It is time the bluff was called in all that’s being written about Lasantha Wickrematunge after the Editor’s gruesome and despicable murder last week.
This hypocrisy reeks. The attempt now is to bury all his very considerable flaws with his bones, and extract as much political mileage out of his mortal coil as possible.
Puh-leaze!
We’ve heard that hackneyed one about Niemoller, and that other moving but threadbare intonation “for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee’’ so many times before, so before anybody goes blaring that horn again —- let it be said, as it was said last week loud and clear: the murder is condemned because its gruesome and despicable - and cowardly —- the perpetrators must be doggedly tracked down apprehended and dealt with, and the government is wittingly or unwittingly pointing the finger at itself by not —- as in previous instances —- tracking down the killers.
But having said that, this canonization of Lasantha Wickrematunge, the posthumous sainthood that would make even the Pope want to blush for its godless-speed, is a laugh. It shows most of Colombo society still remains the same — they would be the first group of vultures to feed on any dead body, as long as it serves their own petty transparent self-serving (...often political) agendas.
First, it has been said in that posthumous editorial in the Sunday Leader — more about that later —- and by others such as Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, that Wickrematunge somehow stood alone in condemning the deaths of innocent Tamil civilians in the conflict, and was therefore in the words of Saravanamuttu "the only journalist who did not belong to the majoritarian stereotype."
The “posthumous’’ editorial written last week in the Leader —- purportedly written by Lasantha, ah but we’ll come to that — pats Lasantha on the back and says “Many people suspect that The Sunday Leader has a political agenda: it does not. If we appear more critical of the government than of the opposition it is only because we believe that - pray excuse cricketing argot - there is no point in bowling to the fielding side. Remember that for the few years of our existence in which the UNP was in office, we proved to be the biggest thorn in its flesh, exposing excess and corruption wherever it occurred.”
Posthumous or otherwise, written in death or in life, these sentiments are untrue, and therefore they can be seen to be what they truly are —— efforts to shroud Lasantha in a spurious halo, so that his death can be used to further the almost hilariously transparent agendas of the authors of these sentiments.
All this would have been harmless, and could have been dismissed as the hopeless posturing of generally clumsy charlatans, had these sentiments not detracted from the real cause of the moment. The real cause is to get at the killers —- whoever they may be. They may be state sponsored, they may be military-allied, they may be goon squads, paramilitaries, private killers, anarchists gone totally mad, grudge-killers, plain brigands — whatever.
But, distorting the truth is no way to get at the truth about anything at all. It’s mealy mouthed. Somehow, it’s not possible or plausible that the path to the truth can be traversed when that path is illuminated with torch-points of lies, platitudes, and wishful dressing-up of the personality of the murdered.
So, let’s systematically deconstruct this charade, though not in any particular order of priority. First, Lasantha Wickrematunge was not the only journalist who said the plight of Tamil civilians dying in the conflict is horrendous, and that the priority should be to find a way to end their privations. Just by way of one little example, this newspaper said after Kilinochchi was overrun —— in our editorial titled “Well done but no need for cartwheels” of 4 Jan 2009 (two weeks ago): “...but yet, there is no room for triumpahalism for three or four very good reasons. The people of the Wanni have long suffered, and they do not hear the sound of crackers - - and the victory was won riding on their wretched and worn out backs. They have to be rehabilitated and made human again, having been condemned to sub-human conditions in IDP camps if they were lucky to have even these.”
So that makes Lasantha the only journalist who cried out for poor Tamil civilians?
Priority
Much before Kilinochchi, in the editorial spaces of this newspaper, it was exhorted that the army find a way to get civilians out of combat areas as a matter of top priority. Here is the quote from our editorial as far back as 21 September 2008:
“The government cannot do enough to guarantee the security and well-being of the Tamil people who are caught up in this conflict. There must be more empathy for those troubled Tamil citizens trapped in Kilinochchi and those who have sought refuge in Colombo and now have to turn back.
This is not to say that the government has no right to consider security imperatives. The issue is that it would be a mistake even at this juncture when the war has gathered momentum, to consider the security imperatives to be the one and only consideration. The state has to be more innovative than to take the path of least resistance to say ‘security imperatives dictated these moves.’ The government has thought to create a safe civilian corridor to enable a Tamil exodus from Kilinochchi. There needs to be innovative thinking in all other areas that concerns the well being of the Tamil people.”
That’s what we call balance, taking into consideration the imperatives of the security forces as well. The defence authorities seemed to respond almost directly, when it was announced by means of air-dropped leaflets that very week that a humanitarian corridor had been opened, and civilians asked to make use of it.
