Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the threats that President Mahinda Rajapaksa made in a phone call to the chairman of The Sunday Leader, Lal Wickrematunge, on 19 July because of an article reporting that China had given the president and his son, parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa, money to be used “at their discretion.”
“We are extremely shocked that the president personally phones journalists in order to threaten them.” Reporters Without Borders said. “It is unacceptable that The Sunday Leader, Sri Lanka’s only independent English-language newspaper, should be subjected to such pressure. If the president disagrees with an article, he can respond to it and explain himself in the media. That is how issues are discussed in a democracy.
Within the legal framework of international law, the representation of mass atrocity is expressed through the categories of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. However, these conceptual categories are applied within particular political and ideological fields that must be critiqued in order to reach an inclusive representation of truth about mass atrocity. The focus of this paper will be on the representations of mass atrocity in Sri Lanka, and will demonstrate that ideology has determined how truth is perceived, and how justice
and recovery are envisaged. Approaching this task through a hermeneutic of suspicion allows a more accurate representation to emerge within the political imagination, and indicates more comprehensive justice and recovery measures to be pursued.