Private media and the elections

On the December 30, 2009 Sri Lankan Expatriates for National Integration (SLENI), an umbrella association of Sri Lankan Expatriate organisation representing Australia, USA, UK and Canada, held a press conference in Colombo to proclaim their position vis a vis the forthcoming Presidential election.

They explained in detail the activities of the extremist Tamil expatriate organisations abroad and the damage they do to the country's image and the economy and also that the war against terror is far from over as far as the pro LTTE Tamil expatriates are concerned.

Media should be responsible in using press freedom. File photo

Further they said there is a change of Government at this stage, all the good work done by the present Government in this regard would be brought to naught.

As an example they cited that during the Chandrika regime the Government was officially confirming the anti national propaganda of the Tamil extremists and hence they (the expatriates) had to defend the country's and the majority Sinhala image all by themselves. Considering all that, they declared that in the national interest, they would do the maximum to support the re election of President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the forthcoming election.

Some media men present were apparently not happy with that unconditional stand by the expatriates and hence questioned them as to why they should support a Government that has suppressed the media and violated human rights. The expatriates answered saying that certain rights are bound to come under some strain during turbulent times, such as the times Sri Lanka has been through but on the whole the media freedom and the human rights record of Sri Lanka, save the hype, is not that bad and it could also be worse under an alternative government.

On IDPs they said the Australian Government still has not been able to resettle the few thousand of IDPs in Australia even one year after the Victorian bush fire and hence Sri Lanka's record in IDP settlement has been exemplary.

Then the agitated section of the media wanted to know whether the expatriates had not heard about the killing of Lasantha Wickremetunge, assault on Poddala Jayantha and harassments to journalists.

The expatriates responded saying that Ranil Wickremesinghe has stated in Parliament that Lasantha Wickremetunge was killed by Gen. Fonseka's private army.

Further they said that Lasantha Wickremetunge was openly supporting the LTTE, a fascist organisation that did not believe in any press freedom, and hence he was playing with fire when he hunted with the LTTE.

This answer did not go well with that agitated media section and they fired further questions accusing the expatriates of trying to do bidding (Kade Yanawa) for Mahinda Rajapaksa and then removed their microphones and left the premises.

That 'agitated section' was obviously representing some of the private media institutions in this country which have been fiercely anti governmental all these years and it is they who have been accusing the Government of unethical media practices.

The irony however is that it is these very champions of 'free media' that behave most unacceptably when ideas that do not conform to their own thinking are expressed private media in this country seemed to believe and would wish others also to believe, that freedom of expression has necessarily got to be 'anti government'. On the other hand if the expressions are pro-Governmental then that is called 'Kade Yanawa'.

It is a fact that Lasantha Wickremetunge represented Sri Lankan media at the Geneva Talks 2006 but stayed with and supported the LTTE negotiator Anton Balasingham all the while. Although Lasantha was an adviser to the UNP Leader at that time the question is whether a person who supports a fascist organisation, where dissent is death, has a moral right to highlight the failings of 'freedom of expression' in a democratic society? Poddala Jayantha submitted a list of journalists killed to the SAARC leaders during their last summit and that included all those who were killed when 'Koti handa' was bombed.

The writer is not trying to justify what happened to Lasantha or Jayantha but the norm is that those who advocate freedom of expression should lead by example. If we twist our right to 'freedom of expression' to justify violence and 'death for dissent' for political reasons, we could be doing so at our own peril.

When Voltaire said that, "I do not accept what you say, but I will defend your right to say that to my death" he did not mean to defend rights of the criminals to his death. His articulations were against feudalist rule in Europe at the time and 'freedom of expression' was used by him to save the society from criminals. Voltair must be turning in his grave if he realizes that the very tenants that he stood for, at the risk of his life, are being abused to justify mayhem and murder!

If the private media is allowed to do as they wish in the name of 'freedom of expression' there is a possibility that a few sinister investors could register media institutions to bombard the electorate with tendentious propaganda to throw out an elected government and install their proxies to power. It is in this context that the Commissioner of elections should view the media industry as a whole and lay down rules for the fair use of all media during election time.