Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations

Yahapaalana Leaders; guilty or not, for killing Nimalarajan?Appalling silence of the “good” people!

Oct 20, 2016

Sixteen years had passed since that fateful night. But the responsible people still remains at large.

The irony is that they are still ruling Sri Lanka. The assassination of the only credible voice from Jaffna was carried out on the same day as Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge’s new cabinet was sworn in on the 19th October 2000. Douglas Devananda was appointed as the Minister of Rehabilitation.

Was the killing discussed at the next cabinet meeting?

President Chandrika, Mahawali Minister Mithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Rathnasiri Wickramanayake or even the Minister of Fisheries, Mahinda Rajapaksha may know the answer. Who killed Nimalarajan? Our yahapaalana leaders are silent. Silence is golden. Breaking the silence can deny you a goldmine. It is sad and disappointing that the country is lead by men and women who has no courage and dignity to tell a simple truth.

For sixteen years, there is silence!

Are they silent because they are guilty of this heinous crime? Did they take part in it?

Below is a letter I wrote sixteen years ago. Sadly little had changed.

Murder of a simple man from Jaffna

By Priyath Liyanage, Head, BBC Sinhala Service

Killing of a person is just a mere statistic in Jaffna. In a brutal war which has killed nearly 60,000 people, Mylwaganam Nimalarajan would be just another person. But, not to his three children who run to the door every time they hear a sound of a motorcycle looking for their father. Not to his wife who had lost a dear husband, not to his parents who are still in hospital as a result of the brutal attack. Certainly not to me. For the whole world, he was the only voice which came out of the war zone in Sri Lanka. He was the only one, the only journalist who was brave enough to tell the world about what was happening to his people.
He did it because he had to do it. He wrote about assassinations, agitations, riots, election rigging, intimidation, widows, rape, mass graves, disappearances, torture, and the suffering of a whole community.
He wanted to tell the world about the injustice against the thousands of civilians. It is understandable why the cowards who hide behind machine guns would want to silence the only independent voice coming out of Jaffna.

Nimal was a dear colleague, a friend, a brother. Whenever we wanted anything from Jaffna, he gave it. He never hesitated, never complained. He knew everyone in Jaffna, and everyone in Jaffna knew him. He was a journalist with dignity. He worked in Jaffna when the Tamil rebels were occupying it. Pro-IPKF militants once tied him to a lamp post to kill him. But even they could not kill him. Nimal continued to work even after the Sri Lankan Army took over the peninsula. He talked to the rebels and the government forces with equal ease. Both the Army, and the rebels respected him. Sometimes they complained, but never disputed his reports.
He worked for the BBC over six years. He never got anything wrong. In 1983, the Sinhala mobs set fire to the house where I lived all my life. It changed my life for ever. The crime we did was to protect our Tamil neighbours. Another mob in a different part of the city, drove Nimalarajan and his family away from Colombo.

The year 1983 changed our lives for ever. I came to London. Nimal went to Jaffna. He decided to tell the story of his people's plight to the world. He dedicated his life to what he believed. And he died doing it. We were both sons of the Black July.

Nimal believed, and I believed that anybody could kill him. He was pleasant and always wore a smile. He never wished any harm to anyone. He always joked about the brutality and the barbarism involved in the daily life in Jaffna. That may be a way of survival for a man who had to live through it day in day out. His personality would have discouraged the most ruthless of killers. No one can shoot a man as friendly and kind as Nimal. Maybe that is why they came in the dark. After the curfew. They brought guns, grenades to kill him. Because they were so afraid of this hard working cleanly dressed small man armed with his mighty pen.

The police might investigate this brutal, inhuman, act of barbarism against a simple but powerful human being. They are afraid. Very, very afraid about simple men with ideas. That is why they have to kill a simple person like Nimal. I do not believe that they will find the shameless barbarian who killed him. But, there are people who know in their hearts. The truth may never come out. The coward who is responsible of killing him may even roam the corridors of power. Yet, more than anyone else they will know the crime they committed. We as comrades of Nimal should make sure that they will never forget.

We know the people who are seasoned with the cowardly acts will never repent. Their obscene minds will never understand the value of a person like Nimal. One cannot blame them. Blame should be with the people who appoint these cowards to high positions. People who shake hands with them. People who sit with these murderers in the same table. Who attends for gatherings to discuss the future of our beloved country. My country. Nimal's country. I hope the people who appoint these barbarians to high office will hang their heads in shame. I hope any self respecting 'liberal intellectual', and 'peace loving socialists', will refuse to walk with the murderers. I hope each time cabinet colleagues gather for a meeting, at least one of them, would have the dignity to spare a thought for Nimalarajan.

Nimalarajan lived among enemies, and died trying to build bridges between two communities which are increasingly drifting apart. Sri Lanka is a country where it is a punishable crime to defame its leaders. They imprison journalists for defamation. Yet, it is a country where one can get away with killing a journalist. Is it not a crime anymore? They killed Richard. I wept on my own helplessly, far away from home, thinking about a lost friend. They killed Rajini. I could not understand why anyone wanted to kill her. I was bemused. They killed Premakeerthi. I did not have words to express myself about someone I always admired and aspired to be. Now they have killed my comrade Nimal. I do not have any more tears. I can only think of the burning rage within. I do not weep for him.

I weep for my country. People of my beloved country has to choose between them. Which killer is going to rule us next? Which killer is going to promise us media freedom for the future?

In a country where ten thousand young lives are sacrificed every year, who is going to be worried about yet another man. Let us forget Nimal, and all the others. They are mere statistics. If we think about them more, all of us will realise that we are all guilty; because we let it happen, and stood by in silence. We should not detest the bad deeds of the bad people, we should be ashamed of the appalling silence of the good people.