![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Brian_Senewiratne_-colombotelegraph1-150x150.jpg\" "\\"Brian_Senewiratne_")
<\/a>Dr. Brian Senewiratne<\/p><\/div>\n
On Friday 21 September 2012 (another \u2018black Friday\u2019[1]<\/a>), The<\/em> Sunday Leader,<\/em> the only newspaper critical of the Rajapaksa junta, was \u2018killed\u2019 (silenced), the \u2018body\u2019 quickly \u2018cremated\u2019 (handed over to one of Rajapaksa\u2019s stooges), and the \u2018ashes\u2019 scattered in the President\u2019s House (Palace) and \u2018Temple Trees\u2019 (so that the President and his brother can keep an eye on them to make sure they do not rise again (get back into circulation and be a thorn in the flesh)).<\/p>\n \u2018Temple Trees\u2019 is the official residence of the Prime Minister \u2013 now acquired by the President presumably because the vast President\u2019s House in the Colombo Fort is which I know very well, is not \u2018enough\u2019 for President Rajapaksa<\/a>. I gather he sleeps there and then drifts into Temple Trees later in the day. The rightful occupant, the Prime Minister, has been tossed out to, God knows where.<\/p>\n The assassin of The Sunday Leader<\/a> <\/em><\/span>has not been identified but the bloody footprints lead to the Rajapaksa junta and theColombo stock market.<\/p>\n Rumour has it that the Colombo stock market mafia<\/a><\/span> raised Rs 190 million, in addition to Rs 100 million given as a bank loan by the President. It is difficult to believe that\u00a0\u00a0Gotabaya Rajapaksa<\/a><\/span>, who recently called the Sunday Leader \u2018a fucking newspaper\u2019<\/em> and the Editor-in-Chief \u201ca dirty fucking shit journalist<\/a><\/span>\u201d<\/em> was not applauding.<\/p>\n The stock market involvement was that if The Sunday Leader<\/em> was silenced, there would be no more exposure of the crooked dealings that go on there.<\/p>\n A murder waiting to happen<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The murder of this Newspaper was waiting to happen as was the murder of its Founder\/Editor, the outstanding Lasantha Wickrematunge, fearless and irrepressible. He was butchered in broad daylight in a suburban road in Colomboon 8th<\/sup> January 2009. The blood-drenched footprints of the \u2018unknown assassins\u2019 led to the Ministry of Defence.<\/p>\n The Sunday Leader<\/em> has exposed what no other paper has dared to do \u2013 the corruption, nepotism, lack of governance, the replacement of the rule of law by the rule of the armed thug with political protection, the demise of press freedom, the dismantling of democracy and its replacement by a Fascist State, or worse, a Totalitarian State, where the rulers (and their stooges) do not recognise the word \u2018accountability\u2019.<\/p>\n Lasantha Wickrematunge<\/a><\/span>\u2019s courage, resolve and commitment have been widely recognised. In 2009 he was posthumously awarded the UNESCO\/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize and the Louise Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism of Harvard University\u2019s Nieman Foundation, the James Cameron Memorial Trust Award, and the American National Press Club\u2019s John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award. In 2010 he was declared a World Press Freedom Hero of the International Press Institute.<\/p>\n Although these were personal awards, they were also a reflection of the outstanding contribution that The<\/em> Sunday Leader <\/em>had made to expose what was going on in the (inappropriately called) Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n Editor in Chief<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n After Wickrematunge\u2019s murder, his widow, Sonali Samarasinghe, an outstanding fellow journalist who had married him only 2 months earlier, was expected to take over as Editor. \u00a0However, a\u00a0month later \u00a0she (wisely) left the country, calling herself an “editor in exile”. She is now a Nieman Fellow at the world renowned Harvard University in the USA.<\/p>\n Frederica Jansz<\/a><\/span> another distinguished award-winning journalist, took over as the Editor-in-Chief, and went down the same path \u2013 unbowed and unafraid.\u00a0 Jansz\u00a0 was the \u201cZonta Woman of the Year in Media and Mass Communication\u201d in\u00a0 2002, and \u201cJournalist of the Year and English Journalist of the Year\u201d in 2004.<\/p>\n On July 5th<\/sup>, 2012, Jansz called Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the Defence Secretary, to ask him whether he was aware that a Sri Lanka Airline plane was to be down-sized to enable a junior pilot who was dating Rajapaksa\u2019s niece, to fly a puppy fromZurich toColombo for his wife. Some 56 passengers would have had to be off loaded with a consequent loss of revenue to the taxpayer \u2013 a matter of public concern.<\/p>\n Mr Rajapaksa said \u201cI will sue your fucking newspaper\u201d <\/em>(if any of this was published).