The Island Editorial

Scribes as ‘assassins’

10 February 2017

 

Three journalists who were arrested in September 2009 and charged with conspiring to assassinate the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa have recently been acquitted. Immediately after being taken into custody, they were held and interrogated by the Terrorist Investigations Division (TID). Their acquittal has come as no surprise. We have heard of politicians killing scribes. Several prominent journalists were brutally done to death during the Rajapaksa government. But, never have we heard of political assassinations carried out by journalists!

The actual reason for the arrest and the subsequent prosecution of the aforesaid scribes was that they were conducting an investigation into an allegation that public funds were being used to develop a road leading to the residence of President Rajapaksa’s sister in Deniyaya. The then Opposition claimed that ‘a palace’ was being built in the area. The media were busy chasing that story. The journalists concerned are lucky that they are still among the living. Will the new government care to have that allegation probed now?

Power easily goes to one’s head and drives one mad before leading to one’s downfall. We have seen several leaders, full of themselves, commit political hara-kiri. The 2009 war victory, President Rajapaksa’s impressive re-election and the mammoth majority his coalition secured the following year caused the former ruling clan to succumb to the arrogance of power. The SLFP-led administration became a government of the Rajapaksas by the Rajapaksas for the Rajapaksas. All others including even the members of the SLFP old guard were excluded from the ruling cabal consisting of the Rajapaksas and their lackeys, who were as cocky as the Titanic crew was prior to their fateful maiden voyage.

Senan Molony, a journalist, argues, in a documentary titled Titanic: New Evidence that a fire in one of the legendary liner’s coal bunkers and the attendant rising temperature had weakened the section of its massive hull, hit by an iceberg. The then Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena’s defection owing to being short-changed as well as the pent-up resentment of some other senior SLFPers was the fire that weakened the hull of the Rajapaksa ship towards the end of 2014; no wonder it sank due to a collision with a hurriedly knocked up coalition of strange bedfellows. The Chandrika Kumaratunga government faced a similar fate in 2001, when it collapsed due to mass crossovers to the UNP-led Opposition.

The harassment of the media is symptomatic of the arrogance of power, which has a corrosive effect on any government’s popularity. The second term of President Rajapaksa was a disaster. His backers who conduct media briefings almost daily to complain about the incumbent government’s wrongdoings used to ride roughshod over the media to their heart’s content while they were ensconced in power. They are now shedding copious tears for the suppression of media rights but, in their heyday, they had no qualms about justifying attacks on journalists and media institutions. Those who defended the media to the hilt and took to the streets against attacks on journalists at that time have turned bitterly hostile towards the Fourth Estate; their day is apparently not complete unless they vent their spleens on journalists who refuse to toe their line.

Successive governments during the last five decades or so have, unable to stomach criticism, sought to vilify the media. True, the Sri Lankan media has its share of rogues masquerading as journalists. Some of them have sold their souls to politicians for a few pieces of silver and are ready to stoop to any level to benefit from the latter’s largess. Both main parties are responsible for having polluted the media through such undesirables. Those bad eggs may be exposed or even dealt with according to the law in case of infractions. But, on no grounds can attacks on or the intimidation of the media be justified.

The current regime issues not-so-veiled threats to the media and has gone to the extent of justifying an incident where the Navy Commander Vice Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne roughed up a journalist. If its leaders are wise they will learn from the mistakes of the Rajapaksa government and avert disaster.