Voiced similar sentiments
Other newspapers may or may not have voiced similar sentiments —- all that cannot be gone through here with limitations of space — but certainly this newspaper did vehemently raise the queries about Tamil civilians, not only in our editorial spaces, but in articles written by persons as diverse as Aboorvan Prabanjana (Tamil Matters column) Vickramabahu Karunaratne (who delivered an eulogy at Lasantha’s funeral) Kumar David, Rajan Hoole, Namini Wiedasa to name a few.
So that makes Lasantha the only person who stood out of the “majoritarian stereotype’’ and voiced concern about Tamils under threat of physical harm or death, as a result of the war effort?
What a lot of tosh that is — worthy of Pakiasothy’s special brand of prevarication and untruth, coming as he is from an NGO that’s now so much under fire that it’s own financial audits are suspect.
Now, the intention here is not to put our hands and say, “we are human too — we were concerned about Tamil civilians just as Lasantha was, though the Sunday Leader and Paikiasothy stereotypes now crow that he was the only journalist who stood out of the majoritarian stereotype.”
That this newspaper was concerned about the plight of ordinary Tamil civilians is a valid fact, that deserves to be pointed out — but it’s only a technicality viewed against the larger backcloth of facts and events.
The main reason for this reminder “we did too’’, is to drive home the point that we did it because we consider all civilians flesh and blood and subject to intense pain, fear, anxiety, sorrow and privation at the loss of the near and dear —— and not because we believed we should use the plight of these civilians for political purchase, as the late Lasantha Wicrematunge did.
So let’s make no bones about it. Last week’s editorial in our own newspaper’s columns stated, Lasantha was flagrantly expedient — he should have never been given an integrity award transparently or in the opaque, because his brand of journalism was blatantly partisan, period.
It’s a fact. He was UNP politician, simply put, though he did not participate in UNP electoral politics. Nobody can possibly contradict this - given the fact that all and sundry know he was the strategist behind Ranil Wickremesinghe’s political campaigns etc., The respected editor of the Sunday Island Manik de Silva has this to say in his editorial last week: "Wickrematunge, who once served as private secretary to Mrs. Sirima Bandaranaike when she was out of office and also ran for election from a Colombo seat also on the SLFP ticket, was undoubtedly a supporter and a key strategist of the UNP for the past several years. He belonged to its inner circle and the discerning viewer would have spotted the fleeting image of Malik Samarawickrema, a previous UNP chairman, protectively escorting Sonali Samarasinghe who Wickrematunge married recently, at the Kalubowila hospital to which he had been rushed with serious injuries. It had been speculated that he would have been the justice minister if the UNP won the 2005 election about which our political columnist has more to say in the accompanying page."
There is also the typical partisan hypocrisy discerned not only in Pakiasothy or other journalistic types, but in larger Colombo society’s eagerness to paint Lasantha as the only journalist who was not of the majoritarian stereotype. That spurious contention does disservice to the myriad columnists such as Tamil affairs columnist Abhoorvan Prabanjana, or columnists of other newspapers who brought up these same concerns about Tamil civilians - - repeatedly and relentlessly - - without any party agenda. Lasantha was a party hack, and these others weren’t, so isn’t it hypocritical and expedient to say Lasantha had exclusive lien on integrity (“he alone looked into the plight of Tamil civilians caught in the war”) when others showed integrity because they were genuinely appalled by the suffering of Tamil people, while Lasantha’s integrity was questionable, because he was a party hack and shouted hoarse about Tamil civilians because he wanted to paint the government in a bad light?
Lasantha spotlighted the plight of Tami civilians with an ulterior political motive — which was to stop the war at a time the LTTE was under threat of being exterminated due to successful military operations. Our writers spotlighted the killing of Tamil civilians with no such ulterior motive —- and let’s reserve comment about others, but as for myself, I constantly wrote on these lines: “the plight of Tamil civilians is horrendous, but find a way to alleviate their suffering without having to stop the war for if the conflict festers, more Tamil lives would be lost and more suffering will be heaped upon ordinary Tamils.”
There is no point seeking Lasantha’s killers — repeat, whoever they are, state or not state, military paramilitary or private or individual killers —- by shrouding the truth with a tissue of lies, and canonizing Lasantha at the expense of the unalloyed truth.
Truth
The truth is that Lasantha had little or no integrity at all, when he pursued his politics, which was UNP politics, through his journalism. He defended and propagandised for the LTTE — in plain terms — though he waxed eloquent about government bombing Tamil civilians in his pursuit of UNP politics, because defending and saving the skin of the LTTE — which was the main thorn on the side of the government — was good for UNP politics that he pursued. In this way, he gave journalism a bad name, because he prostituted journalism for a political cause, and there is no other way to put it, the man be dead, alive or stone dead.