<\/em> He went on in gutter language; \u201cYour type of journalists are pigs who eat shit. Shit! Shit! Shit journalists\u201d,<\/em> and then called her \u201cyou dirty fucking shit journalist\u201d. <\/em>Jansz rightly published the entire interview \u201cGota Goes Berserk\u201d.<\/p>\n I have done a sentence by sentence analysis of this interview[2]<\/a> and raised the possibility of a medical\/psychiatric\/personality disorder being responsible for his outburst. There is, in fact, a recently described disorder, \u201cIntermittent Explosive Disorder in Adults\u201d<\/span> that would (medically) fit the outburst.<\/p>\n Others eg \u2018Friday Forum\u2019, a civilian group inColombowith some distinguished people in it, have called for the sacking of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.<\/p>\n There is no way that the de facto<\/em> President would be replaced by his brother. It was much more likely that the newspaper, The<\/em> Sunday Leader,<\/em> would be silenced.<\/p>\n That happened on Friday 21 September 2012. The newspaper was taken over by businessman Asanga Seneviratne (no relative \u2013 thank God), who sacked Frederica Jansz. \u2018Problem solved\u2019. It is not too different to the mass slaughter of Tamil civilians in the North and East and making the remaining people into \u2018non-people\u2019. \u2018Ethnic problem \u2018solved\u2019.<\/p>\n There has been speculation as to whether Jansz resigned or was sacked. In an interview with JDS (Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka)[3]<\/a>, she clarified the situation:<\/p>\n FJ<\/strong>: I did not resign.\u00a0 My contract was terminated with immediate effect on Friday September 21.\u00a0 It followed after Asanga Seneviratne, the new owner, told me that articles carried in the main section of The Sunday Leader<\/em> are slanderous and malicious of the “First Family” and “degrade the President.” He asked me to stop being critical of the Rajapaksas and even stop carrying cartoons depicting the President in lighter vein.<\/p>\n He then took strong objection to two \u2018nutshells\u2019 carried in the newspaper on Sunday September 16 which he told police, in a subsequent complaint made together with Sajin Vass Gunewardena, not only embarrassed him, but could evoke public emotions and incite violence against the President.\u00a0The two nutshells in question are age old jokes rephrased to suit the local political situation.<\/p>\n I maintained to Seneviratne that The Sunday Leader<\/em> has no personal or political agenda against the President nor any other politician or individual but that the type of journalism we practice is independent and devoid of any bias.\u00a0 That we as journalists are merely performing our duty in acting as messengers, holding those in political and public office accountable.\u00a0 But Seneviratne refused to understand or accept this position.\u00a0 I then had conveyed to him that I had no intention of resigning given that I had done no wrong, that he could terminate my services if he so wished.<\/p>\n JDS:<\/em><\/strong> Since the assassination of\u00a0 Lasantha, there was quite a lot of speculation regarding the fate of The Sunday Leader. One of the widely circulated rumours was that the newspaper is going to end up in the hands of Rajapaksa loyalists – which now appears to be quite true. Could you tell us how all this happened?<\/em><\/p>\n FJ<\/strong>: It is indeed ironical that it was I who first approached Asanga Seneviratne.\u00a0 I did so asking him what the possibilities were of raising an IPO[4]<\/a> since the newspaper was in dire financial constraints. He readily agreed.\u00a0 For one and a half years negotiations were conducted with him and Lal Wickrematunge[5]<\/a> in this context.\u00a0 However, at some point Wickrematunge was told an IPO would not be possible. Seneviratne then said he had identified 5 or 6 investors and that there would be a private placement.\u00a0 This too however did not transpire and ultimately he emerged as the sole investor buying a majority share of 72%.\u00a0 He, in September last year, maintained to both Lal and me that he raised the monies from two private banks.<\/p>\n Much more serious than the silencing of a newspaper<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n It is crucial to appreciate that what has been done is not just the silencing of a newspaper that has questioned the activities of the ruling junta (present and past). It is evidence of a fascist dictatorship \u2013 a Totalitarian regime that is in power inSri Lanka. I will expand on this at some length, because it is serious.<\/p>\n Dictatorships and the Free Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n In all dictatorships, targeting the free press begins with political pressure for the media to present news in a way that supports the group in power. Political pressure escalates into smears designed to shame the offending media, then members of the media personally; then editors face pressure to fire journalists who do not parrot the ruling party line, and then it is murder by \u2018unknown\u2019 assassins (who are not too \u2018unknown\u2019 in Sri Lanka).