2nd February 2000

The full text of Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera’s reply to a letter addressed to him by Andrew Puddephatt, Executive Director of Article 19, the London-based media watch dog.

Mr. Puddephatt had written to the Minister expressing concern at threats to media freedom in the wake of President Kumaratunga’s television address of January 3.

This refers to your letter to me dated 19 January 1999. However, as it refers to matters relating to late 1999 and early 2000, I presume you have overlooked to check the date of your letter, similar to making an error in my name.

Despite these initial examples of inexactitude, I shall respond to all the matters you have raised.

You refer in your letter to Article 19’s grave concern "about recent attacks by the President and other public officials on the independent media, and the implications these may have on the climate for free expression within Sri Lanka."

Let me state at the outset that your concern, however grave it may be, is totally unfounded and to write about recent attacks by the President on the independent media is bordering on the ridiculous.It is not based on any facts and shows a total disregard for accuracy and the truth.

In fact it was President Kumaratunga who established an environment free from fear and intimidation for the media to flourish after nearly two decades of legal and extra legal suppression on the freedom of expression in our country.

Despite severe provocation by a handful of media personnel determined to bestow on the noble profession of journalism the merits of the oldest profession in the world, President Kumaratunga has been consistent add passionate in her commitment to a truly independent and responsible media culture in Sri Lanka.

The President’s interview on TV of 3.1.2000 has been hailed by many sections of Sri Lankan society as an erudite and firm reiteration of her commitment to a truly free media culture and a lucid description of how a handful of politically and financially motivated, self-proclaimed messiahs of free media are violating the ethics of responsible journalism and if I may borrow a phrase from your letter ‘the implications these may have on the climate of free expression within the country’.

It is in this context I am also writing to you to express my grave concern for your regard for truth and accuracy throughout your letter.

Whatever you may have written to the Sri Lankan High Commissioner in London, there was no bomb attack on Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Leader of the Opposition. I wonder how you obtained this "information". Especially in a letter to a High Commissioner it is important to be certain about your facts on matters of such importance.

There was a suicide bomb attack carried out by the LTTE which has its offices in London, on President Chandrika Kumaratunga on December 18, 1999, which 25 persons were killed and the President and other Cabinet ministers suffered injuries. There is no record of any bomb attack on any meeting attended by Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe.

In fact there was another bomb attack the same evening, also by the LTTE, at a meeting of the United National Party in which a retired senior officer of the Sri Lanka Army and several others were killed.

However, Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe was not even billed to speak at this meeting and he did not attend it. The LTTE has carried out several suicide bomb attacks on important persons and vital government institutions for the past several years, but contrary to what you state, our government has not made use of these cowardly attacks by a group of terrorists to impose any restrictions on the freedom of expression or the free flow of information, except the censorship of news regarding military operations.

Even in this, there is no censorship on such matters as the procurement of arms which could be an area open to corruption, demonstrating our government’s commitment to transparency.

There is no need for this government, that has helped free the media from the shackles it was subjected to under the previous government, to re-commit itself to ensuring the freedom of expression in Sri Lanka and enabling the enjoyment of other human rights.

The very re-election of President Chandrika Kumaratunga for a second term, by a majority of over 700,000 votes, is a clear endorsement by the people of this country of the humane and enlightened policies of the President, despite the crude partisan attitude by some sections of the media during the election campaign.

You are seriously mistaken in stating that recent reports suggest that "this is not the path the government has chosen." These seem to be reports to which only Article 19 is privy to.

On the contrary, the government remains totally committed to helping establish a free and responsible media culture in this country.

I regret to say that Article 19 has been grossly misinformed in stating that it has become "aware of allegation in the state-owned media that two editors of independent newspapers were involved in a plot to overthrow the President, in league with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam."

What the state-owned, and other media too, did report was that the Criminal Investigation Department was investigating reports of a conspiracy involving the LTTE and several others, including two editors.

