ON December 27, the citizens of Sri Lanka were witness to a bizarre drama right in their offices and homes live via the state-owned television channel, Rupavahini. The spectacle involved Mervyn de Silva, a controversial Minister in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government, who allegedly stormed the television station with his bodyguards at around 10-30 a.m. and assaulted a news director for failure to broadcast a public speech made by him. Enraged employees circled the Minister and jeered and punched him for the next two and a half hours, and the action was beamed live on television across the island. A bleeding Minister and his bodyguards had to be rescued by a team of the army and the police.
The tragi-comedy is shaping up as a thriller series following a spate of attacks by unidentified gangsters on Rupavahini employees in the weeks that followed the roughing up of the Minister. The employees have struck work twice in protest and the media organisation has witnessed two chairpersons come and go. It is more than three months after the incident, but no one is the wiser as to who is responsible for the mysterious attacks on Rupavahini employees. A sense of fear prevails among them.
The situation has become so grave that the President granted an audience to the representatives of Rupavahini employees in the third week of March to listen to their grievances and personally assure them their safety. After the attackers targeted their fifth victim from the media corporation, the President appointed Major Gen. (Retd.) Sunil Silva, formerly of the Signals Corps, to a newly created post of Additional Deputy Director General (Administration) of the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC). The appointment has triggered talk of militarisation of the state-owned media.
The Free Media Movement expressed its outrage over the appointment. This appointment defies belief, as it comes less than 48 hours after a key meeting with the President of Sri Lanka and SLRC trade union leaders and journalists on the spate of brutal physical attacks against colleagues who stood up against the brutish intrusion by government MP Mervyn Silva into its premises late last year, it noted in a statement.
The Minister in question, whose son was involved in a brawl at a bar in the national capital months before, has vehemently denied any involvement in the serial attacks. But the employees are not convinced. The police on their part have promised to launch an impartial and thorough investigation into the attacks. However, till date no person has been caught or booked. The first attack was on January 25 when a senior producer/presenter, Lal Hemantha Mawalage, was attacked by two armed men. He suffered severe cuts on his arm and also reportedly received death threats on the phone on March 4. Four days later, on January 29, an attack on SLRC employee Duleep Dushantha by two armed men at his home was averted, but his mother received a death threat for informing the authorities about the incident.
On February 27, Priyal Ranjith Perera, Assistant Director, News Camera, was attacked by an unidentified gang. On March 5, SLRC librarian Ranjani Aluthge was stabbed while travelling by bus. The fifth attack took place on March 14, when an unidentified gang beat Anurasiri Hettige, an assistant director and a trade union leader, while he was commuting to work.
Interestingly, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) frontliner K.D. Lalkantha announced on a public platform that the names of 21 SLRC employees had been handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), and only 16 more remained to be attacked. Five of them have been attacked. This list is in the right hands, we are told. We wonder how and why Mervyn Silva enjoys immunity like no other, he was quoted as saying.
The ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) has referred the matter of the Ministers alleged transgression to its disciplinary committee. The committee is supposed to have handed over its report to the party leadership. But Information Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa told journalists that he had just received a bulky report on the Rupavahini episode but had not had the opportunity to study its contents.
On March 28, the Minister refuted media reports that the appointment of the ex-military official was aimed at suppressing Rupavahini employees connected with the recent incidents. SLRC employees resent what they perceive as political interference in the media house. Trade unions attached to the SLRC claimed that the issue could be resolved only by the intervention of President Rajapaksa. They placed five demands, including freedom for employees and guarantee of their safety. They said that until the issues were resolved, all staff members attached to trade unions would stay away from work.
Disturbed by the statement, the Chairman and Director-General of the SLRC met the leader of the SLFP trade union attached to the SLRC on March 15 for talks. It was agreed that the employees would be allowed to take a holiday for a day pending resolution of their grievances. However, the message could not be conveyed to the workforce and the following day, a large number of workers reported for work as usual. However, they were not allowed to enter the workplace.
Thereafter the President summoned a meeting with trade union leaders that evening, which was also attended by the Inspector General of Police, the Defence Secretary, heads of the SLRC, heads of state media institutions, the Presidents brother and Senior Advisor Basil Rajapaksa, the two media Ministers and the Attorney General.
Rupavahini, popular particularly in India in its earlier avatar as Ceylon Radio, is sadly going through a rough patch.
By B. Muralidhar ReddyCOMMents
COMMents
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