<\/p>\n Such regimes promote false news in a systematic campaign of disinformation, and go after independent voices.<\/p>\n The result is a mass exodus of media people out of the country. Those who remain become journalists and editors who support the ruling junta, whether out of conviction, a wish for advancement, fear or simply for survival.<\/p>\n All of this (and more) has occurred in the \u2018Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka\u2019, which is neither \u2018Democratic\u2019 nor \u2018Socialist\u2019. .<\/p>\n The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York based media watchdog, in a special report, stated thatSri Lankatopped the list of countries that drove the largest number of journalists into exile.<\/p>\n Even after the end of the decades long war, the Rajapaksa junta has continued to intimidate and attack journalists. Independent journalists in Sri Lankasay they still feel threatened and intimidated.Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for independent journalists.<\/p>\n Although CPJ stated that 39 Sri Lankan journalists had been driven out of the country into exile, the actual number is far higher.<\/p>\n Joel Simon, Executive Director of CPJ, said, “This is a sad reality in countries throughout the world where governments allow attacks on the press to go unpunished.”<\/em><\/p>\n Frederica Jansz\u2019s life is very definitely under threat, with Gotabaya Rajapaksa openly calling for her murder \u2013\u201cpeople will kill you\u201d<\/em>. She applied for entry intoAustralia. This \u00a0\u00a0was rejected by the Australian Embassy inColombo which claimed, on some extraordinary reasoning, that a threat to be murdered was not persecution. No, it was not \u2018persecution\u2019 but someone who needed protection. Presumably her dead body will have to be produced for her to be declared a person in this category.<\/p>\n Echoes from the past <\/span><\/strong>\u2013 Fascist dictatorships<\/span><\/strong>[6]<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cAs long as I have a pen in my hand and a revolver in my pocket I fear no man\u201d, <\/em>wrote Mussolini[7]<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, <\/em>who had been a newspaper editor.<\/p>\n Every fascist leader in history has sought aggressively to control the press and been successful at securing that control in short order.<\/p>\n In 1923, Fascist leaders (\u2018Prefects\u2019 as they were called) were permitted by the leadership in Rome to take possession of newspapers and demand fines from the publishers if they published anything that could \u201cdamage national credit at home or abroad, alarm and dismay public opinion, and so disturb \u201corder\u201d<\/em>. (One might note that Defence Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, sued Lasantha Wickrematunge the owner\/editor of the Sunday Leader, <\/em>demanding a sum of money, which if awarded, would have forced the Paper to bankruptcy and closure).<\/p>\n The Fascist edict that provided for this is ambiguously worded \u2013 as many Fascist (and Sri Lankan) edicts are \u2013 was to ensure that the press would curtail its own freedom. Mussolini created a registry to make sure the Italian press toed the party line: All reporters had to register as Fascists by 1928.<\/p>\n This method was adopted precisely by the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Josef Goebbels PhD. He was first a journalist and then a bank clerk. He perfected Hitler\u2019s \u2018Big Lie\u2019 technique of propaganda \u2013 that a lie if audacious enough and repeated enough times, will be believed by the masses.<\/p>\n Mussolini justified this control of the press in the name of patriotism: \u201cDiscipline over the news<\/em>\u201d, he claimed, \u201cserved in the interests of the nation\u201d<\/em>[8]<\/a>.<\/em> The Rajapaksa junta in Sri Lanka today (2012), has followed Mussolini (and Hitler) precisely.\u00a0 <\/em> So with the Rajapaksa junta today. It has absolute control over every medium, be it print, TV or radio. They have become a massive, \u2018Cheer the Rajapaksas\u2019 industry.<\/p>\n Where democracy is being dismantled, reporters are arrested for revealing \u201cstate secrets<\/em>\u201d or \u201cclassified information<\/em>\u201d. In 1931, for instance, the influential left-wing editor Carl Ossietzky was sentenced to eighteen months in prison for publishing documents that the German army engaged in combat in a manner that violated the Treaty of Versailles. He was arrested, released, rearrested, tortured throughout the Nazi era and, despite an international outcry and a Nobel Prize, died from the abuse he suffered.