CPJ has launched a new report, In Sri Lanka, No Peace Dividend for Press. It takes a close look at the media in Sri Lanka, one year after the government declared a decisive victory over Tamil secessionists that ended 30 years of bitter, often genuinely suicidal ethnic conflict. In the years running up to that victory, Sri Lankan journalists who had dared to criticize the government found themselves under serious attack -- ten have been killed for their work in the last decade, and many others have been harassed, arbitrarily jailed, temporarily "disappeared," or otherwise seriously harassed. The atmosphere has become so poisonous for journalists that CPJ counts more than 25 in exile. Some of them have asked for, and received, political asylum.
Sri Lanka is one of the oldest democracies in Asia, has never had a military government, and has a popularly re-elected president and parliament brought to power in elections that have been accepted by the international community. In January, incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa took 58 percent of the popular vote. In April, his coalition won 144 of the parliament's 225 seats. While he might not have been handed the two-thirds majority he wanted to pass, wholesale, the constitutional amendments to allow him to run gain for a third term, nstead of seeing a president emerging with a firm grip on power, his critics see a leader with a potential stranglehold on the country's political growth.
At a point in the country's history where it should be poised to emerge from that chaos and move toward a period of reconciliation and rebuilding, Sri Lanka's future seems clouded, not least because of the government's attitude toward the media, or at least the part of the media that dares to criticize it.
A few cases in point:
Prageeth Ekanaliyagoda, a mild mannered but anti-government online columnist and cartoonist whose wife and two sons have not seen him since the evening of January 24, has simply dropped out of sight. His wife Sandhya has not been able to get police to even investigate his disappearance, her letters to the president, justice minister, and members of parliament all go unanswered. His editor at Lanka eNews, Sandurawan Senadheera, has fled the country.
Lasantha Wickramatunga, editor in chief of the popular but, again, anti-government Sunday Leader, was killed in broad daylight in January 2009, on his way to work, at rush hour on a busy street. The magistrate's hearings dragged on for a year, and then got interesting when the government suddenly implicated a political opponent -- former general Sarath Fonseka, who fought and won the war with the Tamils.
Despite a call for them to return home and work out a reconciliation made by Attorney General Mohan Peiris, not one of those journalists in exile has dared to risk the return. The cases of Prageeth Ekanaliyagoda and Lasantha Wickramatunga hang too heavily in the air for them to take the chance.
And those exiles know that those cases are not anomalies: This year, Sri Lanka ranked fourth on CPJ's Global Impunity Index. Ten journalists have been murdered over the last decade for covering the war, human rights, politics, military affairs, and corruption. There hasn't been a single conviction in any of those cases.
On May 3, World Press Freedom Day, under political pressure from the European Union, the government announced that it would grant one of the international banner cases of targeted media, J.S. Tissainayagam a presidential pardon, one that hasn't materialized so far. Tissainayagam was released on bail in January and has lived in seclusion since. The Tamil editor was first jailed in March 2008 and eventually indicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act in August 2008.
Sri Lanka faces a brutal economic slap from the EU in August, when the preferential tariff agreement it enjoys with European countries allowing for the export of clothing and textiles to the EU at preferential rates will be rescinded. Called GSP+, the agreement includes a broad range of human rights conditions, which the EU decided in October 2009 were not being met. If GSP+ is ended, it could knock as much as 2 percent off of Sri Lanka's GDP and push hundreds of thousands of workers out of factories. That sort of economic imperative seems to be the only way to get the government to address its human rights failures, many of them tied to Sri Lanka's thirty years of internal bloodshed, sad history of ethnic conflict will take generations time to redress.
Those failures are certainly greater than just its abuse of journalists. but the Sri Lanka under President Rajapaksa could begin to reverse the country's course by addressing the unprosecuted killings of journalists, and create an atmosphere in which those of them who have fled their homeland to save their lives felt like they could return to their families and jobs in safety.
Bob Dietz is the Asia Program Coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists. CPJ's new report In Sri Lanka, No Peace Dividend for Press is available online.
Please Sign the Petition by Amnesty International: Call on the UN to Investigate War Crimes in Sri Lanka
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx
P. Varothasingham
In 1993 Russia produced a proper new constitution when the draft approved by the assemblies of the various the states and regions was validated by a constitutional referendum. In 1994 South Africa had a constitutional referendum to validate a new draft constitution produced by the elected members of the assembly. A few months ago we saw how a new constitution was brought into force in Iraq by a referendum.
The only way open to the Singhala majority to get rid of Article 29 was to get rid of the whole constitution using a two-third majority in the House of Representatives and then draw up a new constitution that allowed discrimination. All Singhala political parties were united in this aim. The SLFP-LSSP-CP alliance led by Srimavo Bandaranaike campaigned for the 1970 general election asking the Singhalese people to give them this two-third majority needed to abolish the Soulbury constitution. The general election gave them a landslide victory and they secured the two-third majority.
