The International Community and their agenda on Sri Lanka - Part IV:

Private media and private agendas

This is the third part of the serialised excerpts from a forthcoming publication titled ‘Sri Lanka - the War fuelled by International Peace’ by Palitha Senanayake. These extracts from Chapter 16 of the book are published with the kind permission of the author. The third part was published yesterday

Let us now view how the Sri Lankan private media distorts news items in keeping with their private agendas. What is crucial here is that such distortions go a long way when it involves the country’s international image and its national security. The Sunday Times political columnist in page four August 19, 2007 maintained that Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayaka called Sir John Holmes, (UN Commissioner of Human Rights)a ‘devil’, an ‘uncivilized person’. This was done when he reported the PM’s speech at a Samurdhi function in Horana. All what the Prime Minister had said at this meeting was that Holmes had reported extensively on Karuna’s activities and then he had interjected, ‘Ay Yako, ara LTTE eka penne nedda’. It is the term ‘yako’ in this that the columnist had translated to mean the ‘devil’ and the ‘uncivilized person’.

The term ‘yaka’ in Sinhala means the devil but when in the colloquial parlance the term ‘yako’, as anybody would agree, cannot be translated to mean literally as ‘the devil’. As Leonard Wolfe has quite rightly translated this term ‘yako’ in his book ‘The Village in the Jungle’ it is a term used in colloquial conversation by one person to refer to another as a ‘fellow’. ‘A yako’ is meant to mean that fellow and ‘Ay yako’ is meant to mean ‘what fellow’. The most correct and the closest translation of the above Sinhala term in to English would be, ‘What men, is he blind to what the LTTE man is up to’.

But what would be the reaction of Sir John Holmes if he reads the above political column of the popular newspaper of Sri Lanka? His reaction would certainly be emotional and instead of realizing the mistake made in his report he will probably be a prejudiced permanent enemy of the Sri Lankan Government. This is just one example of how the politically motivated media men distort the reality in politics. The Sunday Times is owned and operated by the Opposition UNP but enjoys the highest circulation of English weeklies.

The Cabinet Defence Spokesperson Minister Keheliya Rambukwelle was badly taken to task by the Sri Lankan private media over the disclosures he made on the aftermath of the LTTE attack on the Anuradhapura Airforce Base in late 2007. Rambukwelle is reported to have said that four aircraft were destroyed and a few others were damaged and later on it turned out to be that seven aircraft had been damaged by the attackers. The private media accused the Minister for attempting to hide the facts about the attack by not disclosing the actual scale of damage. The newspapers such as the Leader who were least bothered about the national security was in the forefront of accusing the Cabinet spokesperson for down playing the attack. Number of articles appeared in the papers, even after the Prime Minister had given the correct figures in the evening, drawing parallels between this disclosure and the casualty figures of the LTTE that are announced by the national news reporting. In short, the media was trying to make that an issue to question the credibility of the Government’s news at large.

The truth, however, was that this particular attack had started at 3.35 in the morning and when the first press briefing was made at 10.00 am the following day, the attackers being a suicide squad was still fighting within the Air Force Base. No proper evaluation of the damages were made by then and all that was known was that a number of aircraft were damaged.

At that time, since the attackers were still at the Base, the Government would have been concerned more about repulsing the attackers totally with minimum damage rather than counting the nuts and bolts of the situation. This was a clear case of a hostile press trying to discredit the Government oblivious of the consequences such an act would bring on the question of national security.

In war situations, Winston Churchill was famous for overstating the victories and understating the defeats. Churchillian gimmicks will however not work in this era of technology.

Given the situation in Sri Lanka, the Government has to act with extreme caution. For instance, in the UK, there is a ‘Defence notice’ which is issued in Parliament to all parties to ensure that in the national interest a particular issue should not be discussed outside the Parliament.

So the misleading campaign goes on and with the slightest sign of control and correction, the media institutions will invoke the International media safeguarding bodies in the name of ‘media freedom’. What these journalists wish to have is not the freedom of media but the freedom to mislead the public.

The fact that ‘freedom of press’ is a relative concept subject to interpretation which is highlighted in a landmark judgment delivered in recent case in Britain (July 2008) involving a public official and the right of the press to publish his private life.

