Letter from the Grave

Source: New Yorker January 12, 2009 (Steve Coll)


Last Thursday, Lasantha Wickramatunga, who was fifty-two years old and the editor of a Sri Lankan newspaper called the Sunday Leader, was assassinated on his way to work by two gunmen riding motorcycles. The Leader’s investigative reporting had been fiercely critical of the government and of the conduct of its war against Tamil separatists; Wickramatunga had been attacked before. He knew that he was likely to be murdered and so he wrote an essay with instructions that it be published only after his own death. Some mutual friends in the region sent a copy to me today. Read it in full below. It is like nothing else you will read today, that I promise.

A very brief bit of context: Sri Lanka’s government, drawing support from the island’s Sinhalese ethnic majority, has been at war since the nineteen-eighties with various militant separatist groups representing the country’s Tamil ethnic minority. In recent years, the war has narrowed to a contest between government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and others. The L.T.T.E. purports to speak for the aspirations of Tamil civilians, but it has conducted its campaign with child soldiers, suicide bombers, and other horrors. For its part, the Sri Lankan government has arranged for the disappearance and murder of uncounted numbers of Tamils, just as it “disappeared” and murdered thousands of its own Sinhalese citizens during an earlier period of counterinsurgency.
The country’s current president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is referred to in Wickramatunga’ s essay, came to power emphasizing human rights and reform but has more recently pursued a military solution to his L.T.T.E. problem. Sri Lankan troops have lately marched deep into Tamil territory under a heavy veil of media censorship. Local journalists have been accused of disloyalty to the war, which has inspired or created a pretext for attacks against them and their offices. Wickramatunga believed that he would be killed, and the Sri Lankan government would be responsible for his murder.

According to media reports from Sri Lanka, the government has condemned Wickramatunga’ s murder and ordered an investigation. Sri Lankan journalists and others today staged a silent march in Colombo, the capital, to protest his killing. Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based group devoted to protecting journalists, issued a statement about Wickramatunga’ s murder that said, “President Mahinda Rajapaksa, his associates and the government media are directly to blame because they incited hatred against him and allowed an outrageous level of impunity to develop as regards violence against the press.”

Here is his essay:

No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honor to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.

I have been in the business of journalism a good long time. Indeed, 2009 will be The Sunday Leader’s 15th year. Many things have changed in Sri Lanka during that time, and it does not need me to tell you that the greater part of that change has been for the worse. We find ourselves in the midst of a civil war ruthlessly prosecuted by protagonists whose bloodlust knows no bounds. Terror, whether perpetrated by terrorists or the state, has become the order of the day. Indeed, murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges. For neither group have the risks ever been higher or the stakes lower.

Why then do we do it? I often wonder that. After all, I too am a husband, and the father of three wonderful children. I too have responsibilities and obligations that transcend my profession, be it the law or journalism. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not. Friends tell me to revert to the bar, and goodness knows it offers a better and safer livelihood. Others, including political leaders on both sides, have at various times sought to induce me to take to politics, going so far as to offer me ministries of my choice. Diplomats, recognizing the risk journalists face in Sri Lanka, have offered me safe passage and the right of residence in their countries. Whatever else I may have been stuck for, I have not been stuck for choice.

But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre and security. It is the call of conscience.

The Sunday Leader has been a controversial newspaper because we say it like we see it: whether it be a spade, a thief or a murderer, we call it by that name. We do not hide behind euphemism. The investigative articles we print are supported by documentary evidence thanks to the public-spiritedness of citizens who at great risk to themselves pass on this material to us. We have exposed scandal after scandal, and never once in these 15 years has anyone proved us wrong or successfully prosecuted us.

The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.

Every newspaper has its angle, and we do not hide the fact that we have ours. Our commitment is to see Sri Lanka as a transparent, secular, liberal democracy. Think about those words, for they each has profound meaning. Transparent because government must be openly accountable to the people and never abuse their trust. Secular because in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society such as ours, secularism offers the only common ground by which we might all be united. Liberal because we recognize that all human beings are created different, and we need to accept others for what they are and not what we would like them to be. And democratic… well, if you need me to explain why that is important, you’d best stop buying this paper.