[10]<\/a><\/p>\n The prison term in Rajapaksa\u2019s Sri Lankais longer. J.S.Tissainayagam, a Sri Lankan Tamil journalist, was detained by the Terrorism Investigation Division of the Sri Lanka Police<\/a> on March 7, 2008. He was held without charge for almost 6 months and then indicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act<\/a> for intending to incite communal violence through his writing (which was nonsense). On August 31, 2009 he was convicted by the Colombo High Court and sentenced to 20 years<\/span> rigorous imprisonment. It shows to what an abyss the High Court has sunk.<\/p>\n On 15 September 2009 Tissainayagam launched an appeal<\/a> against his conviction in the Court of Appeal.\u00a0With mounting international pressure, which included concern expressed by US President Barack Obama, he was released on bail<\/a> by the Court on 11 January 2010 on medical grounds. Note \u2013 \u2018medical grounds\u2019 rather than that he was not guilty of any offence.<\/p>\n On May 3, 2010, World Press Freedom Day<\/a>, Tissainayagam was \u2018pardoned<\/a>\u2019 by\u00a0\u00a0 President Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/a> for a crime he had not committed.\u00a0After his release he moved to the United States<\/a> \u2013 the loss of yet another outstanding journalist.<\/p>\n During the 1933 purges in Germany, Goebbels fired 13% of the State radio employees in six months. They were not only Jews but also Liberals, Social Democrats, and others not in harmony with the new regime. Reporters who were seen as being friendly to the prior liberal broadcasting regime were arrested on corruption charges and taken to Oranienberg concentration camp, where they were condemned in a huge show trial[11]<\/a>.<\/p>\n In Rajapaksa\u2019s Sri Lanka, journalists under attack (physically, verbally, and by the government-controlled media) are not only Tamils but Sinhalese, Muslims, Burghers and non-Sri Lankans too. They are arrested on corruption charges (Tissainayagam was falsely accused of sending money to the Tamil Tigers). They are not taken to concentration camps but \u2018disappear\u2019 (\u201cwhite-vanned\u201d) or are simply murdered in broad daylight (eg Lasantha Wickrematunge). The Nazi regime is not only being copied but enhanced.<\/p>\n From 2000-2007, 19 journalists and media workers (Tamils) were assassinated inJaffnaalone. They included Mylvaganam Nimalarajan, aged 38, a well-known journalist, shot dead in his home on 19 October 2000. He was theJaffnacorrespondent to the BBC (London), and the Secretary of the Northern Journalists Association. Many others, both Tamils and Sinhalese (and even cartoonists such a Pradeeth Eknaligoda) have been slaughtered or have gone missing.<\/p>\n In Communist China, after the pro-democracy protests of 1989, reporters were targeted as well. \u201cThe auth<\/em>orities harassed us, denounced us and almost expelled us from the country. Chinese have gone to prison or labor camps for terms up to life imprisonment because they helped foreign correspondents\u201d[12]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n In Rakapaksa\u2019sSri Lankathey are simply shot or go missing, because imprisonment raises international concerns (eg Tissainayagam). No one has been apprehended for any of these crimes.<\/p>\n Unsolved crimes<\/span> <\/strong><\/p>\n Bogus Commissions<\/span><\/p>\n In November 2006, Rajapaksa set up yet another bogus commission \u2013 the \u201cPresident\u2019s Commission of Inquiry to Investigate and Inquire into Alleged Serious Violations of Human Rights\u201d (COI).\u00a0 To give it some credibility, he appointed an \u00a0International Independent Group of Eminent People (IIGEP), to observe<\/em> the activities of the COI and \u2018advise\u2019 him of progress and what it was doing. It was headed by Justice P.N. Bhagwati<\/a>, a former Chief Justice of India, who was personally invited by President Rajapaksa,.<\/p>\n Having got nowhere after a year, they decided to terminate their appointment. Sir Nigel Rodley<\/a>, the British nominee, stated that some of the communications to the IIGEP, including to its chairman, were ‘very disrespectful’.<\/p>\n The IIGEP had submitted several Reports to the President (as was mandated). Nothing was done by the President who retained the right to veto publication\u00a0 of what he claimed was \u201cinformation sensitive to national security\u201d. This was especially disturbing given that Sri Lankan armed forces have been implicated in several of the killings that are to be investigated by the Commission of Inquiry. None of IIGEP reports to the President have been publicized.<\/p>\n In April 2008, the IIGEP gave up the struggle stating, among other things[13]<\/a>, that the Sri Lankan government lacked the political will to support a search for the truth.