A hundred days later:
The long march ahead
by Scoff Griffen
The end of an ambitious 100-day reform period announced by President
Maithripala Sirisena, shortly after snatching a surprise victory over
former leader Mahinda Rajapaksa in the country's January 8 presidential
vote, has finally come. Rajapaksa was once hailed at home and abroad for
bringing Sri Lanka's long-running civil war to a close in 2009. But he
is now widely viewed as having failed to turn a military victory into a
political one. His tenure became known for allegations of war crimes and
corruption, rather than for reconciliation and reconstruction. For the
media, by all accounts, the Rajapaksa presidency was a catastrophe -
even by Sri Lanka's historically woeful standards. Violence, harassment
and intimidation were frequent; impunity, the casual norm. Dozens of
journalists went into exile.
Members of the International Press Institute visited Sri Lanka this
February together with IFEX and the IFJ, to show solidarity both with
the country's beleaguered journalists and with the 100-day program
itself,
which, we hoped, would roll back the abuses of the Rajapaksa years
and begin to tackle some of the island's most trenchant press freedom
issues, including impunity, lack of access to information, and abuse of
state media.
The program promised "immediate and long-term measures... to
safeguard the independence of media personnel and institutions" and that
the "right to freedom of thought and expression will be strengthened."
Ambitious agenda
It was clear from the beginning of our visit that Sirisena's election
had brought with it a significant change. Our two-day stay in Jaffna,
the capital of the Tamil-majority Northern Province, would not have been
possible before January 7, our local partners at the Sri Lanka Free
Media Movement (FMM) said.
Long after the end of the civil war, Jaffna remained under tight
military control, and off-limits to foreigners, especially to foreign
NGOs. Even journalists from the south of the country recalled needing
their passports to visit the city in recent years "as if we were going
to a foreign country," one said.
The media in Jaffna suffered heavily, first during the civil war, and
later, in the aftermath of the government victory. Speaking to IPI and
IFJ, local journalists and human rights campaigners seemed torn as to
how to view the Sirisena administration's promises.
Past disappointment
On the one hand, we were given the impression that a dramatic shift
had taken place - literally overnight - after the election. Overt
violence and threats against the press were largely gone, it was
claimed. The military presence in Jaffna had been sharply reduced. Just
days after taking office, Sirisena removed the Northern Province's
governor, a retired general close to Rajapaksa, and replaced him with a
respected diplomat, a sign, area journalists said, that the "culture of
arbitrariness" and hostility under the previous government was being
rooted out.
On the other hand, it was clear that, despite a general feeling of
hopefulness, the memory of past disappointments weighed heavily on
journalists in the Jaffna area. Expectations that the new government
would be a game-changer were virtually counterbalanced by scepticism and
a wait-and-see attitude, as if bracing for the possibility of
disappointment.
For example, a common concern voiced was that the military
authorities were continuing to subject journalists to surveillance,
collecting material that could be used against them in the event of
another regime change - or change of heart. The military was interpreted
to be saying: "Our hands are tied but our eyes are open.""There is a lot
of talk from the government," Editor of the Jaffna-based Uthayan
newspaper, V. Kanamaylnathan said. The newspaper had been the target of
repeated violence over the years and bullet holes from an incident in
2006 in which gunmen stormed the paper and killed two of its employees
still dot the walls of the room where Kanamaylnathan spoke. "But once
they are in power, they don't do it (reform)", he continued, saying that
investigations into the past attacks on Uthayan had not begun.
At a meeting in Colombo, provincial journalists from across the
island echoed the testimony of a truly remarkable shift. "When we came
to Colombo (previously) we were threatened and attacked," one journalist
from Trincomalee said. "Now there is nothing like that, we experience
freedom." Still, the tension between hope and instinctual mistrust was
present here, too. "All governments love media at the beginning," Janur
Kichilan, from Kurunegala, in the North Western Province, said. "(But)
we don't know how it (will) turn later."
In meetings with government officials and at press conferences in
Jaffna and Colombo, the members of the Solidarity Delegation stressed
that the only way to overcome mistrust - which, we noted, fed
self-censorship, inhibiting the investigative journalism that Sri Lanka
desperately needs - was through action. Give journalists something to
believe in, we said, something that will show the ills of the past are
just that: past.
Positive step
After a 100 days, the Sri Lankan government announced that the
Cabinet of Ministers had approved the draft Freedom of Information Bill
and a proposal to send the Bill to Parliament under a special
constitutional procedure for measures "urgent in the national interest."
A seemingly positive step, except for the uncertainty of
parliamentary passage and the questionable exceptions that riddle the
measure (State bodies can refuse to disclose information "that has been
determined as to be safeguarded" or that could seriously harm Sri
Lanka's economy or international relations, for example). In other
crucial areas, it is even less certain whether and when real progress
will be made. During our visit, for example, it appeared that although
the overall situation within the State media had improved since January
8, appetite for long-term structural reform to protect against
government abuse had waned.
Concrete steps
Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) concluded in a recent
report during the 2015 election that "State media as a whole tried to
vilify, dishonour and destroy then-opposition candidate Sirisena's
image... and failed to provide balanced, fair, unpartisan information."
Perhaps most worryingly, it is not clear that any concrete steps
towards ending the cycle of impunity have been taken. Although
government ministers vigorously insisted to IPI and IFJ that the
government was now seriously looking into the numerous killings of
journalists in recent years, particularly those of editor Lasantha
Wickrematunge and cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda, officials were cool to
the idea of creating a Presidential Commission on impunity. This is
unfortunate, as such a commission would encourage much-needed efficiency
and accountability.The Sirisena administration's desire to improve the
press freedom situation in Sri Lanka seems genuine.
But in Sri Lanka, as everywhere else, reforms can stall and
priorities shift. The government has a tremendous window of opportunity
now to dispense with the past and forge a new relationship with media -
one based on respect for the rule of law and the media's role in a
democratic society. For its part, the international community will need
to keep its eyes open and not let up pressure. Now that the first 100
day period is over, let's hope the next one goes lighter on the hope and
heavier on the results.
The writer is Director of Press Freedom Programs at the International
Press Institute, Austria, and visited Sri Lanka in March 2015 as part of
the Media Solidarity Delegation. |