The Hindu : International : Media organisations condemn murder of journalist

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 04, 2005

International

International

Media organisations condemn murder of journalist

V.S. Sambandan

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan media organisations, cutting across ethnic and linguistic lines, on Tuesday protested against last week's abduction and killing of a Tamil journalist, D. Sivaram.

The protest, on the World Press Freedom Day, called by the Free Media Movement drew a large number of journalists from

the Sinhalese, Tamil and English newspapers, who denounced the murder and demanded that the killers be "brought to justice." "Who is next"

The protesters carried posters saying: "Never Again" in English, Sinhalese and Tamil and thanking Sivaram for infusing "dynamism and diversity" into the media. They raised slogans, including "Today Sivaram, who is next," and called upon the Government to "bring the cowardly killers to justice."

Banners with names of journalists killed in the past, including that of Richard de Zoysa — a leading journalist whose killing more than a decade ago remains unsolved — were also carried during the protest.

The late Sivaram (46) joined the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), after discontinuing his studies at Sri Lanka's premier Peradeniya University, where he was an English Literature student when the ethnic conflict took a militant turn in the early 1980s.

When PLOTE gave up militancy following the India-Sri Lankan Accord, Sivaram was the first general secretary of the Democratic People's Liberation Front (DPLF), the registered political party of PLOTE. He subsequently quit politics to take to full-time writing in 1990.

Sivaram's writing career was marked by controversies for his strong position on Tamil nationalism. Starting his career with The Island, Sivaram became a defence analyst, whose columns were keenly read, particularly by diplomats. Later Sivaram, who wrote under the nom de plume, 'Taraki', became the main Sri Lankan contributor for the TamilNet website. For most part of his writing career, Sivaram remained a freelancer, as "a regular job would constrain my freedom." Sivaram was abducted on the night of April 28 outside a restaurant in Colombo and his body was found the next morning near Parliament on the outskirts of the city, with a bullet injury on his head and his mouth gagged. He was buried in the eastern Batticaloa town on Monday as per his wish.

LTTE confers award

Reports said Sivaram's family had declined an LTTE request that his body be brought to the LTTE's political headquarters' in Kilinochchi as he had wanted "a simple funeral."

The LTTE conferred a posthumous "Mamanithar" award on Sivaram, and its second-rung leaders travelled from the north to a rebel-held part in the eastern Batticaloa district, where his body was briefly kept before the funeral.

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