The editor of the Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickrematunge, is fatally shot in Colombo on his way to work by unidentified gunmen on motorcycles. Wickrematunge was rushed to a nearby hospital for emergency surgery, but later succumbed to his injuries.
Sources
Top Sri Lankan editor shot dead, BBC, 8 January 2009; Grievous blow to Sri Lankan media, BBC, 8 January 2009; Sri Lankan newspaper editor shot dead, The Guardian, 8 January 2009; ‘We know who is behind my death’: Sri Lankan editor continues fight from grave, The Guardian, 13 January 2009.
Quotations
“We find ourselves in the midst of a civil war ruthlessly prosecuted by protagonists whose bloodlust knows no bounds. Terror, whether perpetrated by terrorists or the state, has become the order of the day. Indeed, murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges. For neither group have the risks ever been higher or the stakes lower,” Lasantha Wickrematunge.
“The LTTE is among the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organisations to have infested the planet. There is no gainsaying that it must be eradicated. But to do so by violating the rights of Tamil citizens, bombing and shooting mercilessly, is not only wrong but shames the Sinhalese, whose claim to be custodians of the dhamma is for ever called into question by this savagery – much of it unknown to the public because of censorship,” Lasantha Wickrematunge.
“I believe it is my duty not to accept anything the government tells us at face value and it is especially our duty not to allow the press in Sri Lanka to be brow-beaten or censored. We need to tell the outside world about the horrific nature of the war in which we are currently involved,” Lasantha Wickrematunge.
“When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me. In the wake of my death I know you will make all the usual sanctimonious noises and call upon the police to hold a swift and thorough inquiry. But like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too. For truth be told, we both know who will be behind my death,” Lasantha Wickrematunge.
“My government and I most vehemently and unequivocally condemn the murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge, editor of the Sunday Leader, which took place yesterday. I am both grieved and shocked by his tragic death as Mr. Wickrematunge was a close friend of mine who I have known for many years as a courageous journalist. This heinous crime points to the grave dangers faced by the democratic social order of our country, and the existence of forces that will go to the furthest extremes in using terror and criminality to damage our social fabric and bring disrepute to the country. It is significant that such an attack was carried out at a time when the country is gaining repeated victories over the forces of terrorism, in our efforts to establish freedom and democracy throughout the country,” statement made by President Rajapakse.
“Sri Lanka has lost one of its more talented, courageous and iconoclastic journalists. President Mahinda Rajapaksa, his associates and the government media are directly to blame because they incited hatred against him and allowed an outrageous level of impunity to develop as regards violence against the press. Sri Lanka’s image is badly sullied by this murder, which is an absolute scandal and must not go unpunished,” Reporters Without Borders.
Opinion
The murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge and Sri Lanka’s future, groundviews, 8 January 2009; And then they came for me, Sunday Leader, 11 January 2009.
Over the weekend, the BBC’s World Service asked the actor Bill Nighy to read Lasantha Wickrematunge’s final editorial for its Newshour programme.
“You will have no choice but to protect my killers”, Newshour, BBC World Service
Related events
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23 May 2008
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Other features
Feature: Historical roots of conflict in Sri Lanka
Feature: Assassination of an activist
Feature: LTTE expels northern Muslims, 1990
Feature: “Black July”, 1983
unionblack said,
Since the killing of Lasantha Wickrematunge, a seemingly unprecedented number of blog posts, comments to news articles and tributes have appeared on the web. The international press has picked up the story enthusiastically. Thousands of people took to the streets to condemn the killing of the journalist on 12 January. The World Bank, in a rare move, spoke out against the killing, linking free speech to economic development. As far was I’m aware, Lasantha is the third Sinhalese journalist since the ceasefire agreement was signed to be killed or disappeared. So will all this make any difference?
Sri Lankans are good at honouring the dead, but not so good at continuing the protest, or stepping into the shoes of ‘heroes’. PACT’s last feature highlighted this need to take inspiration from fallen activists so that their fight for the rights they stood for and defended do not die with them. Lasantha himself called upon people to be “inspired” by his assassination,
In Sri Lanka the dissenters are few and their numbers make it already easy for alternative voices to be quashed. Whether the death of Lasantha will be a turning point in the conflict really depends on whether Sri Lankans take heed to a dead man’s final wish.
PACT team said,
Over the weekend, the BBC’s World Service asked the actor Bill Nighy to read Lasantha Wickrematunge’s final editorial for its Newshour programme. Listen to the recording here
You will have no choice but to protect my killers
“Lasantha Wickramatunga had survived several attacks – on him and on his home. But on 8th January, he was assassinated: shot in the head by two gunmen on a motorbike as he drove to work. Thousands of people attended his funeral. And then something extraordinary happened. Days after his murder, the Sunday Leader printed Mr Wickramatunga’s final article, in which he predicted his own death, hinted at his killer’s identity, and accused the government of human rights abuses and brutality against Tamil citizens,” BBC’s World Service website.
prashan said,
Perhaps the best way of honouring Lasantha would be to maintain dissent within the public consciousness. While a great number of people will be willing to accept the rhetoric of victory and freedom that is being encouraged at the moment, a smaller number may have significant questions about continuing repression of independent voices, on the political issues and imbalances that led to the conflict – that now seem to be steamrolled under the prevalent majoritarian triumphalism, and on the future of Sri lanka and the role that minorities will play in that future.
