Reporting amidst conflict and crisis

Sri Lankan journalist, Feizal Samath, appraises the challenges of reporting on a disaster in a country divided by a twenty-year-long war

By Feizal Samath
AsiaMedia Contributing Writer

Colombo – Last week a Sunday newspaper ran a news-feature about the Tamil rebel-controlled northeast coastal town of Mullaitivu. The blurb gave the reporter’s name and boasted him as first journalist from the south to visit Mullaitivu since the tsunami struck.

The “south” in Sri Lankan jargon is generally referred to as any part of the country that is not the north or east--two regions claimed by Tamil rebels as their independent homeland. The majority of the population in the south is Sinhalese, the dominant community on the island. While the north has a Tamil-majority population, the east is a mixed bag, with equal numbers of Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims, who are the third largest group on the island.

Others in the media disputed the paper’s claim: “Hey, my local colleagues visited the place many days ago. They were the first,” laughed a television journalist working for an international news agency.

Who broke the Mullaitivu story is not the most interesting or important part of the dispute, though. This debate illustrates the competitive spirit between news agencies to get the first report from a so-called forbidden area. Not only do these types of reports boost ratings, but they show that the agency cares to report on all sides of the disaster.

This is not to say that it is impossible to enter rebel territory. Covering areas in some northern parts of Sri Lanka that are controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is not as difficult as it was before the ceasefire of February, 2002. Since that time, access to rebel land has been much easier not only for journalists but even for the ordinary people from the south.

The rebels opened their doors to visitors from the south--mainly as a propaganda move--to show the destruction of the war and gain sympathy from southerners. That tactic has paid off handsomely; many Sinhalese return from a visit to the region devastated and shocked by the destruction caused by 20 years of fighting between the rebels and government troops. The north and the east have been the worst affected by the conflict.

Even after the tsunami struck, Tamil rebels allowed unrestricted movement for journalists in the northern areas they control, particularly on the Mullaitivu coast that was among the places most devastated.  Not many southern journalists, however, chose to cover these areas in the first few days after the tsunami hit. Damage was heavy in southern Sri Lanka and, while the overall death toll was higher in the east, the devastation was much more concentrated in the developed cities and towns of the south.

As a result, in the first few days local media coverage did not have much information about the north and east until foreign correspondents and television crews started pitching tents there. Gradually southern journalists began covering Mullaitivu, spurred by UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy’s January 3 visit to the area and her meeting with an LTTE political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan.

Covering rebel-held areas does have its limitations: The places where the LTTE has its camps and training units--including the hideout of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran--is out of bounds for anyone, including journalists. Often journalists looking for stories in sensitive northern areas are provided "friendly fixers" on request by the rebels to ensure they don’t stray into forbidden territory. Journalists often use locals to guide them in rebel country, mainly as translators because most people speak only Tamil in LTTE areas. But these are guides are often handpicked by the LTTE. Residents are reluctant to be seen guiding outsiders without rebel permission.

Because of these limitations, it is difficult to get an accurate figure of the number of casualties among the rebels themselves or a totally accurate picture of the devastation of the entire north. No one knows, for example, the extent of the damage to the Sea Tigers, the navy arm of the LTTE and a key fighting unit of the rebels.

Some state media reported that the LTTE leader, Prabhakaran, died in the tsunami, a claim vociferously denied by the rebels. A breakaway group of the LTTE then challenged the elusive leader to appear in public--which he rarely does--to prove that he is alive. Prabhakan has yet to step forward, so the truth of the matter is still uncertain. Local papers can only report the accusations and counter-accusations.

Thus many journalists read with glee and use quotes from a comprehensive Sunday Leader  report by David Sabapathy Jeyaraj, a Tamil affairs reporter of Sri Lankan origin who lives in Canada. Jeyaraj--who developed a love-hate relationship with the Tigers and was once close to the Tiger leadership--is the best-informed journalist about the LTTE. After the tsunami, he gave a detailed version of the LTTE’s losses and rejected state media claims of rebel casualties.

He wrote that while the LTTE sustained losses and damage due to the tsunamis, the situation was nowhere near projections made by sections of the Sri Lankan media, anti-Tiger websites or President Chandrika Kumaratunga. The Sea Tigers have retained the bulk of their military assets including men, material and marine vessels, he said.

“Kumaratunga and others seem to be thinking that more than 2500 Tigers have been killed and that hundreds of marine vessels are destroyed. Naval bases too are devastated it is felt. The Tiger navy did not get battered, because it was not there (on the coast),” Jeyaraj wrote in his January 9 article.

The government was much more forthcoming than the LTTE and allowed the media access to the information it had. Papers, such as Island, Daily Mirror, the Sunday Times, the Sunday Leader and the local language papers, often highlighted chaos in the emergency work and distribution system.

The LTTE said they were not getting enough food and other emergency supplies from the south and implied that the government was deliberately blocking supplies. But the government reacted strongly: They denied the charges and accused the rebels of commandeering food trucks from the south and distributing primarily to those in favor of the rebel group.

Most journalists returning from a trip to rebel-controlled land, however, were impressed by the well-oiled LTTE machinery and its efficient distribution system and emergency units. Anyone in LTTE-controlled areas, even a government official, has to work according to the rebel diktat. This, although unwritten, is a law that even applies to UN agencies, NGOs and journalists.

The south is more democratic, but with its freedom comes confusion--many parties in the coalition government are trying to score political points in the post-tsunami relief effort while NGOs operate largely on their own, causing inefficiency in the distribution of supplies, food and medicine.

The biggest test for the media in the days and months ahead will be covering the huge sums of foreign money that will be spent on reconstruction. The World Bank President, the UN Secretary-General and have already voiced their concerns that donor funds will be misused and put in the hands of the corrupt. Donors are insisting on transparency and accountability in this process, but also acknowledge that being too rigid could delay the aid needed in tsunami-damaged parts of Sri Lanka.

The World Bank President, James Wolfensohn, said his organization is concerned about how the money will be spent. He urged governments to provide detailed information of where money is coming from and where it is going. This idea, said Wolfensohn, cannot be implemented in the early stages, however. To provide timely relief, the bank has to speed up processes, which means not waiting three months for competitive bids while "people are starving." "So in the early stages," he cautions, "we’ll have to make quick judgments and trust a few people and try and ensure checks and balances."

That, I reckon, will be the biggest test of the Sri Lankan media. Sri Lankan journalists will have their hands full reporting on the uses of foreign aid and donated funds--virtually becoming the watchdog of relief efforts. The challenge will be to obtain information about aid absorption and reconstruction in rebel-controlled areas where the facts are only as transparent as the LTTE wants them to be.

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Feizal Samath has been a journalist for 25 years and has worked with local newspapers and international news agencies covering general news, sports, business and economics, and social and development issues. Currently Business Editor of the Sunday Times of Sri Lanka, he is also a correspondent for foreign newspapers and agencies. A former Bureau chief of Reuters, Colombo, Samath served as deputy bureau chief Reuters, Mumbai during a 13-year stint with the news service.

The views expressed above are those of the author and are not necessarily those of AsiaMedia or the UCLA Asia Institute.

Date Posted: 1/14/2005