A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Iqbal Athas – Journalist Who Exposed MiG Deal Turns Gota Propagandist
Inexplicably the journalist that first exposed the 2006 MiG-27 deal, Iqbal Athas has turned propagandist for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa even
after he recalled the horrific threats to his life and being forced to
flee Sri Lanka as a result of exposing the shady aircraft purchase as
recently as January this year.
In 2006 Iqbal Athas exposed the irregular procurement in the Sunday
Times causing ripples in the defence establishment then headed by
Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa. By his own admission in a speech made at
a public forum in January 2019 the senior Sunday Times Journalist said
that the FCID had commenced its investigation into the 2006 MiG 27
procurement by the Sri Lankan Government, based on his own initial
statement to the newly established police division with a mandate to
investigate financial crimes and corruption. In his speech in
January the former defence reporter spoke at length about how the
defence ministry then led by Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the state media
called him a traitor and explained how he had to flee the country
overnight on a tip of shortly before Lasantha Wickrematunge the editor of the Sunday Leader who followed up the MiG deal story was murdered.
“There
was more disturbing news just two weeks before Lasantha Wickrematunge
was murdered. A very highly placed source asked me to get out of the
house that very night. I flew to Thailand. I had spent long stints there
living in an apartment cooking food, washing clothes and working
online. The next morning, my driver who was alerted, saw a man with an
oversized bush shirt moving outside my house in a motorcycle. When there
was strong blowing, the bottom part of the shirt went up. There was a
pistol on his waist. The driver noted the registration number. I checked
it on a secure phone from Bangkok. The registration plate belonged to a
lorry.
When
the so-called Yahapalanaya government came to power, they set up the
Financial Crimes Investgation Division (FCID). I made a statement to
them in early 2015 and investigations began,” Athas said during his
speech at the Kadirgamar Institute earlier this year. He also spoke of
how crowds were mobilized to protest outside his house, with some of
them demanding his arrest.
But in his current political columns featuring weekly in the Sunday
Times, long considered the newspaper of record in Sri Lanka, Athas who
authors the column as the newspaper’s political editor fawns over the
Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration almost outshining the state controlled
newspapers in heaping praise on the new President and harshly
criticizing the previous Government and its failures. This week the
column went so far as to “advise” the Government that the failure to
control the prices of essential items that have skyrocketed in recent
weeks could result in the public mood turning against the President and
his new Government. The column hastens to add that the price hikes had
occurred through no fault of President Gotabaya. The senior journalist
in penning his column also heaps criticism on Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s
critics and political opponents making blatant accusations with little
or no basis about grand conspiracies to discredit his new hero’s
Government.
Athas who was strongly defended by media rights groups and international NGOs when
his life was in danger from the Rajapaksa Government in 2007-2009 has
also recently been disgustingly critical of NGOs and civil activists
referring to them as “NGO wallahs” and accusing them of working to
discredit Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s Government in order to ensure they keep
getting donor funding.
Long time readers of the Sunday Times political column have been stunned
about the position the newspaper has taken week after week since
Gotabaya’s election as President. “There’s no information in the Times
political column anymore. The columnist is just pushing a line and
lately the line is entirely pro-Government. It is quite odd. Perhaps
like the Times no longer feels safe enough to criticize the Government,”
said one long time reader of the ST political column. It is unclear if
the position is fully backed by Sunday Times Editor Sinha Ratnatunga whose
editorials have taken principled positions that do not reflect the
sycophancy of the large spread that is published alongside. Ratnatunga
also continues to publish senior lawyer and columnist Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena’s
articles which have remained strongly critical of high handed moves by
the new administration and its attempts to dismantle state systems for
political gain. Sources told Colombo Telegraph that Athas has cultivated
a strong personal friendship with PC MM Ali Sabry the head of Gotabaya
Rajapaksa’s team of lawyers and another Muslim politician strongly
aligned to Gotabaya.