It is vital to keep these debates alive and this environment of dissent vibrant, even as the space for it becomes reduced and its principal voices become silenced by violence.
Fog said,
I hoped this may be a turning point, and it may yet become one, but for now this event appears to have just become another footnote in the sad recent history of press freedom in Sri Lanka. Any public demonstration of remorse, contrition or shame on the part of an administration under whose watch this happened was probably wildly over optimistic, and Lasantha’s editorial has at least galvanised international public opinion. However Lasantha seems to have been killed at a time when the war effort has reached its own turning point, and nothing will get in the way of that. I think that his death will have more impact in the future than in the present – a symbol of an era the country will have to grieve for.
PACT team said,
Lakshman Gunesekera founding news editor of the Sunday Leader speaks to the PACT team about the impact of Lasantha Wickrematunge’s assassination.
It has been less than two months since the assassination of Lasantha Wickrematunge. Are you surprised at how quickly the country has moved on?
I’m not surprised in the least. Richard de Soysa was a personal friend and when he was killed the elite was a little bit more shaken than it normally was. Before Richard was killed, at least 10 other journalists had been killed, mainly provincial journalists. Many of them, if not most, were killed by suspected elements linked to the state, but others by suspected elements linked to the JVP. The elite was not shaken. While the families and the colleagues of those journalists were shaken, it didn’t go beyond that. And it has never gone beyond that. During the J.R. Jayawardene-Premadasa regime, I think the figure was 39 journalists killed. They were mostly provincial level journalists, but also some at the national level. Most notably, Premakeerthi de Alwis, a prominent broadcaster and television personality, was killed. The current period of killing of journalists hasn’t reached that score yet; that was a bigger score. But I’m not surprised in the least that this period is just a drop in the ocean, as it were. People have got used to assassinations and killings for 30 years now. Forget Lasantha – when a hundred people get killed in the north-eastern battles, people don’t want to know. I was shaken by Lasantha’s killing. I’m an admirer of him. But I was also a critic of his style of journalism. Being a founding news editor of the Sunday Leader with him, I helped design and set up the newspaper. I loved that experience, although I broke with him on editorial grounds quite early on and we went our separate ways. I still enjoyed it and am indebted to him and his company for that experience in setting up a newspaper. For me that was an added element in the shock I felt. But most of the journalists didn’t react the way some of the other middle class and upper class elements reacted. Some used the term turning point, even in this office that term was used, but we just smiled cynically because so many of our colleagues and comrades have been killed before and there were no turning points.
This is a symptom of this state – I don’t mean this government, I mean this state and this society – where the media, which plays a political role is suffering because the main elements of our political society have resorted to violent political articulations; they resorted to it long ago and have continued to do so. So anybody emerging into the political arena faces the risk of being eliminated violently unless they themselves become violent and armed. So journalists continue to wield the keyboard or the pen and we continue to get killed or attacked.
Reporters Without Borders released a statement following Lasantha’s killing that the state media was responsible for inciting violence. Do you want to comment on state media’s responsibility for human rights violations?
I remember about 10 or 15 years ago, a private sector national newspaper carried on its page 3 lead headline: arrest the editor of the Sunday Observer under the PTA. It was a quotation of a statement of some Sinhala ethno-supremacist elements complaining about an editorial written in the Sunday Observer and alleging that the newspaper was advocating terrorism. It called upon the government to arrest the editor under the PTA. This was published in the private sector media, not the state media. I happen to have written the editorial in question, during the Chandrika Kumaratunga regime, when I was acting editor. The piece was an editorial commemorating SWRD Bandaranaike’s anniversary. So the ironies are very complicated there. The point I’m making is that I wouldn’t say that the state is at fault; elements in the state media most certainly are. These elements are tools of the current political rulers or some of them and they may follow orders and may carry out campaigns against private sector media. But there are other non-state media institutions which are also carrying out attacks and tirades, like the private newspaper I referred to. For example, there are private radio stations which host political talks shows where they allow other newspapers, editors and journalists to be criticised and attacked. So I wouldn’t put it on the state as it were. What we are seeing today are elements which support Sinhala ethno-supremacism keeping in check anybody who is critical of the current political regime, which is fulfilling or seeming to fulfill the interests of Sinhala ethno-supremacism; they want to protect that regime at all costs. Therefore any critic of that needs to be blacklisted and attacked or even eliminated.
Do you think their strategy of intimidation is working?
I think it’s working as it has worked in the past, not just in this country but all over the world. Naturally the dominant intimidation will successfully intimidate. I have turned down offers to be editors of newspapers in this country because of my own cowardice. If I’m going to be an editor I know I will be the editor in the way I want to be and then I have to face the consequences. Unlike Lasantha I have been too scared to face those consequences.
Lakshman Gunesekara is the former editor of the Sunday Observer and the immediate past President of the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA).