FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AHRC-FST-032-2009
May 11, 2009
A Statement from Sonali Samarasinghe Wickrematunge, widow of Lasantha
Wickrematunge and 2009 UNESCO World Press Freedom Laureate forwarded
by the Asian Human Rights Commission
SRI LANKA: Widow of assassinated Journalist Wickrematunge on the
World Press Freedom Day Conference
"Your Highness, Mr Director-General, Your Excellencies, Ladies and
Gentlemen:
On behalf of my late husband and fellow journalist, Lasantha
Wickrematunge, I wish to thank you most sincerely for this great
honour you have done him. Lasantha would have been so proud, so
humbled, to have known that an august, independent, international
jury of his peers had seen in him, a fit candidate to receive this
prize.
On his behalf, and on behalf of fellow journalists worldwide who
continue to risk life and liberty, to provide for us, all the
freedoms we so cherish, from the bottom of my heart I thank you. His
parents and his children will be so proud, to know of the recognition
you have given their son, their father... as indeed am I, now his
widow.
The fact that Lasantha is the second journalist to be honoured
posthumously since this prize was created 12 years ago is testimony
to the risk many journalists run in the pursuit of their calling. Two
years ago you honoured Anna Politkovskaya, an unapologetic critic of
military and political excess, who was brutally murdered in Moscow in
October 2006.
The life trajectories of Anna and Lasantha bear bizarre similarities.
They were both born in 1958. They were both courageous critics of
state-sponsored violence and spoke fearlessly for human rights. They
were both threatened with death over a period of years. They both
suffered repeated attempts on their lives. And they both chose not to
flee, but to stay on and fight to the end. They both knew full well
that they would pay with their lives. And they both knew who their
murderers would be.
But the fate that befell Anna and Lasantha is not an isolated one. In
Sri Lanka, it has become the norm for journalists to be killed in the
pursuit of their profession. No less than 16 dissident media
professionals have been assassinated - all of them in commando-style
attacks-since President Mahinda Rajapakse took office in November
2005. That is about one in every two months. Presses and television
stations have been destroyed in these raids, as indeed have the
newspapers Lasantha and I edited.
Apart from those who have lost their lives, we need to remember also
those journalists who languish in Sri Lankan prisons with no charge
or with only the flimsiest and most childish of contrived charges
pressed against them. In other cases, false charges are levelled so
as to harass dissenting journalists.
Dozens of journalists-including myself-have been forced to flee Sri
Lanka. I have no doubt that should I return to Sri Lanka, my
remaining days would be few indeed.
Other journalists have been threatened personally by the president or
his brothers, three of whom he has elevated to high public office.
Indeed, on 11 January 2006 Lasantha too, was personally threatened by
President Rajapaksa.
The free Sri Lanka in which I was born no longer exists. Our country
has entered a Dark Age characterized by tyranny and state-sponsored
terror, where the government publicly, cynically and unapologetically
equates democratic dissent to treason. The sinister white van in which
the state abducts its perceived enemies including journalists, many of
them never to be seen again, has become a symbol of untold dread. Yet,
we need to remember that violence against journalists is only the tip
of the iceberg. Tens of thousands of ordinary Sri Lankan civilians -
men, women, children, and the aged-have been herded into
concentration camps where they are held against their will. There
they languish in the most horrible of conditions, trapped behind
barbed-wire fences and beneath the radar of a world which, perhaps
rightly, is more concerned with the arguably greater tragedies
unfolding in places such as Darfur. But what has been their crime?
They belong to an ethnic minority living in an area infested by the
Liberation Tigers, one of the most murderous terrorist organizations
the world has ever seen. The Tamil civilians of Sri Lanka’s north are
caught in a vice-like grip between LTTE terrorism on the one side and
state terrorism on the other. And I use that word advisedly, for the
Sri Lankan government is perhaps the only one on this planet that
persists in bombing its own civilian citizenry.
That this is a racist war is not a secret. I would not go so far as
to use the word genocide, but it would not surprise me to see it used
in future international legal action against the government. At any
rate, the government itself has plastered the countryside with
enormous placards lauding the military with the slogan, in Sinhala,
the language of the Sinhalese majority to which I too, belong,
stating: “Soldiers, our race salutes you!” Not “the people”, not "the
country", but the race. And all these placards exhibit the stated
provenance of the Ministry of Defence or other government
institutions.
Interestingly, none of these hoardings are in Tamil, the language of
the people the government claims it is seeking to liberate.
I make this point because it is urgent and important that the world
realizes what is happening in Sri Lanka before it is too late.
Sadly, even those who should see best are blind to the plight of the
innocents caught in the crossfire as state terrorism seeks to counter
the LTTE’s terrorism. It frustrates me that even people who should
know better do not seem to. A few days after Lasantha’s murder an
international Journal opined that "For all those who argue that
there’s no military solution for terrorism, we have two words: Sri
Lanka." It is a pity that even journalists often fail to see the
distinction between terror perpetrated by terrorists and terror
perpetrated by governments. This Journal might just as well have said
to all those who argue that there’s no military solution for
terrorism, they have just one word: terrorism. For that is the
solution the government of Sri Lanka has chosen: terrorism against
civilians, terrorism against journalists, terrorism against
dissidents of all kinds.
It angers me, as it did Lasantha, that we have learned so little from
history. I beseech you and anyone who will listen not to allow Sri
Lanka’s government, under the cover of a war against terror, to
engage in acts of terror or crimes against humanity. Soon it will be
too late, and history will not forgive us if we do not act now.
What then, of Lasantha’s murder? Within hours of his assassination,
President Rajapakse promised a full inquiry and promised to bring the
perpetrators to justice. Of course, no such thing has happened.
Almost four months have passed, and all we have seen is a cover up.
There has been no meaningful investigation, no trace of the vehicles
used in the assassination, no call for information on the murder
weapon, and even the cause of death has been deliberately smudged so
as to derail a future investigation.
But by recognizing his life and work as you have done today, you send
an important message to tyrants everywhere, that killing the messenger
is not a solution. If by nothing else, it is by gestures such as the
one you have made here today that the point is made ever more
strongly that the human spirit cannot be subdued by violence - no,
not even by murder. And so it is that even in death Lasantha’s name
draws more hits on Google than the prime minister of Sri Lanka.
Your Highness, Mr Director General, Ladies and Gentlemen: thank you
for your patience and, from the bottom of my heart, on behalf of
Lasantha and the community of journalists who fight on to make ours a
nobler, more just and humane world, I thank you most sincerely. I want
you to know that you have earned the gratitude not just of myself and
all those who loved and admired Lasantha, but also of those to whom
his life and his example will serve as a beacon in the future.
To the readers of the newspaper he edited he left a final message.
And I would like to leave you with my husbands’ last words.
"We have espoused unpopular causes, stood up for those too feeble to
stand up for themselves“, he wrote.”We have made sure that whatever
the propaganda of the day, you were allowed to hear a contrary view.
For this I -and my family- have now paid the price that I have long
known I will one day have to pay. I am - and have always been - ready
for that. I have done nothing to prevent this outcome: no security, no
precautions. I want my murderer to know that I am not a coward like he
is, hiding behind human shields while condemning thousands of
innocents to death. What am I among so many? It has long been written
that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that remains to be
written is when."
Thank you.
Sonali Samarasinghe Wickrematunge
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About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional
non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights
issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984. The
above statement has only been forwarded by the AHRC.