Sri Lanka’s reputation as an Indian Ocean paradise may hold true for determined holiday-makers, but for the sober-minded this image has been shattered in recent months.
First a damning UN report accused both sides in the country’s 30-year civil war of atrocities – a claim the current government refutes categorically. Then in June Britain’s Channel 4 broadcast a devastating account of the closing weeks of the conflict in 2009 – at this time, the programme said, the Sri Lankan military systematically murdered thousands of civilians. Colombo says the evidence is ‘fabricated’. Distinguishing truth from artifice is problematic in a country where the free press claims it is under constant threat. RNW sent a team to Sri Lanka to investigate.
Reporters with borders
In a new report the International Crisis Group says Sri Lankan “President Rajapaksa and his powerful brothers continue to repress the media and political opponents”. Other rights groups describe killings and disappearances of reporters alongside police impunity.
And they claim a widespread lack of press freedom – that the media does not tell it how it is, and that people are afraid to speak to reporters. Pressure is brought to bear on them with the use of armed men in white mini-vans, who kidnap or murder journalists. RNW’s team experienced the phenomenon first hand after a surprise roadside attack.
Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean you’re not being followed
Few Western reporters have visited the former Tamil Tiger-administered north and east of the country in the past year – journalist visas are not issued without months of bureaucratic delays.
Travelling from the relatively affluent capital Colombo, RNW’s two person team saw how the further eastward one travels the poorer and more militarized the country becomes.
Entering on tourist visas to a former Tamil Tiger administered region RNW spoke to locals, on subjects as diverse as business, sport and the UN’s development role. During one such conversation in a restaurant they were spied on and reported to the police, who later that night arrived at the hotel for a midnight interrogation. Ten police officers, including the Chief of Police, scared the team into leaving the region. The following morning, on their way back to the well trodden tourist path, they were robbed and attacked at gunpoint by a gang in a white van.
Deliberate intimidation or just another robbery?
The intimidation of the ‘white van’ tactic that Sri Lankan reporters had described now came sharply into focus.
“The police reaction is absurd, but it shows the fear of anything, in their perception, which might be connected to the Channel 4 programme or the UN investigation into war crimes”, said Sanjana Hattotuwa from the independent media watchdog Groundviews based in Colombo. “The government reaction is understandable because their stance has always been that there were no war crimes committed by their side – so they clamp down violently on anyone suggesting otherwise”, he added.
Leading the way
Raisa Wickrematunge from Sri Lanka’s most controversial newspaper, The Sunday Leader, believes the attack on western journalists marks a new low.
‘What is particularly shocking is the robbery that happened… Disappearances and things like this unfortunately still happen here. So in that sense it’s not really a first, but it’s quite shocking that they did this to foreign journalists, particularly the robbery.’
Raisa is the niece of its outspoken and fearless former editor Lasantha Wickrematunge who was gunned down in 2009. The Leader’s Colombo newsroom is adorned with pictures of a smiling Wickrematunge, pen in hand. Raisa joined the paper shortly after his murder, wanting to keep the memories and values of her uncle alive. ‘But after it happened, we decided we can’t take that same hard line. Because the fact is that in the past people would attack us, now they would kill us.’
Sri Lankan journalists self-censor to protect themselves. The current editor of the Sunday Leader Frederica Jansz explains why. ‘I don’t do this myself. I am willing to die for my job. But I understand that not everybody will do this.’ Raisa says the fears are legitimate: ‘Many (reporters) … are taken in those white vans and they vanish. There are also cases documented where people were taken and abandoned later with their legs broken.’
Mini-van, big trouble
The white van phenomenon is well-known to the Tamil diaspora. Donald Gnanakone, the president of pressure group Tamils for Justice, based in Los Angeles, told RNW: “You got ‘white-vanned. This is a state-terrorist act’”.
Other reactions to the RNW experience confirm the likelihood of this being an example of state-sponsored press intimidation. A senior European diplomat working in Colombo, speaking on condition of anonymity, said “You can be sure this is the authorities sending you a message”.
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