Now, in posthumous editorials and sanctimonious funeral addresses the likes of Paikiasothy and others of that ilk are trying to tell us otherwise. What a lot of tommyrot that is.
In the first place, Lasantha didn’t write the so called posthumous Sunday Leader editorial of last week, though that fact may be hardly relevant to the issues at hand.
It doesn’t matter, but for the record it was ghost written by a man whose name rhymes with Sohan Sopiagoda, though lot’s of people may try to stand on their heads and say “sacrilege, sacrilege, it ain’t so.” We know what we know —— so let’s leave it at that.
No matter. Every paper had a right to it’s own ghost writer types, give that this Sohan Sopiagoda or the man with a name very close to his, wrote all of the Leader editorials including the ‘penultimate’’ one about homosexuality that Paikiasothy referred to with stars in his eyes in his funeral address. Lasantha himself could string a few words together — his real strength was as a jolly good muckraker.
All newspapers have a right to ghost written editorials and we have no quarrel with that, but the moment somebody tries for whatever reason to subvert the truth, we have a right to call the bluff.
If anybody believes that Lasantha was lambasting the government only and not the UNP because “there is no point in bowling to the fielding side” as stated sanctimoniously and smugly in last week’s ‘posthumous’ editorial, that person will believe anything. Last week’s so-called posthumous editorial purportedly —— ghost written —- egads not literally by Lasantha’s ghost but figuratively by the other guy, the ghost’s ghost —— seeks to state that Ranil Wickremesinghe’s 2001 UNP government fell in part because of what the Sunday Leader did.
What a lot of self serving, attention seeking untruthful bilge that is. It’s true The Sunday leader did ‘expose’’ a few UNP ministers such as Jayalath Jayewardene whenever its editor didn’t like some stray UNP ministers’ faces — in that Wickremesinghe cabinet. But in the main Lasantha did the exact opposite of trying to bring down the Wickremesinghe government, he tried to prop it up for perpetuity by demolishing the Kumaratunge presidency that the UNP had to cohabit with, the very Kumaratunge that, joke of jokes, ended up his best buddy in even worse times for him and his political types...
The Wickremesinghe government fell because of the efforts of Lakshman Kadirgarmar, Mangala Samaraweera and others, who relentlessly took the wind out of the sails of the Wickremesinghe peace effort, to the chagrin of Lasantha who tried to undermine Kadirgarmar any way he could at that time, stating unfairly that he is fattening himself on state largesse etc etc., What a fat lie therefore - that the Leader in part brought the UNP down, when the Leader did it’s utmost to prop up that government and bring down the last remaining obstruction to it, the Kumaratunge presidency.
Finally —— or at lest penultimately —- there is all this attempt to stand the truth on its head and say that all the others were the stereotype when Lasanatha did the hard thing and the unique thing by saying what the others did not have the gumption, heart or courage to say themselves.
Again, the truth lies in the opposite direction. Lasantha was the stereotype - - he stereotyped Colombo UNP politics, he stereotyped the spurious Colombo NGO and civil society tendency of legitimizing the killer LTTE, and propagandizing for the LTTE by saying that a war, which has shown some real success albeit despite the compromising of human rights and the deaths of some civilians, was necessarily a putrid war. Well for your information - - that’s the stereotype. One line in a posthumous editorial with a token condemnation of the LTTE does not erase that stereotype. The UNP sought to talk to the LTTE when in government, and those talks failed. In fact the LTTE stopped a UNP president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, from being elected, because the LTTE didn’t want that peacemaking UNP president to be elected. All that’s forgotten by this baying, maudlin, now funeral-dirge cooing deracinated Colombo elite. The LTTE having stopped Wickremesinghe from being elected, then waged war on the state. The state replied in kind —- what else could it do with an outfit that spurns peace at very opportunity it gets? The government was — unexpectedly - - - having some success with the LTTE and reached a point of militarily defeating it. Out comes the Colombo stereotype from the woodwork and says in effect "Stop the war" (and save the human rights violating, atrociously fascist LTTE.....that part unsaid of course...). They or the Leader never attempted to say - - even once as we did in this newspaper for instance - "stop the civilian toll of the war, get that under control, but don’t stop the war."
Their hand is exposed badly by this kind of expediency. They never had the interests of Tamil civilians at heart, they had the interests of the LTTE at heart, because the LTTE in the end could have politically saved the UNP.
