(The Island)-Saman Wagaarachchi is the Convenor of the newly formed Action Committee for Media Freedom which is an umbrella organisation of almost all the media activists’ organisations in the country. The only Media activist organisation outside this grouping is the Free Media Movement. Wagaarachchi has at various times served as the editor of the Irida Peramuna (The sister paper of the Sunday Leader) the Dinamina and most recently the Lakbima. He resigned from the Lakbima a few months ago and went public with the accusation that the government had got him thrown out. In this interview, Wagaarachchi speaks to C .A. Chandraprema, about the state of media freedom under the Rajapaksa government.
Q. One of the main campaign slogans of the opposition at this presidential election is that there is no media freedom under the Rajapaksa government and that once the common candidate wins, media freedom will be restored. Is the media really under such restrictions as some people make out?
A. There is no media freedom. I have experienced that first hand. The government has paid agents planted in media organisations from the typesetting division up to editorial board level. Before the paper is printed, the newspaper owner or editor gets calls from the president’s media division asking them to remove such and such news item from the page. At times news items are removed without the knowledge of the editor. So there is an unseen suppression of the media.
Q. Though you say that, when we watch TV or read the newspapers, we see that everything said by the opposition against the government is broadcast and printed without any censorship at all. We constantly hear members of the opposition saying that the Rajapaksas are all rogues and that they are taking huge commissions from infrastructure projects and so on. Everything that Maithripala Sirisena says is aired on TV. Everything that Navin Dissanayake says about corruption in Chinese funded projects is aired without any restriction. Likewise everything that the JVP says is also given the widest possible publicity. You can’t really say that anything has been blacked out. The worst charge that anybody can hurl against a government is to say that they are robbing the country and murdering people. We hear such accusations about the government every day through established media organisations. So that reality sits oddly besides these cries of media suppression. The ordinary public must be asking themselves: If there is suppression of the media, how come we are hearing all these accusations?
A. The suppression of the media is not apparent on the surface. It is present only at the subterranean level. I am surprised that as a media person yourself, you don’t see it. The viewer or reader may feel that there is no media suppression but it operates at a different level. At times media organisations are instructed to say something in a particular way by the paid agents of the government who have been planted in every organisation. The viewer may not see anything amiss at his end. There is also an organised system of creating news. Besides, the owners of all media organisations are directly linked to politics in one way or the other.
Q. Despite that, everything said by the opposition about the Rajapaksa government somehow gets printed or broadcast.
A. The most forceful part of what the opposition says may be kept out and something else put out instead. When the opposition says that the government was taking X amount of money by inflating infrastructure costs, that may get published, but no newspaper will write about the facts that prove such allegations.
Q. Will you provide me with the details of how infrastructure costs have been inflated and what benchmarks these figures are being compared with, along with an opportunity to examine and question those comparisons?
A. Yes, I am in fact engaged in an attempt to get these details published at least on the websites. I must also add that the state media is being misused.
Q. We have to keep the state media out of this discussion, because they take the government line anyway.
A. The state media does not belong to the government. These are institutions that are being maintained with public funds. I am not blaming this government only. The misuse of the state media has developed over the tenure of several past governments as well and has now reached a high point. Today, the suppression of the media is so pervasive that even those subject to media suppression are often not aware that they have been suppressed!
Q. Do you see that there is a disconnect between claims of media suppression and the stuff that gets broadcast or printed on a daily basis in this country? People like Anura Kumara Dissanayake lambaste the government as he wishes and virtually everything he says gets broadcast.
A. If what is published in a newspaper is not decided by the editors, and what is broadcast is not decided on by the TV producers, there is an unseen ‘domestication’ and suppression of the media. In the old days President Premadasa would telephone a newspaper organisation and tell them not to publish this or that. But today, there is a whole mechanism to do this. In the old days one could see that there was pressure from ‘above’. But today, nobody knows from where these things are made to happen. Some media persons are also exercising self-censorship.
Q. If we look at the numerous live talks shows and live debates on TV, the opposition and the government are represented in equal measure and each side pummels the other without any self censorship or restraint. What is said cannot be censored as it is broadcast live to the public.
A. In a TV debate the participants are chosen by the executives of the media organisation.
Q. As far as I know, the political parties are invited to nominate their representatives.
A. No, I am 100% sure that the participants are selected by the media organisation.
Q. Let us assume that it is the TV station that chooses the participants. Even so, everybody who is somebody in the opposition gets invited. Nobody who makes waves in the opposition is omitted. All the most vehement critics of the government are featured regularly in TV debates. Mangala Samaraweera is the only person who gives interviews to the print media but does not appear on TV.
