A documentary filmmaker whose work we’ve been following for Boing Boing’s video projects sent us this note today:
A man I knew was gunned down last week in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. He was an editor and journalist, and he was murdered because he told the truth in a place where the truth runs you afoul of murderers. For those of us who knew him, and know Sri Lanka, his death was not a matter of how but when. He knew it too, and before he died he wrote the piece that I have attached here. I am asking you all to take just a few minutes to read it. As a favor. Thank you.
Here are the first few grafs of the piece, which were the last words written for publication by Lasantha Wickrematunge of The Sunday Leader:
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 honour 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, recognising 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.
And Then They Came For Me (Sunday Leader)
See also this page where news about his death, and remembrances by colleagues at the paper, have been posted: “A deadly drive to work.”
And here, news about protests following his killing.