“Let there be no doubt that whatever sac­ri­fices we journ­al­ists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrich­ment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sac­ri­fice is another mat­ter. As for me, God knows I tried.”

The final words from the final edit­or­ial of murdered Sri Lankan editor Las­antha Wick­rema­tunga. I wanted the priv­ilege of repro­du­cing the essay below. The ori­ginal is at The Sunday Leader, the paper he edited.

“And then they came for me” by Las­antha Wickrematunga

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.

The Sunday Leader has been a con­tro­ver­sial news­pa­per because we say it like we see it: whether it be a spade, a thief or a mur­derer, we call it by that name. We do not hide behind euphem­ism. The invest­ig­at­ive art­icles we print are sup­por­ted by doc­u­ment­ary evid­ence thanks to the public-spiritedness of cit­izens who at great risk to them­selves pass on this mater­ial to us. We have exposed scan­dal after scan­dal, and never once in these 15 years has any­one proved us wrong or suc­cess­fully pro­sec­uted us.

The free media serve as a mir­ror in which the pub­lic can see itself sans mas­cara and styl­ing gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and espe­cially its man­age­ment by the people you elec­ted to give your chil­dren a bet­ter future. Some­times the image you see in that mir­ror is not a pleas­ant one. But while you may grumble in the pri­vacy of your arm­chair, the journ­al­ists who hold the mir­ror up to you do so pub­licly and at great risk to them­selves. That is our call­ing, and we do not shirk it.

Every news­pa­per has its angle, and we do not hide the fact that we have ours. Our com­mit­ment is to see Sri Lanka as a trans­par­ent, sec­u­lar, lib­eral demo­cracy. Think about those words, for they each has pro­found mean­ing. Trans­par­ent because gov­ern­ment must be openly account­able to the people and never abuse their trust. Sec­u­lar because in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural soci­ety such as ours, sec­u­lar­ism offers the only com­mon ground by which we might all be united. Lib­eral because we recog­nise that all human beings are cre­ated dif­fer­ent, and we need to accept oth­ers for what they are and not what we would like them to be. And demo­cratic… well, if you need me to explain why that is import­ant, you’d best stop buy­ing this paper.

The Sunday Leader has never sought safety by unques­tion­ingly artic­u­lat­ing the major­ity view. Let’s face it, that is the way to sell news­pa­pers. On the con­trary, as our opin­ion pieces over the years amply demon­strate, we often voice ideas that many people find dis­taste­ful. For example, we have con­sist­ently espoused the view that while sep­ar­at­ist ter­ror­ism must be erad­ic­ated, it is more import­ant to address the root causes of ter­ror­ism, and urged gov­ern­ment to view Sri Lanka’s eth­nic strife in the con­text of his­tory and not through the tele­scope of ter­ror­ism. We have also agit­ated against state ter­ror­ism in the so-called war against ter­ror, and made no secret of our hor­ror that Sri Lanka is the only coun­try in the world routinely to bomb its own cit­izens. For these views we have been labelled trait­ors, and if this be treach­ery, we wear that label proudly.

Many people sus­pect that The Sunday Leader has a polit­ical agenda: it does not. If we appear more crit­ical of the gov­ern­ment than of the oppos­i­tion it is only because we believe that — pray excuse crick­et­ing argot — there is no point in bowl­ing to the field­ing side. Remem­ber that for the few years of our exist­ence in which the UNP was in office, we proved to be the biggest thorn in its flesh, expos­ing excess and cor­rup­tion wherever it occurred. Indeed, the steady stream of embar­rass­ing exposés we pub­lished may well have served to pre­cip­it­ate the down­fall of that government.

Neither should our dis­taste for the war be inter­preted to mean that we sup­port the Tigers. The LTTE are among the most ruth­less and bloodthirsty organ­isa­tions ever to have infes­ted the planet. There is no gain­say­ing that it must be erad­ic­ated. But to do so by viol­at­ing the rights of Tamil cit­izens, bomb­ing and shoot­ing them mer­ci­lessly, is not only wrong but shames the Sin­halese, whose claim to be cus­todi­ans of the dhamma is forever called into ques­tion by this sav­agery, much of which is unknown to the pub­lic because of censorship.

What is more, a mil­it­ary occu­pa­tion of the country’s north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live etern­ally as second-class cit­izens, deprived of all self respect. Do not ima­gine that you can pla­cate them by shower­ing “devel­op­ment” and “recon­struc­tion” on them in the post-war era. The wounds of war will scar them forever, and you will also have an even more bit­ter and hate­ful Dia­spora to con­tend with. A prob­lem amen­able to a polit­ical solu­tion will thus become a fes­ter­ing wound that will yield strife for all etern­ity. If I seem angry and frus­trated, it is only because most of my coun­try­men — and all of the gov­ern­ment — can­not see this writ­ing so plainly on the wall.

It is well known that I was on two occa­sions bru­tally assaul­ted, while on another my house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Des­pite the government’s sanc­ti­mo­ni­ous assur­ances, there was never a ser­i­ous police inquiry into the per­pet­rat­ors of these attacks, and the attack­ers were never appre­hen­ded. In all these cases, I have reason to believe the attacks were inspired by the gov­ern­ment. When finally I am killed, it will be the gov­ern­ment that kills me.

The irony in this is that, unknown to most of the pub­lic, Mahinda and I have been friends for more than a quarter cen­tury. Indeed, I sus­pect that I am one of the few people remain­ing who routinely addresses him by his first name and uses the famil­iar Sin­hala address oya when talk­ing to him. Although I do not attend the meet­ings he peri­od­ic­ally holds for news­pa­per edit­ors, hardly a month passes when we do not meet, privately or with a few close friends present, late at night at President’s House. There we swap yarns, dis­cuss polit­ics and joke about the good old days. A few remarks to him would there­fore be in order here.

Mahinda, when you finally fought your way to the SLFP pres­id­en­tial nom­in­a­tion in 2005, nowhere were you wel­comed more warmly than in this column. Indeed, we broke with a dec­ade of tra­di­tion by refer­ring to you through­out by your first name. So well known were your com­mit­ments to human rights and lib­eral val­ues that we ushered you in like a breath of fresh air. Then, through an act of folly, you got your­self involved in the Help­ing Ham­ban­tota scan­dal. It was after a lot of soul-searching that we broke the story, at the same time urging you to return the money. By the time you did so sev­eral weeks later, a great blow had been struck to your repu­ta­tion. It is one you are still try­ing to live down.

You have told me your­self that you were not greedy for the pres­id­ency. You did not have to hanker after it: it fell into your lap. You have told me that your sons are your greatest joy, and that you love spend­ing time with them, leav­ing your broth­ers to oper­ate the machinery of state. Now, it is clear to all who will see that that machinery has oper­ated so well that my sons and daugh­ter do not them­selves have a father.

In the wake of my death I know you will make all the usual sanc­ti­mo­ni­ous noises and call upon the police to hold a swift and thor­ough inquiry. But like all the inquir­ies you have ordered in the past, noth­ing will come of this one, too. For truth be told, we both know who will be behind my death, but dare not call his name. Not just my life, but yours too, depends on it.

Sadly, for all the dreams you had for our coun­try in your younger days, in just three years you have reduced it to rubble. In the name of pat­ri­ot­ism you have trampled on human rights, nur­tured unbridled cor­rup­tion and squandered pub­lic money like no other Pres­id­ent before you. Indeed, your con­duct has been like a small child sud­denly let loose in a toy­shop. That ana­logy is per­haps inapt because no child could have caused so much blood to be spilled on this land as you have, or trampled on the rights of its cit­izens as you do. Although you are now so drunk with power that you can­not see it, you will come to regret your sons hav­ing so rich an inher­it­ance of blood. It can only bring tragedy. As for me, it is with a clear con­science that I go to meet my Maker. I wish, when your time finally comes, you could do the same. I wish.

As for me, I have the sat­is­fac­tion of know­ing that I walked tall and bowed to no man. And I have not trav­elled this jour­ney alone. Fel­low journ­al­ists in other branches of the media walked with me: most of them are now dead, imprisoned without trial or exiled in far-off lands. Oth­ers walk in the shadow of death that your Pres­id­ency has cast on the freedoms for which you once fought so hard. You will never be allowed to for­get that my death took place under your watch. As anguished as I know you will be, I also know that you will have no choice but to pro­tect my killers: you will see to it that the guilty one is never con­victed. You have no choice. I feel sorry for you, and Shir­anthi will have a long time to spend on her knees when next she goes for Con­fes­sion for it is not just her owns sins which she must con­fess, but those of her exten­ded fam­ily that keeps you in office.

As for the read­ers of The Sunday Leader, what can I say but Thank You for sup­port­ing our mis­sion. We have espoused unpop­u­lar causes, stood up for those too feeble to stand up for them­selves, locked horns with the high and mighty so swollen with power that they have for­got­ten their roots, exposed cor­rup­tion and the waste of your hard-earned tax rupees, and made sure that whatever the pro­pa­ganda of the day, you were allowed to hear a con­trary view. For this I — and my fam­ily — have now paid the price that I have long known I will one day have to pay. I am — and have always been — ready for that. I have done noth­ing to pre­vent this out­come: no secur­ity, no pre­cau­tions. I want my mur­derer to know that I am not a cow­ard like he is, hid­ing behind human shields while con­demning thou­sands of inno­cents to death. What am I among so many? It has long been writ­ten that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that remains to be writ­ten is when.

That The Sunday Leader will con­tinue fight­ing the good fight, too, is writ­ten. For I did not fight this fight alone. Many more of us have to be — and will be — killed before The Leader is laid to rest. I hope my assas­sin­a­tion will be seen not as a defeat of free­dom but an inspir­a­tion for those who sur­vive to step up their efforts. Indeed, I hope that it will help gal­van­ise forces that will usher in a new era of human liberty in our beloved moth­er­land. I also hope it will open the eyes of your Pres­id­ent to the fact that how­ever many are slaughtered in the name of pat­ri­ot­ism, the human spirit will endure and flour­ish. Not all the Rajapakses com­bined can kill that.

People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a mat­ter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inev­it­able. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who can­not, whether they be eth­nic minor­it­ies, the dis­ad­vant­aged or the per­se­cuted. An example that has inspired me through­out my career in journ­al­ism has been that of the Ger­man theo­lo­gian, Mar­tin Niemöller. In his youth he was an anti-Semite and an admirer of Hitler. As Nazism took hold in Ger­many, how­ever, he saw Nazism for what it was: it was not just the Jews Hitler sought to extirp­ate, it was just about any­one with an altern­ate point of view. Niemöller spoke out, and for his trouble was incar­cer­ated in the Sach­sen­hausen and Dachau con­cen­tra­tion camps from 1937 to 1945, and very nearly executed. While incar­cer­ated, Niemöller wrote a poem that, from the first time I read it in my teen­age years, stuck haunt­ingly in my mind:

First they came for the Jews

and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists

and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists

and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me

and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If you remem­ber noth­ing else, remem­ber this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sin­halese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homo­sexual, dis­sid­ent or dis­abled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the cour­age to which you have become accus­tomed. Do not take that com­mit­ment for gran­ted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sac­ri­fices we journ­al­ists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrich­ment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sac­ri­fice is another mat­ter. As for me, God knows I tried.