A. That is why I said that on the surface, it appears as if there is a free flow of information without any suppression. But, beneath all that the flow of information has been prevented through suppression, censorship, intimidation and manipulation. I have experienced that as a newspaper editor.
Q. There are many organisations of media activists which espouse the cause of media freedom. But, the way these organisations go about their work gives rise to many questions. The Free Media Movement published a book claiming that 114 journalists had been killed in this country since 1981. I can’t, for the life of me, imagine who these 114 journalists are. There is the claim that no less than 34 journalists were killed in this country since 2005. As a journalist I can’t remember more than a handful of instances where journalists have been killed. There was Sampath Silva a young Lakbima journalist who was killed in Dehiwala; then there were D. P. Sivaram and Lasantha Wickrematunga. Other than that I don’t remember any journalists who got killed other than the business journalist who was stabbed to death recently in Battaramulla. There is also the claim that over 50 journalists have gone into exile since 2009. I know Uvindu Kurukulasuriya, Sandaruwan Senadira and Sunanda Deshapriya who have gone abroad. Who are the others?
A. Poddala Jayantha and Sanath Balasuriya.
Q. Yes, other than those individuals, who are the other 50 journalists in exile? If we look at how the Free Media Movement has come up with that figure of 114 murdered journalists, we see that they have included LTTE cadres who ran the LTTE newspapers. There are various privately owned Tamil Newspapers like the Uthayan, Valampuri, Thinakuraal, Thinamurusu and the Colombo-based Virakesari and Sudaroli. Apart from these, the LTTE had their own newspapers like the Kilinochchi based Eelanatham, the Eelamurusu and lastly the Namathu Eelanadu. The workers of these LTTE newspapers and those of the Voice of Tigers have also been included as journalists. Furthermore even the editor of the JVP’s 1987-89 death squad newsletter “Wedi Handa” has been included as a newspaper editor! People like Vijaya Kumaratunga and Nandana Marasinghe who were artistes have also been counted as media men.
A. I cannot really discuss the contents of a publication of the Free Media Movement. As for me, I would regard only those who have chosen journalism and broadcasting as a career as media men. What I say is that even if one is not a professional media man, all citizens should be able to take their views to the public and they should not be killed or forced to leave the country on that account.
Q. Do you accept the editor of the JVP death squad newspaper Wedi Handa and the workers in the LTTE newspapers the Eelamurusu, Eelanatham and Namathu Elanadu as media persons? One media organisation says that 44 journalists have died since 2004. Of this no less than 22 were workers with LTTE newspapers!
A. My position is that any social group or party can use the media to take their views to the public. The Sinhalese may see the LTTE as a terrorist organisation but the Tamil people of the North may see them differently. So, any political organisation may use newspapers or the electronic media to express their views. If in trying to express their views they are subject to repression, or are killed in the process, that is unacceptable.
Q. The international Committee of the Red Cross in their compendium on the law of armed conflict tried to introduce the rule that a person would be considered an enemy combatant only when he is actually engaged in armed operations. Thereby, a person who is involved in a terrorist organisation is not considered a combatant when he is not bearing arms. But, all the Western countries opposed this saying that in such an event, government forces would be able to attack a terrorist only when he was bearing arms whereas the terrorists would be free to attack the armed forces at any time thus giving an unfair advantage to the terrorist.
So this rule of the ICRC was rejected. What that essentially means in terms of the international law of armed conflict is that if you are involved with a terrorist organization, then you have to be prepared to die whether you happen to be bearing arms at that particular moment or not.
A. Any organisation has the right to use the media for their propaganda. If those involved in such activities are targeted for that very reason, I find that unacceptable.
Q. There are various organisations espousing the cause of media freedom. Almost all of them are NGOs with many receiving foreign funding. Most of the time real working journalists are not members of these organisations and this has given rise to a new category of media agitator. In these circumstances when they whimsically inflate the figures relating to the number of journalists killed by including members of the LTTE and the JVP death squads and throwing in Vijaya Kumaratunga, Nandana Marasinghe and a whole lot of other non-journalists for good measure, the impression that people get is that this is a self-interested exercise to paint the bleakest picture possible to attract foreign sympathy and money.
A. There is media suppression in this country that is not visible on the surface. That is one reality. But, when it comes to the organisations promoting media freedom, there is a question with regard to their conduct as well. I accept that. At the inception the Free Media Movement was a ‘movement’ not an NGO and it had lofty aims. Now there are various allegations against it and its members should look into them. These organisations could be working according to various agendas. Just as I have experiences relating to the suppression of the media by the government, I have certain experiences with regard to organisations calling for media freedom as well. But, that does not mean that all organisations have such agendas.
