Journalist Aiyathurai Nadesen of the Tamil daily "Virakesari" was gunned down on May 31 in the Eastern district of Batticaloa, allegedly by rebels loyal to renegade leader Karuna of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The March split in the once regimented LTTE has rekindled memories of the harassment journalists faced during the height of the two-decades old insurgency waged by the Tamil Tigers.
The rift seems to have ended the relative calm witnessed following the February 2002 ceasefire signed between the LTTE and the government. Rues a journalist working for a national daily, "Tamil journalists are in a major dilemma. If we write anything against Karuna we will be killed by his men, while anything against Prabhakaran will see us becoming targets of his loyalists."
Adds another, "It`s not out of choice that some Tamil journalists praise Prabhakaran. A sizeable percentage do so out of fear, which is why most of the Tamil media avoids reporting human rights violations by the LTTE."
Ironically, the house of a senior Tamil journalist was raided by the police on International Press Freedom Day, May 3. S. Sivaram, editor of the TamilNet website, was charged with keeping explosives at his home.
Sivaram`s media outfit is accused of favoring the Vellupillai Prabhakaran faction of the LTTE and he was reportedly targeted because of that. Many Tamils believe that in a bid to weaken the LTTE, Karuna is being protected by the new coalition government led by President Chandrika Kumaratunga`s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which swept into power following the April 2 parliamentary elections.
Interestingly, with the resignation of UPFA media minister Reginald Cooray to contest the forthcoming provincial council elections as a chief ministerial candidate of the Western province, there is no minister of media in the Cabinet now.
So far, not a single minister in the UPFA has expressed condolences or condemned the killing of Nadesen. When queried on the death, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse replied, "The harassment and killing of journalists is one of the key signs of the deterioration of democracy. The situation in the East is dicey and the army, LTTE and the Nordic ceasefire monitors are working together discussing measures for improving the security situation in the East."
Many Tamils, including those in the media, consider Karuna a turncoat, especially after he fled to
Karuna had split the group on regional lines, taking up cudgels for cadres in the East, who he claimed were getting sidelined while rebels in the north got all plum organizational posts.
The Tamil media alleged that a request by Karuna motivated the new government to order a police raid on Sivaram`s house. They also alleged that Karuna`s men gunned down journalist Nadesen last week.
The Prabhakaran faction of the LTTE unequivocally condemned the killing in a statement which said, "The killing of intellectuals, journalists and friends of Tamil people is abominable. Even during this time of peace, anti-peace forces are engaged in barbaric activities. These actions are bound to lead the people of this island to a period of calamity and destruction."
The army and LTTE had a meeting in Batticaloa Wednesday, where the LTTE expressed concerns that "certain elements" of the army were responsible for the spate of recent killings in the East, a charge denied by the armed forces.
As the government struggles to tackle the consequences of the split in the LTTE, whose insurgency has claimed around 60,000 lives and displaced thousands of people, rights and media groups are demanding the protection of people`s human rights.
Cautions the convener of the rights group Free Media Movement, Sunanda Deshapriya, "Dark shadows are falling on journalists, especially those in the Tamil media, after a relatively peaceful couple of years. The need is to arrest this trend as it appears that those with vested interests will not stop at this point." He adds that the state patronage given to Karuna has helped his cadres to carry out killings in the Eastern province.
"Nadesen is just a victim of this new development," emphasizes Deshapriya, adding, "Earlier pro-LTTE journalists were harassed by the armed forces and the police, while anti-LTTE journalists were harassed by the LTTE. Armed forces` harassment has scaled down to a large extent but we are faced with a new threat as Karuna`s men are hunting down those critical of him."
The Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance issued a statement Tuesday urging, "All those who cherish press freedom and democracy should pressure the
The statement accused successive governments of failing to punish the perpetrators of the murder of BBC Tamil service reporter M. Nimalarajan in October 2000. It was believed that an anti-LTTE Tamil political party, Eelam People`s Democratic Party, was behind the killing.
The international media rights organization Reporters Sans Frontieres also reiterated the same point in a statement issued immediately after Nadesen`s killing, saying "despite national and international pressure, his (Nimalarajan`s) murder remains unpunished."
They expressed fears that inquiries into Nadesen`s death might suffer a similar fate.