Ajit Randeniya

Whenever you open the rag The Sunday Leader, you are bound to come across a surprise or two. It could be an interesting slant in one of its many columns or a record of a detailed telephone conversation with a subject of its many “investigations”. What may not surprise you would be the chants of “culture of impunity” that the Leader claims to be prevailing in Sri Lanka.

The editorial in the latest edition, by its current editor Frederica Jansz, is typical of this anti-national, Assembly of God funded prpaganda: apparently disturbed by threats to her life, Jansz has spat invective filled with paranoia, bravado, sanctimony and a display of her inability to learn from real life experiences. All she has managed to achieve is to pour out an interesting insight in to her “virtual world” through this diatribe.

In an editorial titled “Persecuted”, Jansz almost “tries a Lasantha”, through premortam revelations: she lets all and sundry in Sri Lanka know that she has a life (that’s a relief!). Jansz also informs the world that she is a good parent, good mother, good friend who also laughs, shows up, listens, and loves in return. Then she reminds all Sri Lankans that she is doing every one a great favour by choosing to live in Sri Lanka, despite her not being “stuck for options”, and despite her entire family being British passport holders. Even the hassle of securing visas does not seem to deter this generous lady! All that self-glorification is merely the warm-up for bearing her noble soul, guided by a conscience, passion and commitment to journalism.

The diatribe would have lacked something if the obligatory reference was not made to that phrase borrowed from the INGO masters; the “culture of impunity”. Jansz points to a culture of impunity and indifference over killings and attacks on journalists that has existed since her newspaper began- spanning a number of regimes of different political persuasion. She laments the lack of independent and objective reporting in Sri Lanka and vows to continue to fight against the hostile environment of intolerance which has created this culture of impunity and indifference.

Jansz’s “editorial” is remarkable in that it aims at no other purpose than self-aggrandisement; it is totally self-serving. Also, taken together with the hundreds of tributes to Lasantha Wickramatunga, it reveals the “cultism” that seems to motivate (and of course, finance) the Leader “Mission”. Patronised by the “Assembly of God” cult, they truly hold the reprehensible belief that the cult is superior to the rest in personal virtue, imposing on them the burden of guiding the world.

Frederica Jansz is an interesting case in terms of a Third World colonial relic fallen prey to the Western neo-colonialist plots. More than a decade ago, in 1998, she became news by being subject to unfair treatment by the INGO front “International Alert”, for publishing news that was inimical to the interests of these guardians of everything pristine in the world: they justified her sacking on the grounds that their application for funding by the Norwegian government was not helped by her revelations of the Norwegian links to the LTTE.

This treatment should have opened her eyes to the realities such as the INGOs being arms of the Western secret services and the so-called freedom of expression and media freedom they advocate to, and force upon the developing world is a myth that is neither practiced by them, nor allowed in their countries. This is not to say that media freedom should not be allowed, but to alert to the reality that those in power always have the ways and means of controlling propaganda and more importantly, the emphasis on media freedom is an obvious tool they use for destabilizing the developing world.

In the case of Jansz, this personal experience seems to have, ironically, made her more determined to “dig for the truth”. The problem was that she decided to do it with the Sri Lankan society and government rather than the intruders who showed their colours. For the last decade, she has been barking up the wrong tree!

Then came her involvement with Sunanda Deshpariya’s Free Media Movement and the shady INGO “International News Safety Institute” (INSI), financed by such champions of media freedom as the BBC, CNN, AP and Reuters. When Deshapriya was found to have been “making a nice buck” out of protecting journalists, Jansz joined the fray by throwing accusations at him. However, Deshapria’s return of serve as well as an investigative piece on Lakbima showed that Frederica Jansz had not done too badly herself, in the name of renting safe houses for journalists under threat!

It also appears that June is the month Jansz’s enemies begin to sharpen their knives, or clean gun barrels: twelve months ago, almost to the date of the current alleged threat, on 16 June 2008, Deshapria’s FMM and Jansz’s guardian INSI “Called on Sri Lanka Government to Ensure Safety of Regional Representative”.

Jansz’s association with INSI shows that she hasn’t learnt anything from the IA experience: INSI is another front funded by the US, UK, Norwegian and Balgium governments and media barons, created to save Western spies posing as journalists in foreign countries. Its “North American Board” comprises Tom Curley as Chairman and Chris Cramer as Vice Chairman: the appropriately named Curley is President & CEO of Associated Press and Cramer the Global Editor of Reuters Multi Media. Enough said!

In a development that reflected INSI’s true identity, just last week they welcomed passage of the “Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act” by the US House of Representatives and urged the Senate and President Obama to speed its progress into law; even those who deplore the gruesome killing of Pearl by Al Qaeda admit that he was spying: Jansz is a “safety coordinator” for INSI in Sri Lanka!

One is almost inclined to thank Frederica Jansz for her promise, unlike Lasantha, not to write her last editorial for publication after her death. But the thought perishes because Lasantha didn’t write his either!