This was the case between Max Mosley, the President of the Motor Sports governing body and News of the World Publications. This case was given wide publicity in Britain and was considered a typical case of increasing vulnerability of the conservative Britain to the European laws and practices and specially those of the European Court of Human Rights. Mosley was secretly filmed conducting a five hour masochistic session in his Chelsea flat with five prostitutes. In a powerful judgment Justice Eady declared that, ‘however morally distasteful, the public might find such activities, the press had no right to publish them as they did not constitute a significant crime’.

The newspaper industry warned that this would have effectively barred the newspapers from reporting high profile cases involving public figures in the past such as Jeffrey Archer’s sexual encounters, David Mellor’s tryst with a minor actress and John Prescott’s affair with his Secretary. But the judgments stood and this is a case where privacy of the individual was held against the public press but in Sri Lanka the public security is under threat from the public press and there seems to be so much international pressure, especially from Europe, to make public security still more vulnerable.

The Sunday Times in its June 15 issue reported that the CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists), the International watchdog on journalists’ well-being based in Europe, has expressed concern about the disappearance and murder of journalists and has written to President Rajapaksa on the need to reverse the direction the Government with regard to freedom of expression.

In a press release on the current state of the Sri Lankan media the CPJ states, ‘Of particular concern is the fact that the Defence Ministry has repeatedly used its website to denounce and even condemn journalists, often individually by name and at other times as a group, for their reporting on the conflict and the activities of the Ministry and the Armed Forces.

In recent weeks, it has accused eight media outlets of treacherous behaviour- an incredibly strong term to use during a time of such intense conflict and one clearly meant to intimidate, given that no charges have been brought against any of the organizations.

The Ministry’s May 31 posting was exceptionally chilling. It clearly implies that anyone reporting negative news about the war or the Ministry activities is guilty of treachery or worse”. And then it goes on to quote the Defence Ministry’s May 31 communique, “Whoever attempts to reduce the public support to the military by making false allegations and directing baseless criticism at Armed Forces personnel is supporting the terrorists organization that continuously murder citizens of Sri Lanka. The Ministry will continue to expose these traitors and their sinister motives and does not consider such exposure as a threat to media freedom. Those who commit such treachery should identify themselves with the LTTE rather than showing themselves as crusaders of media freedom.’

Since the CPJ’s criticism of the Ministry’s press release revolves around this particular posting made on the May 31 what the ordinary citizens of Sri Lanka would wish to know is what really is so abhorrent that the CPJ finds in the above posting of the Defence Ministry’.

We would like CPJ to read it again. It states ‘False allegations and baseless criticism against the Armed Forces personnel’ and goes on to say that such persons or institutes are traitors and hence they should better identify themselves with the LTTE rather than pontificate as crusaders of media freedom.

Aren’t those who make false allegations against the Armed Forces personal at this decisive time of this long drawn out conflict not traitors’. If not what do they call such people in the countries that sponsor organizations such as the CPJ’.

What is that the CPJ finds so detrimental to the well-being of this country and its media in a statement of this nature coming from the Government of a country that has grappled with the most ruthless terror outfit in the world for the past 30 years’ And that is, at the expense of 75,000 lives, most of them innocent civilians. Isn’t the Government of a war ravaged country duty bound to ensure the safety of its citizens by identifying the sources that undermine its efforts to eliminate the scourge of terror from its midst’.

What is worse is that this CPJ which is expected to hold the very ethics of journalism by virtue of it being the watchdog of those who are supposed to conduct the business of the fourth estate’ is quoting this Ministry statement out of context.

This appears intentionally done to give the contents of the statement a slight twist to make it ‘anti-free press’ so that it can be targeted with ‘freedom of expression’ ammunition.

The Ministry statement does neither ‘denounce nor condemn journalist for their reporting of the conflict and the Ministry activities’ as claimed by the CPJ press release.

The Ministry statement has only denounced and condemned those who make ‘false allegations and baseless criticism against the Armed Forces personnel’. In this way it is glaringly unethical for an internationally recognized body; and protectors of the journalists at that, to misquote the Ministry statement to make it what it wished it was, ignoring the facts and the spirit of that statement. Is misquoting news and facts for one’s own advantage contagious with journalists and their protectors’.