The Sunday Leader has never sought safety by unquestioningly articulating the majority view. Let’s face it, that is the way to sell newspapers. On the contrary, as our opinion pieces over the years amply demonstrate, we often voice ideas that many people find distasteful. For example, we have consistently espoused the view that while separatist terrorism must be eradicated, it is more important to address the root causes of terrorism, and urged government to view Sri Lanka’s ethnic strife in the context of history and not through the telescope of terrorism. We have also agitated against state terrorism in the so-called war against terror, and made no secret of our horror that Sri Lanka is the only country in the world routinely to bomb its own citizens. For these views we have been labeled traitors, and if this be treachery, we wear that label proudly.

Many people suspect that The Sunday Leader has a political agenda: it does not. If we appear more critical of the government than of the opposition it is only because we believe that - pray excuse cricketing argot - there is no point in bowling to the fielding side. Remember that for the few years of our existence in which the UNP was in office, we proved to be the biggest thorn in its flesh, exposing excess and corruption wherever it occurred. Indeed, the steady stream of embarrassing exposes we published may well have served to precipitate the downfall of that government.

Neither should our distaste for the war be interpreted to mean that we support the Tigers. The LTTE are among the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organizations ever to have infested the planet. There is no gainsaying that it must be eradicated. But to do so by violating the rights of Tamil citizens, bombing and shooting them mercilessly, is not only wrong but shames the Sinhalese, whose claim to be custodians of the dhamma is forever called into question by this savagery, much of which is unknown to the public because of censorship.

What is more, a military occupation of the country’s north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect. Do not imagine that you can placate them by showering “development” and “reconstruction” on them in the post-war era. The wounds of war will scar them forever, and you will also have an even more bitter and hateful Diaspora to contend with. A problem amenable to a political solution will thus become a festering wound that will yield strife for all eternity. If I seem angry and frustrated, it is only because most of my countrymen - and all of the government - cannot see this writing so plainly on the wall.

It is well known that I was on two occasions brutally assaulted, while on another my house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Despite the government’s sanctimonious assurances, there was never a serious police inquiry into the perpetrators of these attacks, and the attackers were never apprehended. In all these cases, I have reason to believe the attacks were inspired by the government. When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.

The irony in this is that, unknown to most of the public, Mahinda and I have been friends for more than a quarter century. Indeed, I suspect that I am one of the few people remaining who routinely addresses him by his first name and uses the familiar Sinhala address oya when talking to him. Although I do not attend the meetings he periodically holds for newspaper editors, hardly a month passes when we do not meet, privately or with a few close friends present, late at night at President’s House. There we swap yarns, discuss politics and joke about the good old days. A few remarks to him would therefore be in order here.

Mahinda, when you finally fought your way to the SLFP presidential nomination in 2005, nowhere were you welcomed more warmly than in this column. Indeed, we broke with a decade of tradition by referring to you throughout by your first name. So well known were your commitments to human rights and liberal values that we ushered you in like a breath of fresh air. Then, through an act of folly, you got yourself involved in the Helping Hambantota scandal. It was after a lot of soul-searching that we broke the story, at the same time urging you to return the money. By the time you did so several weeks later, a great blow had been struck to your reputation. It is one you are still trying to live down.

You have told me yourself that you were not greedy for the presidency. You did not have to hanker after it: it fell into your lap. You have told me that your sons are your greatest joy, and that you love spending time with them, leaving your brothers to operate the machinery of state. Now, it is clear to all who will see that that machinery has operated so well that my sons and daughter do not themselves have a father.

In the wake of my death I know you will make all the usual sanctimonious noises and call upon the police to hold a swift and thorough inquiry. But like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too. For truth be told, we both know who will be behind my death, but dare not call his name. Not just my life, but yours too, depends on it.

Sadly, for all the dreams you had for our country in your younger days, in just three years you have reduced it to rubble. In the name of patriotism you have trampled on human rights, nurtured unbridled corruption and squandered public money like no other President before you. Indeed, your conduct has been like a small child suddenly let loose in a toyshop. That analogy is perhaps inapt because no child could have caused so much blood to be spilled on this land as you have, or trampled on the rights of its citizens as you do. Although you are now so drunk with power that you cannot see it, you will come to regret your sons having so rich an inheritance of blood. It can only bring tragedy. As for me, it is with a clear conscience that I go to meet my Maker. I wish, when your time finally comes, you could do the same. I wish.