Srimavo then went about dismantling democracy in Ceylon. First the upper house (Senate) was abolished. then the right of appeal to the Privy Council was abolished. The government declared that all elected members of the House of Representatives were concurrently members of a parallel body called the “Constitutional Assembly” and went about drafting a new constitution. The Federal Party initially attended the Assembly but when their suggested amendments to protect the Tamils were rejected they walked out. So the constitutional procedure was a sham.
Ceylon was granted independence in 1948 under the Soulbury Constitution which conformed to the well established constitutional principles of separation of powers and rule of law. The inhabitants of the island through their representatives had agreed unanimously on this constitution for governing the island. This constitution made the island a unitary state and the minority communities agreed to this structure on account of Article 29 of the constitution which prohibited discrimination.
However, the Singhala majority soon began to pass discriminatory legislation such as the Official Languages Act. Matters came to a head in an unrelated case that arose in 1964 – the Bribery Commissioner v Ranasinghe which reached the Privy Council. Analysing the law making powers of Parliament as contained in Article 29 their Lordships of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council stated that “Article 29 represents the solemn balance of rights between the citizens of Ceylon, the fundamental conditions on which they accepted the constitution and these are unalterable under the constitution”. So Article 29 cannot be amended even with a two-third majority in the House of Representatives. Thus all discriminatory legislation including the Official Language Act were invalid.
Prageeth during the period of the war did search for information on the use of chemical weapons by the Govt.I introduced Prageeth who is searching for information on chemical weapons to the Major some days later , because the Major can be useful for Pradeep in his searches.
The abductors had asked from Prageeth when he was abducted on the first occasion as to what dealings he had with this Major. The telephone calls to and from the Major were on the phone of Prageeth . Later on when he tried to communicate with the Major, he failed. Since that time , what happened to the Major Kumara is unknown. Even after the war was over , there is no news about him. He had not even appeared in Courts for the case too.
http://www.lankaenews.com/English/news.php?id=9530
Sri Lanka government should ponder over the Island’s original question: “Why should we expend our time and energy to reinvent the wheel?” The newspaper has justified its question aptly: “Lessons that all of us have already learnt and have yet to learn from thirty years of fighting are fairly well known. Some of them are: no community can or must try to suppress another; violence does not pay; this country does not belong to any particular community; all communities belong to it; it is too small to be divided among different communities but certainly large enough for all communities to live in peacefully.”
What has been happening in Sri Lanka brings to mind what Arthur Miller said in The Crucible: “a political party is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence. Once such an equation is effectively made, society becomes a congerie of plots and counterplots, and the main role of government changes from that of the arbiter to that of the scourge of God.”
The adverse international reaction became worse when the issue of war crimes, particularly as allegations of death of thousands of civilians in the closing stages of war due to army shelling, gathered more mass. The voices at the UN became more strident and critical of Sri Lanka. And Ban ki-Moon’s move was the culmination of these rumblings in Sri Lanka.
Col. R. Hariharan writes:
President Mahinda Rajapaksa has appointed the much awaited ‘Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’ (LLRC). The Island newspaper in its editorial ‘Some V-day thoughts’ voiced the pertinent question, “Why should we expend our time and energy to reinvent the wheel?”
The appointment of the commission had been in incubation for nearly a year. Actually Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative in the UN had spoken about his government initiating a mechanism for fact finding and reconciliation at the UN Security Council Interactive Briefing in June 2009. And after taking so long, why did President Rajapaksa choose the ‘Victory Day’ eve to appoint the commission?
Apparently, Sri Lanka after trying other methods to ward off the flak at the UN on the issue of Sri Lanka’s human rights violations during the war for more than a year has adopted the face saving way of appointing the LLRC. Things came to a boil when the UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon persisted with his proposal to appointment a panel of experts to look at the issue. Of course, Sri Lanka had tried all means including a botched attempt at getting the NAM representatives to pass a resolution against the UN Secretary General’s move. Significantly, India -Sri Lanka’s closest ally in the sub continent – did not vote for Sri Lanka at the NAM representatives meeting. Did Sri Lanka take a hint? I do not think so.
1.Sri Lanka - fear and trauma, one year on, Nina de la Preugne, 19 May 2010:
''........ Despite the end of the war a year ago and the dismantling of the separatist LTTE, the ratio of soldiers to citizens in the area is overwhelming. Driving through the Vanni, one loses count of the number of checkpoints along the route to the Jaffna peninsula at the northernmost tip of the island. There, the impression of being on a military base is reinforced by the soldiers, bunkers and signs welcoming you to regiments’ buildings at every street corner. ....
Ministry of Defence officials told the reporter that clearance is required in order to prevent journalists from “reporting bad things on what is happening in Jaffna and Vanni”. As a result, the author decided not to pursue the MoD clearance, and did not ask MoD officials for their response to comments in the article.''
2.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzGj2hYoymo&feature=youtube_gdata
One has to see how Sri Lanka prevented Inner City Press from press briefings today at the UN in NYC. This tells all as how Sri Lanka handles media at home, in Sri Lanka.