Murdered scribes & ‘promising’ politicos

Editorial-June 2, 2015, 7:51 pm 

President Maithripala Sirisena has recently pledged to bring the killers of journalists to justice. This is something long overdue and we hope he will carry out his promise. His predecessors, too, wept buckets for journalists who were either killed or injured in attacks, but they, true to form, reneged on their promises to have those crimes probed for obvious reasons.

A crucial election is drawing near and politicos of all hues are falling over themselves to woo the media, which they obviously despise and detest at other times. It is being claimed in some quarters that the change of government in January has helped restore media freedom. But, we believe what we are enjoying at present is only an interval in hell, as we have argued previously. Respite will be over before long and we will undergo torments of inferno after the next parliamentary election. On the other hand, coercing media persons through various means into practising self-censorship is as bad as physical violence directed against them.

Neither the UNP nor the SLFP cares to probe crimes against the media. Unlike Jefferson, they would rather have governments without newspapers which refuse to toe their line. There are only two politicians who don’t pose a threat to journalists; one is dead and the other unborn.

Politicians take up the cudgels for journalists not because they are great lovers of the media; they only infantilise scribes in a bid to project themselves as knights in shining armour on a mission to save the media and gain some political mileage in the process. Their media freedom campaigns are like animal rights movements led by meat eaters!

If President Sirisena really wants to catch the killers of journalists and the perpetrators of arson attacks on media organisations, he is now in a position to do so. A special presidential commission of inquiry has been appointed to probe corruption. Why no such all-out effort has ever been made to investigate attacks on the media is the question.

Media institutions came under attack and several journalists were killed during the Rajapaksa government. A similar situation prevailed under the Kumaratunga administration as well. Journalists perished while the UNP was in power in the past. All those savage attacks on the media must be probed thoroughly and the culprits brought to justice without further delay.

The UNP, currently in power, told Parliament in 2008 that it knew who was carrying out attacks on journalists. The then Chief Opposition Whip and UNP MP Joseph Michael Perera made a special statement in the House on July 08, 2008. BBC reported his speech thus: ‘…Opposition MP Joseph Michael Perera told parliament that the attacks were carried out by a 'special team' controlled by Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka … Mr. Perera said the government should arrest the offenders and 'immediately bring them to justice'. ‘ … We are told by those in the army itself that journalists are abducted and subjected to grievous injury by none other than a special unit under the army commander," Mr. Perera, a former parliamentary speaker, said.'

The UNP-led administration which is extolling the virtues of good governance ought to probe this serous allegation if it has told the national legislature the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth or apologise to the former war-winning army commander, Parliament and the public for having uttered a diabolical lie. Let no lame excuses be trotted out. President Sirisena, who was a prominent minister of the Rajapaksa government at that time, is duty bound to ensure that a high level inquiry is conducted into the UNP’s allegation.

It is time politicians stopped making promises to probe attacks on the media and took some action. Let them be urged to fish or cut bait!