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LTTE live telecast, courtesy Rupavahini
By Chris Kamalendran
Just three weeks after President Chandrika Kumaratunga took over the state media, the national television Rupavahini set a historic record -- facilitating a live telecast of Tiger guerrilla leader Velupillai Prabhakaran's "Maveerar Day" address to Europe.
The live programme was made possible by a technical team from Rupavahini and Sri Lanka Telecom (facilitating the uplink of the live programme) visiting Kilinochchi. The entire segment of the programme via satellite was three hours, from 5.30 p.m. to 7.30 pm and thereafter for an hour from 10.30 p.m.

Rupavahini Chairman Harim Peiris confirmed that the live satellite broadcast, the first ever for the LTTE, was upon a request made by a foreign company -- the pro-LTTE Tamil Television Network. The network is said to have bureaus in Britain, France, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Holland and India. However, in north Sri Lanka, the company operates as a Digital Media Network.

The programme content on "Maveerar Day" last Thursday included coverage of ceremonies from Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Kilinochchi. As the live coverage of the ceremonies were being aired on Thursday in Kilinochchi, footage of ceremonies held in Trincomalee and Batticaloa were interpolated. It projected pictures of cemeteries, mourning family members of those who were killed in battle with security forces, street decorations and the address by LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

It was only last week The Sunday Times reported that President Kumaratunga had given directions to all state media institutions to refrain from criticising the LTTE. The report drew a response from Janadasa Peiris, Director General (Media) in the President's Office. He claimed the report was not true.

Besides the uplink facility being provided to the LTTE for the first time, The Sunday Times has learnt that there has been an about-turn in the State media policy towards the LTTE. This was at the instance of President Kumaratunga who first adopted a hostile stance against the LTTE and later in a change of mind moderated herself considerably.

As soon as the Media Ministry was taken over by the President, the heads of the four state media institutions were briefed by Dr. Sarath Amunugama and Anura Priyadarshana Yapa at the President’s House. In the first four days after the takeover, they were instructed to highlight the implications of the LTTE proposals presented to the government on October 31, three days prior to President Kumaratunga's move.

Rupavahini was given priority to spearhead this campaign and Nimal Ekanayake was appointed special programme consultant by the President, especially to look into the new programme line-up.

The programme line-up included introducing a variety of political programmes to discuss the negative impact of the LTTE proposals. Also a separate set of programmes were asked to be produced to criticise LTTE activities.

They included documentaries on the North-East situation, the implications to the armed forces serving in the area. Also a special programme was scheduled to be produced to include the Navy which had earlier come under fire from the government media.

An interview with Naval eastern area commander Wasantha Karannagoda had also been on the production line. The production team of the Rupavahini programme "Finger Print" was asked to produce segments on the murder of Dehiwala OIC allegedly by an LTTE cadre and also on the storming of the army safe house at Aturugiriya Millennium City complex.

But after a few days, the whole process had been halted. Orders were sent by President's spokesperson Harim Peiris to Mr. Eakanayake, directing him to launch a campaign to support the proposed arrangements to reach consensus on national issues between the President and the government.

Defending the move to provide an uplink facility to broadcast the LTTE programmes, Rupavahini Chairman Harim Peiris said: "In the past we were criticising LTTE's illegal activities such as procuring arms, killing oppnents and extorting money. But now there is a review of the LTTE activities."

Deputy General Manager (International) Sri Lanka Telecom H.L. Sunil told The Sunday Times that the Telecom moved in following request from the Rupavahini Corporation to provide the facility.

He said the Tamil Television Network had paid Rs. 400,000 for the Telecom facilities while the sum paid for transmission facilities was not known immediately. On instructions from Colombo, the Jaffna Telecom office also had provided a temporary telecommunication line with International Direct Dialing facilities to facilitate the co-oridnation of the programmes.

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