Media "war" on Tigers by RADHIKA RAMASESHAN

Media "war" on Tigers

RADHIKA RAMASESHAN

Jaffna, July 26: The Sri Lankan Army has launched a concerted propaganda onslaught against the Tamil Tigers.

The army realises that while fighting the LTTE on land and sea is one aspect of the "war", the other is to create a level playing field for itself in the media, especially print and the Internet.

The tech-savvy Tigers have widely-visited websites - such as tamilnet.com, svik.org and nitharsanam.com - that are choc-a-bloc with news of killings and assaults allegedly by the army and police. The joke in Colombo is that the media ministry often learns of strikes on the army through tamilnet.com and provides the news in the same form to the press.

Additionally, the military's perception is that the foreign media get "carried away" by the LTTE's propaganda and come to the island with "pre-conceived" notions of who the oppressor and the oppressed are.

While sources in the army admitted there was no way they could match the LTTE's quick-fires on the net, they said they have resorted to other means to project their version of the "war", though officially nobody used the "dirty" word.

Last week, the military flew a group of Indian journalists on an AN-32 transport aircraft to Jaffna on this mission, which was executed on its terms. That is, the journalists were permitted to meet only those civilians whom the army wanted them to, reach Jaffna in a chopper and travel a short distance in armoured vehicles that stopped in the district administration headquarters where government agent K. Ganesh - a Tamil - gave a clinical briefing without any reference to the conflict or the LTTE.

After officially seizing Jaffna from the LTTE in 2005, the army's one-point proclaimed agenda was to 'help the Tamil civilians blend with the others", as an officer at the Pallali headquarters - described as Lanka's "most prestigious" headquarters - put it.

In a briefing-cum-powerpoint presentation, Col Mahesh Senanayake said: "The civil administration is not stable. It can't stand on its own. There is fragile peace in Jaffna. Our objective is to maintain total peace and government control. So, the security forces man every public function, including pujas done in kovils (temples). We want to bring peace to this piece of land, set people free from this agony."

Later, Maj. Gen. G.A. Chandrasiri, the commander, sharpened the scope of the mandate, saying: "The LTTE's biggest problem has been to get civilians away from the armed forces and our biggest problem is to keep the civilians with us."

The drive from the Pallali airstrip to the headquarters and a 20-minute chopper ride to Jaffna were enough to show just how close (or distant) it was from achieving the mandate.

The area, spanning about 30 hectares and kissed by the sea, housed little villages in the pre-war era. Now, under army occupation, what remains are the shells of the homes possibly owned by well-off occupants - the kind of houses seen in the prosperous parts of rural Tamil Nadu with red Chettinad tiles and thatched roofs, sprawling verandahs bearing patterned rangolis and gardens with coconut and jackfruit trees.

Apparently, most of the residents went to countries like Canada, the UK, France and Germany that offered them asylum.

Those who couldn't sailed to Tamil Nadu or fled to "safer" sanctuaries in nearby areas. Like Saraswati, whom we met at the Kandaswamy temple in the army-occupied Maviddapuram village. She said the army killed her husband and two sons. A relative gave her a room in his house and she eked out a living by raising poultry and selling eggs.

Murugaiah, an employee in a cooperative bank, said his house was barely a kilometre away from the temple. But because it is in a "high-security zone" forbidden to civilians, he has not seen it for the last 15 years.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060727/asp/...ory_6530877.asp