<\/p>\n If the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) finds it so difficult to track down the murderers of many innocent people eg Lasantha Wickrematunge, will it allow experts in the field such as the world famous Scotland Yard to come to Sri Lanka and do so? No, they will not, because of the fear of what will be found.<\/p>\n False news<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe great mass of people will more easily fall <\/em>victims to a big lie than a small one\u201d, <\/em>wrote Hitler in Mein Kampf.<\/em><\/p>\n Fascists rely on lies to manage public perceptions since there is no risk of these lies being scrutinised by a free press. Real reporters (such as Lasantha Wickrematunge, Sonali Samarasinghe and Frederica Jansz \u2013 among many others), are frozen out, smeared, faced with unemployment (eg Jansz), killed or driven out of the country (eg \u00a0Samarasinghe and scores of others). This is accompanied by \u2018a spectacle\u2019 to convey the \u2018message\u2019.<\/p>\n The spectacle could be anything from a massive statue of Hitler or a giant (cardboard) statue of Mahinda Rajapaksa. Goebbels coordinated the Nazi message with monumental sets, blazing lighting and heroic backdrops. They conveyed might and permanence \u2013 the thousand-year Reich that would be hopeless to contest. The Rajapaksa regime is doing exactly the same \u2013 that the Rajapaksa-regime will last forever and can never be challenged, let alone fall.<\/p>\n I have just had an email from a Sinhalese lady, \u201cIt is unbelievable that any self-respecting Head of a supposed democratic society could complacently approve this type of sycophancy to boost his ego\u201d. <\/em>I sent back a one-liner \u201cHis ego does need boosting\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n Dictatorships specialise in faking news. Hitler wrote, \u201cAll effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand\u2026.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018Good\u2019 fascist propaganda speaks to feelings, not reason, and should not allow a glimmer of doubt in its claims, or concede the tiniest element of right in the claims of others.<\/p>\n On 10th<\/sup> May 1940, Colonel Joachim von Ribbentrop explained to a press conference that the Reich had found it necessary to send its troops to invade the Low Countries in order to safeguard the neutrality ofBelgium andHolland. That was, of course, arrant nonsense.<\/p>\n After the election of the Rajapaksa regime to power in November 2005, Lieutenant Colonel Gotabaya Rajapaksa RWP, RSP, PSC, and-anything-else-he-cares-to-add, Defence Secretary, the President\u2019s brother, indicated that a massive military was necessary to \u2018liberate\u2019 the Tamil people in the North and East of Sri Lanka from \u2018terrorism\u2019. The State terrorism that was unleashed was done with all witnesses excluded from the conflict area \u2013 genocide without witnesses. This has been well-documented in the Report of the UN Secretary\u2019s Panel of Experts (UNSG) on accountability inSri Lankain the closing stages of the armed conflict.<\/p>\n Nazi propagandists falsely claimed that three million ethnic (Sudeten) Germans in Czechoslovakiawere being persecuted and abused. The Rajapaksa propagandists falsely claimed that the Tamil people in the North and East were being abused by the Tamil Tigers and had to be \u2018rescued\u2019. The reality was that there was a fully functional de facto<\/em> State in the Tamil North and East which Professor Kristian Stokke, Professor of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Norway, has documented in his outstanding publication, Building the Tamil Eelam State: Emerging State Institutions and Forms of Governance in LTTE-controlled Areas in Sri Lanka.<\/em>[14]<\/a><\/p>\n President Rajapaksa claims that what was done was the biggest \u2018rescue operation\u2019 in history and that not a single civilian was killed. The UNSG (and several international human rights organizations) have a different view. What the President said was a bald-faced lie, or as epistemologists might delicately put it, \u201chis proposition does not correspond to the facts\u201d.<\/p>\n Getting into the absurd, the President claimed, before thousands of people in Colombo, some of them foreign diplomats, that his soldiers went to war with a gun in one hand and the Human Rights Convention in the other! He went on to say that he \u2018loved the Tamil people\u2019. In reality, he is the most virulent anti-Tamil racist to be the Head of a Government inSri Lanka.<\/p>\n The Tamil people (whom the President \u2018loves\u2019) are the \u2019spoils of war\u2019 and the area they live in, the North and East, is a vast Military\/Police State ruled by one of the most brutal, murderous and irresponsible Armies in the world, under Gotabaya Rajapaksa, \u2018Defence Secretary\u2019, who can do what he wants, to whom he wants, with greater power and less accountability than anyone else. This public servant can call a senior journalist \u201ca fucking shit<\/em>\u201d and get away with it.