A Cowardly Attack On A Heroic Newspaper

 Sunday, April 07, 2013

The attack on the Uthayan newspaper’s regional office at Kilinochchi at dawn on Wednesday will not only be a matter of grave concern for that gutsy newspaper which has been in circulation through 25 years of the 30-year-old horrendous war but is also ominous to peace and stability of the Northern Province on which the Sri Lankan and international political focus is on right now.

The attack on this regional office by a masked gang is quite likely to have political objectives because Uthayan is the sole newspaper to be published from Jaffna and has much influence among the Northern Province population who has little access to their own regional news even though news from the rest of the island and international news may be accessible. The attempt to disrupt the distribution of this paper, in which two officers were seriously injured to be warded in the Intensive Care Unit of the Kilinochchi District Hospital, is also likely to be linked to the election to the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) that is expected to be held soon.

It is somewhat of a paradox that there is no Northern Provincial Council in existence today even though the raison d’étre for the creation of provincial councils stemmed from the demand for devolution of administrative powers to the north through provincial councils. The creation of provincial councils, which involved Indian intervention but which LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran rejected because he wanted only Eelam, is now a part of history which is too well known to be recalled here.

Provincial Councils have come into existence in every province other than the North, but they have turned out to be white elephants. But it need not be so in the Northern Province which could be of real service to the people who have been estranged from government administrations.

The obvious importance of the Uthayan – the sole Tamil newspaper in circulation in the North – is that it would be vital in directing public opinion on this issue of the Northern Province Election. We are not aware of the politics of the Uthayan in the small but complicated web of Northern Province politics but it could be that some do not want Uthayan’s opinion spelled out to their public.
This goes against the Voltairean concept of democracy: I do not agree with what you say but I will give my life to safeguard your right to say it. The essence of democracy in the world today is the right of expression of dissenting views.

Northern Province politics is also complicated with the involvement of the UPFA partner, Minister and leader of the EPDP, Douglas Devananda. Devananda has already announced that he would be contesting the NPC election on the UPFA ticket. Devananda’s popularity however is much in doubt because he has cooperated with the military in ruling the Jaffna Peninsula with successive Colombo governments. There is also said to be much bad blood between the EPDP and the Uthayan paper.

The NPC election has also been complicated by the anti Sri Lanka fermentation and demonstrations now on in Tamil Nadu where the demand from the Indian Central Government is to create an Eelam in Sri Lanka.

Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa has questioned the security aspects of having a Northern Provincial Council with the embroiled situation in Tamil Nadu. This complicated the issue of a Northern Provincial Council election even further.

The Uthayan paper has been performing an unenviable task of trying to maintain a political line of its own within the quagmire of Tamil political parties in the North, the large presence still of military and police personnel. The military has been consistently accused of overstepping the mark and being involved in politics but has vehemently denied such allegations and stressed that civilians issues are being investigated by the police.

The Uthayan’s proud record in its 28-year existence gives hope that it can stand up to the worst of situations a newspaper can be confronted with. According to the Wikipedia, after it came into existence in 1985, two of the other newspapers that were being published were taken over by the LTTE. It did not cease publication during the civil war when it came under attack of the ‘para military’ and other forces.

In 1995 when the army launched a military offensive to capture the entire Jaffna peninsula, the entire population of the Valikamam region fled to other parts of the peninsula and the Wanni. The paper’s staff fled the Jaffna office taking with them the printing machine, a generator and news print in a truck and set up a temporary office in Tenamarachi where it continued publishing till 1996.The paper returned to Jaffna only after the army recaptured most of the peninsula.

Uthayan was shut down in 1996 under emergency regulations with telephone lines cut off and the office locked up but opened 45 days later when the ban on publication was lifted.

It has had a torrid, bloody but heroic history with its office being shelled by artillery, office workers being gunned down when armed men burst into its office, grenades hurled and being hit by aircraft fire and even its editor being arrested without a warrant while attending a funeral at Mt. Lavinia! Yet undaunted Uthayan still carries on.
Six cowardly masked men who attacked them on Wednesday morning, though they grievously wounded two officers, cannot break the spirit of the Uthayan.

More strength to your elbow colleagues! We from an institution that has suffered bloody murder, The Sunday Leader, wish you.