently examine the situation in the country."