From the Editor's Desk

Violation of human rights and the threat to media freedom have reached new heights in the past several months. Killing, kidnapping, threatening and disappearing of people have secured an existence outside the reach of law. The state is only too often implicated in offences affecting Tamils. The overlap between common crime and political crime makes it hard to tell the difference.

The roots of the problem can be traced to the war of national oppression and the badly neglected national question. Portrayal of the war as one against terrorism, despite its failure to mobilise the Sinhala masses on the side of the war, has instilled enough fear in their minds to enable the government to silence its critics on not only war but also other misdeeds.

Trespasses by a government minister and companions at the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (including the alleged assault on the News Director), on the pretext of objecting to the failure to telecast a talk by the minister, faced unanimous resistance from the employees. The immediate response of the government was to appease the minister and fault the employees for indiscipline. Four weeks after the incident a news producer of the SLRC suffered a knife-attack by thugs. The bad publicity has been, nationally and internationally, an embarrassment for the government. Although the minister has announced his departure from parliament, it seems certain that the culprits in the criminal attacks on the News Director and the journalist will go unpunished, and a witch hunt will take place in the SLRC.

Unlike earlier occasions, where the targets were certain Tamil newspapers and sections of the media that have been critical of the government, and journalists associated with them, the victim this time is a state-run medium, which, especially during the past three years, loyally broadcast crass government propaganda. The climate of intimidation should be seen against a background of denial of access to a website, closure of radio stations, arson attack on a printing press in a locality with tight security, and the impending threat of tough media legislation to cover national security and criminalisation of a wide range of defamatory material.

Alleged attacks on civilians by the government in the pretext of bombing selected military targets in the North and by the LTTE on civilian targets in the South have, besides adding to the misery of the people, helped those who oppose the resolution of the national question, a matter in which the government, determined to secure military success against the LTTE, is at best half-hearted.

There are people who separate the question of war, the national question, human rights, and democratic and media freedom. Unfortunately such segregation is not possible: the issues are closely interwoven, with each inextricably linked with the question of sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of the country. The dangerous tendency for chauvinists and Tamil nationalists to call for foreign meddling in one form or another appears to be on the rise. Strangely, opposing parties sometimes plead for meddling by the same foreign power.

While the government puts up a show of defiance against ‘international opinion’ on the national question and its pursuit of war, it relies on and continues to receive both military and economic support from imperialism. Let alone the UNP, the JVP too, despite the occasional anti-imperialist slogan and utterances critical of foreign interference, has not the courage of conviction to stand up to imperialism. It will not reject imperialism or regional hegemony at the risk of denting its chauvinist vote bank.

Strangely, among Tamil nationalists, including former militants with fickle political beliefs, there is much faith in the ability and intention of the imperialists, also known as the international community, as well as India, despite being fully aware of the role played by these entities, each in its own way and for its own purpose, to undermine the peace process and watch idly as the country slid towards war and people were killed by their thousands and dispossessed by their hundred thousands. Some are naïve enough to believe that the creation of an independent Kosovo by American manipulation is a precedent that will serve to fulfil their dream.

The harsh reality facing the country is that, unless the war is brought to an end and negotiations to solve the national question take place in earnest very soon, the country faces the risk of a dictatorial regime which will brutally suppress all nationalities with the backing of the main imperialist power, alone or in collaboration with the regional hegemonic power.

New Democracy 28