{"id":68348,"date":"2013-01-08T14:51:25","date_gmt":"2013-01-08T14:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=68348"},"modified":"2019-01-06T02:07:41","modified_gmt":"2019-01-05T20:37:41","slug":"the-politics-of-the-decision-to-kill-lasantha-according-to-wife-its-not-related-to-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-politics-of-the-decision-to-kill-lasantha-according-to-wife-its-not-related-to-journalism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Politics Of The Decision To Kill Lasantha"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Politics Of The Decision To Kill Lasantha – According To Wife It’s Not Related To Journalism<\/strong><\/p>\n

By\u00a0Uvindu Kurukulasuriya<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Uvindu Kurukulasuriya<\/p><\/div>\n

Lasantha Wickrematunge<\/a><\/span>, friend and fellow-journalist, was assassinated 4 years ago.\u00a0\u00a0To date, his murderers remain unknown.\u00a0\u00a0Investigations have been inconclusive. When the former Army Chief, General Sarath Fonseka<\/a><\/span> broke away from the regime, the government publicly accused him of the Lasantha killing. For instance, the Government MP Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha<\/a><\/span>* told BBC that the Defence Attach\u00e9 of the British High Commission (BHC) in Colombo “gave a note” that accused the then Gen Fonseka of being responsible for that assassination. As the BBC reported<\/a><\/span> the British authorities have neither denied nor confirmed Prof. Wijesinha\u2019s statement. Two weeks ago when I interviewed Ranil Wickremesinghe<\/a><\/span> he confirmed what he said at Lasantha\u2019s funeral. He re-confirmed that the killers were four army persons. But in my opinion, even if Fonseka is responsible for the Lasantha killing what are the steps the other two people above him have taken so far? The President himself is the Minister of Defence, His brother Gotabaya<\/a><\/span> is the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence, both positioned above Fonseka. Killing Lasantha cannot be one of Fonseka\u2019s own decisions.\u00a0 He may have deployed the killers but killing such a high profile journalist is a political decision. That is why nothing is happening about his killing, I am forced to conclude.<\/p>\n

Lasantha\u2019s assassination intensified calls for media freedom. He was honoured, posthumously, with several prestigious international awards pertaining to media freedom. The newspaper of which he was founder editor, \u2018The Sunday Leader\u2019, is now owned by a close associate of Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/a><\/span>. Four years later, then, more questions have been raised which \u00a0answers have been obtained.\u00a0What was the politics of the decision to kill Lasantha? I ask this question as a friend of many years, and yet the questions that I am compelled to raise are startling. Lasantha, wasn’t just a journalist; he led a complicated life, and had many faces. His political practices were complex; sifting through the details may guide us closer to his killer’s motives.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Many people asked me who wrote the Sunday Leader editorial which was claimed to be one written by Lasantha just before he was assassinated and published in the Sunday Leader posthumously. The day after the murder, I went to Sonali\u2019s house where Lasantha\u2019s body was and asked her sister where\u00a0Sonali was. She told me that Sonali \u2018was upstairs finalising the editorial with someone else\u2019. The same question was answered by Lal, Lasantha\u2019s elder brother who was also Chairman of Leader Publications. On January 17, 2009 , in the London Times, which published Lasantha\u2019s posthumous editorial\u00a0with a disclaimer by Lal, where he admitted that \u201830-40 per cent was written by the staff, including the headline and the words \u2018AND THEN THEY CAME FOR ME<\/a><\/span>\u2019.<\/p>\n

This cast considerable doubt on the authenticity of the document. It was suggested that Lasantha’s computer be checked to figure out when he wrote it (if he did) and what percentage of the document was his work.\u00a0\u00a0I don\u2019t know if anyone took the trouble to do this.\u00a0\u00a0If someone had done so, then that someone has not revealed the truth, either way.\u00a0\u00a0All I know and what anyone who worked at the Sunday Leader knows, is that Lasantha never wrote editorials. Some claimed that the entire editorial was written by someone else.\u00a0\u00a0Multiple sources came up with the same name, but since I couldn\u2019t contact him I will leave that issue aside for the moment.<\/p>\n

There is evidence that Lasantha was enticed into renewing his long standing relationship with the President, — first formed as he sought political gossip as a journalist years ago–\u00a0 in several intimate meetings with Rajapaksa shortly before he was killed. In fact, after his death, the President claimed that Lasantha was one of his very good friends and that they met often, usually around midnight. Lasantha had even played a recorded conversation he had had with Dr Kumar Rupasinghe<\/a><\/span>. Few believed this claim, offering that the President was just trying to cover up the murder and absolve himself of involvement by portraying Lasantha as a friend.<\/p>\n

But in fact, Lasantha had played the record of the said conversation and Rajapaksa had telephoned Kumar and criticised him for double dealing. Around the same time Victor Ivan<\/a><\/span>, the Editor of the \u2018Ravaya\u2019 told me on the phone: \u201cYour friend Lasantha is meeting Rajapaksa secretly, and not just meeting but passing recorded conversations to the President\u201d. He said \u201cAsk Lasantha, he is your friend\u201d. Angry Rupasinghe also rang me and confirmed the story.\u00a0 I rang Lasantha and asked him and he, as was his usual manner, laughed and never said anything. What I found later was that Lasantha had met the President with his friends Pasan Madanayake and Eliyantha White.<\/p>\n

