Ever since President Mahinda Rajapaksa charged that the recent attacks on the media was part of an international conspiracy to tarnish the image of the country, several others-MPs among them, are using conspiracy theories to counter political rivals claims on various issues. Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama, was one of them who on Thursday, accused the JVP in Parliament of being involved in a conspiracy to prevent foreign dignitaries from visiting the country when JVP Parliamentary Group Leader Anura Dissanayake raised questions in the House on the recent visits to Sri Lanka by the Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shanker Menon and Japanese special envoy Yashushi Akashi.
The UNP too had its own conspiracy theory regarding the fate of the no-confidence motion which the Party had brought against the government over the oil hedging deal which subsequently lapsed after the member who gave notice of the motion failed to move it on January 9, the day it was set for debate. The absence of the motion on the Order Book of Parliament last Tuesday irked Chief Opposition Whip Joseph Michael Perera who accused the government of conspiring to remove the motion and thereby avoid debating it.
Speaker W.J.M.Lokubandara dismissed all notions of a conspiracy saying it had lapsed in keeping with parliamentary procedure and precedence. This prompted the UNP to submit a fresh no faith motion, the fate of which will have to be decided by the Speaker on a later date.
Imaginary conspiracy theories aside, Parliament last week once again had to focus on the increasingly hostile environment in which journalists have to work. Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe raised the issue on Friday soon after the Editor of the Rivira newspaper Upali Tennakoon was attacked. He bemoaned that if editors are threatened and intimidated in this manner, there was no point holding debates in the House because it was through the media that such information reached the people. “If the media is not allowed to report without fear, then there is no use holding debates here,” he said.The JVP too voiced its concern on the increasing threats to journalists with MP Sunil Handunnetti saying that soon media personnel coming to cover Parliament too may have to be provided with armed guards similar to the security provided to politicians if the attacks on them continued.
The gloomy picture on the state of media personnel in the country was apparent from the information that Chief Government Whip Dinesh Gunawardena presented to Parliament on Wednesday which revealed that nine journalists have been killed and another 27 assaulted since January 1, 2006.
At one point, when Chief Whip Gunawardena ridiculed the UNP of for qualifying for entry in the Guinness Book of World Records by losing 15 elections in a row, Opposition Leader said this government would enter the same record books for killing the most number of journalists.
Despite this dismal record on media freedom in the country, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayaka told Parliament it is not the policy of the government to suppress the media and said that investigations into many of the cases have been concluded and charges filed in courts in many of the instances.
The JVP on its part raised questions with regard to the recent visit by a high level US military delegation to Sri Lanka which the Party’s MP Anura Dissanayake alleged was aimed at laying the groundwork for setting up a missile system in Trincomalee. Foreign Minister Bogollagama refuted this claim and said they were here to lay the foundation stone for two schools in the Eastern Province.
The JVP also clashed with the government for its refusal to accept the former Auditor-General A.C.Mayadunne as the representative of the minority parties in Parliament to the Constitutional Council.
The Prime Minister said he had met with the Opposition Leader, the Speaker and the President in an attempt to break the stalemate with regard to the setting up of the CC and said the government was acting in “good faith” to comply with a Supreme Court ruling on the early constitution of the CC.
Despite the government acting in “good faith” on the CC issue and its repeated assurances of its commitment to upholding media freedom, so far both have been limited to just words, with little or no action to show the government is serious about walking the talk. |
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