\u00a0The Minister of Defence and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, under whom this man presumably works, is the President, Mahinda Rajapaksa. The Sunday Leader<\/em> has exposed all this – \u2018unbowed and unafraid\u2019. There has certainly been a price to pay.<\/p>\n Kristian Stokke\u2019s Emerging State<\/em> has become a vast open prison where the residents have no homes, no jobs, no income and no future, and whose basic human rights have been violated as never before in any part of Sri Lanka. The Sunday Leader <\/em>has exposed all this \u2013 one of the few, if not the only newspaper, to do so.<\/p>\n After Augusto Pinochet\u2019s coup inChile, the coup leaders showed photographs of arms caches claimed to have been found in the homes of the leaders of the opposition party. None of this was true. They also published a \u201cwhite book\u201d on \u201cPlan Z\u201d \u2013 an elaborate conspiracy they claimed had been set in motion to kill the elected Chilean leaders simultaneously. Some Chileans believed that \u201cPlan Z\u201d was real; others believed that the charges were trumped up to provide an excuse to take over the country. It really did not matter.<\/p>\n It does not matter<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n After a certain point in a fascist state, it does not matter whether most people believe the faked news or not \u2013 they do not have good enough information to assess what is real and what is not. Sri Lankahas reached this point. With the silencing of The<\/em> Sunday Leader<\/em> and journalists such as Lasantha Wickrematunga and Frederica Jansz, the situation is set to deteriorate further, and rapidly.<\/p>\n In such a situation, citizens no longer feel empowered or able to establish the truth. At this point people can be manipulated into supporting any<\/em> State action. Truth itself has been cheapened, made subjective and internal, not absolute and external.<\/p>\n Why it does <\/em>matter <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n How does a government\u2019s lying help a fascist State? What has this to do with democracy, good governance or human rights?<\/p>\n \u201cI am not a dictator\u201d, <\/em>said Hitler in 1936. \u201cI have only simplified democracy\u201d[15]<\/a>. <\/em>There was no Sunday Leader<\/em> inGermany to challenge that.<\/p>\n Democracy depends on a social agreement that we take for granted and is rarely discussed. However, there is<\/span> such a thing as \u2018truth\u2019. In an open society, facts may be hedged and \u2018spun\u2019 in favour of those who rule. However, truth is the ground from which this hedging and spinning begins. Democracy depends on accountability; accountability requires us to be able to distinguish truth from lies. So, truth does<\/span><\/em> matter. If the ground of democracy is truth, the ground of a dictatorship is assertion. In a dictatorship, reality belongs to whoever has the greatest power to assert it. InSri Lanka \u2013 the Rajapaksa junta.<\/p>\n An ordinary lie distorts or hides the truth; a fascist lie is an assertion that truth is not a marker anymore. When The Sunday Leader <\/em>editor Frederica Jansz telephoned Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa on July 5th<\/sup>, 2012 to get his side of the story about a puppy to be flown down from Zurich for his wife, she was trying to get to the truth. His response was \u201cI will sue your fucking newspaper\u201d.<\/em>\u00a0 When she asked, \u201cMr Rajapaksa are you threatening me?\u201d<\/em> He replied \u201cYes\u201d, a<\/em>nd hung up.<\/p>\n That is a fascist dictatorship. Gotabaya Rajapaksa is a public servant bound by an Establishments code which has standards of conduct set by the Public Service Commission. Violation of these standards of behaviour calls for explanations, disciplinary action, resignation or termination of appointment. To call a member of the public, \u201cYou pig that eats shit. You shit! Shit! Dirty fucking journalist\u201d, <\/em>is a violation of the Establishment code.<\/p>\n Dissent is \u201cTreason\u201d. <\/em>Criticism is \u201cTerrorism\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n In every fascist State, words and protests have different meanings. They become \u201ctreason\u201d, \u201cespionage\u201d, \u201csubversion\u201d, \u201csabotage\u201d <\/em>and, of course, \u201cterrorism\u201d. <\/em>\u2018Slander\u2019 prepares the ground first. In Stalin\u2019sRussia, criticism of the State was first defined as \u201cslander\u201d and then redefined as \u201ctreason\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cSabotage\u201d <\/em>is another of these code words. Stalin\u2019s mass arrests of 1937 frequently accused people of \u2018sabotage\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cTreason\u201d <\/em>and now, \u201cterrorism<\/em>\u201d, are used to criminalise citizens themselves. They suddenly become \u201cenemies of the people\u201d, \u201cdisturbers of the peace\u201d, \u201csubversives\u201d, \u201csaboteurs\u201d and \u201cspies\u201d. <\/em>Hitler called Nazism \u201ca voice crying \u2018treason\u2019<\/em>\u201d. Hitler\u2019s SA[16]<\/a> arrested people as \u201ctraitors\u201d and \u201cspies\u201d. Mussolini\u2019s \u2018Brownshirts\u2019 boasted, \u201cWe will defend <\/em>(Italy) against its enemies and traitors\u201d. <\/em>In 1915, the fascist Gabriele D\u2019Annunzio[17]<\/a> railed against those who opposed him in Parliament \u201cHear me \u2013 heed me \u2013 treason is out in the open today\u201d.