I remember having a conversation with the Leader of the Opposition Ranil Wickremasinghe, former Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera<\/a><\/span> and Lasantha in a niche of the 80 Club.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This was on September 6, 2008, at Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu<\/a>‘s<\/span>\u00a050th birthday celebration. I told them that the President had invited me to meet him<\/a><\/span>. Lasantha opposed it and said \u201cdon\u2019t go\u201d. I said \u201cI\u2019m not meeting a friend, it is the President of this country I\u2019m going to meet\u00a0as the Convenor of the Free Media Movement and also I\u2019m not going alone\u201d. He continued to press me not to go. And yet, all the while he had been meeting\u00a0 Rajapaksa secretly. It turned out that Lasantha was showing another face to us.<\/p>\n

I asked the leader of the opposition, Ranil Wickremasinghe, whether he knew Lasantha was meeting Rajapaksa secretly. He told me Lasantha never told him about it, but when he found it out and asked Lasantha about those meetings, Lasantha had admitted meeting the President.<\/p>\n

Regardless of all this, I was convinced that Lasantha\u2019s assassination was purely related to his fearless journalism. Rajapaksa wanted to silence Lasantha, I thought. The Sri Lankan media, across the board, tried to cover up the fact that Rajapaksa wanted to buy the Sunday Leader while Lasantha was alive. It was only I who exposed it after Lasantha was killed. I wrote to Index on Censorship<\/a><\/span> about the deal:<\/p>\n

\u201cNot long before Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrematunge was killed, his brother Lal, chairman of the Leader Group, received a call from a Deputy Minister, Faizer Mustapha<\/a><\/span>. Faizer said he would be coming to the company\u2019s offices with some important news. He came as promised and asked Lal to get into his vehicle, telling him that they could talk while travelling. Lal was nonplussed, but got in. Faizer ordered his driver to drive on. A vehicle packed with security personnel followed. All at once, the vehicle with Lal inside turned sharply into Temple Trees, where President Rajapaksa was in residence. Lal found himself in the presence of the President. ‘How are you Lal? Let\u2019s come to the point straight away. What is the selling price of the Leader Publications?’ Lal didn\u2019t understand what was happening. ‘Let\u2019s close the deal for 400 million rupees,’ the President had said. He told Lal to make a decision quickly. When Lasantha, who had been away, returned to Sri Lanka Lal explained to him what had happened. Lasantha was furious. The proposal went ignored. \u00a0It may be that the President wanted to silence Lasantha by offering to buy the newspaper at a price far above its real value. President Rajapaksa called Lasantha a ‘terrorist journalist’ in an interview with Reporters Without Borders in October 2008. He said the same thing to me in September 2009, tagging Lasantha as a ‘Kotiyek’ (a Tiger) during a meeting I had with him<\/a><\/span> in my then role as Convener of the Free Media Movement. ”\u00a0The State Media painted Lasantha as a \u2018traitor.\u2019 By painting him as a traitor, those who wanted him out of the scene were able to justify his murder.<\/p>\n

Much later, towards the end of 2010, once I started to work with Lasantha\u2019s second wife Sonali Samarasinghe as a consequence of a conversation we had, I started to wonder whether Lasantha\u2019s killing was purely related to his journalism or if there was more to the story.<\/p>\n

This was the time Sonali and I started a website called Lanka Independent. In the first week of June, 2011, I was writing on my findings on the disappearance of Prageeth Ekneliyagoda<\/a><\/span>. It is my considered opinion that Prageeth was not abducted due to his journalism<\/a><\/span>. I discussed this with Sonali. After listening to all the facts she suddenly said:<\/p>\n

\u00a0“Lasantha unanth maruwe journalim nisa neveyne. … Hmmm …”<\/em><\/p>\n

(\u201cEven Lasantha was killed not because of his journalism\u2026. Hmmm\u2026)<\/p>\n

Ay ?<\/em> (Why?) I asked<\/p>\n

\u201cOya danne naha. Anduva peralanna eyage thibba plan … Pissu oyata.\u00a0 Oya danne naha eyage thibba plan. Intelligence ekka karapu eva nisane. Evath Journalism neveyne uvindu!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

(You don\u2019t know. The plans he had to overthrow the government\u2026you are mad…the reason is the \u201cintelligence\u201d [read, \u2018espionage\u2019] work he was engaged in. That\u2019s also not journalism, Uvindu.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Mokakda?<\/em> ( What? ) I asked<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u2018Lasantha foreign Intelligence ekak ekka weda kala, mama passe kiyannam\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

(\u201cLasantha worked with a Foreign Intelligence Service\u2026I\u2019ll tell you later\u201d.)<\/p>\n

