News

News

Daily News

May 31

CENSORSHIP LIFTED

Censorship on Military news has been lifted with immediate effect.
President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga yesterday ordered the revoking of the
Emergency (Prohibition on Publication and Transmission) Regulation No.1 of 1998.

The censorship was imposed in May last year when the LTTE escalated its attack against
Security Forces.

http://www.lanka.net/lakehouse/


Editorial

The Island

June 1

WELCOME MEASURE

It is good news that the government has at long last lifted the censorship on military
news. It looks as if the government had come to terms with harsh reality that
censorship is an exercise in futility.

That censorship served little purpose is known to one and all except government
propagandists specialising in making ‘molehills out of mountains’ where military
debacles are concerned. The government lost face when Operation Agnikeela
backfired despite this harebrained censorship. It only helped protect the generals who
had blundered and their political patrons by debarring the press from disclosing how
the troops had met their Pooneryn in Pallai.

Before the fall of the strategic Elephant Pass camp last year, which made the government impose the censorship, the defence expenditure had been pared to the bone by the cronies of the government causing the LTTE to almost march on Jaffna. The strength of the LTTE was the lack of armaments for the troops. Then the government in panic spent billions - quite rightly in that hour of crisis - and stalled the Tigers’ march.

The economy is still mired in a crisis as a result of this kind of massive defence expenditure. The Elephant Pass camp, the gateway to Jaffna could have been saved had the government purchased the equipment that the field commanders asked for before the LTTE struck.

What has happened today? The state has lost hundreds of troops, a lot of military hardware and a vital military installation together with a vast extent of land for the capture of which hundreds of soldiers had laid down their lives and the state had coughed up billions.