[18]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Hitler needed a private army, the SA (Sturm Abteilung) which was instructed to disrupt meetings of political opponents and to protect Hitler from revenge attack. It was later purged and replaced by the SS (Schutz Staffeinel) which rapidly grew under Himmler. The Rajapaksas do not need any of this. Their \u2018private army\u2019 is the entire Armed Forces in Sri Lanka except for the unfortunate few who backed the wrong horse, General Sarath Fonseka who contested Rajapaksa for the Presidency, and are paying for it. This vast 230,000 strong Armed Force, the \u2018private army\u2019 of the Rajapaksas, will do anything that their masters command, including commit genocide, crimes against humanity and violation of international law, including the \u2018Laws of War\u2019. They are rewarded \u2013 well. Many are sent abroad as Ambassadors. Others can fleece the people, plunder their property, kill them or rape them. They can do what they want with no accountability. I am not talking of war-time but of \u2018peace-time\u2019 Sri Lanka. This (and more) is what The Sunday Leader <\/em>and Daily Mirror<\/em> have pointed out \u2013 for which they have paid a price.<\/p>\n This massive army and police (said to be the most corrupt in the world) are ably \u2018assisted\u2019 with a huge \u2018army\u2019 of hoodlums and thugs, some of them Tamils, but most of them Sinhalese. They all have assured immunity from prosecution from their masters in the Government. They are the Government\u2019s hit-squads, and \u2018white vanners\u2019 who make people \u2018disappear\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cTreason\u201d, \u201cespionage\u201d <\/em>and \u201csubversion\u201d<\/em> did their work in Czechoslovakia, Chile, and China. They are certainly doing their job in Rajapaksa\u2019s Sri Lanka. Vaclav Havel found that he had committed a crime by writing articles critical of the Czech state. It was called \u201cdisturbing the peace\u201d and \u201csubversion\u201d. Havel returned to prison in \u201can unsuccessful attempt to put me out of circulation, with the help of a fabricated indictment for disturbing the peace<\/span>\u2026\u2026. Like most of my colleagues I was driven out of every possible position I\u2019d once held, I was branded as an enemy and I was even indicted for subversion <\/em>(there was no trial or a conviction)[19]<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Sri Lankan State has followed this to the letter \u2013 not only in describing The Sunday Leader<\/em> but all of us who have been critical of what has gone on, and is still going on in Sri Lanka, and critical reports by internationally credible human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group as \u2018terrorists\u2019. Unbelievably, it extends to entire countries <\/span>and even the UN Human Rights Council, if they are critical of the Rajapaksa regime. The Rajapaksa junta and its loyal \u2018patriotic\u2019 supporters claim that \u201cIt is a plot against Sri Lanka\u201d<\/em> by foreign countries and even by the UN Human Rights Council.<\/p>\n The GoSL mounted a hysterical campaign at home and abroad at the supposed \u201cinternational conspiracy to tarnish the country\u2019s name<\/em>\u201d. The propaganda barrage at home in Sri Lanka is aimed at silencing any opposition, including mounting strikes and protests by workers at the escalating cost of living (thanks to the stipulations of the massive IMF loan), branding it as part of the so-called \u2018conspiracy\u2019.<\/p>\n Targeting key individuals and institutions<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n All dictators and would-be dictators target key individuals. It could result in a job loss (eg Frederica Jansz), a career set-back, a \u2018disappearance\u2019, an \u2018accidental\u2019 death or just a straightforward murder (eg <\/em>Lasantha Wickrematunge owner\/editor of The Sunday Leader<\/em>, Joseph Pararajasingham, Member of Parliament, the most vocal and articulate member of the Tamil National Alliance who was gunned down in Church on Christmas Day 2005 in front of hundreds of people and the Bishop of Trincomalee\/Batticaloa, by para-military murderers working with the Government. They are only a few who have paid the ultimate price.