Quoting the above conversation we exchanged a couple of emails, but she never gave any further details.<\/p>\n

After Lasantha was killed I got to know that Lasantha was working for RAW, the Indian intelligence outfit. A couple of days before he was killed Lasantha went to meet a certain woman attached to the Indian High Commission in Colombo at 1.00 in the morning and the Sri Lankan Intelligence had followed him. That theory suggested that his killing was related to espionage. I didn\u2019t believe it. Was this the intelligence service that Sonali was referring to?\u00a0\u00a0It is not clear.<\/p>\n

But I had no reasons to disbelieve Sonali. I knew she was sober and fully in control of her senses at the time. Even after the conversation, we exchanged a couple of emails about the matter and she never retracted her claim. She was one of Lasantha\u2019s trusted colleagues, then girlfriend, then wife, and at the end, his widow. A lawyer and a diplomat, she gave up journalism once the UNP came to power and worked at the Sri Lankan High Commission in Australia. Furthermore, even after Lasantha was killed she had access to his email account. On Saturday, April 2, 2011 she wrote to me that she sent Adele Balasingham<\/a><\/span> an email from Lasantha’s email account requesting an interview and that it had bounced.\u00a0\u00a0She said perhaps Adele had changed it because that email address Lasantha had was a 2003 one, activated during the peace process.\u00a0\u00a0It was clear to me that she had access to his email account and read even emails going back to 2003 and she was in a good position to understand Lasantha\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Even though all the cables were fairly low-level classifications and\u00a0intelligence matters were not mentioned at that level, over the year I read all leaked US state department cables related to Sri Lanka in the WikiLeaks<\/a><\/span> database. But I\u00a0couldn’t\u00a0find anything related to Lasantha implying that he was a spy or working with a foreign intelligence service.\u00a0There was only one remark of that nature, but that was about another journalist, Poddala Jayantha<\/a><\/span>. The US Embassy Colombo had informed Washington that Poddala was well known to the Embassy, and had been a key contact for PAS for years. (Read the cable here<\/a><\/span>).<\/p>\n

When I talked to his brother Lal about the conversation he said he had no clue. I interviewed Lasantha\u2019s good friend, the Leader of the opposition Ranil\u00a0 Wickremasinghe; he said he didn\u2019t know that, but he had no reason to suspect that Lasantha was a spy. When interviewed Lasantha\u2019s first wife Raine, she said; \u2018I got to know this spy issue soon after he died. That is a totally baseless allegation, just another fabrication by those who are eager to tarnish his name even after death. They do it to cover up their own sins. The origin of this story may have some links to the fact that Lasantha was planning to take some evidence against a certain US citizen to the US authorities just before he was killed. If Lasantha was working for an intelligence agency, he would have been a wealthy man. We all know that Lasantha was a man who led a simple life and did not own anything of any significance.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I asked Frederica Jansz<\/a><\/span>, Lasantha\u2019s successor as the editor, she said, “Lasantha was an excellent journalist. An editor par excellence. Unfortunately, his journalism was overshadowed by political ambition, which impaired the independence of The Sunday Leader during his tenure. Soon after his death, a highly placed source confided that Lasantha was believed to have been killed not for his journalism but for his political connections and activism.\u00a0 It was rumoured that following a late night meeting with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Lasantha had been followed by local intelligence officers who allegedly saw him enter the home of a foreign intelligence agent. Rumour had it that the government suspected Lasantha of leaking sensitive information divulged to him by the President to an intelligence agent of a foreign government.”<\/p>\n

What Sonali said to me was entirely a private conversation. It is unethical to go public with a private conversation if there is no public interest justification. As Sunday Leader and Sonali claimed, Lasantha predicted his death in his \u2018posthumous editorial\u2019. That editorial may be the most printed and read editorial in the world. Two of the world\u2019s most prestigious press freedom awards were awarded posthumously given to him, the UNESCO world press freedom award and Lasantha was named 53rd IPI World Press Freedom Hero. If his wife says his killing was not related to journalism then the public should be duly informed.<\/p>\n

Related posts on Lasantha by Uvindu;<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sri Lanka: breakfast with the president<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I Finally Boarded The Plane<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Remembering Lasantha Wickrematunga<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

None other than Mahinda Rajapakse<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

On\u00a0\u00a0Prageeth Ekneliyagoda by Uvindu;<\/p>\n

Was Prageeth Abducted For His Journalism Or For Mailing Human Ash?<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Disappearance Of Ekneligoda And The Chemical Weapons Saga<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

*The following note is sent by Prof\u00a0Rajiva Wijesinha and added by Colombo Telegraph on January 9,2013<\/em><\/p>\n

My statement to the BBC was well over a year after Fonseka’s crossover and was made in passing when discussing a different issue, though characteristically they focused on this. I cannot recall the entire conversation, but my point I think was the changing approach of the British to Sarath Fonseka, which would have meant allegations of witch-hunting if the investigation had indeed revealed Fonseka complicity. It was not a public accusation, but a reminder to the BBC of double standards in their paymasters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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