And I’m no pro-government anti-UNPer, everybody knows that — this newspaper had been one of the fiercest critics of the Rajapaksa regime —- it’s useless Mihin air, it’s unconstitutional stand on the 17th amendment, it’s humongously large cabinet etc., etc., and we can quote chapter and verse, page number and footnote if anybody wants the proof. I or anybody in this newspaper didn’t, behind the backs of readers, swap stories with Mahinda the President at Temple Trees and break bread with him either, as somebody boasts of —- we never will do. Journalists don’t generally palaver politicians, of whatever stripe - - because they might have to cry one day, oooh ooh but see what an ugly duck he is, their men killed me.
But what just has to be said is Lasantha was the stereotype. He did the easy thing. He mouthed the manthra of the stereotype, decried the war for political expediency and pretended to be a humanitarian because screaming about the plight of Tamil civilians would perchance, hope against hope, save the LTTE —- and hope against hope, therefore, perchance again, save the UNP —— also because if Mahinda finished off the LTTE, the UNP calculated, their grand old green party would be politically kaput..
Horrendous plight
I say, true courage is to scream about the horrendous plight of Tamil civilians as this newspaper and some others did and back it up with the truth, and seek after the truth. The truth dear readers, is that there were lots of us — not just in this newspaper but others — who went against the stereotype, the easy way out, and took the unpopular step of saying with our integrity intact — look after the Tamil civilians BUT finish the war, because if the LTTE is let off the hook, the Tamil civilians are going to suffer forever, not just under the LTTE jackboot but because of the rigours and privations of a conflict that’s being prolonged. Not to mention the fact that eliminating the LTTE might be just about the only way of stopping bombs going off beneath the asses of Colombo humbug types, and even Lasantha’s own sons and daughters...whenever they were in Colombo. This last part is explained in a language that the simpering Colombo elite is bound to understand.
Now, some might say there is no means of saving the civilians short of stopping the war. It’s not true —— sadly, very sadly, there is no war that does not claim any civilian lives. All wars do. But keep civilian casualties to a minimum - - but finish the war, because that’s one way of seeking to stop this conflict which would take thousands more civilian lives if it was allowed to fester. Before anybody gets any ideas of course, we in this newspaper also relentlessly advocated and still advocate and push a lethargic government for a political solution to back up the war gains.
War
But what we did not do and Lasantha did was pooh pooh the war, or the formidable efforts of the unsung soldiers. In effect, and certainly by implication Lasantha called the soldiers “Tamil killers’’ which they were not — they were fighting the LTTE, a terrorist outfit. He never saluted the soldiers, not once, even when the UNP, his party, did. But we did. The only times he spoke about the soldiers was when his ghost wrote editorially that they were poor sods being used by the government, a contention which was insensitive of their selfless commitment and sacrifices. We didn’t sell our souls, seeing that the UNP was in dire straits, because horror of horrors for the UNP, Mahinda happened to be winning the war. In fact we say, if Mahinda wins the war, the UNP should probably get-in thereafter and straighten the economy out.
But it takes a lot more integrity and courage to tell the truth rather than mimic the chic fashionable can-do-no-wrong Colombo UNP stereotype - - even though we say so ourselves. After all, if they can call themselves courageous, we can with the benefit of facts say so ourselves. But it’s a comedy that they are now trying to tell us that the others were all stereotypes, while Lasantha was the only truth-teller. O Tempora O mores — as those philosophers from Satre to Kierkegaard would say, life indeed is absurd.
Finally, find the perpetrators of this heinous crime —- but always, keep to the straight and narrow path of the truth. Truth is, we’ve had enough of these sanctimonious humbug-mode funeral sermons. One Jeevan Thiagarajah compares Lasantha to Italian writer Dario Fo. He says Fo was a writer who contended with aggression and assaults directed at him, and went onto win the Nobel prize. He’s right, but Fo did so attacking all forms of fascism, not being an apologist and a default propagandist if not a direct propagandist for a fascist group such as the LTTE, as Lasantha was. So to compare a peerless literally talent to an expedient party hack is an abomination. Thiagarajah should have never put his fo, pardon me, his foot in his mouth...
But despite all these considerable discrepancies in the ‘canonize Lasantha’ narrative, we do not by any stretch even remotely begin to justify his assassination as some state hacks have done in an idiotic e-mail flyer apparently sent to foreign missions. Cowards took his life, and made him a martyr of sorts therefore and thereby. It was wholly unnecessary. It was despicable —- and may the killers be found.
>> Read full story here (Sunday Lakbima - 18 January 2009)
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