COLOMBO: There is no media suppression whatsoever in the country, President Mahinda Rajapaksa asserted yesterday. Addressing a ceremony organised by the Land Reform Commission (LRC), to handover ‘Ranbima Oppu’ (Ranbima Land Deeds) to 1,200 recipients of the Ratnapura and Kegalle Districts at Temple Trees yesterday, President Rajapaksa re-affirmed his total commitment to media freedom, categorically stating that all allegations and accusations levelled against his Government pertaining to ‘Media Suppression’ was slanderous and unfounded.

We reproduce a letter sent by Prof.Rajiva Wijesinha, Secretary of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights Sri Lanka, to Human Rights Watch in response to its recent press release regarding the journalist J S Tissainayagam.

Mr. Brad Adams,Director / Asia

Human Rights Watch, London  

Dear Mr. Adams,

I write with reference to your press release entitled ‘Free Journalist and Other Critics’, issued on August 8^th. The impression of that release is that  Mr. Tissainayagam has been arrested because he has criticized the government.  

This is not accurate. Mr. Tissainayagam was arrested because of suspicions regarding connections to the LTTE, a terrorist organization which, as you are aware, is banned in several countries. In the days when the LTTE was engaged in negotiations with the Sri Lankan government, Mr. Tissainayagam developed connections with them, and with the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO). There was nothing wrong with this, but subsequently, as you know, the LTTE broke off negotiations, whilst it became clear that TRO funding was used for terrorist purposes – the TRO too has now been banned in several countries.

THIRD DEATH ANNIVERSARY 

by: Sir Adam ROBERTS

Lakshman Kadirgamar, lawyer and politician: born Jaffna, Sri Lanka 12 April 1932; Called to the Bar, Inner Temple 1958; Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1994-2001, 2004-05; Honorary Fellow, Balliol College, Oxford 2004; married (one son, one daughter); died Colombo August 12, 2005.

Lakshman Kadirgamar, who was assassinated at his home in Colombo on August 12, 2005, had as profound a grasp of the threat posed by terrorist violence as any political leader in the world today.