Asia-Pacific, Development & Aid, Headlines, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights, Press Freedom

SRI LANKA: Newsprint Shortage Adds to Curbs on Media

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Feb 19 2007 (IPS) - Residents of the embattled northern Sri Lankan town of Jaffna who get to see the ‘Uthayan’ newspaper often get a copy that is thumb-worn and soiled from having passed through the hands of many avid readers.

Every single copy of this Tamil-language daily published in Jaffna, where the demand and the thirst for news has soared in the past year, is read by more people per copy than the average in most countries.

"Some 30 to 40 residents read each copy which is passed from house to house down a street and then returned to its original owner," says V. Kanamylnathan, the long-standing editor of the newspaper that is struggling to cope with an unlikely opponent – an acute shortage of newsprint.

Ever since the government closed the main highway that links the capital Colombo with Jaffna, in August 2006, food and other essentials have been in short supply. Sea and air routes are unreliable and government planes and ships are often targeted by the rebels Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Residents consider newspapers an essential item and form queues outside the nearest newsagent as early as 5 am to grab a copy of the Uthayan or of two other dailies published in Jaffna.

When copies run out, the newsagent pins up the last one on a large billboard for free viewing by residents who crowd around to pore over the pages. Where the daily ran 20,000 to 22,000 copies per day, pre-August 2006, it has now been forced reduce its print run to less than 6,000 copies of a four-page edition.

"It’s a real struggle," noted Kanamylnathan, who considers the current situation a blot on the so-called freedom of the press. "This is indirect control of the media.’’

The other two newspapers, ‘Eeelanadu’ and the Jaffna edition of the Colombo-based ‘Thinnakural’ – both Tamil-language papers – face the same plight but were selling in the range of 4,000 to 5,000 copies per day, unlike the hugely successful Uthayan.

Sunanda Deshapriya, convenor of the Free Media Movement (FMM), Sri Lanka’s premier media watchdog, says that a few weeks ago a consignment of newsprint was offloaded from a government ship just before it set off from the eastern port town of Trincomalee with supplies for Jaffna.

"Blocking newsprint to the north is a serious violation of media freedom," Deshapriya said referring to the incident. The government defended its action by saying that aircraft parts were found on board the ship raising suspicions.

Deshapriya said several international media organisations raised the newsprint issue with international donors just before a major donor meeting in Sri Lanka late January in the hoping of bringing pressure to bear on the government. But there have been no results as yet.

Northern journalists and newspapers are not the only ones under threat. Media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), in its 2007 annual report issued earlier this month, said seven media workers were killed last year across Sri Lanka. "Pro-government militia and occasionally the army have attacked the press which they accuse of supporting Tamil nationalism,’’ the report said.

That is not the only problem. The Paris-based RSF says Tamil Tiger rebels, who claim discrimination at the hands of Sri Lanka’s Sinhala majority and are bent on carving out a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils, threaten those who oppose their political position.

"The escalation of the conflict pitting the army against the Tigers (LTTE) forced scores of Tamil journalists into silence or hiding. Most correspondents for Tamil media in the east of the country no longer have their byline on their reports for fear of reprisals," the report said.

Media activists say Jaffna newspapers toe a Tamil nationalist line unlike their Colombo-based Tamil-language counterparts because of pressure from the Tigers. "It’s tough to be independent and objective," says Deshapriya who however said the Uthayan tries to find some balance by publishing statements from the military and also pro-government Tamil militia which is opposed to the Tigers.

The Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance, representing the interests of Tamil journalists, says that Tamil newspapers have also been banned in eastern towns where a breakaway faction of the LTTE is active.

"They have banned Tamil newspapers which are supportive of the Tigers," a spokesman for the alliance said. The breakaway group led by Karuna, a former eastern commander of the LTTE, works alongside security forces.

The strategy has worked and large parts of the east held by the Tigers have been regained by the military, in recent battles, with the help of Karuna’s fighters. The government and the military have repeatedly denied links with Karuna’s fighters.

The newsprint shortage in Jaffna is just the tip of the iceberg of a crisis faced by the media in Colombo and elsewhere in recent times.

As President Mahinda Rajapaksa pushes ahead with a military campaign aimed at wresting control of LTTE territory, the media is under pressure to toe the government line and highlight successes, ignoring issues like civilian casualties or human rights violations. Fair reporting has also become risky after public security and anti-terrorism measures introduced by the government last December appear to interfere with the freedom of speech and expression.

A Tamil journalist attached to a popular Sinhala-language weekly has been in detention for some 100 days and recently appealed to the Supreme Court over her arbitrary arrest and detention. Three journalists working for a trade union magazine were arrested earlier this month with the government saying they had confessed to being LTTE spies.

RSF said in December that photographer Anuruddha Lokuhapuarachchi of Reuters news agency sought refuge in India after being threatened for his coverage of the plight of Tamil residents in the east and north of the country. A few days earlier, Sinhala journalist, Rohitha Bashana Abeywardena, fled to Europe to escape threats, it said.

RSF said under strong press criticism, Rajapaksa and his government stepped up control over state-run media with at least two journalists, including Rajpal Abeynayake, editor of the state-owned ‘Sunday Observer’ being ousted for publishing news seen as too independent.

Three employees of the Uthayan were gunned down in their Jaffna office on the eve of May 2, 2006 when a huge celebration organised by UNESCO took place in Colombo to mark World Press Freedom Day. In the same month, an Uthayan newspaper vendor was killed by soldiers in Jaffna. And in August, armed men threatened fresh reprisals if the paper published a statement from striking students, and then set fire to its presses, RSF said.

Meanwhile the government is pushing a war-first-peace-later strategy. But Rajapaksa has been making peace overtures to the Tigers while pushing ahead with the campaign to overrun the Tigers in the east.

The rebels have rejected the offer saying the government has broken the 2002 ceasefire accord which completes five years this month. At least 4,000 people including combatants and civilians, died in fighting last year as the ceasefire crumbled and then collapsed as both sides intensified the attacks. The Norwegian-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) watched helplessly as the fighting intensified into an undeclared war.

Uthayan has been repeatedly under pressure with its Colombo and Jaffna presses and office under bomb and machinegun attack by pro-government groups. The newspaper’s editors and journalists constantly face personal threats from every quarter and several have been compelled to flee the country.

For Kanamylnathan, the present crisis is reminiscent of October 1995 when the paper was printed from a mobile press. As government troops pounded Jaffna, then under rebel control, Uthayan journalists joined hundreds of civilians fleeing from the area to safer ground.

They did not go empty handed though. Uthayan journalists and editors loaded a printing machine, a generator and newsprint onto a truck and moved to Sarasalai, about 15 km from Jaffna and began publishing the newspaper out of a makeshift office.

"We published the newspaper from this temporary location for six months until April 1996," recalled the editor who believes the newspaper, as in the past, will somehow ride the storm.