Lasantha Wickrematunga – the misguided media missile fired by Prabhakaran

"Just to make things plain to Wickrematunge, when Charles de Gaulle marched into Paris and reclaimed it from the Nazis he was not turning France into an occupied territory. He was liberating France from the alien forces illegally occupying French territory. In other words, when a legally constituted army of a nation regains control of its territory occupied by an illegal band of aliens or terrorists it is an affirmation of the internationally recognized borders that define territorial integrity and national sovereignty."

Part 1

(December 12, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) The national and regional English media – particularly in India – pull no punches in targeting Tamil Tigers as the problem that should be removed from the political equation in Sri Lanka if peace is to be regained. The respected Hindu has been in the forefront with Editor, N. Ram, who has interacted with practically all the leading Indo-Sri Lankan actors, including Prabhakaran, taking an informed and principled stand against the counter-productive violence of the Tamil Tigers that has dragged the Tamils into the Pol Potist hell-hole in the Vanni.

He was joined recently by Malini Parasarathy, another expert Sri Lankan-watcher, who stunned the pro-Tiger lobby by branding Jaffna-centric politics with the taboo word: “Tamil chauvinism”. “Chauvinism” was an adjective reserved only to condemn the Sinhala-Buddhists. The bomb she dropped shook the foundations of the pro-Tiger lobby ensconced in NGO, think tanks, media, academia and my good friend, Tissaranee Gunasekara who never fails to open her articles with a foreign quote and end it with blaming the native “Sinhala chauvinists”. The shell-shocked Tamil extremists in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka are still trying to recover from its after effects. Tamil extremist in Tamil Nadu, manipulated by Tiger agents throwing money around as if it is going out of fashion, went to the extent of attacking the premises of The Hindu.

The Sri Lankan media, however, is fragmented on the role of Prabhakaran. At one end of the of the spectrum is Prabath Sahabandu, the Editor of The Island, whose perceptive analyses of confusing and fast-changing events of the national crisis provide a reliable guide to the emerging political landscape. He cuts through the miasmal fog coming out of the pipes of NGO mediocrities, all of whom are singing for their supper. He stands out among the pack because he is one of the few editors who has not fallen into the honey pots of NGOs. His leaders generally clear the air for an uncluttered view of what has happened and what is likely to happen in the on-going national crisis. His forthright, penetrating and thought-provoking surveys differ fundamentally from the gloom and doom of pundits thriving on the misery of the war-weary people. His no-nonsense comments, devoid of theoretical baloney, have been enlightening beacons to decipher and grasp the underlying realities of the broad anti-national fronts waging their mini and macro wars against Sri Lanka.

As for the state media, the less said about it the better it is for the state of the media. The newspapers produced by Lake House are as insipid as the editors. The Daily News had reverted to the usual format of a newspaper produced by a promoted chief clerk. Its soporific editorials hardly picked up the relevant issues of the day or went out to meet the challenges posed by the enemies of the people. Some of the editors have performed like mass produced dummies who can hardly read or write. In times of crises, conscientious editors step in as vigilant sentinels to guard the nation. They are remembered for making outstanding contributions to the people and not for receiving contributions from NGOs and other patrons. At Lake House the editors are prone to protect their chairs than the nation.

The latest appointee to the editorial chair of the Daily News is Jayatilleke de Silva, a former member of the Communist Party and a pro-NGO apparatchik. He is ideologically committed to the far left to be of any use to the Mahinda Chintanaya, though he will continue to swear allegiance and pose as a loyalist of the regime. There are several like him, mostly yes-men to the former President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, masquerading as born-again devotees of the Mahinda Chintanaya. The NGOs will be happy with Jayatilleke’s appointment because he is just the kind of Stalinist Commissar they need to censor the committed defenders of the nation on all fronts. The NGOs will be happy with this Stalinist stooge who will bend over backwards to promote anti-Mahinda Chintanaya ideologies which will be served in various disguises. Like all discredited Marxists he clings on to anti-Sinhala-Buddhist ideology and he is most likely to be the first to sabotage the system. He is also a pedestrian writer with hardly any flair for creative journalism. At best he can be described as a bleak Greek from the defunct left bringing suspicious gifts to the Mahinda Chintanaya.

In contrast, the Leader group of papers is very lively but for the wrong reason. The Editor of The Sunday Leader, Lasantha Wickrematunge, is leading from the front like Quixote tilting at windmills. Blinded by his anti-Sinhala-Buddhist Christian fundamentalism and hate politics of the Rajapaksas his vision does not go beyond his nose.

Right now his hate politics is focused on defeating the Security Forces and bringing down the Rajapaksa government. Consequently, each victory scored by the Security Forces is turning him into a bitter and frustrated “Bunkum Singho” who, in the absence of any other force to back him, is invoking the wrath of all and sundry to achieve his self-serving political goals. He is very much like Velupillai Prabhakaran in this respect. In fact, he acts like Velu’s doppelganger running hither and thither to save his “whipped ass” (quote picked from Leader editorial, November 23, 2008 )

Like Prabhakaran he cries that the east is “an occupied territory governed by Quisling Tamils” (Ibid) He also boasts about “the cause of Tamil liberation” (Ibid) and advocates that India should impose “no-fly zones” to ground the Sri Lankan Air Force and even throw a naval cordon to limit the operations of the Sri Lanka Navy. He even suggests UN sanctions against Sri Lanka.

All this is to stop the Security Forces from advancing into Killinochochi. Wickrematunge, like Prabhakaran, is ecstatic when Karunanidhi is putting pressure on Delhi to halt the military operations. He crows when he reports (falsely) that Delhi had put the screws on Basil Rajapakse. Like Prabhakaran he has run out of influential politicos to back him and he is left with only a loser like, Mangala Samaraweera. He first backed Ranil Wickremesinghe to the hilt and the successive losses of the UNP can be attributed to Wickremesinghe following Wickrematunge. He has also been backing Prabhakaran in devious ways and “Vedlu” has even lost the things that were given to him on a platter. And now he is championing Mangala Samaraweera who is heading in the same direction of other two losers.

