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Right of Reply
Our Political Editor writes (again!)
Mr. Nesiah has already had his Right of Reply, and we for our part do not think it is a very edifying spectacle for the reader to witness this shouting match between him and us.

However, his response to our note of last week compels this rejoinder, which deals succinctly as possible with some of the key issues he has raised. a) He says he was under a previous impression that the Political Editor had not read the Summary of the report. After my reply of last week, he now realises that the Political Editor "did not engage in shoddy journalism'' but was in fact informed. This week in his eyes, it is a distortion. Maybe next week he will realise that it was neither shoddy nor a distortion. We are prepared to wait patiently for Mr Nesiah's painfully incremental and tortured route to enlightenment.

b) He rants that the summary was issued to the Human Rights Commission and the press before the Commission had access to the Report. Sweet. Really Mr. Nesiah? Then, we presume you call your Committee's summary "Report of the Committee on Disappearances of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka'' even before that Commission itself reads or sees the Report? At least we know now how Commissions operate.

Anyway, that's the legend that the cover of my summary bears in black and white, and what I pointed out last week which fact Mr. Nesiah conveniently cavorts past in his rejoinder. If Mr. Nesiah cannot understand this simple fact, we are ready to publish a photo reproduction of this Summary cover next week -- but in the meanwhile, we are amused that this Human Rights Committee issues its reports before even hearing about them from the Committee. But also, we really couldn't care less.

That's not our issue, that's Mr. Nesiah's issue which we never talked about. Get real Mr. Nesiah, we are talking about your report, and its substance. The rest of it, your Committee and your Commission can resolve until the cows come home - because that's not our issue at all.

c) We don't want to dignify his comments on journalistic competencies but would add that he should bother about the competency of his Committee before casting about from his pulpit on the competency of others. All we can say is no Commission is sacrosanct, and we are not cowed by any Commission Committee or any number of names that are dropped. Remember one Presidential Commission report in this country, which according to a Supreme Court judgment issued later "did not have the evidence to hang a dead rat with.'' (Vijaya Kumaratunga Assassination Commission.)
All we can say is that none of last week's arguments have been answered in Mr. Nesiah's clarification. Repeat, none. He doesn't say why the LTTE was never named in his "long list''.

He says his 'sample' does not capture the full range. We heard that Mr. Nesiah, almost to the point of deafening, but that's the point. Then why select the wrong sample and hold it out as a sample? As we have said in our original article, the Commission has an obligation to approximate that true range he is talking about or give at least a remote inkling of what that true range is like. His talk of other Commissions does not cut ice. We are talking of this Commission. We cited UTHR reports saying that in this same period, and in Jaffna too, the true range was much more ghastly, and contained a horrendously large list of more LTTE atrocities. That is the problem. That is the bias.

This ''sample'' glosses over these atrocities, by saying ''the full range is not captured here'' but does not indicate even remotely how that full range in the period covered looked like. Is this why the ''long list'' does not name the LTTE? For all any reader knows, given that the summary names the Army and says only in one place that "25 Muslims have disappeared or have been killed after being taken by the LTTE'' a reader of the summary would think his much advertised long list of atrocities was in fact the work of the Army!

Last week we asked "where is the beef in your argument?'' Maybe, even this week Nesiah can't show us the beef because from his tone it appears clearly that he thinks he is a sacred cow. Our "supporting evidence'' Mr. Nesiah is your Report itself. Read it. You would never see that it is biased --because of your bias…

Commission and its bad joke
The response of 16 November of your Political Editor reveals that his article was not just shoddy journalism by someone who had not read the Report, but a deliberate distortion by a person who did not like some of the findings and recommendations but was unable to challenge them. Since he had read the Report, the misquotation is inexcusable; and, clearly, designed to introduce a bias that cannot be found anywhere in the text.

A comprehensive written summary of the report was distributed to about 75 invitees, including the Human Rights Commission and the Press, at the beginning of the presentation ceremony, before the Commission had access to the Report. The Commission had no prior means of knowing the contents. If your Political Editor is incapable of understanding this simple fact, the fault is neither in the Human Rights Commission nor in the Committee of Inquiry.

Regarding the comment on National Reconciliation, as any competent journalist would know, the conclusion should never be an after thought but, invariably, the most important part of any Report; it is certainly so of our Report. Further, your Political Editor lists only a few attacks by the LTTE. In our listing we include many more attacks by the LTTE, and also several by other organizations. If your Political Editor is incapable of understanding which list is biased and which is not, the fault is neither in the Human Rights Commission nor in the Committee of Inquiry.
-Devanesan Nesiah

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