Wikrematunge

It is like the LTTE Tamil activists are not going to give up their anti Sri Lanka Propaganda even if they have been wiped out from the Sri Lankan soil? Can you please tell us what kind of Freedom the poor Tamils in the North enjoyed under the LTTE dictatorship in the LTTE controled areas for nearly three decades?
If this group or a similar group influenced by them is going to fight for a separate land in one of our Western countries, I doubt whether our
own leaders will react any different to the Sri Lankan Gournment.These LTTE supporters know very well how to exploit our sympathy and to manipulate some of the imature politicians and the media in our countries for thier advantage.I believe this terrorist movement which is already like a net work of Mafia will be a threat to the Peace of our countries as well.
I hope our politicians understand the type of people that they are dealing with before it s too late.We are contributing to globle terrorism by encouraging their war tactics.They used innocent Tamil civilians as Human shields, to get your attention.They realised it works very well on our western communities after seen our response to it.Of course that there will be others to follow the same LTTE methods in the Future, knowing the effectiveness of such tactics.

That is a great loss, I feel sorry for the journalist.

Its been a terrible pattern that overshadows the great military accomplishments, Kaliyug..

jhonbake - While I don't sympathise with the LTTE, I have to say that your post is misguided. Mr Wikrematunge was not associated with the LTTE nor was he assasinated by them. I therefore don't understand what relavence your post has to the original article.

What people don't understand is that there are what some people refer to as two wars going on in Sri Lanka - the one with the LTTE and a second, underground war against any form of political dissent or opposition. If you read Mr Wikrematunge's editorial he speaks of those who he guessed would kill him. They were associated with the government side (whether formally or informally). According to Amnesty International “at least 14 media workers have been unlawfully killed in Sri Lanka since the beginning of 2006. Others have been arbitrarily detained, tortured and allegedly disappeared while in the custody of security forces. More than 20 journalists have left the country in response to death threats”.

Please don't make the mistake of viewing everything through a distorted LTTE vs the government lens. You are only confusing the matter.

I suppose this post will be deleted, but as a traveller I don't believe we can or should separate travel from politics. Everyone should know what life is like in the countries they choose to travel.

This is old news, but never too late to report about the terrorism on the government side in Sri Lanka. NONE (0 %) of the cases where journalists were killed and the suspect were gov. supporters were ever investigated succesfully.

Even when the main private TV station Sirasa was destroyed just a day after getting a warning from the Defense Ministry that their reporting was unpatriotic and the police from the nearby station took a REALLY long time to get there, there was no investigation. Even though there were eyewitnesses - the station employees.

A Tamil journalist has been in jail for more than a year on accounts of terrorism. Unproved naturally.

Last week three of the doctors from the makeshift hospitals in the north were arrested because they reported what they saw, namely that BOTH sides shelled the no-fire zone.

Yes, yes I'm not that naive; the internationally recognized governments have the right to kill civilians if they deem them dangerous, but it still does not make them less of a terrorist, just because their flag hangs at the UN.

If you don't want to support this regime, just don't visit or at least don't visit the south. The South is the breeding ground for extreme singhalese nationalists, which created this regime. Even Rajapakse admitted in the Time magazine interview last year, that one of his problems is to deal with hardliners in the south (his main constituency).

Things are really bad there.

I was staying in Kandy when he was assassinated. It was headline news for several days and it seemed everyone knew he was going to be killed because his newspaper had criticised the Government. He also knew he would be killed which was why he had written this article. Everyone also knew that he was assassinated by the Army or the Government because he dared to tell the truth. He was shot in his car at traffic lights in Colombo - he was one of the people who actually stopped at red lights. He was shot by two men on a motor bike who, of course, were never caught.

I saw several of his TV interviews afterwards and he was a brave man to stand up for the truth. Sadly the truth is still being kept from the Sinhalese people despite his death and, as he pointed out, it makes a mockery of the Sinhalese belief that they are somehow guardians of the Buddhist truth. I did not know about him until he died but now I have enormous respect for the man and his courage.

Maybe the truth will come out now - the USA says it has satellite imagery of the last few weeks of the war and I believe these show clearly where the shells came from that killed thousands of innocent and terrified Sri Lankans in the war zone. It seems true that the LTTE had kept them there but there is no doubt it was their own army, sanctioned by their own government, that decided they could be killed.

I still have not come to terms with the idea that such a beautiful place, where I have such wonderful friends, can allow such evil to take place.

To start with, I doubt the genuine concern or feelings of some of the above posts regarding the Sri Lankan civilians or the travellers visiting Sri Lanka.I cant help thinking,the people who are desparate to gain some advantage by publishing these same articles repeatedly can be directly or indirectly responsible for such murders.it is like that they are impatiently waiting for the next journalist to be killed to replace these old articles for the propaganda.Most of the time, what we are forced to believe or what we are expected to believe is not the truth in politics.I doubt very much the genuiness of the sympathy expressed in abouve posts regarding the dead journalist.
And I very much doubt the aproach of our western politicians to this issue and their concern about the human rights issues in Sri Lanka.it was very that it was a human crisis disaster that has been created intentionaly by the terrorists for their advantage.What they wanted was the maximum civilian casualties to accuse the Sri Lankan Government in front of the (western) international community.It is quiete a similar strategy like waiting for the journalists to be killed.And it was clear the hippocratic aproach of our western politicians by their last minute efforts to save the LTTE Leaders.Sorry my Sri Lankan friends for issolating
you when you most needed our support in your struggle to beat the most Brutal Terrorist Organization.
I believe you have so much potential and determination to come up your own way.Our western politicians
will support any Mafia as long as they are ready to fund their election Campains.

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jhonbake - sorry but you don't really know what you're talking about. It is an old rhetorical trick used by demagogues and repressive governments the world over to paint any opposition as terrorists ('you're either with us or against us'). I'm not talking about the LTTE who I have no sympathy for, I'm talking about people who would dare to question the government - not just about the war, about anything. I believe that is a fundamental right in any healthy society. To do so in Sri Lanka at the moment is to risk your life, as the orignial article proves.

The only person in this post taking a totally one-sided view is you. I've read your other posts and they are all say the same thing. You are the only propagandist here.