The state-owned media did not make any allegations on their own about anyone, whether editors or any others. There were no reports published anywhere that Victor Ivan editor of "Ravaya" and Lasantha Wickrematunge, editor of the "Sunday Leader" were identified in police inquiries.

These two persons identified themselves, as being persons targeted for questioning in connection with inquiries into this conspiracy, at a press conference organized by the so-called Free Media Movement (FMM). You are right in the statement that neither of these individuals have still been questioned.

However, let me assure you that in keeping with the Rule of Law, if it becomes necessary for proper police investigations that these persons or any others should be questioned, so it shall be done.

For the record it is the same Mr. Victor Ivan who originally referred to the existence of a "Media Mafia" in Sri Lanka (vice "Ravaya" of 12th March 1995). This government has now realized the truth of this observation and also finds that both Mr. Ivan and Mr. Wickrematunge are certainly very much part of the Media Mafia that is today working both against the government and the larger interests of democracy, constantly violating the accepted ethics of journalism, in pursuing their own hidden agenda.

I am glad that Article 19 supports proper investigations into the existence of any such conspiracy, and where there is evidence of the commission of recognizable criminal offenses, the bringing of suspects to trial.

Similarly, I am surprised that you have concluded that in this case "conspiracy" is being publicly invoked as a justification for harassment and intimidation of individuals who have opposed and criticized government policy.

It would have strengthened your weak case had you been able to give even a single example of such harassment or intimidation.

Those who oppose our government continue to criticize it quite freely, often with no basis of fact. However, the media policy of our government is to allow such criticism as freely as possible, within the every broad limits of the prevailing legislation on media in Sri Lanka.

Our government fully respects Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) that you refer to, with regard to the rights of individuals in a democratic society having a fundamental right to hold and express opinions, subject to restrictions only on specific and limited grounds.

We are also aware of the restrictions permitted in the same Article of the same Convention, which you seem to conveniently ignore. I shall here quote the relevant sections of Article 19 of the ICCPR for your better understanding:

Article 19 Para (2): Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice. Para (3) The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall be only as are provided by law and are necessary: (a) For respect of the rights of others (b) For the protection of national security or of public order, or of public health or morals. (My emphasis).

Let me place on record that there is no instance whatever by which you could show where the present government has acted in violation of the above Article 19 or any other Articles of the ICCPR, with regard to freedom of expression.

You make a very strained effort in your letter to show to the world that the so-called allegations made against the two editors, and other unnamed individuals, and general claims that the independent press is hostile to the government, appears to be highly threatening, particularly in the context of a country which has, in its recent past experienced ‘vigilante’ and ‘death squad’ reprisals in large numbers.

Please be aware, that the ‘vigilantes’ and ‘death squads’ existed during the past government when the lights of freedom and democracy were being snuffed out. It was this government that put an end to that era of ‘vigilantes’ and ‘death squads’.

Neither the so-called Free Media Movement (FMM) of today nor the Editors’ Guild formed even later, who curiously have raised similar concerns to what you have, were even in existence at the height of the activity of those vigilante and death squads.

In fact the present conveyor of the FMM was one who fled the country in fear for his life from these death squads, after one of them abducted and later murdered the journalist Richard de Zoysa, while he was in the custody of the UNP government.

The FMM’s current Convenor did not flee the country at the time because of any fear about his journalistic activities but only because he was an intimate friend of the late Richard de Zoysa. We have never let these vigilantes or death squads who attacked journalists, newspaper offices, newspaper vendors and even newspaper readers, to raise their heads ever since our election in August 1994.

In fact when there were some attacks on journalists after our government came to power we took prompt action against those identified as being responsible for such acts.

Two instances are the threat on the life of Mr. Iqbal Aththas, Defence correspondent of "The Sunday Times", where investigations have led to suspects being produced in courts.

Another is the case of the Aranayake provincial correspondent of the Sinhalese daily "Dinamina", who was allegedly assaulted by the police in the area, which resulted in the immediate transfer out of all personnel in this police station.

