Remembering Lasantha Wickramatunga - EDITORIAL

On January 8, 2022 was marked the 13th anniversary of Lasantha Wickramatunga’s assassination in broad daylight at Ratmalana while on his way to work. He was the founder editor of the popular ‘Sunday Leader’ newspaper and an outspoken critic of the then Rajapaksa regime. As one of Sri Lanka’s foremost investigative and interpretative journalists, he never pulled his punches when writing his weekly articles backed by evidence. He kept the people informed of the goings on behind the scenes of power and was too young, at the age of 50 to die, for the ‘sin’ of calling power to account. Lasantha, in his life as a journalist, epitomized, in word and deed the motto carried on the masthead of ‘The Sunday Leader’ – Unbowed and Unafraid. “Secretive power loathes journalists who do their jobs; who push back screens, peer behind facades, and lift rocks. Opprobrium from on high is their badge of honour,” says John Pilger

The following are excerpts from the article Lasantha had written a few days before he was bludgeoned to death by unidentified killers on a busy street, a few minutes’ drive from his office. The article, which was published posthumously, said it all – his mission, vision and not least of all his fears of the price he would surely have to pay for what he strongly believed in and stood for -- media independence, the freedom of expression and the right to dissent. 

“No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last,” Lasantha wrote and concluded his article with these poignantly touching words: 

“If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you a Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried”.
Even after 13 years, none of his murderers have been arrested and are probably roaming around seemingly free but shackled nevertheless, by the burden of guilt and relentlessly pursued by their conscience until the price for their crime is finally paid -- today, tomorrow or the day after. 

Meanwhile, we did make several attempts to write what follows with an optimistic outlook; but we changed track when in the background we continued to hear the cry of people struggling to survive, uncertain as to what the future holds for them given the country’s crisis situation. The other day we heard a mother (one of many) lamenting that it was impossible to provide at least two meals leave alone three  for her children amid the rapidly soaring cost of essential food items and other commodities, which have heaped more burdens on the middle and low income segments of society with the worst affected being the daily wage earners. 

Media reports give us an inkling of what the people can expect in the next few days, weeks and months. They say the continuing dollar crisis has made it difficult for the government to buy furnace oil, which in turn has crippled thermal power generation while the looming shortage of essential medicinal drugs has compelled the government to explore credit facilities with China and India to buy these drugs. 

If the foregoing is not enough to deliver a punch between the eyes came the news of the dollar-strapped Sri Lankan government crumpling under pressure exerted by the Chinese fertilizer company Qingdao Seawin Biotech Group and paying it some US$6.87 million for the consignment of organic fertilizer which was initially rejected after Sri Lanka’s National Plant Quarantine Service (NPQS) found two samples, from the ship-load of fertilizer, to be contaminated and unsuitable for use in Sri Lanka. 

Is not Sri Lanka a Free, Sovereign and Independent Republic? Is it not the right and responsibility of the Sri Lankan government to take decisions that benefit the greater good of its people without being cowed down by powerful nations?  This is another, of many such cases, where people have had to pay the price for a mess they are in no way responsible for.