Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak here, members of the committee.
My comments here today are based on CPJ's research, including a 10-day reporting trip to Colombo, from January 21 to February 1, 2009. I was there about a month and a half ago. I've also submitted a longer version of my presentation to the committee, which was posted online under the title “Sri Lanka special report: Failure to Investigate”. The report is available on CPJ's website. I've made the report available to the committee staff.
I'll summarize the information in that report and update it with information about new events. I'm afraid my updates will uphold the concerns the report raised when it was first printed.
The Sri Lankan government is pursuing journalists who dare criticize the government, and the climate of impunity with which journalists have been killed, threatened, and harassed under the Rajapakse government has not abated. I went to Colombo because Sri Lankan journalists are under intensive assault. The government has failed to carry out effective and credible investigations into the killings of and attacks on journalists who question its conduct of a war against Tamil separatists or who criticize the military establishment in virtually any way.
Three attacks in January targeting the mainstream media drew the world's attention to the problem, but top journalists have been killed, attacked, threatened, and harassed since the government began to pursue an all-out military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, LTTE, in late 2006. Many local and foreign journalists and members of the diplomatic community believe the government is complicit in these attacks. The aim of my trip in January was to investigate three attacks.
On January 6, the main control room of Sirasa TV, Sri Lanka's largest independent broadcaster, was destroyed when an explosive device, most likely a claymore mine, was detonated at 2:35 a.m. during a raid by 15 to 20 masked men.
Two days later, on January 8, Lasantha Wickramatunga, the editor-in-chief of the independent newspaper The Sunday Leader, was killed while driving to work. He was attacked by eight men riding four motorcycles. He died from a wound to his right temple caused by a pointed object, mostly likely an iron bar, which pierced his temple. The attack happened about 200 yards from a large Sri Lanka air force base. After the attack, the hooded men rode off in that direction. Although the report from the judicial medical officer, Sri Lanka's equivalent of a coroner, was to be released on February 6, it has not been made public.
On January 23, Upali Tennakoon, an editor at the Sinhalese newspaper Rivira, and his wife were attacked in a manner similar to the attack on Wickramatunga. In this case, there were four men on motorcycles. They attacked with wooden and iron bars, staving in the windshield of the car, and then piercing Tennakoon's hands and giving him a large wound beneath his right eye. The couple left Sri Lanka soon after Tennakoon was released from the hospital.
In all three cases, the government has promised full investigations.
Now let me give you a brief update on those cases since then. This is fairly recent information from the last day or two.
There have been no arrests or any more information released about the bombing at Sirasa TV. In fact, in practical terms, the investigation has ended, with no conclusion.
In Upali Tennakoon's case, police say they have made no movement toward an arrest of anyone for the attack and consider the investigation at a dead end.
A bit more complex is the killing of Lasantha Wickramatunga. There was a hearing, most recently on March 19. As for the judicial medical officer's report, you're most likely familiar with that term. In the United States, we call him the coroner. The coroner's report still has not been made public, although the magistrate hearing the case said Wickramatunga's death came from a gunshot wound. The magistrate did not mention anything about the JMO's report--the coroner's report--and did not give a date for its release. The murder weapon has not been found. There was no bullet found inside Wickramatunga's head and there were no shell casings at the scene of the crime.
Wickramatunga's wife, Sonali, has written to the inspector general of police asking that he record a statement from the defence ministry spokesman, Keheliya Rambukwella, to ascertain the identify of Wickramatunga's assassins. Shortly after the killing, Rambukwella told the media that he and President Rajapakse were aware of the identity of the murderers and that the President would make the facts known on February 15. Since that statement, that promise, there has been no statement whatsoever about this case.
Two relevant cases making their way through the courts now should be mentioned.
Nadesapillai Vithyatharan, who is the editor of the Tamil daily Sudar Oli, was grabbed at a friend's funeral in a Colombo suburb on February 26. Since then, in an effort to charge the editor under anti-terrorism laws, police have been scouring phone records to try to establish a tie between the editor and the secessionist LTTE.
Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse has already linked the editor to a February 20 suicide air attack on Colombo in which two LTTE planes were shot down, two pilots killed, and more than 45 people injured. When the case came up on March 23 in Colombo, the magistrate gave permission to hold him without charge as they continue to trace his calls.
The other case also involves a Tamil editor, J.S. Tissainayagam, which is finally going to trial after a year. Tissa, as he is known, was detained without charge on March 7, 2008, and held without explanation for almost six months. In August he was charged under the protection of terrorism act and the emergency regulations. Tissa's case was the first time a Sri Lankan journalist was charged under these laws for his published work. The defence has started to present its case, and the trial will most likely end in late April or early May.
On March 20 Tissa testified again, as he has done at several other hearings, that he was forced to sign a confession after prisoners and colleagues were beaten in front of him, a claim that he made several times in court. Tissa explains that he has detached retinas in both eyes. The police know, or his captors know, that if he's beaten severely about the head, he might lose his vision, and that would become a cause for an argument for Tissa.
Also, in Vithyatharan's case, just yesterday, for I think the fifth time in three years, a hand grenade was thrown into the building of the sister paper of Vithyatharan, which is printed in Jaffna. It's called Uthayan.
Our concern here is that the use of state security or counterterrorism laws to prosecute journalists is a pattern we have seen before, particularly in countries with authoritarian governments. Our concern is very much that Sri Lanka is headed in that direction.
The lack of reliable investigation into these crimes is in keeping with the long history of impunity for those who attack journalists in Sri Lanka. CPJ counts 10 journalists killed by premeditated murder since 1999, with no--zero--prosecutions or convictions. The Rajapakse government and its predecessors must at least be held responsible for the impunity that surrounds the attacks on journalists, and many people consider the previous governments and the Rajapakse government themselves responsible for some of the attacks.
Most of the killings that we count came while President Rajapakse served as Prime Minister, from April 24, through the time he started his six-year term as President in November 2005, and up until now. According to CPJ's records, during his time in high office in Sri Lanka, eight journalists have died of what CPJ considers to premeditated murder. No one has been brought to trial in any of these cases. The number of dead does not include journalists killed in crossfire or other events while covering the war. We are talking about people who were intentionally killed.
I've spoken at length about the attacks on Sri Lankan journalists, but I must address just one more issue. No foreign or Sri Lankan reporters have recently been allowed to travel independently to the front lines of the conflict with the LTTE. Charges of misconduct against both sides have gone uninvestigated by independent journalists. We're not just talking about the government restricting access; we're also talking about the LTTE restricting access.
Journalists have had to rely on second-hand information from both sides of the conflict and from the few aid groups that are still able to operate in and around the combat zone. CPJ calls on both sides to allow all journalists to personally assess the risks involved and to travel and report freely from the front lines of this war, which has taken so many lives.
Let me conclude with this one simple line: with a failure to investigate and a realistic suspicion that government actors are complicit in the violence against journalists, the time has come for the international community to act.
I have a list of recommendations, but I think I'll stop there and respond to questions, if that's okay.