If evidence has been forthcoming, no investigation has been hampered by the state and there is no roam for ‘cover-ups’ in the administration of President Kumaratunga.

You refer to the heightened violence of the last few months, the ongoing civil war and the recent assassination in Sri Lanka by unidentified assailants of three journalists: Vasthian Anthony Mariyadas, Athputhrajah Nada-rajah and Rohana Kumara.

The lumping together of these names in the same paragraph as that which refers to "vigilantes" and "death squads" is most mischievous, to say the least.

The killing of Mr. Vasthian Anthony Mariyadasa, a freelance radio journalist at Vavuniya in the North, where he was to give a commentary of the Catholic Holy Mass midnight on December 31, 1999, was carried out by the "pistol squad" of the LTTE. At least 5,000 Tamil citizens of Vavuniya held a protest against this killing, but this protest found very little coverage in the "independent" media you refer to.

It is strongly suspected that the killing of Mr. Athputharajah Nadarajah, editor of the weekly Tamil newspaper Thinamurusu" was also the work of the LTTE., The killers of Rohana Kumara remain unknown, although it is a fact that the type of journalism he was engaged in could have created many enemies who may have harboured dangerous grudges against him.

However investigations are still in progress with regard to his killing.

It is in fact interesting to know (and you should ask them) why the so-called Free Media Movement and the Editors’ Guild did not issue any statement of protest or carry out any public demonstrations with regard to the killing of Mr. Nadarajah and Mr. Mariyadas.

Their only protest was at the killing of Rohana Kumara, and that too because they wanted to embarrass the government by attempting to show that it had a hand in this killing. I would like to remind you that neither Article 19 nor and other organization or journalists accused the British government of the murder in broad daylight of the BBC TV presenter Ms. Jill Dando whose murder still remains an unsolved crime.

Apparently, it is quite in order for the LTTE to gun down journalists, one an editor and the other a freelance radio journalist, without Article 19 or your correspondents here making any protest about it.

I do suggest that you direct your protest regarding the killing of Mr. Mariyadas and Mr. Nadarajah to the LTTE, whose offices in London must be known to you.

Although you claim to be an organization that stands for the defence of Freedom of Expression you have made no reference to the deaths of two TV journalists - one from the private "Sirasa" and the other from the state-owned ITN - at the time of the suicide killer attack on the President on Dece-mber 18, 1999, and also the injuries cau-sed to five other TV and photo journalists from Sri Lanka and abroad.

Your correspondent organizations here also made no protest about these deaths and injuries, in the course of carrying out their duties.

You apparently do not see a bomb attack at a public campaign rally in an election as being an attack on the Freedom of Expre-ssion – the right to express one’s opinion through the ballot.

I hasten to state that your double standards, distortion and deliberate inaccuracies are nauseating. Any truly independent and objective observer of the situation regarding the media in Sri Lanka would realize that there is no need whatever to create any new conditions within which freedom of expression could be enjoyed here.

There are no obstacles to it. There is no repressions of the media in Sri Lanka today. That was part of recent history and our government will ensure that it never returns.

There is censorship of military news with regard to military operations only, and these restrictions are fully in keeping with the conditions laid down in the ICCPR. The government does have control over a section of the print and electronic media.

In the face of an opposition controlled med-ia in the hands of a few families openly hostile to the government, the administration must rely on the government owned media to put across its point of view and you will surely agree that a government also must have the right to the freedom of expression.

Please note that Sri Lanka is not the only democracy where the government owns a part of the media. You seem to be unaware that the membership of the Commonwealth Press Union includes state-owned newspapers too.

Criminal defamation is part of our Penal Code. It is invoked not to suppress criticism, but only when there is clear evidence of an offence committed under this law. You must be aware that a similar law still exists in the UK too.

One editor of a Sinhalese weekly, who was charged under this law was discharged by the court, but with the observation of the presiding judge that he was a journalist who had no morals.

Please note that there is due process in law in Sri Lanka, and anyone found guilty of criminal defamation in the court of first resort could appeal the judgement in the Court of Appeal and later in the Supreme Court too.

