{"id":101679,"date":"2020-04-28T16:14:03","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T23:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=101679"},"modified":"2020-04-28T16:14:03","modified_gmt":"2020-04-28T23:14:03","slug":"villainizing-the-victim-trapped-between-19a-and-covid-19-emergency-courtesy-of-free-media-manipulation-a-point-to-ponder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/04\/28\/villainizing-the-victim-trapped-between-19a-and-covid-19-emergency-courtesy-of-free-media-manipulation-a-point-to-ponder\/","title":{"rendered":"Villainizing the victim trapped between 19A and Covid-19 emergency courtesy of free media manipulation? A point to ponder"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Rohana R. Wasala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The news of the postponement of scheduled parliamentary elections\nby the Elections Commission was carried in the online Asian Tribune newspaper\nwith an apparent anti-government bias. After closing the nominations on March\n19, 2020, the EC postponed the general election, earlier scheduled for April\n25, in view of the situation caused by fears of the Covid-19 pandemic gradually\nengulfing Sri Lanka. The move was in accordance with the provisions of the\nParliamentary Elections Act of 1981. Immediately reporting this under the\nheadline Sri Lanka\u2019s General Election postponed: Until the polls the country\ncomes under Election Commission\u201d, Asian Tribune (AT) datelined March 19,\nColombo, states with strange glee:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 QUOTE The Election Commission (EC) has indefinitely\npostponed the parliamentary election earlier scheduled for April 25. Until the\npolls the country virtually coming under the direct control of the Election\nCommission. Country’s President and the Caretaker Government cant move a ‘bit’\nwithout the consent and permission of the Election Commission even to peeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Country’s President had the opportunity to cancel the dissolution\nof the Parliament, prorogued it obtained the resolution on Covid – 19 and had\ntime until August 290290 to dissolved it and could have called for election\nagain. A missed opportunity is a lost one.\u201d UNQUOTE<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through such reporting, the Asian Tribune editor K.T. Rajasingham\nimplies, wrongly of course, that the temporary\/caretaker minority government,\nappointed after the November 16 presidential election,  is acting in a\nwayward  manner and is in need of being held in check. He seems to\nmistakenly assume that the existing constitution has turned the EC into a\ndictatorial body that, at this moment, is poised to virtually replace the\nexecutive president and that the Corona-19 crisis has given it the opportunity\nto make the necessary intervention in controlling the government\u2019s activities!\nNothing is further from the truth. The constitutionally valid decision to\npostpone the election was taken independently by the EC with unquestioning\nacceptance of the postponement by the president, who himself had already\ncasually mentioned its (EC\u2019s) power to do so when the nomination process was\ncompleted. Nominations having been accepted, the names of candidates and\npolling booths had to be gazetted as per Section 24 (1) of the Parliamentary\nElections Act of 1981. This step had to be fulfilled for the EC to secure the\nauthority to postpone the election in terms of Section 24 (3) of the selfsame\nAct. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A retrospective glance at Asian Tribune is in place at this point.\nIts editor K.T. Rajasingham (KTR) started the online publication in Bangkok,\nThailand around 2002. I remember welcoming it as a novelty among the media I\nroutinely consulted. In a note published in his paper years later, he described\nhimself as a Sri Lankan Tamil journalist \u2018who was forced to leave his country\nafter LTTE raised its head and systematically targeted him\u2019. According to the\nsame note, he relocated to Sweden with his online newspaper; and at present it\nis operated by the World Institute for Asian Studies (WIAS), apparently his own\ncreation, whose goal, KTR claims, is to bring Asian nations closer\ntogether. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The phrase Striving for Asian Solidarity\u201d prominently displayed\nby Asian Tribune as a journalistic catchword on its masthead must be a\nreference to this alleged mission of the WIAS. But it is difficult for one to\nsee any implicit or explicit definition of \u2018Asian solidarity\u2019 as a political,\neconomic, social, cultural or any other worthwhile concept or ideology that may\nbe identified as underlying its reportage. Be that as it may, it is worth\nthinking about why the Asian Tribune founder and editor  experienced such\na sense of malicious pleasure at the unanticipated postponement of the general\nelection. The announcement of the postponement actually caused deep frustration\nand despair among the sane majority of multiracial and multireligious Sri\nLankans who have been impatiently waiting to vote in a new parliament and help\nform a stable government during the executive presidency of the universally\nacclaimed Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the common target of all those who are opposed\nto that extremely probable and propitious eventuality (i.e., the election of a\nfresh parliament that will enable the new president\u2019s vision and mission for\nthe country to be accomplished). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

KTR\u2019s complaint that the president had the opportunity to rescind\nhis (March 02) dissolution of parliament  in view of the threatened\nworsening of the Corona-19 situation that would make campaigning and polling\nimpossible is a frivolous one to say the least. The people are 100% sure that\nnothing could be gained by reconvening the dysfunctional parliament, arguably\nthe worst since 1948, that was dissolved on March 02. No elaboration is\nnecessary to drive home the point. The government under the executive\npresidency of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has been doing everything possible, from the\nthird week of January itself to deal with the unfolding conditions associated\nwith the global Corona-19 pandemic with the dedicated participation of the\nhealth, security, and law enforcement and civil functionaries  as he\nexplained in his address to the nation on March 17. He said that confidence is\nthe mark of real leadership in a crisis. He has demonstrated that quality in\nhimself in abundance since 2005, as the ordinary people know. The president\nconcluded his speech with the words This country that is yours and mine is\nsecure today\u201d. But this confidence was not shared by diehard opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarath Alwis of Colombo Telegraph (\u2018A Brave President, A Benumbed\nNation\u2019\/March 24, 2020) scoffs at the president\u2019s statement as wrong, after\nfirst praising it as a forthright fearless statement\u201d, adding: The President in the\nstatement embodied courage and sincerity.\u201d Sarath Alwis (SA) finds fault with\nthe president\u2019s assertion that the country is secure now because there is more\nto national security than fighting with separatist terrorists, monitoring the\nactivities of religious fanatics or countering political dissenters. He states\nthe obvious when he says that dealing with an epidemic is different. The\nextremely biased Sarath Alwis must have chosen to ignore the fact that Gotabaya\nRajapaksa has a much more profound, much more comprehensive understanding of\nwhat national security involves and has achieved much more for the nation in\nthat sphere than the likes of Alwis would like to appreciate. Colombo Telegraph\nis run, as they claim, by a group of \u2018exiled journalists\u2019 who, significantly,\nfled the country after it got rid of separatist terrorism for good. The Colombo\nTelegraph went to town with its one-sided condemnation of the presidential\npardon of war veteran Sunil Ratnayake with hardly a glance at the ground\nrealities or the actual circumstances that justify that move, while the Asian\nTribune has commented negatively on the pardon of the soldier without showing\nthe self-absorbed enthusiasm of the CT, describing it as \u2018Arbitrary release of\na convicted non-commissioned military officer\u2019. Though, outwardly, the two\npublications were or still are at loggerheads with each other, they could be\njournalistically contributing to the same brand of anti-Sri Lanka destabilizing\npolitics, which, while being sympathetic to the defeated separatist cause, is\nactually part and parcel of a more global operation launched by external powers\nrunning geopolitical agendas in the region.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eight years ago, the Colombo Telegraph carried news about KTR\nbeing found guilty of gross defamation\u201d by a Swedish court  in a case\ninstituted against him by an alleged Norwegian journalist named Nadarajah\nSethurupan (NS) under the headline Asian Tribune Found Guilty for Defamation\nin Sweden\u201d (CT\/February 24, 2012). When it did so, the Colombo Telegraph \nexhibited the same sort of schadenfreude that the editor of the Asian Tribune\nexperienced at the recent postponement of the general election. It was reported\nthat Sethurupan told the paper (CT) that KTR phoned him when he (NS) was in\nOslo in 2003\/2004 and that KTR tried to persuade him to attack the Norwegian\npeace officials and the SLMM (the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission) and to work\nwith him and his \u2018secret unit\u2019 in order to wreck the said peacemaking process;\nbut Sethurupan refused. Subsequently, Sethurupan charged, KTR started attacking\nhim personally calling him a \u2018terrorist\u2019 through his newspaper the Asian\nTribune. The attacks continued from 2005 to 2008 according to SN.  