Report: Sri Lanka Peninsula
Is Deadly for Journalists
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Saturday, Aug. 25, 2007
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Map of Sri Lanka |
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Jaffna, the northern peninsula of Sri Lanka, is one of the world's most dangerous places for journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Jaffna is the battleground of a bloody war between a rebel grouped called Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan military.
Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres) is a Paris-based media support group. On Friday, Aug. 24, 2007, it released a report that called on the Sri Lankan government to ease press restrictions, seriously investigate the assassinations of journalists in Jaffna and train soldiers in the tenants of the Geneva Convention.
The group also criticized government-aligned paramilitary "death squads" that it claims drive around in un-marked white vans and target reporters and editors who publish news stories critical of the government.
The report:
● Linked the murder of two newspaper employees in May of 2006 with the publishing of a political cartoon in the Uthayan newspaper in Jaffna. The cartoon was critical of Douglas Devananda, leader of the Eelam People's Democratic Party paramilitary group and a cabinet minister.
● Said the August, 2006, murder of Sinnathamby Sivamaharajah, an editor for a pro-Tamil newspaper called Namathu Eelanadu, had led to the paper being shut down. The Reporters Without Borders report also said Sivamaharajah's murder showed the death squads would not tolerate media organizations that give Tamil rebels favorable press.
● Claimed authorities did not investigate the murder of a young Uthayan newspaper reporter, Selvarajah Rajivarnam, who was killed on April 29, 2007.
● Said journalism student Sahathevan Nilakshan was killed by two gunmen at his home, likely because he was the editor of a Tamil student newspaper.
● Claimed two-thirds of Jaffna's internet cafes have closed because of curfew restrictions and an economic crisis.
Most quotes were anonymous in the Reporters Without Borders report because, it said, sources were afraid of the death squads. It said many reporters had fled the area or given up being a journalist because of fear of the death squads. One notable exception was Uthayan's editor, M.V. Kanamailnathan.
“We had 120 employees, including 20 journalists, up to August 2006, but now we’ve only got 58 people, including four journalists who are fighting their fear,” Kanamailnathan was quoted as saying in the report. He told Reporters Without Borders that "four journalists, including him, had been threatened with death by the paramilitaries," the report reads.
The report was also critical of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa. He has come under increasing international condemnation for human rights abuses in his country since fighting resumed last year between the Tamil ethnic rebels and the Sri Lankan military, which is mainly made up of Sinhalese, the majority ethnic group in Sri Lanka.
Rajapaksa's lack of desire, or inability, to reign in human rights abuses is surprising, especially since in 1990 he was arrested at the Colombo airport for trying to smuggle information out of the country about 16,000 missing Sri Lankans. He had planned to turn over information about the "disappeared" to the United Nations in Geneva, according to Charu Lata Hogg, a South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch.
Today, Rajapaksa is closely aligned with the military. He has also shrugged off condemnation of other groups, including Freedom House, a U.S.-based human rights group with considerable influence over how much aid the U.S. government sends abroad. Because of a negative Freedom House report on Sri Lanka, the Bush Administration has suspended a $591 million Millennium Challenge Corporation aid package for the country.
Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch released a report that claimed 1,100 people have disappeared under unusual circumstances in Sri Lanka. Most of the reports accuse the military for responsibility and most of the "disappeared" are young Tamil men, according to Hogg.
