Farewell to Lasantha

It is a tragic end that should not have happened under any circumstances. His death is a sad reflection of the violent nature of our times. It is not death that is unacceptable. All living creatures are destined to die. It is the way people die that is unacceptable. The morality is in the way people are forced to die.
_______________

By H. L. D. Mahindapala

(January 12, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) The last time I met Lasantha Wickrematunge was on board the plane to Geneva. We both were on assignment to cover the peace talks held between February 22 -23, 2006.

This was the first round of talks between the Tigers and President Mahinda Rajapakse. The new administration had hardly any time to settle in. It was still adhering to the Ceasefire Agreement signed by Ranil Wickremesinghe. It was still committed to a negotiated settlement. It was still mediating through the Norwegian facilitator, Erik Solheim, who was supposed to be thrown out by the Rajapakse government. The new government was in its formative stage, struggling to find its feet. But Lasantha had already opened fire on the Rajapakse government. Nothing wrong with that. It was his right and he was hitting hard.

Lasantha was also reporting for MTV. Flying with us was Jehan Perera head of the National Peace Council. When we landed in Geneva he thought it was a good idea to interview both of us as we represented the opposing points of view. So he got the cameras rolling against the backdrop of the Geneva airport.

That was typical Lasantha. Like all good media men he was quick on the uptake and never missed an opportunity that came his way. He had already made news before he left Colombo airport because the Immigration authorities had refused him permission to leave. That is another aspect of Lasantha. He was not only a news reporter he was also a newsmaker. He was in the thick of politics. It was difficult to separate the politician in him from the journalist.

All the way up and down we were jousting on board the plane. He was barracking for Ranil Wickremesinghe, his answer to the politics of the time, and I was backing Mahinda Rajapakse whom I consider to be the answer to the current phase of politics. His main argument was that Mahinda Rajapakse was not following his Mahinda Chintanaya (as stated above Rajapakse was feeling his way around and had not moved away from Wickremesinghe’s agenda initially) but following Wickremesinghe’s political programme. I countered by saying that Wickremesinghe should then support Rajapakse because he was following his political agenda.

The arguments went back and forth all the way up and down. At one stage Amal Jayasinghe of AFP joined us and as usual he was the silent observer. Once we had a break at some airport (I forget which) and Jehan joined us. I grabbed Jehan’s hand and told Lasantha: “Lasantha, Jehan has agreed to debate with me on TV with you as the moderator!” I was only baiting Jehan hoping he would bite. But he backed off saying: “No, no. I didn’t say that (that’s true!) because he’s a fiery debater”.

Lasantha gave one of his usual smirks which is neither a laugh nor a smile but a silent cynical comment on Jehan. Despite our political differences it was stimulating to be in his company. When he visited Melbourne with Raine he would come home and I was happy to catch up with him to pick up the inside stories – and like most seasoned journalists he had an inexhaustible stock.

In essence Lasantha could be portrayed as a political animal in the classical Aristotelian sense and he can be best understood also in the political context of our time.

He wielded the power of his pen not so much as a journalist but as the most formidable opposition to the powers of the day. He was just not the editor of The Sunday Leader. He was virtually the Leader of the Opposition. Though he was virtually Ranil Wickremesinghe’s mentor he felt that the opposition led by his protégé was weak. He said so in his last editorial. He wrote:

“Sadly for both Ranil Wickremesinghe and Karu Jayasuriya, they have failed to convey effectively to the country their concerns about the issues of our time. As a party, the UNP is yet to decide whether or not it supports the war …..”

He chastised Karu Jayaasuirya for “steering clear of controversy in any guise.” No one can accuse Lasantha of shying away from controversy. He was bent on playing an active, aggressive and dynamic role in politics and he reveled in it. The bottom line is that he was a born politician who had strayed into journalism almost accidentally. He often felt frustrated if his political writings failed to yield the results he expected.

Perhaps, if he won the Colombo Municipal Council election when he first stepped into politics his career path would have been different. But it was not to be. He finally found his niche not in law (he was a qualified and practicing lawyer) nor in politics but in journalism which he used deftly as a spring board to leap into politics.

This was his strength and weakness. He deliberately refused to draw the line between the two. He became a part of the unfolding story because he was in this thick of making the story. He was indefatigable in making the story as well as writing it. Often he was the go-between many political actors that gave him access to most of their inner secrets – a valuable asset to investigative reporting as well as analyzing and commenting. It could be argued that he was one of the best informed journalists and he made use of the inside information to push his political agenda.

His forte was in being the power behind the throne than being in the throne. The nearest to him in the field of manipulating the strings of the puppets on the throne was Esmond Wickremesinghe, Ranil Wickremesinghe’s father, who was the maker and breaker of governments of his day. His biggest coup was in bringing down the coalition government of Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike allied to the Marxists. Ranil is not a patch on his brilliant father. No wonder Lasantha was disillusioned with lame duck Wickremesinghe.

Lasantha needled many with his investigative reporting and political views. As knowledgeable journalists would agree, he got a kick out of it. Lasantha was by any standards an outstanding journalist. He was the best investigative journalist that Sri Lanka ever had. In this field he was intrepid to the point of being suicidal. In all parts of the world –from USA to Russia etc – investigative journalists, more than any other breed, have been the prime targets.