At a\nSwedish district court trial KTR was adjudged guilty and this judgement was\nconfirmed by a Swedish Appeal Court, which ordered KTR and the WIAS to pay\nSethurupan $ 20,000 and the Swedish state litigation costs incurred. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether the Swedish justice system was correctly apprised of the\nfacts of the case and whether the cause of justice was served is a moot point.\nThe CT reporter drew attention to the fact that the compensation amount of SEK\n125,000 (equivalent to $ 20,000) was the highest amount imposed for defamation\nin Swedish judicial history up until then! How many millions of SEK or Dollars\ncould be claimed by the relevant political leaders of Sri Lanka (I mean,\nparticularly, the Rajapaksas) as compensation if legal action was taken based\non the actually available authentic information against Tamil separatist\nsupporters abusing the hospitality of such gullible European societies for\ndefaming them over the last fifteen years calling them war criminals,\nmurderers, crooks, despots, etc. without any evidence to support those\ndenunciations!  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time that the  legal action related to, KTR was\nallegedly accused by separatists of being opposed to the Norwegian brokered\npeace process while being friendly towards the Sri Lankan government, which was\nembattled with the anti-state separatist terrorists. It was even held among\nKTR\u2019s critics that the the then UPFA government financially supported the Asian\nTribune; but this was an assumption that was not plausible given that the then\npresident Mahinda Rajapaksa, though he was sceptical (with reason) about the\nseparatists\u2019 actual commitment to finding a peaceful solution, actively went\nalong with the Norwegian mediation effort, until the terrorists forced his\nhand, by closing the Mavil Aru anicut, to take decisive military action against\nthem, in which they vainly hoped to defeat the government defence forces and\nrealise their separate state dream. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not only online tabloids such as AT and CT that have been\nco-opted (this is my hunch, but could be wrong) by the powers that be to play a\ncankerous role against Sri Lanka. Even the mainstream English broadsheets with\nwide  circulations seem to be subject to the same pressure (The\njournalists employed by them are helpless; they have no option but to toe the\nline set by their employers who probably feel obliged to serve vested interests\njust to sustain their businesses that in turn protect the livelihoods of their\nemployees). Ceylon Daily Mirror (March 27, 2020) published an exclusive\ninterview with a senior US lawyer, Larry Klayman, allegedly a former federal\nprosecutor under president Ronald Regan. Klayman said that he was ready to work\nwith Sri Lankans and others towards building international pressure on China.\nNo need to say anything about the absurd hypocrisy or the hypocritical\nabsurdity of such a proposal to Sri Lanka as the ground realities relating to\nthe country\u2019s vulnerable position between the two giant contenders China and\nAmerica are so well known. To his credit, the Daily Mirror journalist Easwaran\nRutnam who interviewed him made the apparently needy old lawyer eat his words\nat every turn through his informed questioning, which was redolent with sarcasm\nand scepticism. The Daily Mirror of April 10, 2020  carried an edited\nversion of an Open letter (dated April 8) from the Chinese Embassy addressed to\nthe Chairman of its owner Wijaya Newspapers. It was written by Luo Chong, the\nSpokesperson and the Chief of the Political Section of the Embassy in response\nto two articles published in the paper (one of them being the interview I have\njust mentioned). Somebody seems anxious to drive a wedge between tiny Sri Lanka\nand giant China, two nations that have enjoyed thousands of years of close\ncultural and trade relations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Rohana R. Wasala The news of the postponement of scheduled parliamentary elections by the Elections Commission was carried in the online Asian Tribune newspaper with an apparent anti-government bias. After closing the nominations on March 19, 2020, the EC postponed the general election, earlier scheduled for April 25, in view of the situation caused by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}