With regard to Criminal Defam-ation let me also refer you to Article 17 of the ICCPR which states inter alia that "no one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation. everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or att-acks".

The strictures of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are no more and no less worthy of respect and enforcement than those of Article 17 of the ICCPR. Your rightful concern for freedom of expression must, therefore, be tethered to an equal concern for the reputations that may be threatened by this freedom.

"Article 19" may henceforth demonstrate its respect for Article 17 by refraining from criticizing the taking of justifiable legal action by this government or any affected individuals.

I resent the statement that the state-owned press is "apparently" being used to make unsubstantiated allegations against government critics.

This is certainly a distortion of the truth. It is strange that you have nothing to say about the private and therefore "independent" press or media making unsubstantiated allegations and grossly false statements against persons in government and other respected individuals in society, without even the courtesy of the right of reply.

In any case, Mr. Puddephatt, what do you mean by "apparently" being used? It is either is or is not, and you have not provided any evidence one way or another. I would suggest that your attention is better directed to substantiating your own claims than raising "apparent" claims against a democratically elected government in a country and milieu you obviously know little about.

I also wish to ask you whether Article 19 was not aware that a private "independent" TV station, Maharaja Television or MTV, completely blacked out the World News on BBC TV, of which it is the franchise holder in Sri Lanka, from the time of the December 18, 1999, bomb attack on the President by an LTTE suicide killer.

This censorship, not imposed by the government, which could have led to a dangerous situation in the country, was kept going for several days and was stopped only after my written request to do so.

Is this manipulation of the media by the privately-owned "independent" media in keeping with the principles of Article 19?

Have you even raised this matter with the head office of BBC? What have you, who claim such concern for Freedom of Expression and Democracy, to say about the refusal of the private ergo "independent" MTV to refuse to broadcast an appeal to the public for calm, not attack or cause any harm to the Tamil minority or to the political opponents of the government, made by President Kumaratunga from her hospital bed after being injured in the bomb attack by the LTTE?

However, a news report implying that the President was seriously incapacitated quoting a letter written by a lawyer to the Chief Justice was given wide and repeated publicity over MTV, imputing very dangerously in the given circumstances that the President was unable to carry out her duties.

Are you unaware of the convention in most democracies where the private media is obliged to give time and opportunity to the head of state or a person with similar responsibility at a time of national crisis?

Are these not blatant abuses of the Freedom of Expre-ssion, or are they to be excused because they come from the private "independent" media, controlled by friends and family of the Leader of the Oppo-sition.

Curiously, neither the FMM nor the Editors’ Guild here have so far raised any objections about the censorship of BBC TV news by MTV.

It seems you are certainly all of the same mould of duplicity. If you and others in Article 19 and other organizations that are so concerned about the conditions of the media in this country, I would urge that your organization’s do not depend for its information on Freedom of Expression and the media situation in Sri Lanka on highly partisan organizations such as the FMM or the Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka, and similar NGOs that have their own private agenda with regard to politics.

Instead, do spend some of the money you get from your funders and send some intelligent, unbiased researcher’s to spend at least six months in Sri Lanka, moving among the people, and not only those who would wish to keep them in a cocoon of isolation, out of touch with reality in the country.

You will then be able to get an accurate picture about democracy, Freedom of Expression and Media Freedom in this country.

One would at least hope that you take a lesson from the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) who have also written to our government about the recent killing of journalists, but have done so with a sense of objectivity and decency in calling for quick investigations into these killings, and not passing judgment on the condition of democracy in this country.

You state in your letter that "Article 19 recognizes the very difficult security environment, but wishes to reiterate that censorship and repression not only contravene international human rights standards, but actually undermine peace and security by promoting division and hostility".

The very limited "censorship" under the current situation in this country is, as I pointed out earlier, a policy that Article 19 has no right to challenge. But, "repression", Mr. Puddephatt, what is your evidence?