<\/p>\n It is very significant that the targeted \u2018key individuals\u2019 in the media listed for murder or sacking are Editors-in-Chief of their newspapers \u2013 Lasantha Wickrematunga (The Sunday Leader),<\/em> Frederica Jansz (his successor), and Champika Liyanaarchchi (Daily Mirror).<\/em> To these can be added <\/em>Mylvaganam Nimalarajan, the Jaffna correspondent of the BBC (London), and the Secretary of the Northern Journalists Association, Prageeth Ekneligoda – a leading journalist and cartoonist, Sivaram Dharmeratnam (Taraki) an outstanding Tamil journalist who was forced into a car in Colombo, beaten and then shot, the body dumped behind Parliament!\u00a0 On October 4, 2012, two years after Ekneligoda disappeared, The Sunday Leader <\/em>\u00a0ran a detailed story to remind us about, \u201cThe Journalist who disappeared into the night\u201d<\/em>. More disappearances will follow \u2013 but there will be no reminders since The Sunday Leader <\/em>will not be there to do the \u2018reminding\u2019.<\/p>\n Universities keep alight the campfires of free speech. Not surprisingly, Dictators target university students and even senior university staff. Professor Subramanium Raveendranath, Vice-Chancellor,BatticaloaUniversity, on a visit toColombowent missing from a a \u2018High Security Zone\u2019 inColomboon December 15, 2006. Three months earlier, Dr Bala Sugamar, Dean of the Arts Faculty of the same University was abducted in Batticaloa. Those who abducted him said that he would be released if Professor Raveendaranath resigned. He did not resign (nor should he have), so he \u2018disappeared\u2019 when he visitedColombo.<\/p>\n Rajapaksa\u2019s \u2018Democracy\u2019 has targeted dozens of university students, especially activists. The most glaring was Subramanium Thavapalasingham, President of the Jaffna Students Union, who was widely known as a civil rights activist who had spoken out against oppression faced by residents in the North and Eastern provinces which are under heavy military control. He was abducted and severely assaulted on 16th<\/sup> October, 2011. Asian Human Rights Commission has expressed serious concern.[20]<\/a><\/p>\n These are echoes of Fascism. On May 1, 1933, the New Studentenrecht<\/em> law was passed in Germany to use student organisations to \u2018align\u2019 universities with the values of the National Socialist state.[21]<\/a><\/p>\n In times of pressure, such as in Rajapaksa\u2019sSri Lanka, citizens can soon tell \u201cwhich way the wind is blowing\u201d and realign themselves and their views. If citizens can be shown they can lose their livelihood if that refuse to comply with the party line, it does not take long to \u2018coordinate\u2019 an intimidated civil society. This is certainly happening in Rajapaksa\u2019sSri Lanka.<\/p>\n Italian Fascists leaned on university rectors to scrutinise the politics of those they oversaw.Germanyemulated the tactic. The National Socialist German Students\u2019 League was set up in 1926. It sought to get independent professors fired and to direct university resources towards Nazi goals.<\/p>\n Chilean students were among the few who dared to protest, attacking Pinochet after his military coup. But Pinochet purged nonaligned academics and university administrators and put his own military officers in these positions. It was obvious to Chilean academics that they had to support the junta or give up their careers.[22]<\/a><\/p>\n Whether driven by Mussolini, Goebbels, Pinochet orChina\u2019s politburo, it is always the same tactic. The State leans on university administrators, who lean on professors, who lean on students.\u00a0 The Rajapaksa regime is following this to the letter.<\/p>\n Students and academics are always democracy\u2019s foot soldiers: Czech students helped to bring about the Prague Spring democracy movement. Students inShanghaiandBeijingled the democracy movement in 1989: Chinese art students set up the statue ofLibertyinTiananmen Square. In another conflict in which I was personally involved, it was Indonesian students who supported theEast Timoruprising against the Indonesian dictatorship that ruled that country \u2013 which resulted in a free Timor-Leste.<\/p>\n All of this is crucially important since ifSri Lanka(and democracy) is to be rescued from Rajapaksa\u2019s tyrannical regime, students will have to be the foot soldiers, indeed they might well have to lead it.<\/p>\n Draconian Laws<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Often laws that criminalise dissent in a fascist state are enacted quietly and seemingly justifiably.<\/p>\n The draconian
\nMussolini understood that it was crucial to get control of public radio \u2013 which at that time was the only non-print medium. By 1925, he created an investigative commission, the EIAR[9]<\/a>, to tighten control of public radio. A substantial Fascist film industry was developed after 1933.<\/p>\n