It is rather hilarious to read his punditry backing Samaraweera. Readers are warned not to laugh too much in case they split their guts in going through this comic passage: “Thankfully, (to whom?) Mangala Samaraweera retains his fiercely independent fighting spirit (to go down the drain like his father who sold the Bandaranaikes for a few bottles of arrack). But for the looks of mute admiration and envy from his bedfellows in the UNP, (more than anyone else, he should be aware of the envy of bedfellows now that he has jumped into bed with his mistress after abandoning his gracious wife who stood by him through thick and thin) however, his is a lone voice (yes) of reason (no) in the wilderness (he was born into and doomed to die). Samaraweera has taken to calling the bluff (only after he was kicked out of office) of the Rajapakse regime and the steady stream of fairytales it invents to assuage the concerns of the people Listen to the Rajapakses, and the LTTE has been destroyed many times over. (Listen to the fairytales of Wickrematunge and Samaraweera the Army has won only a few junctions and the LTTE is still on top of Toppigala.) By amazing happenstance, (but less amazing than Wickrematunge hanging the knickers of his mistress, Sonali Samarasinghe, to dry in Canberra) the army captures key strategic targets to coincide with the army commander's extension, the President's birthday, the budget readings, and so on. (Who is worried about the coincidences as long as the strategic targets are captured?) Yet the UNP, like Mary's little lamb, follows mutely, clicking its heels and saluting at intervals. (True! True!). It is not for nothing that diplomats now refer to the UNP as Mangala's Dumb Chums. As for Samaraweera, he is coming to discover that in the UNP's land of the blind the one-eyed man is roundly disliked.” (Wasn’t it Wickrematunge who played the role of magul kapuwa (marriage broker) to tie the knot of the first gay marriage in politics joining kahi gani (coughing woman, Ranil,) to hotu gani? (snutty woman, Mangala)? What’s his beef now, now that the gay marriage of which he was a celebrant has gone phut?)

So, according to the gospel of The Leader, the great hero of our times, Mangala Samaraweera, riding on the backs of donkeys like Wickrematunge, is going to be the next saviour of Sri Lanka, eh? When Samaraweera’s side-kick, Sripathi Sooriaratchi, crashed into a tree and died Wickrematunge went berserk spinning conspiracy theories to implicate Mahinda Rajapaksa. The only thing he didn’t say was that Mahinda Rajapaksa deliberately planted a tree to trap Sripathi Sooriaratchi just at the spot he was killed. That is the kind of stuff that comes out of this prawn head. Wickrematunge also revels in playing the role of the king-maker. He was ecstatic when he arranged the gay marriage because Samaraweera promised Wickrematunge that he could cross over with 17 other SLFPers and bring the government down in the budget of 2007.

Wickremesinghe also fell for this line and even promised Samaraweera the Deputy Premiership. Wickrematunge sold this yarn to Wickremesinghe and the UNPers are still waiting for their Deputy Prime Minister to bring the SLFPers to join Wickremesinghe. Instead it is Karu Jayasuriya who had crfossed over. It took some time for Wickremesinghe to realize that the route to power does not lie through the cock-and-bull stories of Wickrematunge.

Wickremesinghe has finally come down to earth and made Karu Jayasuriya his deputy dashing all hopes of Samaraweera and Wickrematunge to run the UNP. Wickrematunge is now left only with Samaraweera whose future is as rosy as that of Prabhakaran. Jointly, all three should be lined up to produce the next episode of Three Stooges with Wickrematunge writing the script. With the kind of yarns spun by Wickrematunge it can be guaranteed that it would be a side-splitting farce.

Consider also his other statement that the east is “occupied territory run by Quisling Tamils.” (Ibid). Obviously, he does not know what constitutes an “occupied territory”. Next time he gets his mistress, Sonali Samarasinghe, to sit on his lap he should ask her, since she has done a subject or two international relations, whether any part of a sovereign state, with internationally recognized borders, can be considered to be “occupied territory” when its army gains control of it. He should also ask her whether a representative body of citizens elected by a larger body of citizens voting voluntarily can be compared to Quislings handpicked and appointed by Hitler when he occupied Norway. And yet he has gall to accuse others of having an “imperfect grasp not only of history but of current affairs.” (ibid).

Just to make things plain to Wickrematunge, when Charles de Gaulle marched into Paris and reclaimed it from the Nazis he was not turning France into an occupied territory. He was liberating France from the alien forces illegally occupying French territory. In other words, when a legally constituted army of a nation regains control of its territory occupied by an illegal band of aliens or terrorists it is an affirmation of the internationally recognized borders that define territorial integrity and national sovereignty. Ever since the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia, which marked the beginning of nation-states, territorial borders defined the totality and the limits of sovereignty of new nations. The legally constituted army of a nation has the right to use any means necessary to crush the anti-national forces occupying any part of the nation. Accordingly, the Sri Lankan Army is entitled to be in command of every inch of the land and liberate the people held captive by the “latest Pol Pot of Asia” (New York Times).

Comprehendo, my Dumb Chum?

(To be continued)

H.L.D.Mahindapala: Editor, Sunday and Daily Observer (1990 - 1994). President, Sri Lanka Working Journalists' Association (1991 -1993). Secretary-General, South Asia Media Association (1993 -1994). He has been featured as a political commentator in Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Special Broadcasting Services and other mainstream TV and radio stations in Australia.) - Sri Lanka Guardian