Nittewa

Has anyone heard the story that the lone voter from Kilinochchi had his hands chopped off? Ivap posted the link to the Asian Tribune story on this.

Both the Island and the Daily News have run this story over the past few days, but they have both taken the story from the Asian Tribue website and have not done any investigating on their own. It's a simple copy paste job.

Ivap asked, is this true. Well, to the best of my knowledge this story is not true. I met someone who just returned from Kilinochchi, and they said that on the day when this alleged chopping off was supposed to have happened, they did not notice anything of the sort in the town. I am certain that is something like this had happened, there would have been a bit of a commotion about Kilinochchi considering the fact that it is a really really small town. People who have never been there would not understand what I'm talking about.

What I can confirm is that two days after the elections a poster came up in Jaffna town, in Tamil, big bold red letters, saying 'What shall we do to those who voted?'. I have seen a copy of this poster because someone who was coming to Colombo took one off a wall and brought it with them. This is a very clear warning to all those people in the Jaffna peninsula who voted, but the LTTE, or whoever put up the poster, has not taken any action to this regard. It's increasingly clear that the poster was a threat, and that there was no serious intention to follow up and deliver. However, considering the tense situation in the Peninsula and other regions in the North and East, I would assume that a poster like that would have the desired effect of keeping even more people away from a future poll if the LTTE were to call for a boycott. This raises real questions about if the LTTE is capable of showing any committment to democracy.

Going back to the hand chopping story, as I have written about on many occasions prior ot this, stories like this are attributed to unidentified sources, and their credibility is seriously questionable. The LTTE Dress Code for Jaffna story was very similar to this. It too first appeared in a foreign source (The Dawn, Pakistan). It was only after it appeared in The Dawn that both the Island and the Daily News picked it up. The Dawn Correspondent in Sri Lanka did not follow up on that story and see if the people in Jaffna actually obeyed the dress code. In this case too the Asian Tribune is only interested in saying that the man had his hands chopped off and does not investigate the outcome.

Here's a random sampling of Sri Lankan news on Asian Tribune.

• Prabhakaran set to reject Mahinda's road map to peace in tomorrow's annual speech
• New road map to peace outlined by President Mahinda Rajapakse
• LTTE killed journalist Sivaram, Kumar Ponnambalam and Kadirgamar -- Col. Karuna reveals in an exclusive to "Asian Tribune"
• LTTE‘s olive branch due on November 27 will have more grenades than olives --- Douglas Devananda
• We place the country first and not the portfolios - Somawansa Amarasinghe
• So far 17,903 LTTE cadres have died

The very first article is written by H L D Mahindapala, a warmonger claiming to be a journalist. I would really question his ability comment on Sri Lanka issues as he does not live here. Perhaps he could write general commentry, but to go so far as to think that he can gauge the LTTE leaders intentions based on a few interviews is rather silly. And to give prominence to such speculation-based removed-from-reality article clearly shows which way the Asian Tribune leans. You can judge for yourself whether you want to believe their 'sources'.

As for the Island and the Daily News;

The Island takes a very clera pro-Sinhala pro-Unitary state stance and they spin their news to match their agenda. The Daily News is the Government mouthpiece and will sya whatever the Government at that moment want them to say. The word 'independent' is not in their vocabulary.

And as long as these people and these papers and 'news' sources exist, we're going to hear stories like this.

posted by Morquendi @  12:45 AM   || 12 opinion/s ||