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Sri Lanka's uneasy peace after ending a 25-year-old civil insurgency and brutally crushing the separatist group LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam) earlier this year, is being put to a new test by its fettered media. As we had discussed earlier, the Sri Lankan government had completely shut out the media and aid agencies from covering the war-ravaged north and east.
Several journalists have been killed over the past couple years, the most chilling one being that of Lasantha Wickrematunge, who, anticipating his own death for criticizing the government, is reported to have written his "final ed" before he was shot dead. Many journalists are reported to be fleeing the country.
But now that the war is over, isn't it time for some free speech and free flow of information?
It's not that simple. As many feared, Sri Lanka's success against the LTTE may make its government even more authoritarian. The latest action against a journalist that drew international attention was the sentencing by a high court of Tamil journalist J. S. Tissainayagam to a 20-year rigorous imprisonment under the country's strict anti-terror laws. He has been accused of writing divisive stories and accepting funds and other services from the Tamil Tigers. He was arrested in 2008 and is likely to appeal the verdict.
His sentence is drawing widespread criticism. As a New York Times article reports:
[R]ights advocates say that Mr. Tissainayagam’s sentence reflects the plight of Sri Lanka’s embattled press corps. At least seven journalists have been killed since 2007, including some singled out by the Tamil Tigers. Many more have fled the country.
“It is very serious blow,” said Sanjana Hattotuwa, editor of Groundviews, a citizen journalism Web site. “It sends a chilling message that the independent expression of opinion is no longer tolerated in Sri Lanka.”
Ravi Nair, director of New Delhi-based South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre (SHRDC) told CNN-IBN:
"The South-Asian community as well as large sections of the international community has allowed themselves to be deluded by what one would call a willing suspension of disbelief as to how an allegedly democratically re-elected government has gone a path of a very authoritarian way to deal with all kinds of descent."
It may seem like a clear-cut case of repression, but Sri Lanka is in a curiously complicated situation. It has just ended a decades-old bloody civil strife. A majority of its citizens are probably relieved at the end of hostilities. It should come as no surprise that the government that finally gave them that peace -- no matter at what cost -- should be topping all popularity charts.
But what has the media got to do with popularity? Were they expected to take sides? Yes, pretty much.
In a Time magazine January story about media, the death of Lasantha Wickrematunge, and the war in Sri Lanka, Joyti Thottam writes (emphasis by me. Mahinda Rajapaksa is the president of Sri Lanka):
The war zone is all but off-limits to the media, one of the many security measures imposed by a government with little tolerance for dissent. "I ask this of all political parties, all media and all people's organizations," Rajapaksa said in a speech in 2006. "You decide whether you should be with a handful of terrorists or with the common man ... You must clearly choose between these two sides."
I asked a friend of mine who has been working as a journalist in Sri Lanka for a long time if the government was prosecuting Tamil journalists more. The friend (who is not Tamil) said no, but noted that the war had pushed journalists to pick sides. He/she said reporting in general was difficult and a public opinion had built up that either you support the war effort or you are an enemy, so independent reporting was seen as not supporting the war effort.
(My friend also clarified that although a couple of journalists did have to leave the country because their work was seen as critical of the military, it is a mixed bag: some who left were active in media rights groups and by extension sought a peaceful solution to the conflict. A few others were simply using the current