It is fair to say that most Sri Lankan journalists, even those who were not in this field, have faced threats. In my salad days, when I was cutting my teeth in journalism, a film/theatre director threatened me with death for writing a review that was not favourable to his production. That’s an unavoidable part in the life of any journalist. We all must learn to live with it whether we like it or not. But no journalist, or for that matter any individual, needs to be killed for presenting the unpalatable news, even if that news and opinions are totally distorted. That’s a no-no. That’s reprehensible and unacceptable. We don’t build societies to destroy and kill. We build societies for a thousand flowers to bloom. No political culture should go down that track though history is overflowing with the blood of dissenting victims.

One redeeming feature of the war against Velupillai Prabhakaran is to restore the democratic right to dissent. The graveyards in the north and the east are over-crowded with dissenting victims liquidated by Prabhakaran. We are fighting in the south not to imitate him but to restore the old tolerant culture in which all shades of opinion and cultures found space to co-exist without fear or favour. Lasantha should have been fought with words, opinions, logic, reasoning and counter-arguments and not with bullets and gunmen.

Lasantha’s first brush with death was when Chandrika Kumaratunga’s goons waylaid him and his wife, Raine, near their house. He escaped that attempt by a hair’s breadth. Victor Ivan records in graphic details the plot to kill Lasantha and him.

“According to Chandrika Kumaratunga,” wrote Ivan, “the two of us (the other editor under threat was The Snday Leader’s Lasantha Wickrematunge) were to be killed by S. B. Dissanayake.

“I heard something more interesting about this from someone else later on. On the day when the team assigned to assassinate me had been summoned, this person and Pavithra Wanniaarachi had engaged in a valiant effort to persuade S. B. to change his mind about the planned killing. They had stressed that if the killing took place it would create enormous problems for the government and urged the Minister to decide against it. S.B. was adamant, and angered by their appeals, went on to admonish them. Wanniaarachi had left the room, but the other person had stayed on. S.B. continued to speak. “Do you think that I’m the one who wants him killed? No, you fool, it is that bitch who wants him killed.” (p.46-47, The Queen of Deceit, Victor Ivan.)

This story illustrates that in our political culture killing of rivals, opponents, dissidents is the done thing without any qualms. Of course, there is also the other aspect to be considered. Every killing is attributed to the government of the day. During President Ranasinghe Premadasa’s time not a single death took place without the chattering class pointing a finger at him. Eventually, when he was assassinated by the Tiger suicide bomber they said he got himself killed!

When Lalith Athulathmudali was killed the popular accusation was that President Premadasa was behind it. A highly grieved President who had ignored the rumour mills until then told the nation: “You can kill me but please don’t kill my character!”

Not surprisingly, the prominent deaths -- from Gen. Kobekaduwa to Ranjan Wijeratne to Athulathmudali -- were attributed to him. A similar trend is prevailing now. It is easy to rush to judgment and accuse the government of the day. If the government is responsible for the death of Lasantha then it must be made to pay. But given the cordial relationship between Lasantha and the President (according to Minister Yapa’s statement the President was on best of friendly terms with Lasantha and he and his new wife, Sonali, were due to dine with the President at Temple Trees this week) the story of accusing the government lacks credibility. It is up to Sonali, if she can, to clarify the validity of the accusation if her husband and the President were on such good terms.

Ranil Wickremesinghe too is not a stranger to this violent culture. His close association with Gonawila Sunil, a criminal who was sprung out of jail before his time was up, his expelling of Paul Harris for exposing the “Greatest Land Give Away in History”, and his questionable “Batalanda culture” (which seems to be very close to Chandrika’s culture) makes him and out-and-out hypocrite when he points a finger at the government. His attack on the Editor of The Daily Mirror for publishing a statement that revealed him as “a weak leader” confirms that he is a closet Pol Pot waiting for a chance to get even with his media critics. He is pretending to be the protector of the media only because he finds this issue is a handy handle to whack the government.

Lasantha and I have crossed swords. It began when he suddenly switched sides to make a heroine out of Chandrika Kumaratunga after hammering her day and night in his columns. We both had a right to present our viewpoints in a free debate – however harsh it may be – to the public. Lasantha knew that the personal can become political in the cut and thrust of a heated exchange. He was not the one to spare any juicy detail either if it was germane to the issue. His investigative reporting went into every nook and corner (including bedrooms) if he felt that it was relevant to expose the character of the politico.

This is not the time to delve into his politics which I opposed increasingly after he swung to a pro-LTTE line. But, however much one may disagree with his politics, it must be conceded that his personality, his journalism, his oeuvre came out best in his politics. He was focused, he was committed and he knew how to chase a story to its final end with deadly accuracy and consequences to its victims and finally to himself.

It is a tragic end that should not have happened under any circumstances. His death is a sad reflection of the violent nature of our times. It is not death that is unacceptable. All living creatures are destined to die. It is the way people die that is unacceptable. The morality is in the way people are forced to die. There is a wide gap in the morality of people dying at home in their beds peacefully and dying on the road after being shot by gunmen riding high with a licence to kill at will.

I offer my condolences to Raine, who stood by him in the dark days, his children, and Sonali, his successor, who now has a hard task on her hands to live up to the demanding standards of her late husband. - Sri Lanka Guardian