I would have thought that Article 19 would attempt to be a model of the ability to use its considerable resources and freedom of expression with a concomitant sense of responsibility.

I tell you emphatically that there is no repression in Sri Lanka, and for you to even hint that there may be is quite irresponsible and libellous.

It is time that Article 19 called off its bluff about being defenders of Democracy and Freedom of Expression, when you fail to inform yourselves of the facts about a country that you comment about.

The result of your effort is to give strength and encourage the forces ranged against democracy in this country, who are eager to bring back to power those very forces who were responsible for "vigilantes" and "death squads" and also institutionalized state violence.

For an organization concerned about democratic freedom you are surprisingly silent about the threats to media freedom, freedom of expression and democracy itself when they emanate from an organization such as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, that has now been condemned by many democratic countries as a terrorist organization, and part of the international network of terror.

You, like the FMM and Editors’ Guild over here, are either too scared to condemn their tactics of terror or agree with their violent attacks on democracy. There is no other conclusion to be reached by your collective and conniving silence.

I regret to note, Mr. Puddephatt, that there plainly exists in the West a wide-spread prejudice that Third World countries are almost by definition essentially repressive. This prejudice is repeatedly illustrated by the readiness of organizations such as Article 19 to insinuate that this government is engaged in repressing or persecuting the Sri Lankan media establishment, based on little more than the outcry from a couple of disaffected journalists.

In total, we find this "holier-than-thou" attitude completely unpalatable. It is to us an offensive example of the self-righteous Western zeal to reform "poor savages" which we had shrugged off when we gave up the shackles of colonialism for independence fifty-two years ago.

Despite the existence of a very progressive and enlightened government in Britain today, it is a matter of regret that there are still left-overs from the colonial era in positions of influence such as you who feel that it is their divine duty to pontificate to their poorer colonial cousins.

You have placed your letter full of untruths and imagined allegations against the government of Sri Lanka on the Internet through your own website and that of IFEX and also sent copies of it to many other organizations.

By this means you have deliberately given a wholly wrong impression of the conditions prevailing in Sri Lanka to the rest of the world. What you have done is to deliberately tarnish the image of a country, without carrying out basic research in what you set out as facts.

In this context, I request you to place this reply too on the websites of Article 19 and IFEX and copy it to all other organizations you have sent the letter under reference.

With regard to the state of inaccuracy of your communication with rest of the world, let me inform you that the Article 19 website - www.article l9.org - in its table of letters from May to Dec-ember 1999, under Sri Lanka, referred to a letter of protest sent to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed about the imprisoning of a Canadian journalist in Sri Lanka.

It was the Policy Research and Information Unit (PRIU) of the Presidential Secretariat that informed you of this error, and told your office that Dr. Mahathir Mohamed is not the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka and that Sri Lanka had at no stage imprisoned any Canadian journalist.

The error was subsequently corrected, only a few days ago, after our bringing this to the notice of your office. Can you imagine the harm that such unresearched information placed on the internet could cause to the image of a country?

Before I conclude I wish to draw attention to your lack of concern for exactitude, seen throughout your letter, by stating that apart from getting the date of your letter wrong, you have not even bothered to spell my surname accurately.

Your lack of regard for truth, accuracy and scholarship demonstrates a cheap interest in smearing the good name of a country, and a government, that has taken great strides in defence of the freedoms of democracy from the time of its election in 1994.

I close by referring to President Chand-rika Kumaratunga’s January 3, 2000 broadcast, in which she clearly and unequivocally restated her commitment to ensuring a free and responsible media culture in our country that is in keeping with the objectives of a dynamic and economically developing dem-ocracy such as Sri Lanka’s.

Let there be no doubt in your mind of this government’s commitment to upholding the freedoms of democracy, that we helped save from destruction.

So, Mr. Puddephatt, please learn to get your facts right on anything that you comment on, and stop smearing the good name of our Republic.

Sincerely,

Mangala Samaraweera M.P.,

Minister for Posts & Telecommunications and Media

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