Silence amounts to plea of guilt

by. R Jayadevan

(November, 26,London , Sri Lanka Guardian) The revelation in the Sunday Leader, Morning Leader and the independent web media about the President Rajapakse’s involvement with the Asian Tribune editor has received dumbfounded silence from both the President and the Asian Tribune editor K T Rajasingam.

Instead, vulgar and threatening campaign beyond journalistic ethics (like the LTTE websites operated from Oslo) has been carried out by K T Rajasingam to side tract and to mislead the issues. When his dilly dally dancing with the President was exposed, he went out of the way to sling mud on the media writers.

When will Asian Tribune editor break his silence on the issues exposed? It is becoming clear there is substantial amount of guilt on the part of both the President and K T Rajasingam confirmed by their conduct post exposure. Can we assume strong silence by both tantamount to admission of guilt? By avoiding to give direct and honest answer or opinion, or a clear and truthful account of a situation, especially by quibbling or being deliberately ambiguous or misleading is serious in itself for the parties to be called ‘guilty’ in this case.

Whilst the President is maintaining determined silence, the Asian Tribune editor became gullible when he decided to seek the rescue of the LTTE men whom he castigated in his writings in the past. After having branded the Morning Leader editor Sonali Samarasinghe a cheap stock by heaping about her knickers and accusing her of offering sexual favours to climb up the career ladder the Asian Tribune editor went to seek the rescue of the LTTE website managers Nadarajah Sethurupan alias Dirty Sethu and Emdon Seevaratnam of the LTTE wash his dirty linen.

The Sunday Leader in its exposé of November 25, 2007 revealed some startling facts about what Mr. Rajasingam explained to the President. He had said: ‘that he vehemently opposed Velupillai Prabakaran for unleashing violence, fratricidal killings, recruitment of underage children, and for threatening and intimidating people though Prabakaran is from the same area - Vadamaradchy. Mr. Rajasingham said that he is from the village of Puloly, Point Pedro and Prabakaran's father who started life as a clerical servant is from Point Pedro well known to him and later married in Valvetiturai which is the birth place of Prabakaran. Late Anton Silvester Balasingham was his contemporary and was from Karaveddy located three miles away in the South of Puloly, Soosai the Sea Tiger Special Commander is from Polikandy which is 1.5 miles North of Puloly, Late Mahaththya is from Thalayadi in the Point Pedro East, Late Colonel Kittu is from Velvetiturai, V. Balakumar who worked under him as the Puloly Rural Bank Credit Manager when I was the President of the Puloly Multi-Purpose Cooperative Society Ltd somewhere in the year 1975 is from Thunnalai nearly 2.5 miles located in the South East of Puloly and Baby Subramaniam alias Ilankkumaran is from Velvetiturai’.

Mr. Rajasingham further said, "Though I knew each and everyone in the top hierarchy of the LTTE, I opposed and worked against the LTTE. Prabakaran hates me and wanted to get rid of me physically because I am the only one from the village who opposes him and give him lot of unpleasant movements despite numerous attempts to woo me and appealed to me at least not to oppose him."

What the Asian Tribune editor failed to tell when he confirmed he is from Puloly village in Vadamarachi, Point Petro is that the well the known characters like Nadarajah Sethurupan alias Dirty Sethu who manages the degrading LTTE websites from Oslo and his Swiss based counterpart Siva who runs the ‘Yarl.com’ are from his same Puloli village. In addition, the LTTE’s presumed editor of Tamileditors.com Emdon Seevaratnam is also from the nearby fishing village of Myliddy. Of these, Dirty Sethu and Emdon are readily available to K T Rajasingam to justify his misdemeanors in the Asian Tribune.

By maintaining silence both the President and the Asian Tribune founder/owner/Manager/Editor are making the whole issue a stalemate. In particular, the Asian Tribune editor trying to sit on moral high grounds to attack others with vituperation, just because he has the ability to write.