International media and LTTE propaganda war

Dr. P. A. Samaraweera

During the Sri Lankan war, the LTTE malicious propaganda machinery worked round the clock to convince the world that the civilians held as hostage were staying willingly and certain sections of the international media sympathetic to them colluded and gave wide publicity to the LTTE stand. They were supported by countries and international organisations backing the terrorists. So in addition to the real war fought by the forces there was also a heavy handed propaganda war by the LTTE to demoralise the Government, the Forces and the People.

For example, some terminology and phrases used were, "Unwinnable war, Invincible guerillas... The Sri Lankan conventional army could never ever defeat the well funded and disciplined guerilla organisation ... Terrorism cannot be militarily defeated...". Even after Prabhakaran was killed, the Tamil Website and the Tamil diaspora cried that he was well and alive overseas. So the LTTE supporters and the international media backing them lobbied very hard to condemn Sri Lanka. Therefore, it was over to the local patriotic media to neutralise the malicious propaganda.

To thwart the efforts of the Government in the war against the terrorists, certain quarters from the foreign media supported the terrorists. They bowed down to pressure from various elements and gave prominence to false rumours and malicious campaign against Sri Lanka and withheld responsibilities taking cover under free press.

This sector of the international media aligned to the LTTE, demoralised the army and was highly critical of the military strategy and the approach of the government. They gave wide publicity to LTTE propaganda and LTTE backers such as the Tamil diaspora on the front pages or twisted stories to suit headlines. However, there were balanced views presented from others such as The Hindu, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal, Manila Times etc.

Those who swallowed the LTTE propaganda pill, slided with the terrorists presenting fabricated news and unethical reporting on the Humanitarian Rescue Operation. They declined to acknowledge that the determination of the Government and the Security Forces was not only to put an end to terrorism but also to save the civilians held as captives. Some spread blatant lies about the whole exercise to draw attention of the UN and the Western world. We had journalists sponsored by the LTTE to visit Sri Lanka and write adverse reports favouring their side of the story. There were also representatives from various international organisations who came as tourists and visited IDP camps and labelled them as concentration camps. A TV crew who reported about rape in IDP camps based on cooked up stories from LTTE supporters was tracked by the police. The war zone was not accessible to foreign media because of security.

So some media groups sympathetic to the LTTE became hostile to the Government and presented material from the Tamil Website without verification. Others from international organisations wrote reports based on data supplied by the same source. Thus these groups ganged to mould public opinion in favour of the LTTE in an unethical manner.

As such , they failed in their responsibility to preserve the canons of justice, fair play and honest committment.

Some features highlighted to attack the Government and the Forces were , withholding of the IMF loan, US sending the Marines, terrorist leaders to surrender to a third party, international war crimes etc. Then some terror backers hacked the Army website.

Therefore, on one side we had the real war on the battleground where the valiant forces were fighting tooth and nail to salvage the country from the terrorists.

On the other was the propaganda war of the LTTE and their sympathisers from the international media with whom the domestic media battled against as their attempt was to belittle the efforts of the Government and the Security Forces and destroy the unitary state of Sri Lanka.

With colourful editorials, articles and pictures the local media outmanoeuvred these groups and counterbalanced Western criticism of the conduct of the war. The patriotic local media played a commendable role in disseminating news on the war and the Human Rescue Operation and supported the Forces to preserve the Sovereignty of Sri Lanka.