As for me, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked tall and bowed to no man. And I have not travelled this journey alone. Fellow journalists in other branches of the media walked with me: most of them are now dead, imprisoned without trial or exiled in far-off lands. Others walk in the shadow of death that your Presidency has cast on the freedoms for which you once fought so hard. You will never be allowed to forget that my death took place under your watch. As anguished as I know you will be, I also know that you will have no choice but to protect my killers: you will see to it that the guilty one is never convicted. You have no choice. I feel sorry for you, and Shiranthi will have a long time to spend on her knees when next she goes for Confession for it is not just her owns sins which she must confess, but those of her extended family that keeps you in office.

As for the readers of The Sunday Leader, what can I say but Thank You for supporting our mission. We have espoused unpopular causes, stood up for those too feeble to stand up for themselves, locked horns with the high and mighty so swollen with power that they have forgotten their roots, exposed corruption and the waste of your hard-earned tax rupees, and made sure that whatever the propaganda of the day, you were allowed to hear a contrary view. For this I - and my family - have now paid the price that I have long known I will one day have to pay. I am - and have always been - ready for that. I have done nothing to prevent this outcome: no security, no precautions. I want my murderer to know that I am not a coward like he is, hiding behind human shields while condemning thousands of innocents to death. What am I among so many? It has long been written that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that remains to be written is when.

That The Sunday Leader will continue fighting the good fight, too, is written. For I did not fight this fight alone. Many more of us have to be - and will be - killed before The Leader is laid to rest. I hope my assassination will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration for those who survive to step up their efforts. Indeed, I hope that it will help galvanise forces that will usher in a new era of human liberty in our beloved motherland. I also hope it will open the eyes of your President to the fact that however many are slaughtered in the name of patriotism, the human spirit will endure and flourish. Not all the Rajapakses combined can kill that.
People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted. An example that has inspired me throughout my career in journalism has been that of the German theologian, Martin Niemoller. In his youth he was an anti-Semite and an admirer of Hitler. As Nazism took hold in Germany, however, he saw Nazism for what it was: it was not just the Jews Hitler sought to extirpate, it was just about anyone with an alternate point of view. Niemoller spoke out, and for his trouble was incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945, and very nearly executed. While incarcerated, Niem0ller wrote a poem that, from the first time I read it in my teenage years, stuck hauntingly in my mind:

First they came for the Jewsand I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.Then they came for the Communistsand I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for meand there was no one left to speak out for me.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.

Two Wolves & a Cherokee

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence,empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

230809

To find a fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.

- Plutarch

The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes -- ah, that is where the art resides.

- Artur Schnabel, pianist(1882-1951)

There is a light that shines beyond all things on Earth,

beyond us all,beyond the heavens,

beyond the highest,the very highest heavens.

This is the light that shines in our heart.

- Chandogya Upanishad 3.13.7

To kill time is not murder, it's suicide.

-William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)

With money in your pocket, you are wise and you are handsome and you sing well too.

- Yiddish Proverb

Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it. -Samuel Butler, writer (1835-1902)

Promises are like the full moon: if they are not kept at once they diminish day by day. - German proverb

Men cannot see their reflection in running water, but only in still water.- Chuang Tzu, philosopher (c. 4th century BCE)

Whatever limits us we call Fate. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Learning is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to drop back. -Chinese proverb

Money may be the husk of many things but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintance, but not friends; servants, but not loyalty; days of joy, but not peace or happiness. - Henrik Ibsen, playwright (1828-1906)

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. - Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)

Home is not where you live but where they understand you. - Christion Morgenstern, writer (1871-1914)

The highest exercise of charity is charity towards the uncharitable. - J.S.Buckminster, clergyman and editor (1797-1812)

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. - Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist.Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew.Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant.Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.
- Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. - Joseph Addison, writer (1672-1719)

Growth in wisdom can be measured precisely by decline in bile. -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest men of past centuries. - Rene Descartes, philosopher and mathematician (1596-1650)

I leave to others the importance of what I have or have not done; but let me say that all I have done is to have stood on the shoulders of others so that I can see a little further.- Issac Newton

If you would not be forgotten,As soon as you were dead and rotten,either write things worth reading,or do things worth the writing. - Benjamin Franklin

When money speaks, the truth keeps silent. -Russian proverb

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. - Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)

Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat. - Jean-Paul Sartre, writer and philosopher (1905-1980)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. - Pericles, statesman (430 BCE)

He who opens a school door, closes a prison. - Victor Hugo, poet, novelist,and dramatist (1802-1885)

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. - Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

