WTF??

Just another example of propaganda, dictatorship, bullying and a severe lack of freedom of the press (let alone freedom of speech) in this country.

Sri Lanka's Daily Mirror Newspaper report, Wednesday June 04, 2008:

"Breaking News
Defence Ministry says it will stop journalistic treachery
The Defence Ministry has asserted that it will take all necessary measures to stop journalistic treachery against the country adding that it does not find any other word better than a "Traitor" to call whoever attempts to show the soldiers as thieves or fools by making false allegations and raising baseless criticism against them."

This is very worrying considering the fact that last month the Sub-Editor of the Colombo-based Lakehouse Newspaper was abducted, tortured and then released 24 hours later. It was claimed that he allowed a news report that contained material that was critical of the Sri Lankan military. No one has taken responsibility for this crime, but its not too hard to guess..

See below in the post dated 18 April for my photo of the news stand that reads "News you could trust". Ironically it kind of takes on a whole new meaning for me now..

Peace xx

Humidity and Propaganda

Today is a Thursday.

Time keeps tread-milling along here. Get up, shower, get dressed, drink a coffee, get a tuk tuk to work, sit at my desk for 8 hours, work out at the gym, come home, make dinner, shower, watch a DVD and sleep. Again and again and again. Jason picks me up everyday in The Red Baron. The security guards at my office refer to it at "your Cadillac" - even the local tuk tuk drivers wave now when they see it:

We have the occasional night out to dinner or whatever, but the days sort of melt into eachother and before you know it - it's the 5th of July!! Don't get me wrong, we are ecstatically happy and totally enjoying our time here. Its just that the days are slipping by and I can't believe its already July!!

I think the fact that the weather stays pretty much hot (30-35 degrees) and bloody humid, day in day out, its harder to distinguish the passing months. Its not like home where you have a change in seasons. Here, its either really hot and humid or really hot, raining, and humid. All the time.

Jason had an awesome mozzie net made up, and constructed the frame for it all by himself. Its awesome!!

On a sombre note, today is the anniversary of the major riot in colombo in 1983 that brought the civil war here to a head. The Sri Lankans call it "Black July", and we were all anticipating some kind of bomb or air raid or something happening in Colombo today. Luckily none of that happened, and the day sort of slipped past. Something probably happened in the north of the country though. it seems that attacks on various towns like Vavuinya, Trincomalee or Muttur, happen on a daily basis these days. The government claims that it has killed X amount of Tamil Tigers, and the Tamil Tigers totally deny that an attack even occurred. So you never really know what is truth and what is propaganda.

The tamil population has its own website called Tamilnet (http://www.tamilnet.com/) which provides counter-news to the Sri Lankan Government news portal (http://www.news.lk/). Apparently Tamilnet was temporarily disabled today. No one knows why, but its pretty obvious. No one really discusses it, not in the office or at home or amongst the neighbours. It just happens and nothing is mentioned.

I guess propaganda is not worth discussing after a while anyway, its kinda like talking about the weather..