Admittedly the task of the journalist in conflict situations is not an easy or a happy one.

Often they are constrained by official restrictions placed on their coverage. At times they are the victims of their own prejudices and preconceptions.

Still others find it difficult to break away from the official stance or question government strategy or a country's policy.

So the public has to tread carefully through this minefield of information and try to sift the news from what could very well be a mix of personal prejudice, historical experience and perspective, 'spin' by parties to the conflict and even 'patriotic journalism' derived from the slogan "my country right or wrong".

It is not an easy task in times of conflict when information is hard to get and the flow of news is often supplied and controlled by parties to that conflict. Filing stories based on news gathered independent of official sources is often hazardous because in the long run such efforts tend to antagonise one side or the other.

Many Sri Lankan journalists have become victims of such prejudice and have been made to pay the price in various ways- some even with their lives.

The other day in London, Reporters Without Borders and the Nirmalarajan Foundation commemorated the second death anniversary of Mylvaganam Nirmalarajan, the Jaffna journalist who was killed in his home in a high security area during curfew hours.

Nirmalarajan wrote to several Sri Lankan publications and was also a stringer for the BBC's Sinhala service.

Official investigations into his murder have dragged on for two years with little progress, except during the last several months after governments changed in Colombo.

Reporters Without Borders that sent a delegation from its legal arm to Sri Lanka, made its own inquiries which seem to point to a Tamil political group with some official collusion. Many Sri Lankans know about it.

There is little doubt that Nirmalarajan was killed because his reporting was not palatable to certain political forces.

If society allows every political group to decide who should live and who should die, then that society is bound to be depopulated soon enough. That is why society has laws so that the life of society can be governed in a orderly and lawful manner and eschew the chaos of the jungle.

While as a journalist one naturally condemns the killing of a colleague and would like to see those responsible brought to justice, there are many others who have been murdered but whose killers are walking the streets or even ready to enter civilised society.

While only Nirmalarajan's killers and their accomplices will condone, or even gloat over, his death, it would show our concern for the right to life of other people too, if we seek justice for the murders of so many others, both in the north of the country and the south.

Nirmalarajan's death caused concern outside Sri Lanka because he was a journalist and there are international organisations to take on the cause of journalists.

But what about the murders of so many others in the north that seem to have been forgotten or quietly buried along the bodies of the victims.

How many today commemorate the murder of Rajani Thiranagama the Jaffna University academic who returned to Jaffna from the UK because she was determined to contribute her knowledge and experience to the well being of her community.

She was so devoted to the rights of individuals and of her community that she was not afraid to expose the tyranny and abuses of sections of Jaffna's militant groups as well as those of the security forces.

The Jaffna University Human Rights Group of which she was a prominent member, was quite fearless and impartial in reporting the abuses in its community.

Now that the LTTE is setting up its own police and courts system, would it be too much to ask that the murders of such brave figures as Rajani be investigated and those responsible for her killing also be brought to justice.

Those who cry for justice might also ask the new keepers of law and order in the north to investigate the murders of some other young Tamil leaders such as Sri Sabaratnam, Padmanabha, Uma Maheswaran, former Jaffna MP Yogeswaran and his wife Sarojini was killed some years later when she was mayor of Jaffna.

And what of Sam Thambimuttu and Neelan Tiruchelvam.The last two were in Colombo so the onus of investigating their killings would not actually fall within the LTTE's jurisdiction- or so one would imagine.

But surely now that it has taken on the task of maintaining law and order in the north, would it not be their responsibility as those concerned about war crimes and justice, to bring to book the killers of those Tamil leaders too?

Back to Top

Back to Columns

Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Webmaster