To a worm in horseradish, the whole world is horseradish. - Yiddish proverb

No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place. - Zen saying

The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves. -Plato, philosopher (427-347 BCE)

If you are planning for one year, grow rice. If you are planning for 20 years, grow trees. If you are planning for centuries, grow men. -Chinese proverb

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. - Heraclitus, philosopher (c. 540-470 BCE)

Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprung up. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., US Supreme Court Justice (1841-1935)

What soap is for the body, tears are for the soul. - Jewish proverb

Those who wish to sing always find a song. -Swedish proverb

To a person instructed in natural history, his country or seaside stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenth of which have their faces turned to the wall.- Thomas Huxley

To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy. - Hippocrates, physician (460-c.377 BCE)

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity. - Albert Einstein

To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness. - Confucius, philosopher and teacher(c. 551-478 BCE)

Life is like a ten-speed bike. Most of us have gears we never use. -Charles Schulz, cartoonist (1922-2000)

A bit beyond perception's reach / I sometimes believe I see / that life is two locked boxes / each containing the other's key. -Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)

Never spend your money before you have it. -Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. - Dalai Lama

If men could regard the events of their own lives with more open minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the things they failed to obtain. - Emile Herzog, writer (1885-1967)

Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power. -Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

An old miser kept a tame jackdaw, that used to steal pieces of money, and hide them in a hole, which a cat observing, asked, "Why he would hoard upthose round shining things that he could make no use of?" "Why," said the jackdaw, "my master has a whole chestfull, and makes no more use of them that I do." -Jonathan Swift, satirist (1667-1745)

He who fears losing face has no face to lose. - Confucius

'If you can't convince them, confuse them.' - The dictum of Hamish McLintock

What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give. -P.D. James, writer(1920- )

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. -John Morley, statesman and writer (1838-1923)

Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. - Charles Schultz

In matter of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock. - Thomas Jefferson

No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. -John Donne, poet (1573-1631)

A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company. - Charles Evans Hughes, jurist (1862-1948)

030808

All kids are gifted; some just open their packages earlier than others.
-Michael Carr

For disappearing acts, it's hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work.
-Doug Larson

Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.
-Stephen King, novelist (b. 1947)

Profits, like sausages... are esteemed most by those who know least about what goes into them. -Alvin Toffler, futurist and author (b. 1928)

Roads endure longer than pyramids.
-Karol Bunsch, novelist (1898-1987)

To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.
-George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)

You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements.
-Norman Douglas, novelist (1868-1952)

The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation.
-Ezra Pound, poet (1885-1972)

It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little.
-Sydney Smith, writer and clergyman (1771-1845)

Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect.
-Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher (1788-1860)

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
-Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

Tear man out of his outward circumstances; and what he then is; that only is he. -Johann Gottfried Seume, author (1763-1810)

Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago. -Horace Mann, educational reformer (1796-1859)

The perfection of a clock is not to go fast, but to be accurate.
-Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues, moralist and essayist (1715-1747)

How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! In such places standing alone on the mountaintop it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make -- leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone -- we all dwell in a house of one room -- the world with the firmament for its roof -- and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track. -John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

"His interest in diplomacy seems to be motivated by the sense that one can probe, learn and possibly divide and influence countries and movements precisely because they are not monoliths....he distrusts abstractions, generalizations, extrapolations, projections."
- Fareed Zakaria on Barack Obama, Newsweek, July 2008

The physician can buy his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines
- Frank Lloyd Wright

Perfect freedom is reserved for the man who lives by his own work and in that work does what he wants to do.
- R.G. Collingwood

Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone.
- Gladys Browyn Stern, writer (1890-1973)


It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.
-Rollo May, psychologist (1909-1994)


I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house.
-Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)


The living are soft and yielding; the dead are rigid and stiff. Living plants are flexible and tender; the dead are brittle and dry.
-Lao Tzu, philosopher (6th century BCE)

010608

There can be no government without an army
No army without money
No money without prosperity
And no prosperity without justice and good administration.

- Ibn Qutayba (ninth-century Muslim scholar)

There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else.
-Peyton C. March, general (1864-1955)

What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at which he holds it.
-Ezra Pound, poet (1885-1972)

War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.
-Desiderius Erasmus, humanist and theologian (1466-1536)

The best way to be more free is to grant more freedom to others.
-Carlo Dossi, author and diplomat (1849-1910)

We know now that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day's work at Auschwitz in the morning.
-George Steiner, professor and writer (b. 1929)